On 2/21/07, Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > A human with an intact brain behaving like an awake human could not > > really be a zombie unless you believe in magic. However, it is possible > > to conceive of intelligently-behaving beings who do not have an internal > > life because they lack the right sort of brains. I am not suggesting > > that this is the case and there are reasons to think it is unlikely to > > be the case, but it is not ruled out by any empirical observation. > > > > Stathis Papaioannou > > The problem is that there doesn't seem to be any conceivable observation > that could rule it out. So by Popper's rule it is a not a scientific > proposition but rather a metaphysical one. This is another way of saying > that there is no agreed upon way of assigning a truth or probability value > to it. > > Brent Meeker
This is the usual accusation, but in one sense first person experience is perfectly easily verified - by the first person. This is a problem for science because we want our experiments to be third person repeatable and verifiable, otherwise anyone could make up anything, but arguably this is a practical rather than philosophical requirement. Stathis Papaioannou --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
