Richard, My first response to this is that you still don't seem to have taken account > of what was said in the second part of the paper - and, at the same time, > I can find many places where you make statements that are undermined by that > second part. > > To take the most significant example: when you say: > > > But, I don't see how the hypothesis > > > > "Conscious experience is **identified with** unanalyzable mind-atoms" > > > > could be distinguished empirically from > > > > "Conscious experience is **correlated with** unanalyzable mind-atoms" > > ... there are several concepts buried in there, like [identified with], > [distinguished empirically from] and [correlated with] that are > theory-laden. In other words, when you use those terms you are implictly > applying some standards that have to do with semantics and ontology, and it > is precisely those standards that I attacked in part 2 of the paper. > > However, there is also another thing I can say about this statement, based > on the argument in part one of the paper. > > It looks like you are also falling victim to the argument in part 1, at the > same time that you are questioning its validity: one of the consequences of > that initial argument was that *because* those concept-atoms are > unanalyzable, you can never do any such thing as talk about their being > "only correlated with a particular cognitive event" versus "actually being > identified with that cognitive event"! > > So when you point out that the above distinction seems impossible to make, > I say: "Yes, of course: the theory itself just *said* that!". > > So far, all of the serious questions that people have placed at the door of > this theory have proved susceptible to that argument.
Well, suppose I am studying your brain with a super-advanced brain-monitoring device ... Then, suppose that I, using the brain-monitoring device, identify the brain response pattern that uniquely occurs when you look at something red ... I can then pose the question: Is your experience of red *identical* to this brain-response pattern ... or is it correlated with this brain-response pattern? I can pose this question even though the "cognitive atoms" corresponding to this brain-response pattern are unanalyzable from your perspective... Next, note that I can also turn the same brain-monitoring device on myself... So I don't see why the question is unaskable ... it seems askable, because these concept-atoms in question are experience-able even if not analyzable... that is, they still form mental content even though they aren't susceptible to explanation as you describe it... I agree that, subjectively or empirically, there is no way to distinguish "Conscious experience is **identified with** unanalyzable mind-atoms" from "Conscious experience is **correlated with** unanalyzable mind-atoms" and it seems to me that this indicates you have NOT solved the hard problem, but only restated it in a different (possibly useful) way -- Ben G ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
