The Scripture Is False And The Biblical God Is Dead.

[GrandizerII]

I suppose I'd just a hide-bound old functionalist - for which I make no apology -, but it seems that we know enough (though granted not everything) about neurobiology and psychology to confidently reduce the whole discussion about qualia and p-zombies to little more than wordplay.

Boru

I mean, you're entitled to your opinion, but it's not really well-grounded. Functionalism is great at explaining a lot of aspects about the mind, but it has the obvious problem of not being able to account for qualia itself. It cannot account for the feeling of pain, for example. A lot of neuroscientists and psychologists, btw, are realists about qualia. It's not a niche thing among a minority group of elite academics.

And if the word "qualia" bothers you, we can stop using it, but it's still referring to something very real to us.