RE: The Philosophy of Mind: Zombies, "radical emergence" and evidence of non-experiential
April 22, 2018 at 8:25 am
(This post was last modified: April 22, 2018 at 8:30 am by Edwardo Piet.)
(April 22, 2018 at 8:21 am)Khemikal Wrote:(April 22, 2018 at 8:07 am)Hammy Wrote: And none of those things require consciousness.You don't think that art, society, and civilization (or human relationships)...in human populations....... are derived from and dependent on conscious experience, the communication of conscious experience, and the organization of conscious experience?
Why would they be? You don't get Strawson's point at all do you?
Quote:You keep saying that these things don't require consciousness, that may or may not be true, but so what? So what if there are other ways to x?
So then my point is correct. What do you mean "so what?"? My entire point is that consciousness doesn't appear to have a function... and the evidence supports that. And remember, I'm talking about consciousness as qualia, so make sure you don't equivocate on that.
Quote:If you take away qualia (whatever that is) you take away a fundamental difference between an ant colony and a human civilization....so, you know, it seems like it might strip a few advantages from us..even if some other creature (or even a non biological) might be able to do it or something at least vaguely similar without that perception.
Taking away qualia is taking away the seeming, away the subjective experience.
The entire point is our brains didn't have to evolve with conscious experience. Yes, our brains have evolved to have conscious experience, but there doesn't appear to be any evidence that consciousness is providing any function, and there appears to actually be evidence to the contrary. So, this makes behavioral philosophical zombies possible.
And this is all just the zombie matter, I've got two other things I addressed that I wanted to talk about on this thread. So-called "radical emergence" and the possibility of evidence of the non-experiential.
(April 22, 2018 at 8:21 am)Khemikal Wrote: Are you more attracted to dolls or unconscious human beings than conscious human beings? Do those descriptions of qualia as art or communication..or collectively as culture and civilization, reproductively advantage human beings?
I'm attracted to the idea that beings are conscious... whether they're actually conscious or not. But again, that's completely irrelevant (I'm also attracted to water sports but what the fuck does that have to do with consciousness?
). What I'm attracted to is irrelevant. And creatures can be attracted without consciousness.


