I don't think anyone denies that brain states have a strong influence on conscious experience, which is the only thing that Phineas Gage proved. The real question is how mechanistic matter can create subjective experience. For example, someone who was completely colorblind from birth could never understand what it felt like to see the color green, no matter how much neuroscience that person knew, i.e., you could never convey the sensation of "green" through a layout of a connectome or listing wavelengths of light.
However, this doesn't mean that there must be some magical substance which produces experience, and it does not mean that Whole Brain Emulation and AGI is impossible, which is the hasty conclusion reached by many non-materialists. Rather, it only poses problems for those who say that brain states are the same thing as conscious experience.
The real question is how mechanistic matter can create subjective experience.
Philosophy (which today is mostly a historical field - the study of old speculations) is not the right place to find the answer to this question. Computational neuroscience is.
Rather, it only poses problems for those who say that brain states are the same thing as conscious experience.
The 'problem' is overstated - the mindstate of observing green through information flowing from the retina through multiple layers of visual cortical processing is in a wholly different categ...
Previous Open Thread
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
Notes for future OT posters:
1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.
2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one.
3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.
4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.