I admire the quality of content and presentation of qualiasoup’s videos. He did a very good job summarizing the basic arguments supporting physicalist theories. But, he did not fairly represent the counter-arguments. Fortunately, some response videos give at least a basic overview of the counter-arguments.
Genkaus, we have both already accepted the close relationship and correlation between brain states/processes and mental properties. You take that correlation as evidence for a causal link between low-level physical processes and qualia, apparently defined as a high-level emergent property. None of your replies justify this assumption. You either dismiss counter-arguments with hand-waving or restate your assumption by wrapping it in behaviorism. My objections (emergence as a linguistic convention, the implicit over-determination or epiphenomenalism of causal closure, evolution’s blindness to qualitative states, and the sign/significance relationship) stand unanswered.
Few of the additional empirical features you mention (in addition to verbal reports of pain) would be present in a machine intelligence, like the hypothetical Cyberboy. Biological similarities allow you to reasonably conclude that other humans experience subjective states of awareness. You have no similar basis for extending that capacity to radically different physiologies, from huge Babbage computers to silicon-based life forms. If there is a specific physical property you have in mind that allows consciousness to be realized across multiple platforms, then you need to be clear about what you think that property could be.
Genkaus, we have both already accepted the close relationship and correlation between brain states/processes and mental properties. You take that correlation as evidence for a causal link between low-level physical processes and qualia, apparently defined as a high-level emergent property. None of your replies justify this assumption. You either dismiss counter-arguments with hand-waving or restate your assumption by wrapping it in behaviorism. My objections (emergence as a linguistic convention, the implicit over-determination or epiphenomenalism of causal closure, evolution’s blindness to qualitative states, and the sign/significance relationship) stand unanswered.
Few of the additional empirical features you mention (in addition to verbal reports of pain) would be present in a machine intelligence, like the hypothetical Cyberboy. Biological similarities allow you to reasonably conclude that other humans experience subjective states of awareness. You have no similar basis for extending that capacity to radically different physiologies, from huge Babbage computers to silicon-based life forms. If there is a specific physical property you have in mind that allows consciousness to be realized across multiple platforms, then you need to be clear about what you think that property could be.
