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>From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Subject: Re: Consciousness (was Re: Daniel Dennett)
Message-ID: <1991Nov27.033550.12018@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Indiana University
References: <1991Nov17.190935.5546@husc3.harvard.edu> <YAMAUCHI.91Nov26024948@indigo.cs.rochester.edu> <1991Nov26.135953.5926@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 91 03:35:50 GMT
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In article <1991Nov26.135953.5926@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:

>I was going to summarize McGinn's argument, but I changed my mind.  If this
>is to be an informed conversation, it would be irresponsible of me to
>initiate another discussion of a philosopher no one among my interlocutors
>has read.  The book is published by Blackwell; anyone wishing to discuss
>McGinn's views is hereby invited to read the first chapter.

Go on, summarize it -- otherwise we will be doomed to see this 
content-free discussion perpetuated until the end of time.

It seems to me that McGinn has nothing resembling a decent argument.  He
just has a position: viz. the position that humans might be "cognitively
closed" with respect to the correct theory of consciousness, so that a
correct theory might exist, but we would never be able to discover it.
Now I have some sympathy for this position in my more pessimistic
moments, but it's nevertheless pure speculation.  The only real argument
he puts forward for this position is remarkably poor.

I also don't see why you characterize McGinn as an anti-AI philosopher.
As far as I can tell, he has never written on the subject.  The
closest he has come was in "Could A Machine Be Conscious?", which
sensibly comes down affirmatively on the question in the title.  He
appears to be agnostic on the question of whether a digital computer
could be conscious, but doesn't seem have any deep problem with the
idea.  His main point is that it's hard to see how digital computation
could *explain* consciousness.  This is a point with which I'm in
sympathy, but it's not in opposition to even so-called "strong AI".

-- 
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."


