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Article 4105 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Virtual Person?
Message-ID: <1992Feb27.235008.18931@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Date: 27 Feb 92 23:50:08 GMT
References: <1992Feb22.001104.8453@oracorp.com>
Organization: Indiana University
Lines: 34

In article <1992Feb22.001104.8453@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com writes:

>It seems like to me that the plausibility of fading qualia (with no
>change to behavior) is about the same as the plausibility that we
>*have* no qualia (only the illusion of qualia). If you can imagine
>that your qualia could fade away gradually without your ever becoming
>aware of it, then it seems to me that you have no good argument that
>this hasn't already happened. The possibility of fading qualia would
>imply that despite what we would like to believe, our introspection is
>not reliable in telling us whether we possess qualia. Without invoking
>the reliability of introspection, we have no reason for believing that
>*anyone* possesses qualia (unless, of course, we become functionalists
>or, heaven help us, behaviorists).

An argument much like this is at the base of a very good article by
Sydney Shoemaker, called "Functionalism and Qualia", reprinted in
_Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology_ Vol 1 (edited by Ned Block,
MIT Press, 1981).  He argues from the fact that we can introspect qualia
to the conclusion that functionalism must be true for qualia (if absent
qualia were possible, then introspection would be unreliable).  I don't
quite buy his conclusion that that shows that functionalism is true for
qualia, as I don't think it establishes that absent qualia are *logically*
impossible (which is what he claims).  But I do think it establishes (or
makes plausible) the conclusion that absent qualia are *nomically*
impossible (so the reliability of introspection is brought about by an
empirical fact about the way qualia are grounded in the world).  So qualia
may not be functionally defined, but at least they supervene on the
functional.  This is a really terrific article (maybe the most insightful
article I've read about qualia), though it's quite dense; I recommend it.

-- 
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."


