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Article 3982 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: GUNTHER@WMAVM7.VNET.IBM.COM ("Mike Gunther")
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Virtual Person?
Message-ID: <9202242145.AA12836@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 24 Feb 92 21:44:11 GMT
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References: <1992Feb22.001104.8453@oracorp.com>
            <6595@pkmab.se>

Daryl McCullough:

>                     . . .    The possibility of fading qualia would
>imply that despite what we would like to believe, our introspection is
>not reliable in telling us whether we possess qualia. . . .

Or maybe our introspection is just not reliable in telling us whether
the qualia are fading.

>The possibility of the sudden disappearance of all qualia once a
>threshold is reached doesn't suffer from these problems. . . .

I tend to agree.  Fading qualia (with no behavioral difference) would
only work if nature conspired to fade qualia, awareness, and memory
in strict synchronization.

>It seems to me that functionalism has the least weird consequences,
>although every theory of consciousness has its share of problems.

Especially the problem of verifiability, as Kristoffer Eriksson
points out so delightfully below.


Kristoffer Eriksson:

>I think qualia resides in the hair.
>When people start loosing hair, their qualia fade . . .

I like this theory.

Strangely, I just got a haircut this afternoon, and my qualia didn't
fade at all... or did they?  Maybe I just didn't notice it.

--Mike


