[ExI] consciousness and perception

[John K Clark]

"Brent Allsop" <brent.allsop at comcast.net>

> This theory predicts that John lock, and Descartes before him, had
> everything they needed to understand the difference between phenomenal
> and behavioral properties.

Locke thought movement and temperature belonged in different conceptual
categories and now we know he was dead wrong; Locke didn't know the first
thing about temperature except that if you touch something very hot it
hurts. Locke thought movement and rest were attributes of an object itself
and we know he was dead wrong about that too. The idea that Locke's ideas
about matter would be helpful to someone wanting to make an AI is wacky.

> Tomorrow, someone could revolutionize fundamental physics, explain quantum
> theory in a very different way than our current understanding or anything,
> and that would still not change the fundamental difference between the
> fact that all of that only deals with the way matter behaves in cause and
> effect ways .

Yes it only concerns cause and effect stuff, it only deals with that silly
new idea called the scientific method, it only deals with things that
actually DO something, things that cause something to happen.
It does NOT deal with thinly disguised religious mumbo jumbo.

The trouble with conscious theories and all this "phenomenal properties"
crap is that they are too easy, any theory will do because there are no
facts it needs to explain. Contrast that with intelligence theories which
are devilishly hard to come up with because there are so many things
they must explain.

Given that you admit your ideas have no observable consequences I find it
difficult to believe you really were surprised to find the scientific
community was not interested in them. And I don't see why you would even
care. It wouldn't matter even if they were fascinated because it can't be
tested by the scientific method so there is no way even lovers of your
theory could advance it one inch in a thousand years. It's as big a
dead end as religion, and that's pretty damn big.

  John K Clark