X-Message-Number: 7955
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 21:12:47 -0800 (PST)
From: John K Clark <>
Subject: Consciousness

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In  #7941    On Tue, 25 Mar 1997  Wrote:


        >an electron e.g. IS smeared; the particle not only seems hazy, it IS
        
        >hazy; the uncertainty is intrinsic, not the result of problems in
                >measurement.
             

That's true, the uncertainty is intrinsic. If I fire an electron at 2 slits 
and then let it hit a phosphorus screen, it is not meaningful to say that the 
electron went through one slit and not the other, it went through both,  or 
at least the electron's quantum wave function F(x) did. The trouble is we 
have no way to measure  F(x), but we can measure the intensity of the Quantum
Wave Function [F(x)]^2, because that is the probability the electron will be 
at position x, and probability we can measure.

When I said everything was digital I was not talking about the quantum wave 
function but only of observable qualities, because that's all you could use 
if you were making a machine, or a brain. I want to emphasize again that 
there is no way that any randomness, including the randomness inherent in  
Physics, could by an analog continuous property.
                   

        >An electron may be detected or not,  

Yes.                

        >but its location and energy are not precisely defined. 
                  

Also true, before it is detected it has no definite momentum or position.
                  


        >I don't think computers will "just grow" into consciousness any more
        
        >than you can make a bicycle out of manure just by piling it high
                >enough.
                  
Then how did Evolution come up with it, and even more mysterious, why? 
If you can have intelligence without consciousness then Evolution would have 
no reason for giving us consciousness at all, we could reproduce our genes 
just as well  without it.
                  


        >Not only women, but also lower animals, certainly down to all the
        
        > mammals, are very much like myself biologically, and I have no
                >doubt they have feelings.
                  

Not when they're sleeping, or in a coma, or dead, and how do you determine 
when they are in such a state, by their actions. If Oak trees could laugh and 
cry and talk Philosophy with you, would you really doubt that they had  
feelings as you do?
              


        >John reiterates his mantra, that his information is himself etc, and
                >this is still just an assertion and not a logical conclusion 
             

It's either information or the soul, I see no other alternative.


                                            John K Clark     

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