Re: 2C Mary

From: Pete Carlton <pmcarlton.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 17:01:04 -0700

On Tuesday, June 3, 2003, at 03:17 PM, Colin Hales wrote:
> Re the latter thought:
> Can I suggest reading a pile of Daniel Dennett? The
> 'representationalist' or its extremum: the "eliminativist" end of
> consciousness is, as are all other philosophical positions as far as I
> can tell, both right and wrong.

Hmm.. I've read a few piles of Dennett myself, so I wonder what your
take is on the essays "Instead of Qualia" and "Quining Qualia".. I
believe Dennett makes a good case that before you seek confirmation for
your favorite theory behind "qualia", you first ought to argue that the
very idea of "qualia" is something worth taking seriously.

Also.. you say that there are 3 things in 2C Mary's brain..the two
points and their distance..well, why not every subdivision of that
distance too? Or every set of subdivisions?

You ask:
>What argument removes that third 'thing' from Mary as an (cognitive)
entity occupying our universe? I find I can no longer dismiss this
third thing.

I have an argument: no 'things' in this sense can be cited as playing
any informative, explanatory roles in Mary's behavior. In any case one
ought to have arguments >for< including entities in theories, not
against.

(..sorry to occupy everything-list with this, but I'd be interested in
continuing somewhere else. One day I'd like to have the time to
discuss how consciousness relates to the computationalist TOE views
presented here (especially Bruno's and Juergen's) though..)
Received on Tue Jun 03 2003 - 20:02:20 PDT