[ExI] Can philosophers produce scientific knowledge?

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Sat, 8 May 2021 at 06:56, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Hi Stathis,
>
> On Thu, May 6, 2021 at 5:03 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> Functionalism is a logical position, that IF the correct substitution
>> could be made THEN redness would be preserved.
>>
>
> Despite the problems with this you continually ignore, even IF some
> correct substitution could be made, you also seem to always insist that
> everyone must accept that this IF condition will be true.  This is
> clearly simply a prediction about nature, which
> experimentation could clearly falsify, the counter prediction being that
> nobody will every be able to find any kind of substrate independent
> function which could be substituted for an elemental redness substrate out
> of which consciousness is composed and depends on.
>

I have always agreed that it is an empirical matter whether or not a
correct substitution could be made, but the consequent is not an empirical
matter. It is like saying that IF I had 100 kg of gold and then someone
gave me another 100 kg, THEN I would have 200 kg of gold. Rather than
accepting this as true, you are focussing on how hard it would be for me to
get all that gold, and then saying that even if I did get it, until we did
the experiment we would not know if it weighed 200 kg or not.

And in response to this you always seem to reply that functionally it must
> "logically" be possible, but this "logical" claim is also dependent on
> what Steven Lehar refers to as the current "Neuron Doctrine" which assumes
> neurons are:
>
> "quasi-independent computational elements that communicate by electrical
> signals propagated down axons and collaterals and transmitted to other
> neurons through chemical synapses."
>
> this is at 1:37 in where he also points out:
> *"This Paradigm is Wrong!"*
> and then he points out why.
>

There is no attached link, but Lehar believes in harmonic resonance theory.
It doesn’t make any difference to the argument, which is that IF the
function could be replicated (using some exotic fluid that supports the
standing waves, or whatever) THEN the consciousness would also be
replicated.

> --
Stathis Papaioannou
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20210508/07853634/attachment.htm>