Not all theories of consciousness are created equal: a reply to Robert Lawrence Kuhn's recent article in Skeptic Magazine [Link]

oge

I found this article on the Brain Preservation Foundation's blog that covers a lot of common theories of consciousness and shows how they kinna miss the point when it comes to determining if certain folks should or should not upload our brains if given the opportunity.

Hence I see no reason to agree with Kuhn’s pessimistic conclusions about uploading even assuming his eccentric taxonomy of theories of consciousness is correct. What I want to focus on in the reminder of this blog is challenging the assumption that the best approach to consciousness is tabulating lists of possible theories of consciousness and assuming they each deserve equal consideration (much like the recent trend in covering politics to give equal time to each position regardless of any empirical relevant considerations). Many of the theories of consciousness on Kuhn’s list, while reasonable in the past, are now known to be false based on our best current understanding of neuroscience and physics (specifically, I am referring to theories that require mental causation or mental substances). Among the remaining theories, some of them are much more plausible than others.

http://www.brainpreservation.org/not-all-theories-of-consciousness-are-created-equal-a-reply-to-robert-lawrence-kuhns-recent-article-in-skeptic-magazine/

Hence I see no reason to agree with Kuhn’s pessimistic conclusions about uploading even assuming his eccentric taxonomy of theories of consciousness is correct. What I want to focus on in the reminder of this blog is challenging the assumption that the best approach to consciousness is tabulating lists of possible theories of consciousness and assuming they each deserve equal consideration (much like the recent trend in covering politics to give equal time to each position regardless of any empirical relevant considerations). Many of the theories of consciousness on Kuhn’s list, while reasonable in the past, are now known to be false based on our best current understanding of neuroscience and physics (specifically, I am referring to theories that require mental causation or mental substances). Among the remaining theories, some of them are much more plausible than others.

http://www.brainpreservation.org/not-all-theories-of-consciousness-are-created-equal-a-reply-to-robert-lawrence-kuhns-recent-article-in-skeptic-magazine/

That is, did the designers copy human algorithms for converting sensory inputs into thoughts? If so, then the right kind of experiences would seem to be guaranteed

You seem to be rather sanguine about the equivalence of thoughts and experiences.

(And are we talking about equivlanet experiences or identical experiences? Does a tomato have to be coded as red?)

Or did they find new ways to compute similar coarse-grained input/output functions? Then, assuming the creatures have some reflexive awareness of internal processes, they're conscious of something, but we have no idea what that may be like.

It's uncontroversial that the same coarse input-output mappings can be realised by different algorithms..but if you are saying that consc. supervenes on the algorithm, not the function, then the real possibility of zombies follows, in contradiction to the GAZP.

(Actually, the GAZP is rather terrible because irt means you won't; even consider the possibility of a WBE not being fully conscious, rather than refuting it on its own ground).

I'm not equating thoughts and experiences. I'm relying on the fact that our thoughts about experiences are caused by those experiences, so the algorithms-of-experiences are required to get the right algorithms-of-thoughts.

I'm not too concerned about contradicting or being consistent with GAZP, because its conclusion seems fuzzy. On some ways of clarifying GAZP I'd probably object and on others I wouldn't.

6

Not all theories of consciousness are created equal: a reply to Robert Lawrence Kuhn's recent article in Skeptic Magazine [Link]

6

6

6

Not all theories of consciousness are created equal: a reply to Robert Lawrence Kuhn's recent article in Skeptic Magazine [Link]

6

6