The way you describe functionalism sounds like an elaborate Cartesian theater designed to not look like one. Yeah, we have a user interface...and physics is our understanding of the user interface from within the user interface. What I am not seeing is any meaningful use of the word function that demonstrates reduction.

Body model control isn't a reductive theory. It's an observed technological accomplishment. We thought to ourselves "wouldn't it be cool if" - and then we did it, and it worked as fantastically as we imagined it would. Do you think that replacing function in that theory with value is tenable...and if valualism is a just so story...does body model control appear to be a just so story?

Once upon a time we thought "wouldn't a system with a body model be so much better at performing tasks than all of these systems that we currently have without one?" - The answer was yes. We didn't know how to do it when we first dreamt it up, but we figured it out since. Body model control systems exist. Boundary boxing is one of them.

Just one.....

As a semi aside, did you actually close your eyes, play with your hands, or consider the distance to a wall in the dark?

(September 2, 2021 at 9:16 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: ...
Now, light with a wavelength of 680-700 nanometers does exist.
...

The people's flag is deepest light with a wavelength of 680-700 nanometers,
It shrouded oft our martyred dead,
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,
Their hearts' blood dyed its ev'ry fold.

Then raise the light with a wavelength of 680-700 nanometers standard high.
Within its shade we'll live and die,
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We'll keep the light with a wavelength of 680-700 nanometers flag flying here.

It loses something in translation.
Conclusion, physicists shouldn't write poetry.

And what about non-spectral colors like magenta?

Are you clear on what model based control is, and do you have anything to add for or about valualism, or were you just wrong?

You kind of threw me off by saying your approach isn't reductive...so I am just thinking about it.

Think away on reduction for as long as it takes, but I'd love some clarity on whether you still believe that you could freely exchange the terms value and function, and which of the two explanations, functionalism or valualism..is a just so story.

Your specific objection insisting that there was no need to explain values, but that seems to be a crucial difference between your valualism and functionalist theories. They do explain the function, demonstrate ways to achieve it, observe it in the wild..and make falsifiable predictions about such systems - the whole bit.

(September 4, 2021 at 10:20 am)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: You kind of threw me off by saying your approach isn't reductive...so I am just thinking about it.

Science cannot at present explain the hard problem of consciousness, at least until science & technology someday, if ever, artificially creates consciousnes, say, the AI Singularity. Until then, if ever, why not just say that the problem is unknown, perhaps, unknowable? As with the "God of the gaps" your posts seem like the "soul of the gaps".

(September 4, 2021 at 1:44 pm)Jehanne Wrote: ...
Science cannot at present explain the hard problem of consciousness, at least until science & technology someday, if ever, artificially creates consciousnes, say, the AI Singularity.  Until then, if ever, why not just say that the problem is unknown, perhaps, unknowable?  As with the "God of the gaps" your posts seem like the "soul of the gaps".

Then, the question becomes... do we have enough science and technology brain-power here and now (on this forum) to work it out.

I'm up for it if you are.

(September 2, 2021 at 7:28 pm)Angrboda Wrote: I think you are indeed saying there's a bear.  You've separated qualia from the process as an atomistic component.

I haven't said it's atomistic. There may very well be a 1:1 ontological reduction between physical states and mental states. But we don't know how it reduces. Although more wisened people may chastise me for it, I say that means there's a mystery. At least, it's mysterious to me.

On the one hand, you have ideas like Searle's. Searle thinks it's a natural property of c-fibers to produce a conscious state when electricity moves through them. (Biological Naturalism: Science hasn't worked out the particulars, of course, but they might yet do that.) This doesn't necessarily mean that anything that possesses the ability to transmit pain information (sensory information that informs behaviors) will produce conscious states. Searle thinks "it has to be neuron-shaped"--or, less erroneously stated, something about the physicality of neurons produces conscious states. That's what Searle thinks.

Contrast this with the functionalist view. To the functionalist, nothing about the form or natural properties of neurons has to do with conscious states. The transmission of pain information is what is responsible for pain states. End of story. I think functionalism is dissatisfying. If there's a bear-- that's the bear.

What do qualia have to do with this? Qualia are not explicable by information alone. Like the color red, it represents a wavelength of light between x and y... but why does it need to look red? It doesn't. You can express the information of "red" without red as we perceive it. That makes red as we perceive it superfluous in a 1:1 reduction of things.

Now, if Searle is right, there wouldn't need to be a 1:1 reduction, because "redness" may be some artifact of neural structure or something. So biological naturalism can explain qualia. Functionalism can't. That's the question. That's the bear. Which theory is more accurate? I don't know. Why do you think functionalism is true compared to biological naturalism, Angrboda?