On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 2:40 PM, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote:
> I find that the least plausible explanation. It means that if a billion > people talk to each other and give each other information, that some kind of > consciousness must necessarily arise as a side-effect. You could say that it > might arise, but the idea that such a side effect is somehow necessary as to > accomplish certain kinds of information processing is laughably romantic to > my mind. If I recruit people to recruit people to all do math together, then > a magical genie will appear. Necessarily. Because of behavior modification. > Mm. Yeah. No ghost in the machine, but machine that runs on ghost > power...because...why? No, it doesn't mean that at all. If the billion people interact so as to mimic the behaviour of the neurons in a brain, resulting in the ability to (for example) converse in natural language, then the idea is that the billion-person brain would have consciousness. This consciousness would have nothing to do with the consciousness of the billion people producing it; I don't know what my neurons are doing and my neurons individually certainly don't know what I am doing. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
