Some Aspects
Main points I’m trying to work out in my understanding of mind:
1) How physicalism overcomes qualia theoretically. My intuition leads me in the directions of a) New Science b) Language and semiotics. In other words, a or b or combination will bridge the gap.
2) What is or isn’t qualia? I’m not shooting for elimitivism, but I’m interested in how informational complexity might play a strong role in what we think of as experience (while keeping the door closed for intelligent design).
3) All three of these points being related, what is the relation between tacit and propositional knowledge? Thought experiments strike me as absurd that gap between absolute metaphysical knowledge of bicycle riding and actually riding a bike.
January 23, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Be somewhat careful if you turn to semiotics since the father of modern semiotics, Peirce, required something like qualia as an essential feature of his semiotics.
January 23, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Can you explain Peirces position (or link to one of your posts on this same subject)?
BTW, my conception of bridging the gap doesn’t aim to eliminate the “1st person”. Some of what I’m thinking has to do with what can be taken for granted in ‘purely objective descriptions’. I don’t want to say more than that for now because I’m not satisfied with even the most preliminary articulations I can think of.