Perplexed comments on Three consistent positions for computationalists - Less Wrong

5 Post author: dfranke 14 April 2011 01:15PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (176)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Perplexed 15 April 2011 05:18:05PM 0 points [-]

Non functional things like blobs of chewing gum still have properties.

Yes, and we determine those properties using senses that exist because, in other contexts, their use is functional. Do we have a 'sense' that detects the presence of qualia and apprehends their properties? If we do have such a sense organ, would you care to speculate on its function or lack of function?

Comment author: Peterdjones 15 April 2011 06:52:56PM 0 points [-]

I'm using functional to mean "something that has inputs, outputs, and internal workings", not to mean "something that does something somehow".

I don't think we have such a sense. More importantly, nothing I have said implies it.

Comment author: Perplexed 15 April 2011 07:11:21PM 0 points [-]

Ah! I was using it in the biological sense. As roughly the same as "purpose". (You are, of course, welcome to add as many additional scare quotes as you think necessary to immunize us from the taint of teleology.)

It appears we have been talking past each other. This may be a good place to stop.