🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Bv9A9w.H13@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:

DC:
>>>(2) Our reports of our conscious states, by and large, accurately
>>>reflect those states.

KM:
>>You realize of course, that your theory which uses a functional
>>explanation of why we *think* we have qualia regardless of whether we
>>actually *do*, violates your 2nd principle of plausibility.

DC:
>Not so.  Nothing in my position implies that our reports of
>consciousness don't accurately reflect the contents of our consciousness.

Then I'm still misunderstanding your position.  If the functional
organization of our brains gives rise to an "explanation" of why we
report having qualia, but whether we actually do or not is a
contingent further fact which might not be the case in some alternate
universe, then the fact that we actually do have qualia is logically
independent of what we are bound to say.  In other words, our reports
of consciousness might not accurately reflect the contents of our
consciousness (even though I think in this case they do).  Perhaps I
have a faulty notion of what "logical independence" means.
Or perhaps logical independence is irrelevant to principle (2), and
you're simply stating what you believe to be an empirical fact.

>It's just that the relation between these two isn't as simple as
>billiard-ball causation.

I don't know what you mean by billard-ball causation, but apparently
it's not important anyway.  So far we've been discussing logical
entailment (you say there isn't any) and the nomological character of
supervenience (you say that's what we have).  So let's talk some more
on just what is the relation between these two.

>See my postings on the coherence of the
>explanatory bases of both consciousness and claims about consciousness;
>this notion of "coherence" is motivated precisely by principle (2)
>above.

(Details requested by email.)

-- 
Kevin McCarty (kmc@netcom.com)