🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Bv9vGp.Ax3@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
>In article <1992Sep28.005156.11177@sophia.smith.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>
>>RH:
>>>>Show me a point of difference between my conscious experiences and the
>>>>cor[r]elated physical events in my brain.
>>
>>DC:
>>>Just about anything -- e.g. the blueness of my blue-experiences.
>>
>>It would be useful to me if you could expand on this a bit.  For
>>certainly the experience of 475 nanometer electromagnetic radiation
>>has to feel like something to us (since we "feel" everything we
>>experience), and we happen to label this something blueness.  Are you
>>seeking an explanation of why blue light isn't experienced as,
>>say, pain?  For that I think we would have to turn to the evolutionary
>>development of the brain.
>
>Precisely what needs to be explained is why that radiation "feels"
>like anything at all -- i.e. why that all physical processing is
>accompanied by an experiential feel

I deny that it is "accompanied" by an experiential "feel" at all; it
just _is_ its "feel".  Show that it isn't.


 -- so your parenthetical
>explanation here won't do.  There is also the secondary question
>of why it feels like *that* rather than like *this*

Everything is itself; you can't get further than that.

 -- it seems
>perfectly coherent that our blue experiences and red experiences
>could be systematically inverted, for instance.  Even when all
>the physical facts are in, it seems arbitrary why one kind of process
>is accompanied by this experience, and another kind by that one.

It is arbitrary.

>As I said in another post, evolution won't do as an explanation,
>as it will only get you as far as the current physical details.
>Evolution is irrelevant to the question of why *this* physical
>sructure gives rise to *this* experiential feel.

Each physical structure is itself and not anything else...

>
>-- 
>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."


-- 
The opinions expressed		|     --Sincerely,
above are not the "official"	|     M. Randall Holmes
opinions of any person		|     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
or institution.			|     holmes@opal.idbsu.edu