From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!wupost!decwrl!access.usask.ca!ccu.umanitoba.ca!zirdum Tue Feb 11 15:25:48 EST 1992
Article 3590 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Antun Zirdum)
Subject: Re: Functionalist Theory of Qualia
Message-ID: <1992Feb8.023517.20173@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
References: <1992Feb5.220638.9673@cs.yale.edu> <1992Feb6.055620.23808@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <1992Feb7.203648.8033@cs.yale.edu>
Date: Sat, 8 Feb 1992 02:35:17 GMT
Lines: 23

In article <1992Feb7.203648.8033@cs.yale.edu> mcdermott-drew@CS.YALE.EDU (Drew McDermott) writes:
>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.  
>
I believe that self modeling nearal 'circuits' have already been seen in
the brain. When brain surgery is performed it has been shown that the
body is mapped out on the surface, and by stimulating those parts of
the brain directly the subject believes that some parts of his body are
being affected (heat/cold/pain/etc...)

>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




