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Article 3286 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Subject: Re: Strong AI and Panpsychism
Message-ID: <1992Jan30.040751.29626@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Indiana University
References: <1992Jan29.210141.26133@cs.yale.edu> <1992Jan29.214150.1709@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <42422@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 92 04:07:51 GMT
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In article <42422@dime.cs.umass.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:

>I take it then that you feel that, in "Consciousness Explained,"
>Dennett didn't?  Not sure if you posted a reaction to this book...

Oh yes, let me count the ways...  Perhaps "Consciousness Explained
Away" might have been a better title.

Actually, I like Dennett's work, and think that if anybody were
going to give a satisfactory materialist/functionalist account of
consciousness, then he'd be the one.  The first 2/3 of the book
consists of some interesting speculative cognitive science, and
proposes some interesting possibilities for our cognitive
mechanisms, but doesn't really say much about the hard problems
of consciousness.  The last third of the book is where he performs
his hatchet job on qualia -- which were always the core of the
problem of consciousness -- and I found this sufficiently
unconvincing that my belief in the intractability of qualia for
functionalism was reinforced (i.e., if even Dennett can only come
up with bad arguments, then maybe bad arguments are all there are).

-- 
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."


