[ExI] Intelligence Consciousness and ESP (was: digital simulations, descriptions and copies)

John Clark jonkc at bellsouth.net
Sat Jan 23 17:41:41 UTC 2010


On Jan 23, 2010, Gordon Swobe wrote:

> Let us say that a botanist writes a massive tome about a certain apple. [blah blah blah]

Lets say, just for the sake of argument, that this thought experiment of yours (which I only skimmed over) was not as utterly worthless as the nineteen dozen other thought experiments you have dreamed up; what would a logical person conclude from that? He would conclude that there is something puzzling about the link between intelligence and consciousness. Would he therefore conclude that there is no such link? Absolutely not, the physical evidence of such a link was overwhelming even a century ago and with each passing year the proof just gets stronger.

You are doing what Damien (incorrectly) accuses me of doing in the ESP matter, refusing to believe something even though there is a mountain of evidence showing it must be true because you can't figure out what mechanism it works by. If Gordon Swobe or even John Clark can't figure out how something could be it doesn't follow that the thing in question can not be; because in spite of everything the evidence still remains and if we can't explain the data then that's just tough. 

 John K Clark

 

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