RE: What do you lose if you simply accept...

From: Jonathan Colvin <jcolvin.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 15:22:46 -0700

> [quoting Stathis]
> > >My curiosity could only be satisfied if I were in fact the
> duplicated
> > >system myself; perhaps this could be achieved if I "became
> one" with
> > >the new system by direct neural interface. I don't have to
> go to such
> > >lengths to learn about the new system's mass, volume,
> behaviour, or
> > >any other property, and in *this* consists the essential
> difference
> > >between 1st person and 3rd person experience. You can
> minimise it and
> > >say it doesn't really make much practical difference, but I don't
> > >think you can deny it.
> >
> >I can deny that there is anything special about it, beyond the
> >difference between A): *a description of an apple*; and B):
> *an apple*.
> >I don't think anyone would deny that there is a difference between A
> >and B (even with comp there is still a difference); but this
> "essential
> >difference" does not seem to have anything in particular to do with
> >qualia or experience.
> >
> >Jonathan Colvin
>
> Stathis: Can the description of the apple, or bat, or whatever
> meaningfully include what it is like to be that thing?

My argument (which is Dennet's argument) is that "what it is like to be that
thing" is identical to "being that thing". As Bruno points out, in 3rd
person level (ie. the level where I am describing or simulating an apple), a
description can not "be" a thing; but on the 1st person level (where a
description *is* the thing, from the point of view of the thing, inside the
simulation, as it were), then the description does "include" what it is like
to be that thing. But "include" is not the correct word to use, since it
subtly assumes a dualism (that the qualia exist somehow separate from the
mere description of the thing); the description *just is* the thing.

Jonathan
Received on Thu May 19 2005 - 18:26:41 PDT