A Raybould

...and so on. These are not 'gotcha' quotes taken out of context; the alleged simplicity of understanding is a big part of your claim that there is no...

I have noticed a pattern here: you will post a claim, I will respond, then you will raise a different issue as if you had no counter-argument. A post ...

Absolutely not. As you are all for rigor where you think it helps your case, show us your argument from "there's something special about understanding...

First, let me make one thing clear (once again): The issue is not whether understanding is uncomputable, and if you think I have said so, you are eith...

I will treat that comment with all the respect it deserves. Regardless, the question I asked a couple of posts ago applies either way. ...but it is no...

I rather suspect that's true, unfortunately.

What part of 'a computation is what a Turing machine does, not what it is' do you not understand? At least until we sort that out, I am not going to r...

Even in Bostrom's simulation argument, neither brains nor minds are TMs: in that argument, I (or, rather, what I perceive as myself) is a process (a c...

There is no point in discussing your own private definition of 'understanding' - no-one can seriously doubt that computers are capable of performing d...

I am replacing my original reply because I do not think the nitpicking style that this conversation has fallen into is helpful. From your explanations...

"Within the reach" avoids precision where precision is needed. What do you mean, here? Whether it is symbol manipulation is beside the point. What's a...

I have no idea what that means. I hope that it means more than "understanding is semantics with syntax", which is, at best, a trite observation that d...

We may disagree over whether minds have purely physical causes, but it would be hard, I think, to deny that they have physical effects, and this alone...

A person who does not just know the answer might begin by asking herself questions like "what does it mean for cheese to melt?" "what causes it to do ...

Indeed, that article is not by Chalmers; is that a problem? Is reading Archimedes' words the only way to understand his principle? If you want to read...

No, it is intended to be what you asked for, an alternative to the Turing test, and the purpose of that test is to figure out if a given computer+prog...

Chalmers' canonical p-zombie argument is a mataphysical one that is not much concerned with computers or programs, even though they are often dragged ...

I once half-jokingly suggested that devising a test that we find convincing should be posed as an exercise for the AI. The only reason I said 'half-jo...

Firstly, just to be clear, and as you say in your original question, p-zombies are imagined as not merely behaviorally indistinguishable from humans, ...

Do you know that I am conscious in the same way that you are? (or that any other person is, for that matter.) If so, then apply whatever method you us...

There are a great many things that are unobservable, yet widely regarded as plausible, such as electrons, viruses, and, apparently, jealousy itself. O...

Amen to that! In what I have read of the philosophy of the mind, there does not seem to have been much consideration of fundamental physics, and that ...

Thanks for your extensive reply. I can understand your disinterest in having anything more to do with the knowledge argument! I have made one pass thr...

I believe that there were some early theories claiming that brain states are the same as mental states (type identity theory, perhaps?) but I think th...

The equivocation reply to the knowledge argument effectively begins with Churchland's "Knowing Qualia: a Reply to Jackson" in 1989, though both Horgan...

The knowledge argument also has the problem of equivocation over the sort of knowledge that Mary gains: she can only gain discursively-learnable knowl...

Then it is surprising that, instead of offering a logical refutation of anything I have written, you have simply repeated, at great length, unsubstant...

So, in your earlier post, you were arguing your position from a belief that not even you hold...

But in your previous post, you wrote "I don't believe there are physical devices", so you have been expressing strong opinions about the capabilities ...

According to what you wrote in reply to me an hour ago, you apparently think it likely that your conscious mind is the only thing in this universe...

Well, I raised it in every post today... At first sight, it does seem absurd that these devices could compute, but when you work through the Turing-eq...

OK, I think we all get the point that your mind is set. Providing yet more examples of what you are sure are absurd is not going to make that point an...

Indeed it is, but its English name, 'proof by contradiction', is clearer than the Latin: it means to refute an argument by deducing a logical contradi...

My intent was to make a general point about a certain style of argument, but as you want a quote, I have added one to my original post. One prominent ...

If all psychological research were conducted in the lax manner you propose, then no, it would not be science! Firstly, we should beware of pop-phi con...

Declaring that "X cannot give rise to Y" (or asking, rhetorically, "how can X give rise to Y") does not answer anything, or advance our understanding....