[ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 11 March 2017 at 08:23, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 10, 2017  Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ​>> ​
>> There are only 3 ways out of this contradiction:
>> 1) Darwin was dead wrong.
>> 2) I am unique, I am the last conscious being in the universe
>> 3)
>> ​
>> Consciousness is the unavoidable byproduct of intelligence because
>> consciousness is just the way data feel when it is being processed.
>> ​I don't think Darwin was wrong so it's got to be #2 or 3.​
>>
>>
>> ​> ​
>> I think it's 3, but the other possibility is that consciousness is tied
>> to organic chemistry, and if evolution had electric circuits to play with,
>> for example, then the world would have been filled with zombie robots
>> instead of conscious animals. On the face of it this is implausible but not
>> absurd;
>>
>
> ​Neither I nor anybody else will ever be able to prove that the idea that
> the element carbon is inherently more conscious than the element silicon
> ​is wrong, but I think I can prove it's silly.
>
>
>
>> ​>​
>> it becomes evident that this would mean either that consciousness and
>> behaviour are decoupled,
>>
>
> ​As far as consciousness is concerned I can only speak for myself, but I
> know for a fact that my consciousness and my behavior are *NOT*
> decoupled.​
>
>
>
>> ​> ​
>> or that it would be possible to have an arbitrarily large change in your
>> consciousness and not notice.
>>
>
> ​If you're not conscious of a change in your consciousness then what
> exactly about your consciousness has changed?​
>
>

Exactly: those last two possibilities are absurd, and since they are
entailed by consciousness being specific to a substrate, the theory that
cosnsciousness is specific to a substrate is absurd.



-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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