🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec12.230911.24220@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>
>he himself takes, at least to some extent).  In that case, the question
>of whether something is conscious or not is epistemically indeterminate,
>although consciousness itself is ontologically real.

This is where I draw the line!  I'm enough of a pragmatist/logical positivist
that I don't believe it *means* anything to talk about something being
ontologically real but epistemological indeterminate!!  Now where did I put
that Razor? :)

>This may not be a satisfactory state of affairs for those who want
>answers to everything, but it is also certainly no justification for
>then defining consciousness in a way that is epistemically accessible
>but wrong, as I take it Searle believes that functionalists have done.

Ummm...  I'd rather have a theory that worked a bit, that we might learn
something from disproving, than bury my head in the sand and say "we
cannot know".

Danny.

Wir mu:ssen wissen, wir werden wissen
We MUST know, we SHALL know.