Mass_Driver comments on Consciousness of simulations & uploads: a reductio - Less Wrong

1 Post author: simplicio 21 August 2010 08:02PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (139)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Mass_Driver 24 August 2010 03:54:53AM 1 point [-]

I guess my concern is that you have not indicated your reason(s) for promoting the hypothesis that "energy flow" causes consciousness.

As for "advances in neuropsychology," what do you mean by "neuropsychology" besides a field that includes the study of consciousness? I certainly agree with you that further advances in the study of consciousness would be useful in identifying the causes of consciousness, but why would you assert that consciousness is caused by energy flow? If I understand you correctly, you are confident that the study of consciousness will lead researchers to conclude that it is caused by energy flow. Why?

Comment author: torekp 24 August 2010 10:26:02PM 0 points [-]

I'm not confident that consciousness is caused by energy flow; I regard it as one of several (families of) wide-open and highly plausible hypotheses. I'm promoting the hypothesis only to the extent of calling it premature to rule it out.