On 2/16/2014 11:34 AM, David Nyman wrote:
On 16 February 2014 17:42, meekerdb <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
I don't disagree, but I think this formulation leaves "meaning" as
mysterious and
one may ask why consciousness creates meaning. I think meaning comes from
being
able to act in the world to realize values. And it doesn't require
consciousness,
at least not human like consciousness. The Mars Rover acts to fulfill a
mission
plan and so rocks and hills have meaning for it.
Unfortunately this seems to me to beg the questions it seeks to answer. The Mars Rover
certainly acts in a manner consistent with rocks and hills having meaning for it (based
on our empathic identification with its situation) but its behaviour can equally be
attributed to physics alone (as indeed can ours, under the same physicalist
assumptions). But I agree that meaning is related to value and hence cries out for an
explanation of value that resists elimination by reduction to an account in purely
physical terms.
I don't think so. We know where the values of the Mars Rover are encoded and how they
affect its behavior and we know how we could change them. That's about as good as
reductionism gets.
This requirement probably implies some necessary relation between meaning and
consciousness, or at least self-reference.
There's a relation. The Mars rover must know where it is and its internal status (the
first level of consciousness) in order to pursue its values. If it can form second order,
instrumental values in arbitrarily deep hierarchies then I would say it has reflexive
consciousness, i.e. it's self-aware.
Brent
It may be that the ramifications of computational reference may ultimately lead to such
an explanation, but that is beyond my competence to assess. Right now I don't have any
other suggestions.
David
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything
List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to
[email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
