4 ms·
Problem is functional equivalence doesn't deal with the hard problem, since the hard problem isn't functional, it's a felt experiential matter. No degree of fun
by goatlover 2y ago
Problem is functional equivalence doesn't deal with the hard problem, since the hard problem isn't functional, it's a felt experiential matter. No degree of functional equivalence can tell us whether a system is experiencing something. It only tells us that it's functioning in an equivalent manner.
Fundamentally, this is a dichotomy between objective and subjective. Functional is an objective measurement.
- mannykannot 2y ago> No degree of functional equivalence can tell us whether a system is experiencing something. What makes you sure of that? I have read all the usual arguments, and I don't find them sufficient to justify the certainty that it is beyond the realm of possibility of doing so, at least up to the standard of evidence by which we assume other people are experiencing something. Framing the physical-mental problem in terms of equivalence is essentially begging the question anyway, tacitly presupposing that the mental is not a physical phenomenon. No-one asks what, physically, is equivalent to a hurricane (to use just one example of a complex and what was once a mysterious phenomenon.)
- jhickok 2y agoThat view of the hard problem begs the question against functionalist theories of consciousness though. Many physicalists deny that the hard-problem (or backing arguments like the zombie argument) entails that there is such a dichotomy.