Brent I think it is only by active and challenging debate that we can thrash out clear positions on consciousness. Thanks for the help: have created the third item in the right place now. Can't see a way to delete the main topic which is now redundant... Richard

Stathis Yes, i am agreeing with the replacement neuron argument but don't agree that a Turing machine is conscious (whatever program is being run on it) and so have created a topic for people who do believe this. Richard

richwil, I've been working with Stathis for some time now, on this, and I thought I had him figured out. I have definitely come to highly respect his brilliant grasp on many topics, especially this one. I assumed (obviously, incorrectly) that I could reform my camp, and get Stathis to join my camp, to stand as a majority over your camp. So I got way to cocky, I sent him an e-mail informing him of my intentions, and once he saw that, he went and joined your camp! So now it is your camp that is towering above all the rest of our camps with only one supporter at this level. So I must say congratulations to you and your camp. I've got to seriously reconsider and think about things now. Man I love diversity of opinion, it is always so surprising. But don't make the same mistake I did, and get to over confident. Because it looks to me like it isn't going to take to much evidence or reasoning to win him over to my side, at least on this issue of what is and isn't a phenomenal property! ;) In order to make another statement for a parallel or sibling camp, you go to the parent "camp" statement page of the sibling. On each camp statement page, including the agreement statement at the top, there is an 'Add New Position Statement Under "" statement' link. This is where you create a statement on a topic, under the current statement, as apposed to an entirely new topic. Does that make sense? Is that the best way to do things? Once you create the new parallel camp, I can always delete the old topic if you want. Or I can do anything else you'd like, just let me know. It will really be nice once we get some documentation completed so people don't have to do things trial and error so much. Thanks so much for your patience and willingness to work through all these difficult rough edges! Brent Allsop

richwil, Although I have moved my support down a level to directly support your camp, I tend to agree with Brent's point about Chalmers' argument. Pipes and people could form a Turing machine, computing what the replaced neuron would do, and then could in theory control appropriate effectors - electrical fields, chemical messengers, or some exotic nanotech that takes hold of the neighbouring neurons' receptors and tweaks them in the same way the original neuron would have done. But this special behaviour is only necessary at the interface between the replaced neurons and the original neurons. At the limit of the thought experiment, we would have gradually replaced all the neurons but one with functional equivalent; and then, we replace that final neuron and have no more need for the biological/cybernetic interface, assuming sensory organs and muscles have also been replaced with durable cybernetic versions. Thus, the final result just requires that the robot behave in a functionally identical way to the original, and that it get to this state in a way consistent with gradual functional replacement in the intermediate steps.

Brent A category error? The hard problem is how consciousness arises from brain. Behaviour is observable interaction with the environment, very different from the qualia that form phenomenal consciousness. You may be right that Chalmers probably wouldn't join this camp, so? You seem to be referring to computational functionalism - i've created a new item which i thought was going in parallel to "Functional equivalence" but it's turned up as a main new topic :( How do i fix that? Certainly you can construct a computer that works by directing water instead of electricity and, according to computational functionalism, this would be conscious if it implemented the right program. As i say, this is not my position - i find it laughable - though i agree with Chalmers that an appropriately functioning device - perhaps some form of advanced silicon chip - could form the element of an artificial network having consciousness. cheers Richard

richwil, I believe Chalmers will not agree with this camp as it exists on 07/10/20. I believe you are making a categorical error. It seems to me that you clearly simply do not understand the hard problem, or the nature of phenomenal properties and how they are different than behavioral properties. This has nothing to do with one kind of matter being unable to behave like another, such as a feather behaving like a piece of led or whatever. If you have a set of water pipes configured so it can be a Turing machine, you can theoretically (of course not practically, but to worry about such is to completely miss what Chalmers is talking about) simulate a reality which can contain items that do behave precisely like fissile material, or any other material you want - to the degree that you could not tell the simulated behavior running on water pipes, from the real. I bet that Chalmers would claim that such a virtual brain, being simulated on water pipes, would be sufficiently functionally equivalent as to cause phenomenal properties to "rise" in some incomprehensibly hard way. But then, I'm in a different camp from both of you, and that is just me. And I don't really know what camp Chalmers will end up in. Either way, we are happy to have your camp represented and supported in the Canonizer. The more diverse the POV the better right!? At least until science forces us to all join "The One" camp and the theory rises to the agreement statement and is thereby finally fact. Brent Allsop