[ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering

John Clark johnkclark at gmail.com
Sun Mar 12 21:44:55 UTC 2017


On Sun, Mar 12, 2017 at 4:41 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

​>> ​
>> The hypothesis that John K Clark is the only conscious being in the
>> universe is 100% consistent with every scrap of evidence I have at my
>> disposal.
>
>
>
​> ​
> Just what would you accept as evidence contrary to your being the only
> conscious entity?
>

​Obviously evidence ​
​must be observable, so if intelligent zombies exist but consciousness
produces no observable effects then I can never find evidence contradicting
the theory that John K Clark is the only conscious being in the universe.  ​

​> ​
> Just a reminder:  every input to our brain is unconscious before it is
> conscious
>

​How do I know that? ​

​If consciousness is not an inevitable byproduct of intelligence  then the
only thing I can say for sure about it is I have it. That's it. Perhaps
everything is conscious, trees rocks atoms inputs, or perhaps nothing is
conscious except for me, or perhaps some things are conscious and some
things are not, it would be impossible for me to ever find evidence
favoring one possibility over another. And that's why I say it's time to
stop worrying about consciousness and start worrying about intelligence.  ​

​> ​
> Another idea:  perhaps our consciousness is partly epiphenomenal -
> sometimes it is in the cause and effect sequence, and sometimes it is just
> along for the ride and not driving the vehicle at all, just observing.


​Things can be expressed in very different ways and yet both are true. It's
true that the toy balloon expanded because the pressure inside was greater
than the pressure outside, but it's also true that it expanded because
there were more air molecules colliding with the inside of the balloon than
the outside. It's true that I scratched my nose because I was conscious of
an itch and I consciously took action to stop that itch, but it's also true
that I scratched my nose because neurons in my head sent a electrochemical
signal that stimulated muscles which cause my hand to move.

> Are they stages of consciousness?
>

Certainly, that's why you can't remember the exact instant when you lost
consciousness last night and went to sleep; there was no such exact instant
to remember, and that's the same reason you can't remember the exact
instant day turned into night yesterday.

  John K Clark
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20170312/373bc974/attachment.html>


More information about the extropy-chat mailing list