[extropy-chat] Qualia Bet
gts
gts_2000 at yahoo.com
Mon Dec 26 01:12:07 UTC 2005
On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 18:29:18 -0500, Jef Allbright <jef at jefallbright.net>
wrote:
> I've tried and failed repeatedly to convey this understanding in the
> space of one or several emails. Others such as Daniel Dennett...
I have not read Dennett, but here is Chalmer's response from his essay
"Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness" at
http://consc.net/papers/facing.html
---
Ultimately, however, it is a theory of cognitive accessibility, explaining
how it is that certain information contents are widely accessible within a
system, as well as a theory of informational integration and
reportability. The theory shows promise as a theory of awareness, the
functional correlate of conscious experience, but an explanation of
experience itself is not on offer.
One might suppose that according to this theory, the contents of
experience are precisely the contents of the workspace. But even if this
is so, nothing internal to the theory explains why the information within
the global workspace is experienced. The best the theory can do is to say
that the information is experienced because it is globally accessible. But
now the question arises in a different form: why should global
accessibility give rise to conscious experience? As always, this bridging
question is unanswered.
Almost all work taking a cognitive or neuroscientific approach to
consciousness in recent years could be subjected to a similar critique.
The "Neural Darwinism" model of Edelman (1989), for instance, addresses
questions about perceptual awareness and the self-concept, but says
nothing about why there should also be experience. The "multiple drafts"
model of Dennett (1991) is largely directed at explaining the
reportability of certain mental contents. The "intermediate level" theory
of Jackendoff (1988) provides an account of some computational processes
that underlie consciousness, but Jackendoff stresses that the question of
how these "project" into conscious experience remains mysterious.
---
> I'm considering proceeding with this approach, but currently lack
> sufficient time
> beyond that for career and family.
By all means take care of your career and family first. I consider this
question to be on final frontier of science and philosophy. We're probably
way ahead of our time even to be considering it, much less trying to
answer it.
-gts
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