[ExI] Science or Scientism?

[John Clark]

On Fri, Nov 9, 2018 at 7:10 PM Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com>
wrote:

>>I think there is not a infinite sequence of "why" questions and after a
>> finite number of them the sequence terminates in a brute fact. I think it's
>> a brute fact that consciousness is the way data feel when it is being
>> processed.
>>
>
> *>Yes, we are in agreement with one another.  I am not sure how you define
> "data" though.*
>

Date is a piece of information and to Claude Shannon information is just a
measure of surprise, it's the same definition computer designers use and
they couldn't make computers without Shannon's Information Theory. The
smallest unit of information is the bit; you didn't know before receiving
the bit if 2 things were the same or different, after receiving the bit to
your surprise you realize they are the same.

>> Maybe I wouldn't be conscious if I didn't have a left big toe, but
>> unless I cut off my toe I'll never know.
>>
>
> > *Well it's not my fault you're not willing to cut your toe off to test
> it, then. *
>

I'd be willing to cut off my toe if I thought I would learn how
consciousness works by doing so, but I suspect it wouldn't be enough and
I'd have to remove other parts of my body and by the time I reached
enlightenment there wouldn't be any of me left.

> *You can't be a solipsist, sorry; don't worry, if you were the only thing
> that existed I would tell you.*
>

 Is this list getting a bit solipsistic or is it just me?

* > I don't understand why you would think that the consciousness of one
> human you are looking at, with two observed hemispheres in the brain that
> are separately functional in terms of information processing but also
> integrated, is any different in flavor from the consciousness of, two
> humans*
>

The difference is one of degree not of kind, in particular degree of
communication. The corpus callosum is a broadband information link between
the left and right hemispheres of the brain, if it is cut you have a split
brain and a split mind. You and I are communicating right now but my
internet connection is not as information rich as what the corpus callosum
can do, if it was then every thought I had you would have and every thought
you had I would have and the resulting being would be named Will Clark or
John Steinberg.

> *My conception of 'God' is indeed like a Jupiter Brain,*
>

If that's what you're talking about then you should call it a Jupiter
Brain, if you insist on calling it "God" you are begging to be
misunderstood.

John K Clark




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