<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><br><br><br></div><div><br>On 15 Feb 2015, at 5:23 am, John Clark <<a href="mailto:johnkclark@gmail.com">johnkclark@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 10:57 AM, Stathis Papaioannou <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:stathisp@gmail.com" target="_blank">stathisp@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<font color="#500050"><br><br></font><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class=""><div class="h5"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">>>> Brent believes that consciousness is not due to the system structure but rather to the substrate.</blockquote><div><br></div><div>>> If computers with the same logical structure but with different substrates (say vacuums tubes, Germanium transistors and Silicon transistors) all came up with different answers when you multiplied 27 by 54 I'd have a lot more confidence that this theory is correct, but they don't, they all come up with 1458. Actually calling this a theory is giving it too much credit as there is no experiment that can be performed to prove it wrong, or even a experiment that would allow you to learn a little more about it. </div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div></div></div><div>> There are experiments that can be performed - try a physically different, but <span></span>chemically identical substrate using alternative isotopes. t would work just the same</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>That would just show what we already know, that intelligent behavior would not be effected; but how could you demonstrate that consciousness was not changed? You couldn't. </div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>You *could* show that, for if the consciousness were changed but not the behaviour, that would lead to absurdity. It would mean that you could go blind but not notice you were blind and behave as if you had normal vision, or you could go blind but stand by helplessly while your body behaved normally and declared that everything looked normal.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>That's why consciousness theories, as opposed to intelligence theories, are so popular on the internet, they're easy because they don't have to actually do anything or explain any experimental results, they can just prattle on and on and one consciousness theory works just as well (or badly) as another. It would take intelligence and a lot of it to come up with a good intelligence theory; but a consciousness theoretician doesn't need that, intelligence is just optional for him. Consciousness is easy but intelligence is hard.</div><div><br></div><div> John K Clark </div><div><br></div><div> </div></div></div></div>
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