Message-Id: <33B188EF.21BB@rug.ac.be>
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 14:09:03 -0700
From: Mario Vaneechoutte <Mario.Vaneechoutte@rug.ac.be>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Being a Human Being, Memetics and Complexity Science
Robin Faichney wrote:
>
> Mario Vaneechoutte wrote:
> >Enzymes recognize only a specific pattern among a myriad of
> >possible ones...
> >One could say that this is experience, whereby experience is
> >defined as a pattern recognition event or as the event of pattern
> >matching... As such this may provide a theoretical basis
> >for the suggestion of Chalmers (discussing the 'Hard Problem of
> >Consciousness') that experience should be some basic characteristic.
>
> I think, to help with the Hard Problem, you would have to
> suggest a subjective aspect to the event: what is it like
> to be an enzyme recognizing a pattern? Or rather, is it
> like anything? It is the basis of subjectivity that is the
> real problem.
Yes, Thomas Nagels' question: 'What it is like to be a bat?', could
indeed as well be asked for an enzyme. I did not claim to have solved
the hard problem. I just suggest to look for the hard problem in
experience in general and not to restrict it to being a special problem
we all of sudden get confronted with when we study consciousness. Thus
the hard problem is not specifically a problem of consciousness, but it
points to the general problem of what experience is (as well for an
enzyme as for a bat or a human).
By the way, this hard problem thinking was just a side remark.
>
> Robin Faichney
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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-- Mario Vaneechoutte Laboratory Bacteriology & Virology Blok A, De Pintelaan 185 University Hospital Ghent Belgium 9000 Ghent Tel: +32 9 240 36 92 Fax: +32 9 240 36 59 E-mail: Mario.Vaneechoutte@rug.ac.be Editor J. Memetics: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit=============================================================== This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit