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Article 3267 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Subject: Re: Strong AI and Panpsychism
Message-ID: <1992Jan29.214150.1709@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Indiana University
References: <1992Jan29.031823.6624@oracorp.com> <1992Jan29.170943.4706@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Jan29.210141.26133@cs.yale.edu>
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 92 21:41:50 GMT
Lines: 61

In article <1992Jan29.210141.26133@cs.yale.edu> mcdermott-drew@CS.YALE.EDU (Drew McDermott) writes:

>I find transcendent materialism to be a somewhat underhanded position,
>in that it allows one to profit from all the advantages of dualism
>while claiming to be a card-carrying materialist.

If you're going to put me into this class, note that I've never
claimed to be a materialist.  I'm more of a reluctant dualist.
Materalism is a much more attractive position in all kinds of
ways, but I just can't see how it can possibly handle the problem
of consciousness.  Put it this way: it seems entirely coherent to
me that God, if She had so chosen, could have created a universe
physically identical to this one, but completely lacking 
consciousness.  Therefore the existence of consciousness involves
a property of the universe over and above the physical properties.

[Note, by contrast: God could *not* have created a universe physically
identical to this one, but completely lacking e.g. life.  That's
what makes consciousness special -- it's a property of the universe
that's surprising, even once all the physical facts are granted.  Whereas
all other facts about the universe, e.g. biological facts, seem to
follow immediately from the physical facts by conceptual necessity.]

I'd be very happy to be proven wrong about this, and to be shown
how materialism could provide an explanation of consciousness,
but I've thought about this for a long, long time, with all my
prior sympathies lying in the materialist direction, and I
simply don't see how it's possible.

>Functionalists, including me, refuse to take this easy way out.  I am
>willing to bet that all the future "aspects" of matter that we
>discover will resemble the aspects we now know about, in that they
>will be governed entirely by indifferent mechanical laws.

I agree with this, which is why I think that if straightforward
functionalism is false, some kind of dualism must be true.

>That's why
>I think we should insist that cognitive science propose and evaluate
>models of mind using mundane mechanisms.

I agree with this too, but I don't think that the problem of 
consciousness is strictly in the domain of cognitive science.
Cognitive science is all about explaining human action, and it
seems to me that that can be done without invoking phenomenal
consciousness.

>Hence we cannot postpone the ethical horror show into the
>indefinite future when all problems will gently fade away into a mist
>of appreciation for the transcendent qualities of matter properly
>understood.

And I even agree with this.  I can't see how a theory of
phenomenal consciousness is going to help our ethics any.  For
the purposes of ethical theory, materialism might as well be
true.

-- 
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."


