Hacker News Reader

Comment by alasdair_ | Hacker News Reader

> I would certainly say consciousness is 'something more', and that this something more has to be something non-material (or at least using 'materials' that have wildly different properties than what we observe using the scientific method).

If you're interested in having that idea challenged, I heartily recommend reading "Godel, Escher, Bach" - the book explains how complexity (perhaps to the point of consciousness) can emerge from "simple" systems.

View on HN

I certainly am interested in this, but I also would like to note that this is not just a matter of something 'more complex' arising and that I lack the imagination necessary to see how something very very complex can arise. Rather, subjective experience is a phenomenon that, no matter how complex your system is, is qualitatively different.

It's not like this is a trivial problem that philosophers of mind have figured out long ago. As someone else mentioned in this thread, it is a very deep problem. If you want to have your view challenged I encourage you to read any introductory book to philosophy of mind.

I always like having my views challenged :) can you recommend any particular text or would the top hit on amazon be sufficient?

Also, in terms of GEB, the book shows how self-reference leads to a system being able to make statemets about itself, leading to, eventually, something more than (apparently) the sum of their parts. It’s a funky mix of philosophy and math and I think you’d like it.

https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Mind-Short-Introduction/dp...

I'll read GEB :)

Thank you! I ended up buying Jaworski's Philosophy of Mind: A Comprehensive Introduction before I saw your comment. So far it's interesting stuff! Many thanks for suggesting this topic :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com