> On Monday 08 September 2003 14:37, Ben Goertzel wrote: > > > The problem is to > > > fit qualia > > > into a pure physicalistic ontology. Physical theories because of their > > > success have become the measure of all things. > > > > I understand your perspective, but mine is different. I'm not > so sure that > > physical theories are the measure of all things. Physicalistic > > reductionism is just one among many useful views of the world. Perhaps > > where qualia are concerned, it's not the most important or useful view? > > But isn't interactionistic mind-body dualism the alternative?
My view is as follows... I see physics as a collection of patterns in the experienced world. It's a very, very powerful and intense collection of patterns. But nevertheless, it's not totally comprehensive, in the sense that there are some patterns in the experienced world that are not part of physics, but are rather "complementary" to physics (in the Niels Bohr sense of complementarity). Qualia, perhaps, are in this set of patterns that are complementary to the patterns comprising physics. Now, physics sees my "experienced world" as the product of some physical system (my brain, etc.) From this point of view, the qualia that are patterns in my experienced world are patterns generated by a physical system (my brain, etc.) Physics and experience are thus two perspectives, each of which claims to contain and generate the other! In my own work on AGI, I have drawn on both of these perspectives: both the mechanistic, scientific perspective AND the subjective, experiential perspective. In theory one could create a digital mind based purely the mechanistic, scientific perspective, but given the currently somewhat primitive state of mind science, obtaining some guidance from the experiential side (via drawing analogies between subjective human experience and the likely subjective experience of an AI) has seemed prudent. -- Ben G ------- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
