[extropy-chat] Qualia Bet

[gts]

On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 14:07:33 -0500, Jef Allbright <jef at jefallbright.net>  
wrote:

> They're all physical systems reacting to their environment in physical,
> understandable ways.  What use is the concept of qualia in such a
> description?

This goes back to David Chalmers' so-called 'hard question', "At the end  
of the day, the same criticism applies to any purely physical account of  
consciousness. For any physical process we specify there will be an  
unanswered question: Why should this process give rise to experience?"

The answer to Chalmers' question is "Nobody knows." I suppose we should  
just leave it at that.


-gts