You maybe are content with less joy than you could have?
You are disconnecting only one of two devices.
…not is. You are neglecting personal agency, something that machines don’t have.
I couldn’t possibly enjoy any more. I’m blessed with Stendhal’s syndrome which can happily stop me breathing while I weep in the presence of great art and plants. I’ll die happy one day.
Correct.
With general anesthesia you are turning off upper brain function, and it turns off everything. Shutting down just one device shuts the whole thing down. There isn’t some consciousness floating around and thinking when you are under anesthesia, at least in my experience.
You would first have to demonstrate that humans have personal agency in a way that machines don’t.
You misunderstood my answer.
No, of course you don’t, because you have only disconnected one device. That does not negate @gbob’s premise.
Nah, I’ll trust my intuition and experience that yeah, I do have personal responsibility for my actions, and not let myself off the hook that easily, as if I were just a machine.
Maybe I have it too. I’ve wept at the beauty of nature at least twice in the last year, almost if not actually sobbing once, being overwhelmed by it. And I’m more frequently teary at music, typically baroque snd classical, hymns, and Bluegrass Gospel and Country Gospel.
One just today on the Dailey & Vincent show on Circle, a new OTA broadcast network we get – not the following video, but as close as I could come:
I’ve enjoyed being here with you*
We sure had a high old time
But there’s something better coming
I can’t get it off my mind
I’ve got one more day behind
How many are left I don’t know
But I’m getting closer to Jesus
I’ve got one less day to go
I’ll be sorry when I leave here
But it won’t be for a while
I won’t be back but honey you’ll be coming
I’ll love you again heaven style
Yes I’m getting closer to Jesus
I’ve got one less day to go
I’ve got one less day to go
*My wife and I are closing in on the end of our years, and I expect to die happy, too.
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What I am saying is that it appears there is only one device when it comes to human consciousness. This is why everything goes away when you shut the brain down.
It was human intuition that told us the Sun moves about the Earth.
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Or not. Maybe the soul has just lost its interface with physicality. If you shut down a computer, it has to be rebooted.
Intuition can also based on the reality of cause and effect experience. Call it reflexive intuition then.
Let me clarify the interface device view. I think it is very much like shown in the movie Avatar, except that when we are not conscious in the avatar, we are somewhere we receive no stimuli.
As to intentionality, one has to have a mind to have it. Computers, as currently constructed can’t be said to have a mind. While I partly agree with your statement that if determinism can cause intentionality, then we, with minds, but still a machine, can have intentionality. Computers can’t because they are far too simple.
I looked up the definition intentionality the other night and it basically means you intend to do something. With computers, it is the programmer who intends something not the computer nor the program. I am slowly trying to write a galaxy collision program in python language which I am trying to learn. I am the person who intends my computer to show me graphics of what happens to the stars as the galaxies collide. The computer intends nothing at all. Again I point out that free-will/determinism is not the issue here, no matter how long you say it does
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I have yet to see evidence of this.
Human intuition can also be wrong. That’s why I give weight to evidence that is independent of human intuition. I’m not saying you are wrong, only that I need something other than intuition and “because I say so” in order to be convinced.
I am trying to figure out how that fits into things we can actually experience, such as general anethesia. In my own experience, I lose all concept of consciousness and time while under anesthesia. It’s as if I am turned off when the brain is turned off. This is very different than the computer analogy. We also have the situation where changing the brain changes decision making, personalities, depression, and so forth. If I pour some vodka on my computer I don’t get drunk. If I put Xanax in a USB port I don’t feel less depressed. This is why the interface analogy just doesn’t work for me.
So is it just a matter of complexity? Can we increase the complexity of computers to the point where they have a mind and intentionality?
Are we the same, with the program being our DNA?
You misunderstand the way I am using the term. I added ‘reflexive’, meaning that it is baed on legitimate cause and effect, like your hand near a flame. Similarly, we know from experience that we are responsible for our own actions, because they have deleterious or beneficial effects, like brushing your teeth or studying for an exam, or not. We are not deterministic automatons.
Again, all I have is your say so. You could be right or wrong, but “because I say so” just doesn’t convince me.
Why can’t we be deterministic automatons and still hold ourselves responsible for our actions?
Are you one?
I don’t know.
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