[ExI] A paper that actually does solve the problem ofconsciousness

[John K Clark]

"Brent Allsop" <brent.allsop at comcast.net>

> I"m wondering if you would consider yourself a representationalist?

I think that's the sort of thing that gives philosophy a bad name, creating
a grand sounding name for something mundane.
"Representationalism is the philosophical position that the world we see in
conscious experience is not the real world itself"

Well duh! Obviously the image of a red strawberry that sometimes forms in
our head is not a red strawberry.

>"but merely a miniature virtual-reality replica of that world in an
>internal representation."

Merely?! A subjective experience is at least as real as a red strawberry,
and so is an illusion, any illusion. Subjectivity is the most important
thing in the universe, at least I think so.

> We believe consciousness to be real, representational

Everybody this side on a loony bin believes that, whatever a college
professor may write in an obscure journal to impress other college
professors.

> and composed of phenomenal properties

And everybody except snake handling Christians and Islamic fundamentalists,
that is to say loonies, believe that too.

> which are categorically different than behavioral properties.

That part tells me nothing. Philosophical categories are a human invention;
they are not universal, not even among humans.

> We exclude all supernatural concepts and entities, such as spirits or
> souls that survive death

I agree that souls will not allow you to survive death, but information
might. If you reject souls and information also then you have no explanation
why a person is conscious but a corpse is not, you can't even know if it's
true.

> In his book: "Consciousness Explained" Daniel Dennett claims we don't
> experience qualia "It just seems like we do." (P 375)

It's been many years since I read that book but I very strongly suspect
Dennett was trying to be funny and ironic when he wrote that (I can seem
myself making a similar remark when I'm trying to be a smartass) because on
its face it makes no sense, and I think Dennett is smart enough to know
that.

  John K Clark