From: frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams)
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 20:01:49 GMT
Organization: Security APL, Inc.

In article <BvDrDv.JIo@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
>In article <1992Sep28.202810.110716@Cookie.secapl.com> frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams) writes:
>>Step back a moment, and imagine that you are a computer which has been
>>programmed/learned to be conscious.  (Assume that the structure of the
>>program is enough like the way the brain works that it is *really*
>>conscious, not just "faking" it -- I think "faking" it is impossible in the
>>real world, but I could be wrong.  N.B. This note is not directed at those
>>who believe real AI to be impossible; but based on his postings, I doubt
>>that Mr. Chalmers falls into this category.)  You ask, "what are my qualia"?
>>They are the interactions of your self (a portion of a computer program
>>running on a computer) with the outside world.  "But why do I feel them?"
>>Because you are this system, and feeling is part of what you do.  What other
>>kind of explanation is even conceivable for such questions?
>
>To say my qualia *are* the interaction of the program with the world
>is to beg the question.  Certainly that may be where they come from.

I want you to assume that you are the computer+program, not a soul
inhabiting it.  You have carefully avoiding using that word, but it is
nevertheless what you are assuming -- even if you are unaware that you are
making that assumption.

>"Feeling is part of what I do".  Well, what I *do* consists of
>certain computations, and reactions, and the like -- it's not even
>obvious why all this computation should be accompanied by a "feeling"
>at all.  A lot of people think that it wouldn't be; I think that it
>would, but that's a contingent hypothesis.  The people that deny
>that a computer would feel are at least making a logically possible
>hypothesis.

In the sense that a vitalist is making a logically possible hypothesis when
they assert that artificial life might do everything a living thing can do,
but still not be alive.  It's an empty hypothesis; it has no consequences.

(It *is* a contingent hypothesis that any computer capable of intelligent
behavior would have feelings.  I personally think it's true, but it might
not be.  But I did specify that the organization of the computer+program be
"sufficiently like" the human brain precisely to counter this objection.)

>What other sort of explanation?  Well, if it's to be a physicalist
>explanation, it must be an explanation of why the presence of qualia
>is entailed by the computational organization of the system.

I think that, for this, it is sufficient to point to those aspects of the
organization which are intrinsic to its behavior as an intelligent system,
which fill the functional role of qualia as reports of sensory information
(note that I do not mean here that all qualia are such reports), and which
cause the system to believe that it has qualia.  When we have explicated
this (which we haven't yet), then for the physicalist there is nothing left
to explain.

>If one gives up on physicalism, all sorts of explanations are possible.

Oh, yeah?

>In particular, one can simply admit the existence of qualia as a brute
>fact, much as the physicists admits the existence of matter as a brute
>fact, and then try to systematize the relation between qualia and the
>physical.

That sounds to me more like a research strategy than an explanation.  It
doesn't explain anything.  It also strikes me as just about the *only*
"explanation" a dualist can offer.
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