[ExI] Science or Scientism?

[John Clark]

On Sat, Nov 10, 2018 at 1:14 PM Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com>
wrote:

*> I just think it is silly to believe that the other brute facts you refer
> to (such as the fundamental forces) are ubiquitous throughout the universe,*


I didn't say the Strong Nuclear Force, the  Electroweak Force or Gravity
was a brute fact, maybe they are and maybe they're not.  The only brute
fact I mentioned was that consciousness is the way data feels when it is
being processed.

> *but the brute fact of consciousness/qualia only occurs in brains.  *


My axiom is consciousness/qualia occurs when information processing
produces intelligent behavior. Maybe it occurs other times too, maybe rocks
are conscious, but I doubt it.

> I don't think that it makes sense to make judgments on what is or is not
> a brute fact when we still have so many unknowns, such as dark
> energy/matter.
>

It would be very easy to dream up a theory that says  dark energy/matter
has something to do with consciousness and who knows the theory might even
be true, but even if it is we will never be able to prove it or even
provide evidence for or against it. And that is true of all consciousness
theories but it is not true of intelligence theories, snd that's why they
are so much more interesting.


> * > For all we know, it could be just as likely that these unknowns are
> related to consciousness as they are related to something like gravity or
> electromagnetism. *
>

We already know that Dark Matter is related to gravity, we've never seen a
hint of it but its conceivable that someday we may detect some sort of
interaction between electromagnetism and Dark Matter, but its not  conceivable
we will ever find a connection between ANYTHING and ANY consciousness other
than our own unless we make use of the axiom than intelligent behavior
implies consciousness

John K Clark
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