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Article 3790 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Subject: Re: Virtual Person?
Message-ID: <1992Feb16.224059.19893@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Indiana University
References: <1992Jan30.001623.12556@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <6188@skye.ed.ac.uk> <43302@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Date: Sun, 16 Feb 92 22:40:59 GMT
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In article <43302@dime.cs.umass.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:

>I agree with Jeff Dalton's questioning of David Chalmers' feeling
>of implausibility here [hope I got who said what right]: fading 
>consciousness and fading qualia seem quite natural to me.  We all 
>experience periods of semiconsciousness, literally every day during 
>hypnagoic reverie.  Fading qualia are less common, but certainly 
>experience is sometimes especially acute, one sees colors as more vivid, 
>etc.  This doesn't prove that qualia can fade, but I don't find it 
>"quite implausible."

As I've said a number of times before, it's not fading qualia per se
that are implausible; it's fading qualia accompanied by fixed
functional organization (e.g. you still *say* you see bright red, 
but you're really seeing tepid pink).  I can e-mail you a copy of
the old discussion if you like.

-- 
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."


