🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Sep28.002120.11473@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:

>>Well, this seems to be the net.physicalist.position.of.choice.  Qualia
>>just *are* physical events; don't ask why.  Unfortunately, it's
>>entirely unsatisfactory.  For this position to be any good, you have to
>>provide some reason why God couldn't have created a world with isomorphic
>>physical events, but no qualia.
>
>Thought is a physical event with physical effects, some of them externally
>visible.  The physical events represented by qualia could not be subjects
>of thought if there were no qualia.

There are any number of problems with this, but for a start: (1) Assuming
that everything involved in thought is a "physical event" begs the
question; (2) The step from the first sentence to the second here seems
to be a non sequitur; (3) The second sentence doesn't seem to be justified;
presumably, in a qualialess zombie, all the same representational work
could be done by the appropriate functional processes; (4) Most importantly,
all this seems utterly irrelevant to the question I asked, which asked for
reasons why God couldn't have created a physically isomorphic world
with no qualia (NB the brute assertion that qualia are physical won't
do as a reply here, as that is precisely the matter at stake).

>>Either way, the call for
>>an entailment relation (or alternatively, the call for an explanation
>>of why qualia exist at all) is being evaded entirely.
>
>Surely qualia exist (i.e. evolved) so as to allow the physical sensory
>input to become a component of thought.

Evolution is irrelevant here.  Evolution will get you as far as the
current physical structure of the brain.  What needs to be explained
is: why, given that the brain is like so, do qualia exist?

-- 
Dave Chalmers                            (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)      
Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University.
"It is not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable."