Ben Goertzel wrote:
Ed,
BTW on this topic my view seems closer to Richard's than yours, though
not anywhere near identical to his either. Maybe I'll write a blog post
on consciousness to clarify, it's too much for an email...
I am very familiar with Dennett's position on consciousness, as I'm sure
Richard is, but I consider it a really absurd and silly argument. I'll
clarify in a blog post sometime soon, but I don't have time for it now.
Anyway, arguing that experience basically doesn't exist, which is what
Dennett does, certainly doesn't solve the hard problem as posed by
Chalmers ... it just claims that the hard problem doesn't exist...
ben
Agreed.
I like Dennett's analytical style in many ways, but I was disappointed
when I realized where he was going with the multiple drafts account.
He falls into a classic trap. Chalmers says: "Whooaa! There is a big,
3-part problem here: (1) We can barely even define what we mean by
"consciousness", (2) That fact of its indefinability seems almost
intrinsic to the definition of it!, and then (3) Nevertheless, most of
us are convinced that there is something significant that needs to be
explained here."
So Chalmers is *pointing* at the dramatic conjunction of the three
things <inexplicability>, <inexplicability that seems intrinsic to the
definition> and <needs to be explained> ... and he is saying that these
three combined make a very, very hard problem.
But then what Dennett does is walk right up and say "Whooaa! There is a
big problem here: (1) You can barely even define what you mean by
"consciousness", so you folks are just confused."
Chalmers is trying to get Dennett to go upstairs and look at the problem
from a higher perspective, but Dennett digs in his heels and insists at
looking at the problem *only* from the ground floor level. He can only
see the fact there is a problem with defining it, he cannot see the fact
that this problem is itself interesting.
What I have tried to do is take it one step further and say that if we
understand the nature of the confusion we can actually resolve it
(albeit in a weird kind of way).
Richard Loosemore
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agi
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