[ExI] Can philosophers produce scientific knowledge?

Stathis Papaioannou stathisp at gmail.com
Sat May 8 13:45:27 UTC 2021


On Sat, 8 May 2021 at 11:56, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
> Hi Stathis,
> I see no evidence that you are understanding the objections I am making to
> your arguments, you just ignore them, or prove you don't understand them.
> For example you do precisely this when you said.
>
> On Fri, May 7, 2021 at 4:39 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> 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.
>>
>
> Which is precisely what I predicted you would say in the previous post
> (proving at best I failed to communicate this to you) with:
>
> Brent Allsop Said in the prior post to this:
>>>
>> And in response to this you always seem to reply that functionally it
>>> must "logically" be possible,
>>>
>>
> then you completely ignored the rest (admittedly, probably my fault since
> I left out the reference to the video (added again, in this version), till
> the follow up):
>
>
>> but this "logical" claim is also dependent on an assumption.  Steven
>>> Lehar refers to this assumption (at 1:37 into his latest and greatest
>>> video <http://slehar.com/wwwRel/HarmonicGestalt.mp4>) 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.
>>
>
> Hopefully watching the video, and understanding his argument as to why
> the "Current Neuron Doctrine", on which your logic depends, is wrong, will
> help with this miss understanding?
>

The link takes me to the video, but then the video doesn’t play, perhaps
because I am using a mobile device. Anyway, as I explained, the logical
argument is independent of any particular physical theory. We could say
that the brain works via magic from the god Zeus. If the behaviour of the
brain could be replicated via different magic from the god Apollo, then the
associated consciousness would necessarily also be replicated. It isn’t
possible to fix consciousness to a particular substrate, a particular
physics or a particular process.

> --
Stathis Papaioannou
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