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Originally posted by ccxcone
You pretty much found the reason why downloading our memories wouldn't develop the same level of consciousness we currently feel: The computer doesn't operate on the same system that the brain does. If you had a working model of a brain, however, that could completely copy another brain, then we would have a different idea, then. The thing is, scientists haven't been able to duplicate dendrites in the same way that they form on human brains.
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Note that I never once metioned a computer, always "an artificial brain". My feelings on a conscious/intelligent computer are summed up
in this thread. (i.e. it is impossible).
Further more, I was putting forward my "artificial neuron" story, purely as a hypothetical thought experiment, (to be carried out in the future perhaps?)
I even gave the two points which need to be satisfied for this experiment to be realised.
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Now, taking consciousness as an illusion of memories from a brain, what can be inferred from death? Based on this previous model, consciousness would siece to be, and thus, so would the self that carried it. Based on that, existance of the outside world is really nothing more than an illusion from the brain. If the same neural stimuli were to be duplicated with synthesized electric impulses that we gain from our nervous system through the outside world, then all functions of reality could be synthesized by a computer with lots of wires hanging out of it.
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I would dismiss the "Brain in a Vat" hypothesis (or more recently "The Matrix hypothesis") on the basis of Ockham's Razor. Why try to push away reality, to a futher level of abstraction, when it can be dealt with here and now?
Certainly, Ockham's razor is no proof, but it certainly goes a long way to convince me (Ockhams razor is the reason we
think the earth roates the sun).
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This brings me to my point, which was also mentioned earlier: existance is an illusion. If existance is only an illusion generated by your brain, for all practical reasons, reality isn't real at all. If reality only exists in our brain (which it essentially does), then consciousness is only the presense of a reality which is interpreted (prehapse imagined?) by the brain. Take away that consciousness, then reality of that world no longer exists to the self, because the self which interpreted it would also sieze to exist. In the end, all I can really conclude is that we don't exist. Consciousness is pretty much a loop, like you said before: reality is formed by the brain, and the existance of the brain which interpets reality is formed by that same brain that interpreted reality to begin with. It pretty much boils down to the fact that we define ourselves, and since one thing cannot scientifically define itself, then there is no proof for such said existance. If reality doesn't exist, then the brain that exists in reality cannot exist, and so, neither can we.
You know, I find it very odd that I just argued out the belief that I don't exist, but the funny thing is, I really believe it, too.
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I am a hardened realist, and will never accept any "participatory universe" principle. Certainly, I cannot prove that that reality exists independantly of us, I just feel such a belief is such an anachronistic step back towards times before heliocentrism
et al.
In the words of Samual Johnson, "I refure it THUS!" *thump*
You've got the exact oppositve viewpoint to skinbag, who would claim only materialism exists, and the self does not.
You would claim that material doesn't exist, and only the self does!
The biggest problem is your claim that *nothing* exists, neither realty, nor your perception of it is:
Cognito Ero Sum!
If there is one thing that we can prove, beyond all doubt, and this is that
something exists!