[ExI] Zombie glutamate

[John Clark]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2015  Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:

 > my contention is that if the glutamate substitute can mimic all the
> properties of glutamate relevant to brain function, then it will
> necessarily also contribute to consciousness in whatever way natural
> glutamate does.


I'm just playing devil's advocate here but it could be argued that there is
one brain function that you have absolutely no way of knowing if the
substitute glutamate has successfully mimicked or not, the consciousness
function. It could be argued that the substitute glutamate works great on
everything you can test in the lab, everything you can count or measure,
but the substitute doesn't work for conscious, which therefor must have
been created by something other than Evolution.

Please note that I think the above idea is very silly, but I can't prove it
wrong and never will be able to. And that is the very definition of a silly
theory. Perhaps I'm just taking the word "proof" a little too seriously,
I'm think of a mathematician nitpicking over every line, but if you mean
evidence so overwhelming that it is correct life is too short to worry
about it being wrong then I agree with you.

  John K Clark
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