From: Richard Loosemore (rpwl@lightlink.com)
Date: Tue Jan 17 2006 - 08:31:42 MST
The article you cite rides roughshod over all the carefully delineated
positions in philosophy of mind as if they didn't exist, and it is just
downright wrong about this:
"...all electrical circuits - and that’s basically all neurones are –
generate an associated energy field, known as an electromagnetic field
or em field. This field contains precisely the same information as the
circuitry that generated it. However, unlike neuronal information, which
is localised in single or groups of neurons, the brain’s em field will
bind the neuronal information into a single integrated whole."
The EM field does not contain precisely the same information as the
circuitry that generated it, it smears it into a mess that cannot be
completely untangled. Fromn the physics POV this article is riddled
with nonsense, and from the philosophy of mind POV it is also riddled
with nonsense.
Richard Loosemore
Phillip Huggan wrote:
> I'll retreat behind this article yet again.
> http://www.surrey.ac.uk/qe/cemi.htm
> I'll postulate the EM fields themselves aren't conscious, but they are
> interacting with something in the fabric of reality that is producing
> our subjective experiences. Computation really isn't relevant to this
> process. I guess you could define it as computation, but it is very
> substrate specific computation in that if your computation doesn't
> produce these types of fields and/or interact with the
> "Wake-up-sleeping-rock" particle field, the computation won't think....I
> don't yet understand particle physics well enough to really postulate
> what the conscious-field is composed of. Too many neuronal components
> "multi-task" to uncover anything there. I know it sounds like an
> unnecessary complication, but I think it is simpler than is attributing
> consciousness to any act of computation.
>
> */R! ichard Loosemore <rpwl@lightlink.com>/* wrote:
>
> At the very least, it is not even slightly obvious why substrate type
> should have any bearing on consciousness. And many people disagree that
> it does: I do, and I think Mikko does for the same reason (he points
> out that hormone systems are just another message passing system).
>
> I think that consciousness is not going to be separable in the way you
> believe. Many others take this position.
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