From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!aisb!jeff Tue Feb 11 15:26:08 EST 1992
Article 3623 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Functionalist Theory of Qualia
Keywords: qualia, functionalism
Message-ID: <1992Feb10.211812.4075@aisb.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 10 Feb 92 21:18:12 GMT
References: <1992Feb5.220638.9673@cs.yale.edu> <1992Feb6.194356.3126@aisb.ed.ac.uk> <1992Feb7.051009.27378@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
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In article <1992Feb7.051009.27378@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
>In article <1992Feb6.194356.3126@aisb.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>
>>For what it's worth, I find your version of it much less incredible
>>than Dave Chalmers's (assuming that the two of you aren't agreeing).
>
>For what it's worth, the issue at stake here, i.e. functionalism vs.
>property dualism, is more or less completely orthogonal to the
>question of whether thermostats (say) have qualia, which I presume
>is where your incredulity kicks in.


I was answering an article in which McDermott wrote:

  [The dogmatic tone of the foregoing is due to the task at hand, which
  is explaining exactly what the computationalist theory of qualia *is.*

So I would think that views on qualia were relevant.

On the other hand, I am not convinced the questions are completely
orthogonal, in the sense that you may be more likely to find a
certain position on one isue reasonable if you have a certain
position on the other.


