X-Message-Number: 22281
From: 
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2003 09:32:47 EDT
Subject: homunculi

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Peter Merel offers ideas of "representation" as support for the notion that 
computer simulations can be conscious.

This is the nub. Leibniz mischaracterized Descartes. It is NOT a matter of 
representation. Representation relates to cognition--important, but not 

essential. A quale is not a representation of consciousness or personhood--it is
the 
thing itself.

Descartes was correct in saying that we KNOW our own existence, because we 
have DIRECT information about our immediate feelings. We can be mistaken about 

the implications of those feelings, or their relation to the outside world, but
we cannot be mistaken about the feelings themselves. 

What some have called "Descartes' error" can also be called the homunculus 
problem. If the central person is an observer, then must there be another, 
smaller observer (homunculus) inside that one, etc.? 

There is no succession of homunculi. The parts or aspects of the brain have 
many functions, including housekeeping and memory and cognition, as well as 
consciousness. The essence of consciousness is feeling or qualia. A quale is a 
physical phenomenon, not yet characterized. Once more, the quale does not 

"represent" your feeling; it IS your feeling. In a sense, it is the most basic 
part 
of you. And a description of a quale would not be a quale.

Robert Ettinger

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