[extropy-chat] Qualia Bet.

[gts]

On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 13:04:01 -0500, Damien Broderick  
<thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:

> Frankly, I find this fucking ludicrous

Perhaps you have a better explanation. How do you resolve the problem  
Brent's view presents? He believes matter in the brain has "phenomenal  
properties" and that this explains sense perception. Why/how is that  
matter different from matter outside the brain?

> All rocks possess eeny-teeny bits of awareness, eh?

If the most basic level of awareness is about simply responding to the  
environment, then yes. Throw a rock on the pavement and watch it break  --  
nothing mysterious or mystical about it. More complex objects have more  
complex responses. The most complex can replicate themselves, and if they  
have sense organs they can act and react in very complex ways.

> Yes, and every rock  has a sense of humor

I am a big squishy complex rock, a composite of water and various other  
compounds, and sometimes I laugh. :)

The distinction between living and non-living objects seems pretty  
arbitrary. I've often wondered why people sometimes think viruses are  
alive. A virus is nothing more than a rock-like container of genetic  
material, not much different from a grain of sand.

-gts