Posted: May 19, 2012 1:25 am
ADParker wrote:Oldskeptic wrote:I'd like this addressed by Amkerman
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/post1 ... l#p1320257
How is consciousness without a brain any more possible than a square circle?
Well it is more possible in the sense that the former is not logically impossible.
The definition of consciousness need not include its requirement of a physical substrate (a brain.) While the definitions of squares and circles include mutually contradictory requirements; A square has exactly four sides, no more, no less, and a circle has exactly infinity.
But that is about as far as it goes; logically possible.
This isn't quite right, it may very well be the case that consciousness requires a physical substrate, we don't know. It's the imprecision of the definition that leads to doubt rather than any property or lack thereof, of logic. Or to put it away we require the axioms of plane geometry in addition to the logical axioms/inference schemes of first or second order logic in order to prove a contradiction from the assertion that an object is both square and circular, it is not a product of the logical axioms alone.
It's also highly dubious to say that a circle has an exact infinity of sides. Indeed it has no straight edge at all, with a curvature defined at every point of its boundary.