CSE 719: Computational Theories of Consciousness, Fall 2009 ======================================================================== Chalmers (1995) quotes (for bib info, see online bibliography) ======================================================================== 1. "The easy problems of consciousness include those of explaining the following phenomena: * the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to environmental stimuli; * the integration of information by a cognitive system; * the reportability of mental states; * the ability of a system to access its own internal states; * the focus of attention; * the deliberate control of behavior; * the difference between wakefulness and sleep." (sect 2, para 2) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. "It is common to see a paper on consciousness begin with an invocation of the mystery of consciousness, noting the strange intangibility and ineffability of subjectivity, and worrying that so far we have no theory of the phenomenon. Here, the topic is clearly the hard problem--the problem of experience. In the second half of the paper, the tone becomes more optimistic, and the author's own theory of consciousness is outlined. Upon examination, this theory turns out to be a theory of one of the more straightforward phenomena--of reportability, of introspective access, or whatever. At the close, the author declares that consciousness has turned out to be tractable after all, but the reader is left feeling like the victim of a bait-and-switch. The hard problem remains untouched." (s2, last para) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3. "...for any role [experience] might play, there will be more to the explanation of experience than a simple explanation of the function. Perhaps it will even turn out that in the course of explaining a function, we will be led to the key insight that allows an explanation of experience." (s3 penult para) [FUNCTIONAL EXPLANATION CAN NEVER COMPLETELY DETERMINE IMPLEMENTATION --"there will be more to the explanation of experience than a simple explanation of the function" ONLY IMPLEMENTATION CAN "allow an explanation of experience"] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4. a) "The facts about experience cannot be an automatic consequence of any physical account, as it is conceptually coherent that any given process could exist without experience." (s5p7) b) "everything in physical theory is compatible with the absence of consciousness" (s6p5) [ZOMBIES ARE POSSIBLE] c) "Experience may *arise* from the physical, but it is not *entailed* by the physical." (s5p7) [EXACTLY WHAT JACKSON NOW DENIES] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5. "it is often noted that physics characterizes its basic entities only extrinsically, in terms of their relations to other entities, which are themselves characterized extrinsically, and so on. The intrinsic nature of physical entities is left aside. Some argue that no such intrinsic properties exist, but then one is left with a world that is pure causal flux (a pure flow of information) with no properties for the causation to relate. If one allows that intrinsic properties exist, a natural speculation given the above is that the intrinsic properties of the physical--the properties that causation ultimately relates--are themselves phenomenal properties. We might say that phenomenal properties are the internal aspect of information." (s7, last para)