Re: q*****

John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Tue, 14 Dec 1999 01:24:10 -0500

Dan Fabulich <daniel.fabulich@yale.edu> Wrote:

>Here, I want to quote a few passages from Waiting for Zed,
>because it's good stuff, and deserves a second look:

Thanks

>>Alf:It could just be
>>a mechanical gadget that goes though all
>>the proper motions but with no more
>>awareness than a cuckoo clock.

>Does this remind anyone ELSE of the zombie? It does me.

Me too obviously

>>Bob: We just have to assume that
>>when something--like other people, act
>>intelligently--they are conscious.

>Golly, we have to ASSUME it?

Yes, I agree with Bob about that.

>It doesn't seem as impossible as you made it out to be.

I am absolutely certain that intelligence without consciousness is impossible, by that I mean there is no doubt in my mind. The answer to the related question, am I also correct, will always remain unknown.

>For all you want to poke fun at me for using the zombie example,

There is nothing wrong with the zombie example and I certainly had no intention of making fun of you, I think your posts are quite interesting and intelligent, I just think they're wrong.

>HERE YOU ARE USING IT.

No, one of my characters is, I am not Bob, Alf, or Zed. 

     > Don't tell me that we have to assume it.  We don't.  I reject it, and I'm
     > arguing that you should, too.

I don't anyone could function if they did that, I know you reject it when you argue philosophy on the Extropian List but I'm skeptical that you do it in any other part of your life, when you hit your finger with a hammer for example. You may find reasons much later why the pain was unreal, but I'll bet dollars to donuts that's not what you felt at the time.

By the way, in light of your views you used a very odd word that I don't understand at all, the word was "should".

>I've just given a name to something which YOU think is conceptually
>coherent, and THAT'S my challenge to YOU.

No, I don't think it's conceptually coherent, I'm certain it's not, I just can't prove it

>YOU could be under the mistaken "impression" that you have qualia as well.

Like all really important things "qualia" has no definition worth a damn, all I have are examples of it, or rather one example. Thus I certainly mean something when I say, I experience "qualia", I just have no way of knowing if it has any relationship to your understanding of the word.

>Why should this process give rise to experience?

I can't tell you why intelligence generates consciousness, Einstein couldn't tell you why mass warps space-time, he just showed that it did.

John K Clark jonkc@att.net