more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
NO physical mechanism seems very intuitively plausible as a seat of qualia, least of all a brain.
Gist of Idea
A brain looks no more likely than anything else to cause qualia
Source
Ned Block (Troubles with Functionalism [1978], p. 78)
Book Ref
'The Philosophy of Mind', ed/tr. Beakley,B /Ludlow P [MIT 1992], p.78
A Reaction
I'm not sure about "least of all", given the mind-boggling complexity of the brain's connections. Certainly, though, nothing in either folk physics or academic physics suggests that any physical object is likely to be aware of anything.
12601 | The way things look is a relational matter, not an intrinsic matter [Harman] |
7387 | "Qualia" can be replaced by complex dispositional brain states [Dennett] |
7658 | Obviously there can't be a functional anaylsis of qualia if they are defined by intrinsic properties [Dennett] |
2582 | A brain looks no more likely than anything else to cause qualia [Block] |
7521 | It is question-begging to assume that qualia are totally simple, hence irreducible [Churchlands] |
7523 | The qualia Hard Problem is easy, in comparison with the co-ordination of mental states [Churchlands] |
3226 | Are qualia irrelevant to explaining the mind? [Rey] |
6546 | Pain is composed of urges, desires, impulses etc, at different levels of abstraction [Lycan] |
6547 | The right 'level' for qualia is uncertain, though top (behaviourism) and bottom (particles) are false [Lycan] |
4090 | Weak intentionalism says qualia are extra properties; strong intentionalism says they are intentional [Crane] |
7706 | If qualia supervene on intentional states, then intentional states are explanatorily fundamental [Jacquette] |
7011 | Qualia are not extra appendages, but intrinsic ingredients of material states and processes [Heil] |
4935 | The sensation of red is a point in neural space created by dimensions of neuronal activity [Edelman/Tononi] |