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Dodging the explanatory gap – or bridging it

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2008

Drew McDermott
Drew McDermott
Affiliation:
Computer Science Department, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8285. drew.mcdermott@yale.eduhttp://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/dvm
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Abstract

Assuming our understanding of the brain continues to advance, we will at some point have a computational theory of how access consciousness works. Block's supposed additional kind of consciousness will not appear in this theory, and continued belief in it will be difficult to sustain. Appeals to “what it's like” to experience such-and-such will carry little weight when we cannot locate a subject for whom it might be like something.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 30 , Issue 5-6 , December 2007 , pp. 518
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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