If our consciousness always includes consciousness of our body in relation to our environment, then how can it be a that a computer program, which, according to functionalism, can run in precisely the same way in different computers, is ever conscious? The differences in these machines are like the differences in bodies that are situated differently with respect to the same concrete object. The fact that they are not differently aware while their programs run in different machines with different characteristics and in different situations can be explained by the fact that they are not aware of their bodies at all, and that is not far from saying that they are not aware at all: they are just tools we use to understand the world.
How about defining it as an instance of functional complexity? And treating the list of properties as following necessarily from this definition? Okay, this is very diamond-in-the-rough (or perhaps zirconium...) but here goes my thoughts on the matter: (Complexity) Many diverse parts (functional) acting for the sake of the whole I think I need to add something like "not as the instrument of another" or something like that. Given that they act together as one whole and given entropy, etc., the organism will need to posses more order than its surroundings (homeostasis). It will therefore need to take in energy (nutrition), which it will use to sustain its readiness to interact with its environment so as to preserve its own being (homeostasis again?), but which will eventually break down (death), so that in order for that life form to continue it will need to duplicate itself (reproduction), which, upon occurring, will involve both development (growth) to maturity and...
Comments