Re: More on qualia of consciousness and occam's razor

From: George Levy <glevy.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2004 10:38:49 -0800

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

> Eric Hawthorne writes:
>
> I'll grant you that the subjective experience of "red" etc cannot be
> derived from a theory of physics.
> However, by Occam's Razor we can say that the qualia that other people
> experience are the same as those that we experience.
> The reasoning is as follows:
>
> The theorem that the qualia are the same is justifiable on the simple
> theory that near-identical physical brain structure and function
> (amongst humans) leads to near-identical perception of the qualia of
> consciousness.


Function is the key term. This theorem agrees with the substitution
principle (in COMP) that says if you replace any brain component by a
functionally equivalent device using any arbitrary technology (wetware,
hardware, DNA, silicon, germanium, organic semiconductors, etc...) then
the feeling you get about any experience should be identical. It seems
that it is not the underlying substrate that is important but the
arrangement of that substrate as a functional entity.

Substrate (hardware), and arrangement of substrate (software) belong to
two different "levels." Experience and software belong to the same
level. Experience and hardware belong to different levels.

Looking at the implementation levels, it seems that for an experience to
feel identical for two observers, their software have to be identical.
Different softwares produce different experience. A Frenchman and an
Englishman have different experiences eating escargots.

George
Received on Mon Feb 02 2004 - 13:41:18 PST