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MrHen comments on Consciousness - Less Wrong
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Comments (221)
Honestly, I read this:
And noticed that the post is currently rated at -2. All signs are telling me to not bother reading this post. I probably will anyway, but I felt like reminding my future self why the karma system is here. :P
EDIT:
Where is "last time"?
Last time was "How to think like a quantum monadologist". Having read both, I consider this one superior, thanks to it containing less substance to hold its confusions.
Edit: See SilasBarta's links.
The thing is, Mitchell Porter is clearly a very intelligent and thoughtful person, who seems to be sinking huge amounts of his cognitive resources into this pointless, meaningless, doomed project. If we could persuade him of the futility and folly of it, it would probably be worth it.
On the other hand, this idea of qualia -- whatever it is actually about -- is a sticking point for the dualists. We should try to understand what they're talking about instead of just asserting they're not talking about anything.
If we can look at dualist arguments and identify the exact location of our different thinking, then we own the argument and have a chance of explaining it to them. If we only understand the problem on the level that "well, we understand the reductionist view and it doesn't present any problems about qualia" then we don't actually understand anything about dualism.
Otherwise the message is: dualists just need to become reductionists in order to get over their qualia problem.
Personally, I can't relate to dualism either and I am curious about why I can't.
Consciousness Explained does try to explain why people have the idea of qualia.
The next post Porter needs to do on this is one explicitly addressing the position Dennett sets out in Consciousness Explained. That position is certainly popular enough here on LW that I don't see how we're going to have a useful discussion until he makes that post. I'm disappointed that that wasn't the conclusion he drew from the previous discussion.
That is going to be a while, he has dropped to 26 karma and is not a frequent poster.
Fair enough. I did end up reading the post but was confused. I got the feeling I was jumping into the middle of a topic/conversation and missed all of the setup. I will read the link from RobinZ and see if it fills in the gaps.
Although, one clarification would be nifty. I am assuming that the discussion about Color has really little to do with Color itself and more to do with the representation of Colorness in our "head", hence the hole topic of dualism. Am I even close?
EDIT: Actually, thinking more about what you said, I find your comment extremely valuable. Not so much in that I feel I should persuade anyone of anything, but more in that there are more reasons to read posts than I was initially considering. :P