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The Magic of Reality
for the iPad
Sean Faircloth:
Attack of the Theocrats!
Hmm... FWIW. All this must have whizzed right over me, because all I can think is that surely something is missing; it's like saying the tyre is touching the tarmac, but before the wheel is invented. There's an unknown something between the inanimate individual molecules in a neural correlate, and animated experience. We're still missing the 'thing' that creates the experience of consciousness (enables the tyre to move along the road). I can't see why to say there is a neural correlate of Chalmers' view that he can't see how the reduction can happen, and therefore it's false and there is no disconnect between neural correlate and experience, is conclusive, as there could equally well be a neural correlate of thinking you can see how the reduction can happen, but in error. Predicting qualia from patterns is impressive, but it's not what is predicted, but how it's experienced, which is the puzzle. If new colours are produced in accordance with a theory, that's wonderful, but it's impossible even to begin to describe the most familiar ones to someone who has never seen colour. Or familiar tastes, smells, touches or sounds. Writing about music, it has been said, is like dancing about architecture. That's how it appears to me at least - there is still ample room for doubt.
Permalink Sun, 11 Dec 2011 17:11:40 UTC | #897871