[extropy-chat] Qualia Bet

[gts]

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