[Wittrs] The Stakes of the Physicalist Consciousness Debate

Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx> · Tue, 15 May 2012 11:15:02 -0700 (PDT)

On Serious Philosophy, I had asked what the stakes were to the on going debate 
between Stuart and the others. One of the replies was from Larry Tapper, who 
stated this: "Well, the main issue is whether we are basically computers. And 
to some (like Joe perhaps) the issue might be whether we could have immortal 
souls. That would be pretty high stakes."

It seems to me that these, in fact, are not the stakes. Rather, the stakes are 
only how we want to speak of what we are. If Stuart's position is correct, what 
actually changes, factually, in our form of life? Imagine a world where God 
came down and said, "Tomorrow, I shall change you into, basically, computers." 
If true, this would seem to pose a real problem: for something seems to change, 
empirically, tomorrow. Indeed, we would all wonder what this would mean and 
what would happen. I can think of devastating results.

But let's suppose tomorrow came and nothing changed. We would be left with only 
two conclusions: (a) either the person wasn't God; or (b) we had to change the 
way we talked about our existence.   

This dispute seems only to have psychological stakes. I'd get threatened from 
having my picture of account molested with. But if only THIS PICTURE could 
be combated, the person would again be rescued. In other words, if only the 
person could see that nothing about the form of life was ever in jeopardy, then 
the person would come to see that the only thing different is how we speak of 
it. For example, I could still talk of spirits and souls, just using a 
computational lexicon. I could even talk of God as being meta-computational 
super-duper physicality, the kind quite different from, say "desk."

In fact, all that this debate really is about is whether you like sci-phi or 
mysticism. The only true stakes are aesthetical. What is happening is that one 
person's aspect-sight of the form of life (physical, computational) is being 
urged over another aspect-sight (spiritual, mystical). But the problem is that 
the combatants do not recognize that the issue is aspect-driven. They don't see 
that they are fighting merely over a picture of account. For if they did 
realize this, the discussion would be quieted, and we would simply wait for 
more information as to which picture would become vindicated. And even if it 
does turn out that God is, in fact, a meta-computational entity composed of 
super-duper physicality, all that would change is that we would adjust our 
present ideals (faiths) to fit that new picture. We'd start taking the movie 
Transformers more seriously. Or we would adjust our God picture in the way, 
say, that the Enlightenment created Deism (the
clockmaker). 

But even here, the dispute is simply one of what will win out in the future. 
It's about prognostication. But yet it doesn't seem that the disputants know 
this. It seems rather to be about something here and now, which isn't true. 

Regards and thanks.

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=596860
Wittgenstein Discussion: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html  ;

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[Wittrs] The Stakes of the Physicalist Consciousness Debate

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