----- Original Message -----
From: "Damien Broderick" <d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2000 3:07 PM
Subject: Re: Immortality
> At 11:48 AM 9/12/00 +0930, Emlyun tried hard but missed the cigar:
As an aside, when I saw this line in a private message, I thought you meant
the Dyson Sphere mutterings.
A cigar shape; a circular prism. Put that around a star, and spin it. Cap
off the ends. Does that work?
>
> >With an mp3, the file itself is not analogous to consciousness. Rather,
> >consciousness is analogous to one instance of the music pouring forth
from
> >your sound system.
>
> Nup. It'd have to be re-entrant and [at least potentially] self-modifying.
>
Just to set the record straight... When I play an mp3, as I do occasionally,
I don't actually believe that consciousness has been attained by the playing
music. Often, it is evident that consciousness was not even involved in the
original creation of that music.
But I think I see what you mean. Are you arguing that the consciousness must
actually be a functional mechanism, which affects its own operation? That
modelled as an epiphenomenon, that cannot be possible? This is where it gets
tricky; once you say that consciousness has a functional aspect, you get
chopped up by Occam's Razor, which would assert that there is no reason to
suspect that this ill-defined thingy, consciousness, is actually necessary
to support intelligent operation; an intelligent (re-entrant, self
modifying) system could be conceived of without this weird sense of self.
This is where I start to hate this debate; around the point where I'm no
longer sure if I exist after all.
> IMHO.
>
> Damien Broderick
> [the singer not the song]
Any good singer listens to the song, pays attention to the environment
(audience? other musicians?), and modifies the song appropriately. But does
the song listen to the singer, and also make modifications?
Emlyn?
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