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Article 4184 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Subject: Re: Quantum theory and consciousness (was Pansychism)
Message-ID: <1992Mar2.024526.25468@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Indiana University
References: <429@tdatirv.UUCP> <1992Feb27.232228.16472@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <44100@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 92 02:45:26 GMT
Lines: 37

In article <44100@dime.cs.umass.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:

>>chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
>>
>>On the other hand, it seems a perfectly coherent (counterfactual)
>>possibility that all the physical facts could be precisely as they are,
>>but without any qualia at all.  Even once all the physical facts about the
>>universe are fixed, the facts about qualia are still contingent.  So
>>there are contingent facts over and above the physical facts, and that's
>>enough to establish a weak form of dualism.

>	I assume you mean: all the physical facts *as far as we know 
>today*.  Dualism is only established if you believe that the physical
>facts we know now are all that are relevant to explaining the
>phenomenon.  Moreover we could know all the basic facts but not
>understand the consequences.

That's right.  But personally, I find it highly unlikely that new
physical facts are going to be uncovered that will be sufficiently
different in kind from currently-known physical facts that they will
force qualia upon us.  To be honest, I can't conceive of what such
facts would be like, or at least of why they should be called physical.
They'd have to be completely unlike the physical principles that we
deal with these days.

Your second alternative is also possible, but I can't see that it
applies in this case.  It seems to me that all the consequences
of physical laws are going to be more facts about physical
configuration, high-level organization and causation, and so on.
And the facts about qualia don't seem to be this kind of fact at all,
as witnessed by the conceptual coherence of the qualia-less
replica universe.

-- 
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."


