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In article <Bv48H2.CvJ@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:

[article rearranged and somewhat truncated for coherence]

>In article <1992Sep24.230141.1269@meteor.wisc.edu> tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis) writes:

>>Will someone tell me what "nomic" means? My dictionary is silent on this.

>"nomic" = (roughly) lawful, or having to do with laws.

>  So consciousness is at least nomically supervenient on the
>brain (i.e. subject to the laws of nature, it's necessary that
>identical brain states give rise to identical conscious states).

Um, but my dictionary defines "supervenient" as "coming or occuring as
something additional, extraneous, or unexpected". That doesn't seem to
correspond to "necessary" to me. (It's Webster's 7th Collegiate, btw)

>On the other hand, a zombie replica at least seems to be logically
>possible.  If this is so, then consciousness is not logically
>supervenient on the brain, but *only* nomically supervenient.
>i.e., it arises from the brain in virtue of a nomic connection, or
>a law of nature.

Um, then how does your position differ from monism? If consciousness
necessarily arises from the state of your brain, that sounds like
the old "emergent property" handwaving to me. In what sense is this
consistent with dualism? Do you postulate "laws of nature" that are
not included in what is normally called physics? Are you certain there
are no zombies, for that matter?

>Hope this clears things up somewhat.

Well, thanks for trying, but actually I'm more confused than ever.

mt