From: max@hilbert.cyprs.rain.com (Max Webb)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Dualism
Date: 11 Sep 92 19:47:58 GMT
Article-I.D.: hilbert.1992Sep11.194758.7442
Organization: Cypress Semiconductor Northwest, Beaverton Oregon

In article <BuDoJ5.MDM@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
>...  However, there is a quite similar argument
>that I believe is a good argument for dualism, and probably
>a correct one.
>
>(1) It's logically possible that there could be a physical replica
>of me without any conscious states.
>
>(2) Therefore the existence of conscious states is a further fact,
>over and above the physical facts ...
>
>(3) Therefore dualism is true.
>
>If there's anything wrong with this argument, it has to be at premise
>(1).  I confess that this premise seems obviously true to me, but
>some people would deny it.

I don't see your assumption (1) as anything but a rephrasing of dualism.
Certainly as a dualist, it matches your intuitions, but it does not match
mine. And just as naturally, dualism is entailed by itself. Allow me
to illustrate:

This post got me thinking, so I whipped out my soldering iron
and nano-tweezers and started hacking - about 18 pots of coffee later,
I had it or him or whatever up and running. As hoped, it was 
functionally equivalent to you in every way. (I bribed one of your
students to 'scan' you while you weren't looking).

So I asked DC-2, "are you conscious?", and it replied "Why, yes,
of course. In fact, I cannot be entirely physical". There followed
an exposition much like the above. Lie detector tests indicated that
it at least believed what it was saying. I took it apart - checked for
ectoplasm - clean all over. I put it back together, rebooted -
same result. 'functionally identical' donchaknow.

I'm kind of stuck. It acts as if it had empathy for the feelings of others,
acts like it experiences guilt when it fails those that count on it...
So I guess I feel honor bound to treat it as conscious and alive, even
though I can't prove it. Fact is, we have become fast friends, despite
it's delusions about it's essentially dual nature.

>It is contingent on those people to
>provide some kind of demonstration of how the physical facts
>could possibly logically entail the facts about consciousness,
>But in virtue of what kind of physical properties is consciousness
>logically necessitated?
>...

It seems obvious to me that it is conscious, but some people would deny it.
It is contingent on those people to provide some kind of demonstration
of how the physical fact of it's construction could possibly logically
entail the facts about unconsciousness. In virtue of what kind of
physical properties is unconsciousness logically necessitated?

I conclude that I have an argument that consciousness can be a property
of a purely physical system. It seems (in your words) obviously true
to me, and probably correct.

>-- 
>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."

So how do I go about trying to refute your theory?

	Max G. Webb