<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">Adrian wrote: <span style="font-size:12.8px;font-family:arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">what the line is between sleeping versus a persistent</span></div><span style="font-size:12.8px">vegetative state, and so on). </span><div><span style="font-size:12.8px"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline"><br></div></span></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="display:inline;font-size:12.8px">Good - let's talk about sleep. If you are an empiricist like me, you are uncomfortable with having no observable behavior to measure. But in stage one sleep there is nothing to observe except by EEG and those kinds of things. The person, however, has experiences that make him believe that he is awake and thinking rationally when in fact he is asleep. I realize that I am drifting into stage one when my thoughts become sort of weird.</div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline"><br></div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline">Stage two is when the REM dreams occur, and again the person has experiences without moving anything but his eyelids and a few muscle twitches. Stage 4 is where you have the rare night terrors, waking up screaming etc. </div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline"><br></div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline">Conscious remembrance of these is fraught with peril as far as our interpretation of them is concerned. </div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline"><br></div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline">Are they stages of consciousness? Is it OK to say that you are conscious when you are dreaming? I tend to relate consciousness to being aware of external stimuli, which means that it goes way down the phylogenetic scale. In dreaming there is no awareness of external stimuli ordinarily, though the dreamer may hear things and incorporate them in his dream.</div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline"><br></div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline">Many unanswered questions here, especially about definitions.</div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline"><br></div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline">bill w</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Mar 7, 2017 at 3:53 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:stathisp@gmail.com" target="_blank">stathisp@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><span class=""><div>On Wed., 8 Mar. 2017 at 8:41 am, Adrian Tymes <<a href="mailto:atymes@gmail.com" target="_blank">atymes@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">On Tue, Mar 7, 2017 at 1:23 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <<a href="mailto:stathisp@gmail.com" class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg" target="_blank">stathisp@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
> On Wed., 8 Mar. 2017 at 7:17 am, Adrian Tymes <<a href="mailto:atymes@gmail.com" class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg" target="_blank">atymes@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
>> I don't, unless and until any functional components can actually be built<br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
>> from them - at which point they stop being any sort of mysticism, so by<br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
>> definition that won't happen.<br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
><br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
> Yes: if consciousness were due to something other than or in addition to the<br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
> observable behaviour of brain components then that would allow for a<br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
> decoupling of mind from body.<br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
<br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
That brings up another problem: one would need a strict definition of<br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
"consciousness", such that anything complying with that definition<br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
would be judged conscious.</blockquote><div><br></div></span><div>We can actually do a lot without defining it except in vague operational terms, which makes the argument more robust. I know what it means to say that I'm conscious even if I can't explain it or convince others of it. If some aspect of my consciousness, or another entity's consciousness if they have it, were due to an intrinsic quality of a brain component which could not be duplicated by duplicating the observable behaviour of that component, then it would imply a decoupling of mind from body. If something were tweaked in your brain you might become blind, or start seeing fire breathing dragons, but out of your mouth would still come sounds at medicating to the rest of the world that everything looks just the same.</div><span class=""><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"></blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Imagine a human chauvinist, who refused to agree that any machine<br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
could be conscious but was not willing to openly defend "only humans<br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
can be conscious" (perhaps in part to have to avoid defining "human",<br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
including whether humans who have suffered extreme lobotomy still<br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
qualify, whether someone who is sleeping counts as presently conscious<br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
or worth protecting due to expected near-term resumption of<br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
consciousness, what the line is between sleeping versus a persistent<br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
vegetative state, and so on). For every definition offered, a<br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
transhumanist could then ask, "So if I built a machine that...then it<br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
would be conscious? If not, why not?"<br class="m_-8787029648991102773gmail_msg">
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</blockquote></span></div></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div dir="ltr">-- <br></div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature">Stathis Papaioannou</div>
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