On Sep 13, 9:54 pm, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > On 9/13/2011 4:26 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > On Sep 13, 3:24 pm, meekerdb<[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 9/13/2011 12:00 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > >>> If it was completely determined by other things, then it's existence > >>> would be redundant. > >> Which is why it doesn't exist. Unless you just mean that feeling that "I > >> want what I want > >> and I don't know why". > > Yes, that's the feeling. But it's also the feeling that "I want to > > know why". It's the existence of any feeling at all. Totally redundant > > to function. > > No it is not totally redundant. That's an illusion due to our use of > language. We > imagine that there are no feelings that go with words but that's false. Ask > yourself why > a sound logical argument feels compelling. It's not redundant to function; > it drives the > choice of what to think and say.
Yes, in reality we of course use feeling all the time, but I'm saying that that reality cannot be justified from a purely functionalist perspective. I don't imagine that there are no feelings that go with words at all. I think that words function like prisms and lenses of feeling. They are nothing but a way of focusing feeling. Functionalism would have us believe that a scripted computation can drive the choice of what to think and say in the exact same way that feeling can, which I think is radically overconfident. Craig -- 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.
