[MD] Consciousness & Moq.

[David Thomas]

On 8/21/10 11:40 AM, "David Buchanan" <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:

> I'm not so sure your description of him as a scientific materialist and a
> reductionist is very accurate.

Since this is almost a direct quote from Chalmers on his default or starting
position as he takes on the problem of consciousness your beef is with him
not me. 

I also noticed you conveniently avoid this:

>[Dave before]
> You left the impression that James concludes that "consciousness" does not
> exist. When in fact that is the furthest thing from the truth. As a powerful
> lecturer he is using this statement as a rhetorical devise to wake up his
> audience, to get their attention. Once he has their attention he goes on to
> make his main point that yes, "consciousness" does exist but as a
> psychological function. Which Chalmer's confirms on page 13 of his
> introduction to "The Conscious Mind".

Chalmers thinks it's important and you will miss out on the good stuff when
he lays it aside as one of the "easy parts" of the problem.

Brush up on your "supervenience." what the hell ever that is, it is a big
deal to Chalmers.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/supervenience/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervenience

A clue, supervenience is a kind of dependency relationship. No, not like you
being unable to go to sleep without your teddy bear. Well maybe? I don't
know. More like the biological level supervenes on the inorganic level. But
do the social and intellectual supervene on the bottom two? Does
"consciousness" interrupt that dependency? Does a Twinkie supervene all
life?

That is the "hard problem."

Stay tuned

Dave