asaris

I'm not sure what the point of this argument is. Surely the mere fact that something isn't actually selected for by evolution doesn't trivialize the matter. There are lots of random things in evolved organisms; that's why it's evolution, not design. But just because they don't help us pass on our genes doesn't mean they're not good things. But this might just be a point we disagree on.

That's not quite right, at least how I read the Chalmers. The starting point is the view that, in a being with a silicon brain, qualia would be different. Chalmers assumes that this means different within the same phenomenology, but this is not necessarily the case. That's what the bat was meant to show -- that there can be different phenomenologies for the same thing.

And I don't think Chalmers's reductio applies to this position. His argument depends on the 'flipping of experience' -- the dictionary's yellow, no it's 'yellow', no it's yellow. But if 'yellow' means something radically different to the silicon brain, you wouldn't necessarily get this same sort of cognitive dissonance. I suppose I'm being a bit unclear, but I don't think I can get clearer. To return to the bat, it doesn't seem to me that we can say what the world looks like to a bat. It's just too different to compare.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche