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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: More Atheistic Wishful Thinking
Message-ID: <1696@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 14-Sep-85 15:19:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1696
Posted: Sat Sep 14 15:19:41 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 15-Sep-85 00:28:10 EDT
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>>Are you claiming that all these things do not have their identity in their
>>physical representation and organization?  How so?  What ARE you claiming?
>>By your own reasoning, since the program in the computer is defined by how
>>it is organized physically, so is the "mind" of your analogy.  Thus you
>>are not talking about things not represented physically. [ROSEN]

> No, no, no.  The question is NOT whether or not the thing is physically
> represented-- if you can even talk about physically representing it, then
> quite obviously the object in question is NOT the representation.  When I
> take an Aretha Franklin song and copy it from my record to my cassette tape,
> it remains the same song. [WINGATE]

Wasn't this the topic of Hofstadter's "A Conversation with Einstein's Brain"?
The notion of copying the configuration of Einstein's brain onto sheets of
paper, and following rules similar to physical laws to determine the "state"
of the next page.  This would include provisions for input and output to
allow some sort of interaction.  But it would be very important that the
methods of input/output remain the same or equivalent!  If you had Einstein's
brain there (in paper or other form), wouldn't it be sure to say "Hey,
I can't see!" if you did not provide for visual input somehow?  And, more
importantly, if you did not provide for it in an equivalent way?  Would a
video camera (or two, for binocular vision) do the trick?  What if Einstein
had an astigmatism, or some uniqueness about the way he saw things (we'd
all agree that he did, at least metaphorically)?  Would a different set of
input/output interfaces (not just the sensory organ,s but the ENTIRE BODY!)
suffice?  Would they work?  Would they produce the same person?

>>So Charles believes in fairies now?  It's no longer clear what you believe
>>in.

> Good.  Maybe you can start defending your beliefs rather than attacking what
> you believe to be mine.

I defend against any and all points that people might make claiming flaws
that aren't there.  I also make points about others' beliefs, that I would
like to think pertain to flaws that are there.  Unless shown otherwise.
(Example:  when you showed that you were speaking about carbon copying
of the body/brain as equivalent to resurrection, you showed that you might
be speaking in terms of souls.  However, this has been contradicted by you
more than once.)  I find this reciprocal arrangement in discussion more than
adequate, when not abused.

>>  Absence of evidence is a good reason to discard a notion as being
>>wishful thinking.  That IS most certainly an objective basis for
>>criticism:  absence of evidence indicates either a willingness to accept
>>bad evidence to draw conclusions (is THAT what you would support?) or a
>>series of preconceptions in which certain conclusions are desired and
>>evidence fabricated/rearranged/reinterpreted to account for the desired
>>conclusion.

> "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" (Haldane).  The only proper
> conclusion is that you can draw no conclusion.  If I sit in this room (which
> has no windows) and assert that "the car in the first parking space is
> blue," it is indeed possible for there to be a blue car in the first parking
> space.  If one does not actually examine the parking space, one is not in a
> position either to confirm or to deny my statement.  The ONLY correct
> response is "there is no evidence"; one cannot DENY the statement, because
> to do so is to make the assertion that "there is no blue car in the first
> parking space."  Since this statement is not supported by evidence either,
> the situation is quite symmetrical.  Neither statement can be claimed to be
> true; therefore neither can be claimed to be false.  All that can be said is
> "there is no evidence."

What if there's no parking lot outside?  Absence of evidence may not be
evidence of absence, but if you carry that to its logical conclusion, you
must believe in everything.  Remember, Charles, you say that the only proper
conclusion is to draw no conclusion.  But clearly you have come to a
conclusion.  How did that happen?

>>It boils down to this:  which would be more reasonable to believe?  That
>>mind is part of the physical body, or that something else that allows your
>>conclusions to fall into place (that's all the "evidence" you have) exist,
>>despite the fact that you cannot describe its mechanisms or construction or
>>provide any evidence to support it?  The latter is nothing if not shoddy
>>analysis and wishful thinking.

> Sorry, Rich, reasonableness is not objective and not science.  You have no
> evidence, so there is no reason to choose one over the other, especially in
> the light of competing analogies with existing systems.  My competing
> hypothesis is that "the mind is *represented* in the body, and is possibly
> capable of expression in other media."  The only reason to choose on or the
> other at this point is purely subjective convenience, since the evidence
> neither confirms nor denies either.

But the points I made above (Einstein's brain section) raise important points
regarding the nature of the input/output interfaces of your reconstructed
brain which you seem to blithely ignore.

>>> Would it?  How do you know?  Have you been disembodied lately?  Why
>>> wouldn't it be the experience of a disembodied person?  Are physical
>>> sensations really so important to the mind?  Is there any objective
>>> evidence on which to base the claim?  Why is this paragraph composed
>>> entirely of questions?  Isn't it because we have nothing but hypotheses?
>>> Or perhaps because we have nothing but questions about the nature of
>>> consciousness?  Does anyone really know anything?

>>I sometimes wonder.  The point is, to assume that physical sensations are
>>not important (huh?) to the mind, that the mind can be disembodied without
>>regard to its physical composition, is to assert a non-physical (whatever
>>that is supposed to mean) component of the person's existence, a "soul",
>>as it were.  I don't know why this paragraph is composed entirely of
>>declarative sentences, but I expect it has something to do with Charles'
>>lack of substance in his assertions, which are merely stretching out and
>>contorting to reach a desired conclusion.

> So what?  If you figure out how to load a person's mind into a computer
> simulation of the brain, and set up so that there are no "physical inputs"--
> no, back off a stage.  If you block all the sensory inputs to a person's
> brain, does he suddenly become a different person?  What if you feed in
> other inputs?  What if you somehow add a whole new kind of processing to the
> brain?  Why isn't he the same person as before, who now has a new sensory
> input to play with?

Ever read/see "Johnny Got His Gun"?  I've only seen the film, but a quick
summary of it is that a WWI soldier has his (don't read further if you're
eating) entire face "scooped" out by an explosion of some sort.  He cannot
hear, see, smell, taste, speak, because all the means of doing so no longer
exist in his body.  Can you imagine what that might be like?  Just beginning
to try to do so makes me shake.

> One of the principles of science is that the truth or falsity of a statement
> should be independent of its subjective significance.  Rich is rather
> blatantly ignoring this in his attacks on "mind as information".  Whether or
> not my hypothesis is true is utterly independent on whether or not it is
> useful for it to be true to anyone.  If we deny this principle, on the other
> hand, then it works just as strongly against Rich, since his hypothesis is
> obviously useful to his emotional attacks upon religion, and since his
> competing hypothesis is similarly untested.

The difference here, which Charles just skips over, is that it is not a
question of subjectivity, it is a question of what will happen with this
reconstructed mind in its new form, in a very objective sense.
-- 
"There!  I've run rings 'round you logically!"
"Oh, intercourse the penguin!"			Rich Rosen    ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr