[...]
>
>The nutshell response is this: even as devil's advocate, you seem to
>be conceding -my- main point, which is that if we take HAL (or a person)
>to be completely explainable in physically reductionistic terms, then
>HAL (or a person) lacks type-a consciousness, despite the presence of
>type-b consciousness. This defeats contemporary materialism and
>also most popular versions of functionalism, in my view.
>
I would like to ask for a clarification and then present my own
thoughts on this (which seem to be similar to what DB has been
arguing).
For clarification, how important is the reductionistic part? Would the
situation be different say if we had a physical explanation as
opposed to a physically reductionistic explanation?
I think it is also important to keep a distinction between "physically
explainable" and "consistent with known physical laws". There is
a danger of a kind of scientism creeping in in which the
lack of a physical explanation is somehow associated the
inapplicability of known physical laws. I think we exaggerate the
powers of science if we suppose that every phenomena consistent
with known physical laws is explainable by known physical laws.
OK, so is it possible that type a consciousness is consistent with
known physical laws yet not reducible to those laws? For the
reductionist this statement might seem absurd, who knows
maybe it seems absurd to everyone else as well ;-). This is why
I asked about the importance of the reductionistic aspect of
your statement. From the point of view of the complexity/self-
organization "paradigm" we may get a different picture. From
this point of view complex phenomena are arranged in a
kind of hierarchy with increasing levels of complexity and
organization. At the lowest level one would have physical
laws and at the highest things like type a consciousness.
The levels are connected in some way and can interact with
each other, but higher levels are not reducible to lower levels.
In other words, one cannot predict what happens at a higher
level knowing only the physical laws occurring at the lowest
levels. These higher level, non-reducible phenomena are usually
referred to as emergent phenomena. But there is nothing mysterious
or spooky going on. Emergent phenomena are consistent with
physical laws but not reducible to them.
There is another interesting feature to this view. Once a complex
system like this is set up, the various levels may interact with
each other in either direction. This is one reason why the system
is not reducible to the lowest level. So, we could have type a
consciousness on level 36 interacting with and modifying physical
operations in the brain at a much lower level. In other words, this
view involving only physical processes acting consistent with
known physical laws allows for free will.
Some feel that there is a kind of threshold complexity beyond
which stuff like this starts to happen. Suppose this is the case
and that HAL's designers messed up and crossed this threshold.
How could we know?
Brian Harper
Associate Professor
Applied Mechanics
Ohio State University
"Aw, Wilbur" -- Mr. Ed