SWM wrote: >Joseph Polanik wrote: >>>okay; but, isn't that just what you have called irreducibility? >>>No. I've referred to "irreducibility" as the supposition that, >>>whatever consciousness is (e.g., features like understanding, >>>imagining, being aware, etc., -- or an aggregate of them), it cannot >>>be explained as being the outcome of events or activities or >>>operations more basic than itself (i.e., not already having the >>>nature of those features). The molecules of water aren't wet at the >>>atomic level because there is no wetness as far as we know at that >>>level. But at our level of observation one of the features of the >>>aggregation of the said molecules, under certain conditions, is the >>>phenomenon or feature we know as "wetness". >>>This, by the way, comes straight from Searle, himself, though he uses >>>it in a different context, making a different point. When it comes to >>>the CRA, however, he seems to forget about this as a possible >>>explanation for the occurrence of consciousness in the universe and >>>seems, instead, to entirely miss the point that a system level >>>explanation of consciousness, which sees consciousness as a complex >>>of features operating at a certain level, is not excluded from the >>>realm of possibility and may, indeed, offer the best explanation of >>>what consciousness is. >>how is this different from Searle's position? >[Searle] does not reject the system account vis a vis brains ... Now >this puts him in contradiction since, if brains do it in a system way, >then why shouldn't other physical platforms (say computers) do so? there is no contradiction. Searle is not saying that brains 'do it' because units performing syntactical operations are combined in a 'system way'. Joe -- Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware @^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@ http://what-am-i.net @^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@ ========================================== Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/