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Article 3584 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: mcdermott-drew@CS.YALE.EDU (Drew McDermott)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Functionalist Theory of Qualia
Message-ID: <1992Feb7.203648.8033@cs.yale.edu>
Date: 7 Feb 92 20:36:48 GMT
References: <1992Feb4.193653.25027@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <1992Feb5.220638.9673@cs.yale.edu> <1992Feb6.055620.23808@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
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  In article <1992Feb6.055620.23808@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:

  >True, the theory seems incredible, in that it effectively denies the
  >existence of qualia, when nothing could seem more real.  
  ...
   Still, it seems to me that avoidance of dualism is the *only*
  >reason for accepting a theory such as the one you've outlined.  Now this
  >isn't an entirely bad reason, as there are good arguments why materialism
  >is otherwise an antecedently more plausible hypothesis, but it still
  >seems to be flimsy grounds on which to base a theory that seems to
  >blatantly contradict the apparent facts.

There are two basic grounds (besides avoiding dualism):

1. The only other materialistic alternative is some kind of
transcendent solution in which nerves don't just tingle but feel
themselves tingle.  Better to go out on a limb with the mundane sort
of materialism now.

2. The theory makes testable predictions.  Eventually we must actually
see self-modeling neural circuits (or "software") in mammalian brains.
If we don't, the theory is wrong.  

Besides, the theory does not contradict our experience at all.  It
predicts that our experiences should seem to us exactly as they do,
even after the theory is understood.

                                             -- Drew McDermott


