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Article 3365 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Subject: Re: Strong AI and panpsychism (was Re: Virtual person?)
Message-ID: <1992Feb1.213421.6400@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Indiana University
References: <1992Jan30.171309.1168@memstvx1.memst.edu>
Date: Sat, 1 Feb 92 21:34:21 GMT
Lines: 21

In article <1992Jan30.171309.1168@memstvx1.memst.edu> langston@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:

>  In the discussion of consciousness in this thread, are we adopting the
>'objective' view of consciousness (as I try to argue), or a more third-
>person, subjective view?  If the subjective experience is what is
>being considered here as consciousness, I would argue that this could be
>explained as an agent's (or an agent's processes) goal-directed behaviour
>regarding incoming information.

I don't know what the "third-person, subjective view" is.  I'm talking
about the first-person view, the inner feel of consciousness.  If you
characterize consciousness from the third-person view, then explaining
it becomes no more difficult than explaining most cognitive phenomena;
but the first-person view was always where the mystery lay.  Talking
about "goal-directed behaviour" doesn't begin to explain why the
states that produce such behaviour should have an inner feel.

-- 
Dave Chalmers                            (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)      
Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University.
"It is not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable."


