RE: Does it make sense to speak of "Universal Consciousness" or "Universal Intelligence"?
May 26, 2014 at 9:43 pm
(This post was last modified: May 26, 2014 at 9:44 pm by bennyboy.)
Okay, Chas. That's clearly stated now. It seems related to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_...ion_theory
I disagree with the way you place the burden of evidence-- that anything that has input, complex processing and outputs should be assumed to experience qualia, and that doubters need to prove the negative. There are too many "there's no reason to believe not X. . . " statements in there, when you've used "there's no reason to believe X. . ." with the various possibilities I suggested.
I think the reason not to believe machines experience qualia is that they aren't alive, and that their "thinking" consists of both different hardware and software than ours. Until we have a good physical theory of mind, I don't think reducing billions of cells and a gazillion molecules down to a three-stage model, interchangeable by any structure that can do the processing, can reasonably be accepted as less conjectural than any other idea about the brain/mind relationship.
I disagree with the way you place the burden of evidence-- that anything that has input, complex processing and outputs should be assumed to experience qualia, and that doubters need to prove the negative. There are too many "there's no reason to believe not X. . . " statements in there, when you've used "there's no reason to believe X. . ." with the various possibilities I suggested.
I think the reason not to believe machines experience qualia is that they aren't alive, and that their "thinking" consists of both different hardware and software than ours. Until we have a good physical theory of mind, I don't think reducing billions of cells and a gazillion molecules down to a three-stage model, interchangeable by any structure that can do the processing, can reasonably be accepted as less conjectural than any other idea about the brain/mind relationship.
