Re: The Cartesian Theater

Guru George (gurugeorge@sugarland.idiscover.co.uk)
Mon, 16 Jun 1997 20:22:41 +0100


On Mon, 16 Jun 1997 10:28:21 -0400
"Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com> wrote:

>
>> From: Brent Allsop <allsop@swttools.fc.hp.com>
>>
>> Yes, He [Dennett] basically argues that: we don't have qualia,
>> "It just seems that we do". (Quote from Consciousness explained.)
>>
>> But this is absurd if you think about it. An inacurate
>> seeming is some conscious knowledge that we have that does not
>> acurately model what it is suposed to represent. So he is basically
>> simply arguing we don't have qualia, we just have qualia that falsely
>> represents the fact that we have qualia. An obviously silly statement
>> that assumes we have qualia to start with.
>
>I am neither sure that you have accurately represented Dennett's
>arguments against qualia nor that the notion is "absurd..."
>
I think Dennett's idea is that there is no mental 'substance' from which
qualia could be made, and that our seeming to have them is a *judgement*
we make when probed, not a sort of phenomenal surface or 'thin film'
(made of - as he puts it - mental 'figment') that we could merely report
on like we would report on something physical we saw.
>

Guru George