Ben Goertzel wrote:
Richard,
So are you saying that: "According to the ordinary scientific standards
of 'explanation', the subjective experience of consciousness cannot be
explained ... and as a consequence, the relationship between subjective
consciousness and physical data (as required to be elucidated by any
solution to Chalmers' "hard problem" as normally conceived) also cannot
be explained."
If so, then: according to the ordinary scientific standards of
explanation, you are not explaining consciousness, nor explaining the
relation btw consciousness and the physical ... but are rather
**explaining why, due to the particular nature of consciousness and its
relationship to the ordinary scientific standards of explanation, this
kind of explanation is not possible**
??
No!
If you write the above, then you are summarizing the question that I
pose at the half-way point of the paper, just before the second part
gets underway.
The "ordinary scientific standards of explanation" are undermined by
questions about consciousness. They break. You cannot use them. They
become internally inconsistent. You cannot say "I hereby apply the
standard mechanism of 'explanation' to Problem X", but then admit that
Problem X IS the very mechanism that is responsible for determining the
'explanation' method you are using, AND the one thing you know about
that mechanism is that you can see a gaping hole in the mechanism!
You have to find a way to mend that broken standard of explanation.
I do that in part 2.
So far we have not discussed the whole paper, only part 1.
Richard Loosemore
-------------------------------------------
agi
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