On 31 March 2015 at 09:28, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On Tuesday, March 31, 2015, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> On 30 Mar 2015, at 10:06, LizR wrote: >> >> On 30 March 2015 at 19:26, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> Fading qualia in the setting of normal behaviour, if logically >>> possible, would destroy the common idea of consciousness that we have. >>> It would mean, for example, that you could have gone blind last week >>> but not realise it. You would look at a painting, describe the >>> painting, have an emotional response to the painting - but lack any >>> visual experience of the painting. If that is possible, what meaning >>> is left to attribute to the word "qualia"? >>> >>> Well, it would mean that comp is false, because the electronic >> replacements are not generating any conscious experience despite having >> their I/O matched to the rest of the brain. >> >> Yes, there would be p-zombies. Behaving like conscious person, but >> without any private knowledge, qualia, sensation or consciousness. >> > > And there would also be the possibility of partial p-zombies, which would > mean that private knowledge, qualia, sensation and consciousness make no > subjective difference, or equivalently that they don't exist. > Yes, exactly, partial zombies. This is sounding like Daniel Dennett's view, that consciousness etc don't "really" exist but are a sort of illusion or "user interface" or like "elan vital", some mysterious ineffable property that science will do away with once we understand enough. I don't necessarily believe this, but I need more than "an argument from incredulity" to convince me that it's wrong. -- 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/d/optout.
