MD mental and neural states

From: Elizaphanian (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Sun Mar 09 2003 - 12:03:56 GMT

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    Hi Scott,

    I missed this argument when it first came round but it's interesting and I
    would like to pursue it. I suspect that this is an issue that has gone round
    the houses a few times in this forum, but a) we don't all have time to
    exhaustively search the archives, b) there might be different people here to
    discuss it, and c) I'm sure that the academic community comes out with new
    insights on a regular basis, so perhaps we can return to the topic
    periodically.

    Now I would summarise your argument (included below) as "no single electron
    can possess consciousness; no agglomeration of electrons can possess
    consciousness; therefore consciousness cannot evolve". Is that reasonable?
    (I haven't tried to list all the various assumptions).

    I have one question: why can't consciousness be an emergent property?

    Sam

    "A good objection helps one forward, a shallow objection, even if it is
    valid, is wearisome." Wittgenstein

    >
    > . Consciousness, or even sentience, *cannot*
    > evolve out of non-consciousness. To see the problem, take the normally
    > accepted view of how visual perception works: light bounces off an object,
    > stimulates the rods and cones in the eye, which stimulate nerve cells, and
    > (much complexity later) we say "I see the tree". The materialist is forced
    > to conclude that all that nerve cell agitation is the seeing of a tree.
    But
    > this is impossible, if one assumes that space and time are the context in
    > which all that is necessary to explain perception occurs.
    >
    > To see this, ask how the excitation of one electron being hit by one
    photon
    > can have any *connection* to any other electron that is being, or has been
    > hit by another photon. For this to happen a signal must pass from the
    first
    > to the second, but that signal cannot carry any additional information
    than
    > that of a single photon. So unless we assume an electron has memory, and
    can
    > distinguish between one photon and another, there can be no greater
    > experience than that which an electron experiences on absorbing a photon
    (or
    > any other single interaction it can undergo, like being annihilated by a
    > positron.).
    >
    > This argumentation applies at whatever level of granularity one tries to
    > think it through. One nerve cell excites others. But unless the nerve cell
    > itself has memory and is sentient, it cannot make distinctions or note
    > similarity. But how can it if it has parts (separated in space). One or
    more
    > of these parts must be responsible for holding a piece of the memory, but
    > then that piece has to be combined with others....
    >
    > There is one out, and that is depending on quantum non-locality. But note
    > that doing so says that reality is fundamentally non-spatio-temporal, that
    > *all* spatio-temporal experience arises out of eternity.

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