🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec30.010055.28422@ucc.su.OZ.AU> neilb@physics.su.OZ.AU (RiemannZeta(s)) writes:
>In article <1992Dec21.171520.2152@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>>No way of telling who's right? You've lost me. But even if there were no
>>such way, that would hardly warrant you abolishing the topic. Maybe
>>there are things we can't know (though I certainly wouldn't claim this
>>for qualia. I'm perfectly satisfied they exist.)
>
>We are basically arguing about different theories of truth.  You are using
>a correspondence theory and I am using a coherence theory...  So you are
>perfectly happy with things that are intrinsically unknowable, while I'm
>not.  

Even coherence theories have to account for reference (something they
notoriously have trouble with) or they're not semantic theories at all.

>At any rate, if Searle is seriously arguing that consciousness
>exists but is unknowable then that DOES warrant stopping work on his theory, 
>since if it true then there's no point trying to study consciousness at all,
>and if it's not then we shouldn't be using it!
>
Perhaps, but of course he's not arguing anything of the kind. It is only
knowlable subjectively. That doesn't make it *ontologically* subjective.
It's as much a fact of the world as a rock. It's just not shareable.
If you have no subjective experience of consciousness, I guess you're
just out of luck. Better go into another science.

-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1