From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!bronze!chalmers Tue Apr  7 23:24:09 EDT 1992
Article 4919 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Xref: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca comp.ai.philosophy:4919 sci.philosophy.tech:2508
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!bronze!chalmers
>From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Subject: Re: A rock implements every FSA
Message-ID: <1992Apr4.175511.24556@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Indiana University
References: <1992Apr3.084449.10635@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Apr3.180407.28679@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <1992Apr4.015204.10671@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: Sat, 4 Apr 92 17:55:11 GMT
Lines: 26

In article <1992Apr4.015204.10671@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:

>Again, the degree of necessity is the last, if not the least of your
>problems (for, if functionalism is true, biological necessity is the same
>as physical necessity); the first one has to do with giving an appropriate
>semantics for your conditionals.  That your conflicting requirements simply
>won't allow you to do: you can either stipulate trans-world identity
>conditions for mind-brains, or for their properties, but not for both.
>Choose the former, and you lose the conditionals; choose the latter, and
>you lose personal identity.

As I've made clear on a number of occasions, I subscribe to Parfit's
treatment of personal identity, so that there need not be determinate
facts about personal identity across worlds.

>You seem to be assuming that nomological connection carries no metaphysical
>import.  I suggest that you revise your ideas about ontological commitment;
>Quine's "On What There Is" makes for an excellent antidote against your
>metaphysical horror.

I have no idea why you think I think this.  I'm a dualist, remember?

-- 
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."


