Re: your thoughts are needed

On Jan 7, 12:38 am, casey <jgkjca...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jan 7, 6:10 pm, forbisga...@xxxxxxx wrote:

...

When you say a computer can produce the same behaviors
as a human you have to ignore the very behaviors
(specific electro-chemical changes) you use above to
assert the feelings are "nothing but behavior."

It depends if the first person view depends on the
types of units involved.  A functionalist view is the
substrate that produces the view is not important
be it electro-chemical or silicon only that at the
appropriate level it is the same behavior.

Functionalism falls the same way epiphenomenalism falls.

I understood the epiphenomenalism view was that brain
events *cause* mental event.

Me too. I'm pretty sure that epiphenomenalism is incorrect.

I take the view that brain events *are* mental events.

Yes. That's my position (well sort of, and I suspect
you hold the same unspoken qualifications of the statement
or most of them.)

One is an objective point
of view and the other a subjective point of view of the
same event. An unconscious event is one in which there
is no subjective point of view although there may still
be an objective point of view of the event.

Yes. I wish there was an objective way to tell conscious
and unconscious events apart. Weak Functionalism tells
me that if I get the functions right I will get the behaviors
right.

The functionalist position asserts the first person
characteristic of the subsystems implementing the
functions don't matter.

I never took functionalism that way. What didn't matter
was the substrate. A computational system can have a
first person view.

That a system is "computational" is a third person
view of the situation based upon the regularity of
the system's interaction with its enviornment.

I do not deny that computers may have a conscious
existence. I deny that this is implied from the
functions implemented. Substrate doesn't matter
to function (except in the loose sense where functional
specification restricts the possible physical
implementations, for instance a functional specification
of a system that binds to a hydroxide ion to form water
would of necessity restrict the physical impelmentation
to variations of the hydrogen atom.

While this may be true humans will also tell you
there are differences in these characteristics
between the various senses.

And so would a computational system tell you there
are differences in the characteristics between
different senses.

That's certainly the case. I have struggled for quite
some time with this issue with reguard to humans. It
is not clear to me that behavior is sufficient to ascribe
consciousness and yet I do it all the time.

Since there is a difference and it is not accounted
by function functionalism cannot be a true account
of these characteristics.

Well as far as I am concerned audio functions are not
the same as visual functions and that difference, for
me, accounts for the different subjective view although
in what way may not be clear to us yet.

Glen's response to your prior response are interesting to me.
I think his questions need exploring. I can't do it because
of history. Each of us has a model of others in the newsgroup
and this filters our interpretations of what is written.
.