[ExI] CRACKPOTS (was electoral college)

[John Clark]

On Mon, Aug 20, 2018 at 1:03 PM, Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com>
wrote:

1) Give me a list of exactly what constitutes the "psi phenomenon" and I
> will consider taking the bet.
>

I'm not picky, any of the usual drivel will do, telepathy, telekinesis,
remote viewing, fortune telling, faith healing, contacting the dead etc.


> >
> You could say that a brain always causes consciousness, however
> [...]
>


However that would probably be incorrect a brain is probably not conscious
when it is asleep or under anesthesia or dead. For as far back as I can
remember my working hypothesis has been that if something behaves
intelligently it is conscious, I can't prove its true and never will be
able to but true or not it allows me to function in human society.

>
> not only can you not prove any consciousness exists
>

i can prove my consciousness exists but the proof is available only to me.


> >
> but what you think stems from a narrow definition of consciousness.
>

I have no definition of consciousness at all but I have something better,
example, the first being myself..

>
> Your parents were conscious, no?
>

That would be my best guess, when they weren't busy sleeping or being dead,
although I can't prove I'm not the only conscious being in the universe.


> >
> It is not my fault that you narrowly define consciousness as a limited
> experience of human brains.
>

What are you talking about? If a robot acted as intelligently as you do the
evidence it is conscious would be as strong as the evidence you are. The
real "hard problem" is not about consciousness its about intelligence.

>
> we have equations to describe PRECISELY how the rock breaks the window.
> We have a near-total mathematical understanding of at least the macro-level
> events involved, and much of the micro.  Even down to the subatomic level,
> we can make good guesses about what kind of equations are needed to explain
> the actions of the rock on the window.  For conscious there are NO such
> equations postulated.
>

I know of all sorts of things that would change the physical state of a
window and I also know of all sorts of thinks that would change my
conscious state, things that would make me happy or sad or scared or angry.


> >
> We are able to infer the existence of many cosmological phenomena before
> actually observing them directly,
>


We never observe things directly. We receive information from our eyes, we
interpret that information as a rock moving at high speed and heading
toward a large plate glass window, we invent a theory that predicts that
very soon we will receive another sensation, this time from our ears, that
we will describe as the sound of breaking glass. Soon our prediction is
confirmed so the theory is successful; but we should remember that the
sound of broken glass is not broken glass, the look of broken glass is not
broken glass, the feel of broken glass is not broken glass. What "IS"
broken glass? It must have stable properties of some sort or I wouldn't be
able to identify it as a "thing". I don't know what those ultimate stable
properties are, but I know what they are not, they are not sense
sensations, they are not qualia. I have no idea what glass "IS". The sad
truth is, I can point to "things" but I don't know what a thing "IS" and
I'm not even sure that I know what "IS" is.

>>
>> either there is a infinite sequence of "what caused this" questions and
>> reality is like a infinitely nested Matryoshka doll with one doll always
>> inside another or the sequence terminates in a brute fact, there is after
>> all no law of logic that demands every event have a cause.
>>
>> I have a hunch in this case the brute fact is consciousness is the way
>> data feels like when it is being processed.
>>
>
>
> >
> We agree for the most part.  However it is not satisfactory to me to place
> consciousness as merely the way something in the universe feels, as this is
> a cop-out.



Then I don't understand what sort of answer would satisfy you that the
question has been answered. Either the iterated sequence of "what caused
that?" questions terminates or it doesn't, if it does then brute facts
exist, if it doesn't then there be a unknown cause and there is no
fundamental level of reality.

>
> We do not say:
> "The brute fact is gravity is the way massive objects act when they are
> proximal to one another"
>

Actually that is pretty close to what we do say, we say matter tells
spacetime how to curve and spacetime tells matter how to move. If we ever
find a quantum theory of gravity maybe we'll be able to say more, but then
again maybe not.


>
> 1) All known formulae regarding the actions of the universe have been
> created by consciousness.
>

> 2) All known evidence for the existence of the universe have been gathered
> by consciousness.
>

Being "known" already implies consciousness so oobviously that's true.


3) It is a paradox and logical fallacy to try and conceive of a universe
> existing but without consciousness.
>

The only consciousness you can prove to exist is your own. You did not
exist in the 19th century. Can you conceive of the 19th century?


> >
> Without consciousness, existence may as well not exist.
>

You have your opinion on what deserves to have the property of existence, I
have mine and who knows, maybe the universe has a opinion on that too. But
we were talking about psi so why are we even talking about this?  For the
sake of argument suppose telepathy, telekinesis and the entire lot turned
out to be true, how would that explain consciousness?


>
> IMAGINE if I said:
>
> The brute fact is, dark energy is the way the universe feels when it
> expands
>


It could have been called X, dark energy is just a name for the fact that
 the largest parts of the universe are accelerating away from each other.
If it turned out dark energy was a brute fact I'd be surprised, but not
very surprised.

>
> I hope you would call me out on the 'brute fact' that this statement is,
> what do you call it again?
>
> Oh right.  BULLSHIT.
>

My lawyer will soon be in contact with you on a matter involving copyright
infringement.

John k Clark
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