RE: A Conscious Universe
February 4, 2015 at 12:50 am
(This post was last modified: February 4, 2015 at 1:46 am by Surgenator.)
But do numbers exist independently?
@ Fallen. The video section you suggested viewing presented a strawman. It's correct in pointing out the strong correlation between brain states and mental states is not proof for causality. However, it didn't mention anything about the cases when we forcebly alter the brain state and observe what the mental state becomes. If the brain is only a map of mental states, then interacting with the map should have little to no affect on the mental state. We observe the opposite.
Benny's comment about this suffers from the fallacy of division.
Qualia is NOT just a material thing but a brain state. Brain state is a series of processes, and a process is the interactions of things. Benny is treating qualia as a thing and Rhythm is treating it a process. So an equivalency does not exist between the two definitions of qualia.
@ Fallen. The video section you suggested viewing presented a strawman. It's correct in pointing out the strong correlation between brain states and mental states is not proof for causality. However, it didn't mention anything about the cases when we forcebly alter the brain state and observe what the mental state becomes. If the brain is only a map of mental states, then interacting with the map should have little to no affect on the mental state. We observe the opposite.
Benny's comment about this suffers from the fallacy of division.
Quote:
He insists that means that all qualia is just a material thing. However, if they are truly equivalent, then you could just as equally insist that all material is an experienced thing, since by definition qualia are what it's like to subjectively experience things.
Qualia is NOT just a material thing but a brain state. Brain state is a series of processes, and a process is the interactions of things. Benny is treating qualia as a thing and Rhythm is treating it a process. So an equivalency does not exist between the two definitions of qualia.