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Article 3818 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: forbis@milton.u.washington.edu (Gary Forbis)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Virtual Person?
Message-ID: <1992Feb18.023513.9396@u.washington.edu>
Date: 18 Feb 92 02:35:13 GMT
References: <43302@dime.cs.umass.edu> <1992Feb16.185904.9343@psych.toronto.edu> <43391@dime.cs.umass.edu>
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In article <43391@dime.cs.umass.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>Long long ago, I asked if Searle had responded to the idea of replacing
>neurons by functionally-equivalent silicon chips.  My point was that this
>can be used as an intuition pump for the implications of Searle's position:
>a functionally equivalent silicon brain does not "understand" etc.  David
>Chalmers responded, yes, and in fact the intuition pump can itself be pumped
>by imagining the silicon replacement neuron by neuron, which would
>imply by Searle's position, that qualia would either have to fade or
>switch off at some point, and either alternative is implausible.  Jeff Dalton
>asked what's so implausible with fading qualia/consciousness?  And I
>concurred:  David Chalmers pump of the pump does nothing for me.  If
>functionally-equivalent silicon neurons don't have the mental magic
>for some reason, one would expect the qualia to fade.

I'm not sure I understand functionalism as it relates to qualia.

In that we can talk about a beinging having qualia, does it make sense
to talk about a "functionally-equivalent silicon neuron" that does not
retain qualia?  It would be too bad for me if in the course of such an
experiment I would have my qualia fade but not be able to notice or express
this fact.  What does this say about qualia that it has no functional basis
or effect?

--gary forbis@u.washington.edu


