( Read more... )

John Searle, a philosopher, says strong artificial intelligence cant exist in his writing Minds, Brains and Progams. A computer can never really understand what is being said to it ( Read more... )

Our conceptual progress on religion and that on mind are equally constrained by the same logical error, one which falsely categorizes a certain field akin to another which seems more familiar.

This error is wonderfully illustrated in that classic expression substance dualism. Two substances? Evidently, the question of substance dualism is the ( Read more... )

Here is a proof that some qualia are reducible. If the very notion of this is so disgusting that you are dissuaded from even looking at the proof, go right to the explanation after the proof, which accounts for (and reconciles) your sentiment ( Read more... )

EDIT: Here's the heart of the topic -What can we infer from the proposition that qualia are irreducible? If qualia are irreducible, then a quale has no accidental properties - it's essence is indistinguishable from itself. If I can tell the difference between two qualitative experiences, they are not the same. I can change the qualitative ( Read more... )

Hurray. Everybody look at me, the physics troll is actually making a post.

( Substance Dualism and Conservation of Energy: They're Not Incompatible, Bitches. )

    It is an oft expressed opinion that qualia, those qualitative aspects of experience, constitute the major philosophical problem for functionalism. I'd like to offer a short argument for why this is not so.

Qualia are sometimes understood as those aspects of our experience over and above the functional relationships that obtain between our ( Read more... )

What is the appeal of epiphenomenalism? It doesn't explain how mental events are caused by brain states, nor does it help us predict/control anything new. Why bother with this theory?

Locke and his descendents have spent entire philosophical careers claiming that personhood (or identity over time) is to be identified using S-at-t time-slices. You at 5:30 thursday are the same you at 6:48 Friday because the latter can contain a memory of the former. Locke, Grice, Shoemaker, Perry, all of them are entirely wrong ( Read more... )