ThrustVectoring comments on Consciousness affecting the world - Less Wrong

-3 Post author: DavidPlumpton 06 December 2013 07:37PM

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Comment author: passive_fist 07 December 2013 01:43:11AM *  1 point [-]

That's not the meaning of the word 'consciousness' that Elezier talks about. He's talking about the hard problem of consciousness i.e. the 'hearer'.

The Zombie Argument is that if the Zombie World is possible—not necessarily physically possible in our universe, just "possible in theory", or "imaginable", or something along those lines—then consciousness must be extra-physical, something over and above mere atoms. Why? Because even if you somehow knew the positions of all the atoms in the universe, you would still have be told, as a separate and additional fact, that people were conscious—that they had inner listeners—that we were not in the Zombie World, as seems possible.

You're talking, instead, about reductionism (EDIT: I previously said it was dualism, which is incorrect) i.e. the idea that consciousness resuts naturally from the firing of neurons.

EDIT: If you're trying to answer the question "how can Zombies write about consciousness", then you are absolutely correct.

Comment author: ThrustVectoring 07 December 2013 02:56:52AM -1 points [-]

I'm not talking about dualism - my explanation is fully explained by the neurons alone. The "hearer" is nothing more than certain patterns of neuron firing, with absolutely zero mysteriousness left over (given sufficient detail on those neuron firing patterns).

Taking conciousness out of a person means physically changing their responsible neural patterns - which means at least something as severe as a lobotomy. Taking a person, leaving their brain alone, and removing 'conciousness' is physical nonsense.

Comment author: passive_fist 07 December 2013 07:02:26AM *  1 point [-]

Yes, I removed the bit about dualism in my post. However, again, what you're saying is not the same thing Elezier is saying.

Comment author: hyporational 07 December 2013 08:27:56AM *  0 points [-]

I think you should spell out what you think they're saying. I don't see any signs that ThrustVectoring is misunderstanding the Zombie argument or the hard problem.

Comment author: passive_fist 07 December 2013 09:02:13AM 2 points [-]

http://lesswrong.com/lw/jat/consciousness_affecting_the_world/a5yb

Comment author: hyporational 07 December 2013 05:22:38AM 0 points [-]

The "hearer" is nothing more than certain patterns of neuron firing

I agree, but of course you don't literally mean what you're saying here if you're truly a reductionist. I think the problem people have thinking about this is that people are thinking about what we're seeing in neurons with modern science, rather than what the neurons are actually doing and what the computations and physics they're actually reducing to are.

Comment author: ThrustVectoring 07 December 2013 03:41:52PM -1 points [-]

Yes, I do literally mean this. Of course, when I say "patterns of neurons firing", that is nothing more than a compact way to talk about the brain biochemistry and cells going on.

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