From: Marc Geddes (marc_geddes@yahoo.co.nz)
Date: Thu May 27 2004 - 22:30:08 MDT
--- Eliezer Yudkowsky <sentience@pobox.com> wrote: >
>
> The fact that needs explaining is: "Why do people
> believe they are
> conscious?" When David Chalmers says "I have
> qualia", air vibrates, his
> lips move, a physical event bound into the universe
> of cause and effect.
> The problem with panpsychism is that if you can't
> measure the so-called
> "awareness" of elementary particles, the alleged
> "awareness" can't affect
> Chalmers's brainstate in any way. Cannot be the
> agency responsible, in
> *any* sense, for making Chalmers's lips move.
> Eliminate the postulate of
> panpsychism, and everything remains exactly the
> same, including the real
> explanation for Chalmers's lips moving.
>
Who said you can't measure the awareness of elementary
particles? As I understand it panpsychism is a
general postulate which could be consistent with many
specific theories. Of course I agree that there would
have to be some way to measure the awareness of
elementary particles, and no such specific theory has
been presented yet. But I fail to see why you think
this renders the general postulate meaningless.
=====
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