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So something like say “false class consciousness” somehow seems to work in a vitalist way without being vulnerable to empiricist critiques. Because it derives its vitalism from individual, empiricism-proof, consciousness
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Ah. I frequently exhibit this problem discussing machine intelligence, and have been guilty of dismissing it as a metaphysical question. I'm curious if Mary Shelley readers had the same debate back in her day.
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Hmm off the many ways you could put together a random jumble of electrical parts and batteries, only a tiny percent will form stably functioning circuits. So you could argue that vitalism is a sort of improbable-circuitry position.
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I guess part of problem is that consciousness is defined partly as a felt experience, which are not communicable between sapient entities, so knowing if an entity has same internal experience as you or one that's just Chinese Room'ing a simulacra of one seems impossible.
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Yeah, and I think vitalists and strict empiricists differ in how much benefit of doubt they give to the possibility of there being a non-trivial boundary to “living” conditions
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