4 ms·
Yes, and many have done so. Marvin Minsky, Steven Pinker, and Daniel Dennet come to mind. In philosophy lingo I think it all ends up being functional physicalis
by amasad 10y ago
Yes, and many have done so. Marvin Minsky, Steven Pinker, and Daniel Dennet come to mind. In philosophy lingo I think it all ends up being functional physicalism.
- goatlover 10y agoThere's no consensus that Minsky, Pinker, Dennett have succeeded. Plenty of philosophers and scientists have disagreed with their arguments. Dennett's attempt rests on the controversial claim that we're actually p-zombies, and consciousness can be understood in only functional terms. This is prima facie absurd to many people.
- amasad 10y agoDennet's argument is simply an inversion of the causal chain: i.e mind is not the causer but the cause. "P-zombies" is kind of a non-starter when you think about it. I think LessWrong's essays on it shows that, here is one passage: "you can form a propositional belief that "Consciousness is without effect", and not see any contradiction at first, if you don't realize that talking about consciousness is an effect of being conscious. But once you see the connection from the general rule that consciousness has no effect, to the specific implication that consciousness has no effect on how philosophers write papers about consciousness, zombie-ism stops being intuitive and starts requiring you to postulate strange things." http://lesswrong.com/lw/p7/zombies_zombies/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/p7/zombies_zombies/