On 9/13/2011 10:14 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
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.
Your presumption is that the scripted computation would not instantiate feeling. If the
scripted computation include input from the world and action in the world (which is what I
think you call "sensor" and "motive") then it would instantiate feeling. What is
radically overconfident is your assumption that feeling can only be instantiated by
organic compounds, neurons, brains or some other human component (you're never really
clear about which).
Brent
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