From: Dan Fabulich (daniel.fabulich@yale.edu)
Date: Mon Dec 20 1999 - 01:02:10 MST
'What is your name?' 'John Clark.' 'Do you deny having written the
following:':
> Obviously the sound sight and feeling of broken glass is not broken
> glass and nobody knows what broken glass is, but that doesn't mean the
> sensations don't exist.
<sarcasm>Ah, yes, OBVIOUSLY.</sarcasm>
I "know" what broken glass is; at least, I use the term correctly as far
as anyone else can tell. I "know" about all sorts of things out there in
the physical world.
> >he means that the spooky qualia of the Experience of Left isn't
> >real, that the Experience of Right isn't real, etc.
>
> To repeat, for that statement to be meaningful you must explain how things
> would be different if they were "real", whatever "real" means.
I hope you're not trying to enunciate logical positivism, there. Logical
positivism, you'll recall, is the philosophy of language which states that
unless a statement is empirically verifiable, it is meaningless.
Unfortunately for the logical positivists, the statement of logical
positivism, the statement that "unless a statement is empiricially
verifiable, it is meaningless," is not empirically verifiable. (What
experiment could you perform to check on this?) Therefore, if logical
positivism is true, then it is meaningless, or, if it is meaningful, then
it is false.
Anyway, when I say that some thing is real, I mean that it exists; it's
not real if it doesn't. You've employed these terms in the past, so just
recall what you meant when you said them at the time.
How would things be different if Experiences existed or if they didn't?
The difference, if any, would be subtle. So subtle, in fact, that it
would be totally impossible for anyone to distinguish *in any way* whether
they existed or not. So subtle indeed that I NORMALLY argue that the
whole idea of "qualia" is a silly one, but I've been having so much fun
being a "zombie" that I sometimes forget myself.
That's my original argument, if you recall: nobody could tell the
difference if qualia existed or not. Occam's Razor therefore tells me to
throw them out as a totally useless idea. Otherwise we'd be justified in
saying that coupled with every Newtonian force is a schmorce which,
otherwise, has no effect on the system, but is nonetheless undeniable.
Pop quiz: If consciousness is perfectly correlated with intelligence, why
talk about consciousness at all? Why does consciousness matter? If it
doesn't MATTER, why should we assume that it exists? (Hint: "It matters a
lot to me" is not a good answer; I don't want you to AFFIRM that it
matters, but to justify that claim.)
> I can't really blame the actor who portrays him for failing to
> accomplish the impossible but Data seems just as conscious as any
> other character on the show. Caned responses like "I am unemotional"
> are about as convincing as a 6 year old kid in a cheap robot costume
> walking in a stiff jerky manner and saying in a monotone "Look at me,
> I am a robot".
Hmmm. I guess Ken and I can quit shambling about and pretending to eat
brains, then.
-Dan
-unless you love someone-
-nothing else makes any sense-
e.e. cummings
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