Re: David Gerrold - War with the Cthorr

::: Another question-does it imply digital computers would become
::: conscious under the right cir***stances? 

:: Yes. 

: Gene Ward Smith <genewardsmith@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
: Then it appears you are an epiphenomenalist, as there is no
: possibility of a functional role fo consciousness in digital
: computers. 

Hm...  Nope, don't see it.  Since what I sketched out was basically
the argument from causal closure, applied to human beings, and with
some small digressions and handwaving, and since epiphenomenalism in
most forms is pretty much incompatible with the implications of that,
I don't see how you come to that conclusion.

Possibly you mean I think there's no such thing as consciousness,
despite what I said about it?  Or something?

Basically, your position seems to be "existance of qualia imply a
non-physical component to the mind".  I disagree.  Fi****ng around for
some jargon, my position would be that all mental phenomena, including
qualia, are supervenient on the physical world.  Maybe you disagree,
but it seems to be a philosophically coherent position, or at least
seems to have some highfalutin philosophers who subscribe to it.

    http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/

    (6) Reductionism is true iff for each mental predicate F there is a
        neurological predicate G such that a sentence of the form 'x is
        F iff x is G' expresses a bridge law. 
    
    Once again, however, there is no reason at all why physicalists need
    to accept that reductionism is true in the sense of (6).  Indeed,
    many philosophers have argued that there are very strong empirical
    reasons to deny that anything like (6) is going to be the case.  The
    reason is this.  Many different neurological processes (whether in
    our own species or a different one) could underlie the same
    psychological process -- indeed, given science fiction, even
    non-neurological processes might underlie the same psychological
    process.  But if multiple realizability -- as this sort of idea is
    called -- is true, then (6) seems to be false.  (Fodor 1974, but for
    recent alternative views, see Kim 1993). 


Wayne Throop   throopw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
   http://sheol.org/throopw