On 26/06/07, Russell Standish <lists.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
RS: This sounds to me like you're paraphrasing Bruno's programme.
DN: Yes, but I only realised this after I'd painfully thunk myself into it
during my exchange with Brent. But I think I learned something in the
process, even tho' I'm not exactly sure what.
RS: The only snag is how you can eliminate the possibility of a
non-functionalist model also explaining the same set of physical laws.
DN: I suppose so.
RS: In fact the "God did it" model probably indicates this can't be done.
DN: But would having the possibility of two entirely different causal
accounts of the same thing be bug or a feature?
- Show quoted text -
> On Mon, Jun 25, 2007 at 10:17:57PM +0100, David Nyman wrote:
> >
> > Here's what's still not completely clear to me - perhaps you can assist
> me
> > with this. We don't know *which* set of physical events is in effect
> > selected by the functionalist account, even though it may be reasonable
> to
> > believe that there is one. Given this, it appears that should we be
> finally
> > convinced that only a functional account of 1-person phenomena uniquely
> > survives all attempted refutation, we can never in that case provide any
> > 'distinguished' bottom up physical account of the same phenomena. IOW
> we
> > would be faced with an irreducibly top-down mode of explanation for
> > consciousness, even though there is still an ineliminable implication to
> > specific fundamental aspects of the physics in 'instantiating' the
> bottom-up
> > causality. Does this indeed follow, or am I still garbling something?
> >
> > David
> >
>
> This sounds to me like you're paraphrasing Bruno's programme.
>
> The only snag is how you can eliminate the possibility of a
> non-functionalist model also explaining the same set of physical
> laws. In fact the "God did it" model probably indicates this can't be
> done.
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
> Mathematics
> UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpcoder.domain.name.hidden
> Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >
>
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list.domain.name.hidden
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list-unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Received on Tue Jun 26 2007 - 21:46:14 PDT