Quentin Anciaux wrote:
> Hi Brent,
>
> Le Vendredi 21 Juillet 2006 17:52, Brent Meeker a écrit :
>
>>That's simply an assumption. When we know how to make a conscious brain we
>>may find that we do have a good idea of what it experiences - as evidenced
>>by its self-reports and other behavoir.
>>
>>
>>>On the other hand,
>>>if you know every empirical fact about a non-conscious entity well enough
>>>to make an exact working replica, then you know everything there is to
>>>know about it. We could define consciousness as what is left over when
>>>you subtract what can be known about an entity by an external observer
>>>from what can be known by being that entity yourself.
>>
>>If there is anything left over. I don't think it is sufficiently
>>appreciated that this "unknowability" is an assumption.
>
>
> Frow what you say, I understand that you could know what it is like to being
> myself if I'd described to you my all life ? Whatever I could say about me
> will be 3rd persons communicable fact...
No, the hypothetical was stronger than that: it was that I knew exactly how your brain worked to the
degree that I could make one. You certainly don't know how your brain works, so while it is in
princple communicable, it would not be part of your self description.
>Even when I describe a feeling, I
> describe it in a 3rd communication way, and you could infer from your own
> feeling what it would be like, never to be sure it is... because if you were
> sure of this, then you'll no longer be Brent Meeker, but me.
I don't think that follows. When I'm sure that my wife is in pain from torn cartilage in her knee,
it doesn't mean that I am my wife. But in any case, being sure is a higher standard than we apply
to any scientific belief.
Brent Meeker
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Received on Fri Jul 21 2006 - 16:09:07 PDT