anonym comments on Consciousness - Less Wrong

2 Post author: Mitchell_Porter 08 January 2010 12:18PM

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Comment author: PhilGoetz 11 January 2010 04:52:38AM 0 points [-]

In Explaining Consciousness, chapter 2, p. 28, Dennett says there is no purple in the brain when we see purple. That may be what he means.

I also heard Dennett quoted as saying there is no such thing as qualia, allegedly in "The taboo of subjectivity", p. 139, which I don't have.

Comment author: anonym 12 January 2010 04:20:41AM *  1 point [-]

The Taboo of Subjectivity is a book by B. Alan Wallace. It appears that Dennett wrote a review for that work, but I couldn't find it online. Are you referring to that review, or to something else?

Comment author: anonym 12 January 2010 04:59:43AM *  0 points [-]

I see what you meant now. Dennett was quoted in Wallace's book, on p.139. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

The quote, with some context, is:

Paul Churchland, one of the most prominent advocates of this view [eliminative materialism], declares that commonsense experience is probably irreducible to, and therefore incommensurable with, neuroscience; and for this reason familiar mental states should be regarded as nonexistent or at most as "false and misleading"^18. For similar reasons, philosopher Daniel Dennett bluntly asserts: "[t]here simply are no qualia at all."^19

18 . Paul M. Churchland, 1990, Matter and Consciousness: A Contemporary Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind, p. 41 & 48.

19 . Daniel C. Dennett, 1991, Consciousness Explained, p. 74.

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