[extropy-chat] Qualia Bet.

[gts]

On Sun, 27 Nov 2005 02:03:48 -0500, The Avantguardian  
<avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:

I like the way this discussion is going. John says intelligent behavior is  
evidence of consciousness and Stu points out that flaggelated bacterium  
act intelligently when they swim away from a drop of
vinegar.

Bacteria have no obvious sense organs, and it's almost inconceivable that  
they have anything close to self-awareness, yet one can say they are aware  
of their environment. I would go further to say their awareness is in  
principle no different from the awareness of a mechanical camera.

If we say bacteria are aware then we can say also that cameras are aware,  
the only difference being in the complexity of their responses. One could  
build a camera capable of responding intelligently to its inputs. In fact  
such cameras already exist. And if cameras are aware then isn't all matter  
aware at some very basic level?

> I will have to think more about pan-psychism before I
> can say much more about it other than it is not
> inconsistent with pan-vitalism which I believe may be
> the origin of life in the universe.

Consider the possibility that the words "living" and "dead" have no real  
meaning. We say an object is alive if it can replicate, but there is  
nothing especially magical about replication -- it's only a matter of  
chemical reactions. Might just as well say the entire universe is alive:  
pan-psychism.

It may be no coincidence that small children intuit pan-psychism. They  
talk to what we consider inert objects. Children are naive to think inert  
objects can understand words and respond, but perhaps their basic  
intuition is correct.

-gts