On naturalism and consciousness

[bennyboy]

You didn't adress my complaint. I'm not stating that a mind cannot be on another medium. I'm stating that the medium creates the mind. As long as the required architecture and processes can exist on the medium in a stable form, a mind can be created on that medium.

You can also say that molecules "create" mind, since the brain supervenes on molecules, or that subatomic particles "create" atoms, or that the universe "creates" subatomic particles, or that _____ creates the universe. If you follow that supervenience through each layer, then you inevitably end up at a layer whose origin or dependencies aren't known, and what then? Ultimately, everything supervenes on an unknown quantity.

What you're saying is that celluloid film creates Casablanca, or that a CD creates an .mp3 song. Yes, in a simplistic physical sense, those things supervene on a particular medium in any given single instance. But the essence of Casablanca and the .mp3 song aren't in the medium-- they are in the ideas, the organization, etc. that caused those molecules to end up in that particular form. The ideas are biggybacking on an arbitrary medium, which can therefore be disregarded as a causal factor.

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No, there aren't. There are lots of little assumptions that allow us to accept it to be so.

No, there is one assumption, and lots of bits of evidence supporting that assumption.

No, there are many assumptions. That people don't see this means that they are living inside them. Don't believe me? What is the evidence that others than myself are sentient? Their bodies: the way they move, the way they talk, etc. But what is the evidence that this is good evidence? What says that because things are similar in some ways which can be observed, they must be similar in ways which cannot be observed? This is not the kind of thing for which there can be evidence. It is assumed, and this assumption serves as the foundation for a whole culture of ideas-- which are nevertheless only valid given that assumption.