(January 22, 2019 at 1:52 am)Gae Bolga Wrote: It's your syllogism, so I guess that's your problem? As I just explained to Bel's canned objection... the computer analogy is used to describe how some other thing does x - not to suggest that the things doing x are the same. They need only share whatever meaningful similarity is being researched. In the case of computational theories..it's computation, not the function of a semiconducter.
We're essentially asking ourselves whether or not mother nature uses some of the same tricks to achieve her effects as we do when we exploit her to achieve our own. So, for example..when you ask "lets say we build convincing androids" the immediate question is how we would do that, and whether those same things can also account for "the real deal".
As far as I can tell, you and Thoreauvian believe that increased knowledge of brain activity is likely to explain why electrochemical events in the brain present themselves to the self as qualia.
Other people believe that even if we could make a complete map of brain activity, showing all electrochemical events in every cell and their interaction, this would only tell us about the activity of electrochemical events, and wouldn't show why they present themselves to the self as qualia.
