On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 8:02 AM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: > > On 23 Feb 2010, at 06:45, Rex Allen wrote: > >> It seems to me that there are two easy ways to get rid of the hard >> problem. >> >> 1) Get rid of 1-p. (A la Dennettian eliminative materialism) >> >> OR >> >> 2) Get rid of 3-p. (subjective idealism) >> >> For the reasons I've touched on above I don't see that introducing the >> idea of a material world explains anything at all. Therefore, I vote >> for getting rid of 3-p, except as a calculational device. >> >> The idea of a material world that exists fundamentally and uncaused >> while giving rise to conscious experience is no more coherent than the >> idea that conscious experience exists fundamentally and uncaused and >> gives rise to the mere perception of a material world (as everyone >> accepts happens in dreams). >> >> What is the problem with this solution? > > You forget "3) > > 3) get rid of physical-3-p, but keep mathematical (arithmetical) 3-p. That > is "objective idealism". > > And this you need in any account ... if only as 'calculational device'. > Then computer science solves the hard part of the mind problem, with the > price of having to derive the physical laws from the belief that the numbers > develop naturally from self-introspection. And it is not so amazing we > (re)find the type of theory developed by the greeks among those who were > both mystic and rationalist. They did introspect themselves very deeply, > apparently. > > Wait my next post to David for how comp does solve the hard problem of > consciousness. > > Bruno Marchal
Hmmmm. Well, I think that your proposal suffers from the same explanatory gap as physicalism. So numbers and their relations and machines and whatnot exist platonically. Okay. So far so good. BUT I don't see why these things in any combination or standing in any relation to each other should give rise to conscious experience - any more than quarks and electrons stacked in certain arrangements should do so. I believe you that there is some mathematical description or representation of my experiences...but I don't see why the existence of such a representation, platonic OR physically embodied, would result in conscious experience...? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
