[ExI] What is "Elemental Redness"?

[Jason Resch]

On Tue, May 2, 2023, 5:33 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
> On 02/05/2023 02:42, Jason Resch wrote:
> > I disagree with mind-brain identity theory. To say something is
> > something else established an identity relation, or a 1-to-1 mapping,
> > if A is identical with B and B identical with C then A is identical
> > with C.
> >
> > But note that identity theory rules out multiple realizability. If
> > colour experiences are identical with certain neural activity, then
> > those same experiences can't be identical with certain silicon
> > computations.
> >
> > Here, if A is identical with B but we know A ≠ C, then we know B ≠ C.
> >
> > If multiple realizability is true, then there must be a 1-to-many
> > relationship between conscious states and realizations of those
> > conscious states, be they by neurons, computer chips, or any other
> > substrate, and this precludes an identity relationship between the
> > conscious state and any realization of it.
> >
>
> Well, I don't know anything about 'identity theory', but saying that A
> is identical with B doesn't rule out A also being identical to C. If a
> neural pattern is an experience, then that same pattern replicated
> somewhere else is the same experience. The neural circuitry and the
> silicon circuitry can do exactly the same things, in terms of
> information processing. It's the information processing that's the
> significant thing, not the fact that one uses ions and the other electrons.
>
> If you copy a music CD to a USB stick, playing the copy gives you the
> same music as playing the original.
>


Right that means consciousness isn't the neural circuits, but something
operating at a higher level of abstraction, as you say, the patterns of
processing information.

Consciousness is the music rather than the CD, the story rather than the
book.

Jason

>
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