🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Sep28.151204.4333@guinness.idbsu.edu> holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) writes:

>By asking for an "entailment", you _assume_ a difference between the
>two sets of phenomena.  I claim that there is no reason to assume such
>a difference.

This is just silly.  The fact that John is a bachelor entails the
fact that John is male, without this implying any kind of dualism
about John.  Similarly, I've outlined at length how the physical
facts about a dog, say, can entail the fact that it is alive.  This
doesn't assume or imply any kind of dualism about life -- it just
implies an intensional difference -- that the dog's being alive, as
a fact to be explained (or as a *phenomenon*) is a different fact
to be explained than the dog's microphysical constitution (as evidenced
by the fact that it's possible to explain one without explaining
the other, although in this case an explanation of one can easily
yield an explanation of the other).

All I've been asking for is the same kind of entailment for qualia
as it's straightforward to give for life, or for tables, or for
learning, or for just about any other property around.  And that's
what nobody, manifestly, has been able to give.  I suggest that
this is prima facie evidence that with qualia, something very
different is going on.

-- 
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."