If our consciousness always includes consciousness of our body in relation to our environment, then how can it be a that a computer program, which, according to functionalism, can run in precisely the same way in different computers, is ever conscious? The differences in these machines are like the differences in bodies that are situated differently with respect to the same concrete object. The fact that they are not differently aware while their programs run in different machines with different characteristics and in different situations can be explained by the fact that they are not aware of their bodies at all, and that is not far from saying that they are not aware at all: they are just tools we use to understand the world.
Here is a summary and comments on the essay Freedom and Resentment by PF Strawson. He makes some great points, and when he is wrong, it is in such a way as to clarify things a great deal. My non-deterministic position is much better thanks to having read this. I’ll summarize it in this post and respond in a later one. In a nutshell: PFS first argues that personal resentment that we may feel toward another for having failed to show goodwill toward us would have no problem coexisting with the conviction that determinism is true. Moral disapprobation, as an analog to resentment, is likewise capable of coexisting with deterministic convictions. In fact, it would seem nearly impossible for a normally-constituted person (i.e., a non-sociopath) to leave behind the web of moral convictions, even if that person is a determinist. In this way, by arguing that moral and determinist convictions can coexist in the same person, PFS undermines the libertarian argument ...
Comments