Re: Predictions by Kurzweil

From: Dan Fabulich (daniel.fabulich@yale.edu)
Date: Mon Feb 21 2000 - 02:36:53 MST


<not an argument>
A great intro to the subject is John Clark's "Waiting for Zed," which is
on the EXI website.

http://www.extropy.org/eo/articles/zed.htm

There you'll find a very solid account of why no purely physical account
of qualia will satisfy us, and a little argument (which didn't convince
me) is given for why we should accept qualia as existing non-physically
anyway. </not an argument>

<meta>
As for why it's considered a dead horse? Because the existence of qualia
is taken to be axiomatic/fundamental/unquestionable by those who accept
their existence. No one that I know of accepts qualia on a "contingent"
basis, but only on a "necessary" basis. No argument can convince a
believer in qualia that there aren't any. (Rorty makes a convincing
argument in _Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature_ that qualia are by
their very definition the things which [if there are any] we know about
with absolute and incontrovertible certainty).

By this same light, no argument can convince a consistent non-believer
that qualia exist. I take it that there are probably a few thinkers out
there who are making a mistake about what they ought to believe based on
what they take to be necessary, but the rest of them are consistent
believers or consistent non-believers.

Some further discussion may be possible, but, then, maybe not.
</meta>

-Dan

      -unless you love someone-
    -nothing else makes any sense-
           e.e. cummings



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