On 27 February 2014 14:02, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote:
In other words, why, in a functionalist/materialist world would we need a > breakable program to keep telling us that our hand is not Alien? When you > start by assuming that I'm always wrong, then it becomes very easy to > justify that with ad hoc straw man accusations. I do not in fact start with that assumption and, if you believe that I do, I suggest you should question it. I do find however that I am unable to draw the same conclusion as you from the examples you give. They simply seem like false inferences to me (and to Stathis, based on his comment). If you have a compelling argument to the contrary, I wish you would find a way to give it in a clearer form. I can't see that what you say above fits the bill. You seem to regard rhetorical questions beginning "why would we need..?" as compelling arguments against a functional account, but they seem to me to be beside the point. They invite the obvious rejoinder that AHS doesn't seem in principle to present any special difficulties to functionalism in explaining the facts in its own terms. You recently proposed the example of tissue rejection which invited a similar response. None of this is to say that I don't regard functional / material accounts as problematic, but this is for a different reason; I think they obfuscate the categorical distinctions between two orthogonal versions of "the facts": at the reduced level of function and at the integrated level of sensory awareness / intention. Comp, for example, seeks to remedy this obfuscation by elucidating principled correlations between formal notions of reduction and integration via computational theory. Hence, per comp, the principle of digital substitution is not the terminus of an explanation but the starting point for a deeper theory. ISTM that alternative theories cannot avoid a similar burden of explanation. David -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
