🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <BuJ1or.CHI@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
>Again, I'm not sure why you're concentrating on the giant lookup-table,
>which is more relevant to the contingent question of which physical
>systems consciousness *in fact* arises from, rather than the
>question of which systems consciousness *must* arise from (by logical
>necessity).

The reason I introduced the lookup-table was that it seemed to me to be a
good way of making your argument clear to someone who is deeply committed
to some kind of behaviorism or verificationism.  For example, in article
<1992Sep12.232531.3921@sco.com> evanh@sco.COM (Evan Hunt) writes:

>One cannot measure consciousness in a system (or in a person) save by
>evaluation of the system's (or person's) behavior.  Your replica seems
>just as conscious as you; can you suggest any further test I might
>subject it to that would prove it nonsentient?

Evan Hunt seems to believe that a machine that can pass the Turing test is
conscious if and only if human beings are conscious.  But most of us have
some intuition (even if some of us squelch it as incorrect) that the giant
lookup table is not conscious.  By introducing the lookup table I hoped to
awaken this intuition to show how one might argue that consciousness is a
further fact beyond the facts that are accessible to us by means of tests.

The verificationist might respond that "consciousness" is a vague term
and if we want to ask any meaningful question about it we must define
it in terms of facts that we can determine by means of tests.  If we
were to challenge the verificationist and ask, "Is Dave Chalmers
conscious?  Is the lookup-table conscious?" he would likely respond
that it depends on what definition of "conscious"---IN TERMS OF FACTS
ACCESSIBLE BY MEANS OF TESTS---we intend.  Regardless of the chosen
definition, however, the verificationist would say that the mimic is
conscious if and only if Dave Chalmers is.

Against the verificationist we could argue that he has simply assumed
that all facts reduce to verifiable facts and simply dismissed the
intuition we have that the lookup table is not conscious.  If we are
being dismissive, why not dismiss our intuition that all facts are
verifiable?

Most of this applies to physicalism in place of verificationism.

-- 
Tim Chow     tycchow@math.mit.edu
Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs
30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh
only 1 1/2 tons.                               ---Popular Mechanics, March 1949