[ExI] Zombie glutamate

[Brent Allsop]

On 2/14/2015 3:40 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> On 15 Feb 2015, at 9:18 am, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com 
> <mailto:johnkclark at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Feb 14, 2015  Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at canonizer.com 
>> <mailto:brent.allsop at canonizer.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     > Tomaz, William, and many others, it seems to me from what they
>>     say, still don't understand what a redness quale is or is not.
>>
>>
>> You keep saying stuff like that but I would maintain that there is 
>> not a single member of this list who believes that redness and 
>> electromagnetic waves with a wavelength of  650 nm are the same 
>> thing. And they didn't need your paper to figure it out.
>>
>>     > how can you prove to everyone, qualitatively, experimentally,
>>     whether it is system structure
>>
>>
>> You can't. You can't prove anything about consciousness to a third 
>> party and so obsessing over it is a lot like video games, a complete 
>> waste of time.
>
> What you can prove is that IF a being is conscious THEN its functional 
> equivalent would also be conscious. This implies that consciousness is 
> a necessary side-effect of certain types of behaviour.
>

How is this in any way a "proof"?  How would you convince, anyone but a 
functionalist, that this is a "proof"?  Has this argument, that it is a 
"proof" ever converted anyone, anywhere?  Even chalmers doesn't call it 
a "proof".  In fact, if the prediction that reality is a materialist 
theory, much like the 3 color world described in the paper is validated 
by experimental science, this "conjecture" at best will clearely be 
proven, or at least demonstrable to everyone, that functionalism and 
it's so called "hard problem" is a that has been leading everyone 
completely astray for WAY to long, preventing everyone from making one 
of the most profound physical discoveries - ever.

And, when you talk about "zombie glutmate", what I would like to see is 
what would you propose calling, whatever the equivalent term would be in 
some "functionalist" theoretical world?  I mean "zombie functional 
isomorph" may cut it in philosophical circles, but it certainly would 
never make it in any theoretical physics certicles since it is so 
obviously not even definable, in physical terms, let alone detectable or 
testable or falsifiably.  Philosophers love terms that aren't 
falsifiable, because nobody can falsify them.  But they are also 
completely useless in any theoretical science.

It'd be a lot easier for experimental scientists to accept what you are 
describing, if you could define it in better terminology, in testable, 
or at least falsifiable ways.

Brent

















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