[ExI] Mental Phenomena

[Mike Dougherty]

On Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 6:59 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
> Giving you an answer that is intelligent is far from having an experience
> like a human.  I think the default should be that only flesh and blood
> creatures can have experiences and consciousness.  I don't see rows of 1s
> and 0s as having anything other than an electrical charge in their memories.
>

I'm having a difficult time imagining how you can be so bigoted over "flesh
and blood" - it strikes me as something like racism despite having never
even seen/heard of any other race.

I don't see your own collection of ions as any less of a machine than the
entire collection of ions that represent the state of "the internet" at any
moment.   Just because you cannot relate to non-biological sentience
doesn't mean it can't have whatever it is we're trying to call
consciousness.

Nagel asked what it's like to be a bat
I once asked what it's like to be a .bat

I would not require "flesh and blood" for those who have sufficient medical
technology to lose this "consciousness" (however it is defined) probably
also loses for them the rights/agency afforded to those regarded (without
proof,  fwiw) as conscious.

>
>
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