Quote:
Originally Posted by David Bailey  Ian,
I think what you are saying stems from a misunderstanding of Chalmers' concept of 'hard and 'easy' problems. Making an android that behaves like a human is probably just as hard as making it experience qualia - it is just that we can't prove it is as hard.
David |
Well if you're a reductive materialist then there is no distinction between the hard and easy problems. Moreover if we are functionalists then once we have creating an android
then by definition it is just as conscious as a human being. So it experiences qualia if we suppose that we experience qualia.
Chalmers is a computational functionalist, but he holds that consciousness
is not constituted by such functions. Rather once you have the appropriate computations occuring then consciousness naturally arises. In other words consciousness cannot be reduced to the functioning. It's just a natural fact about reality that when sufficiently complex computations are carried out, then consciousness will arise.
This is a much more reasonable position then saying some instruction, some program
in and of itself, is conscious. Indeed that is absurd!