CSE 719:  Computational Theories of Consciousness, Fall 2009

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McDermott (2007) quotes (for bib info, see online bibliography)
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1.
"Suppose...a cat shows up in the kitchen at the time it is usually fed,
meowing and behaving in...ways that tend to attract the attention of the
people who usually feed it....[T]he cat is truly intentional....[I]f you
could open up its brain you would find neural strutures that 'referred
to' the kitchen or the path to it, in the sense that those structures
became active in ways appropriate to the cat's needs....[S]ome of the
neural states and structures *denote* the kitchen or the event of being
fed....If processes and structures inside a cat's brain exhibit
objectively real impersonal intentionality, then it's hard not to accept
the same conclusion about the robot trying to get recharged....[If] there
is a conflict between what the [robot's] dsigners intended and what
actually occurs,...*what actually occurs wins*.  The designers don't
get to say, 'This boolean variable means that the robot is going through
a door' unless the variable's being true tends to occur if and only if
the robot is between two door jambs.  If the variable is correlated with
something else instead, then *that's* what it actually means....What the
symbols in a system mean is dependent on the system's environment."
(sect 4.2)


2.
"Phenomenal experience...emerges as the self-model's answer to the
question, What happens when I perceive something?  The answer, in terms
of appearance, reality, and error, is accurate up to a point....[W]hen
we get to qualia...the model ends the explanation with a just-so story.
It gives...useful answers on questions such as whether it's easier to
confuse green and yellow than green and red....But to questions such as,
How do I know this is red in the first place?, it gives an answer
designed to stop inquiry....Because red is 'intrinsically like *this*',
there is no further question to ask....Phenomenal consciousness is not
part of the mechanism of perception, but part of the mechanism of
introspection about perception....Perception is normally not mediated or
even accompanied by qualia....I invited raders to cast their eyes over a
complex climate-control system and observe the absence of sensation.  We
can do the same exercise with the brain, with the same result.  It just
doesn't need sensations in order to do its job.  But if you *ask* it, it
will claim it does.  A quale exists only when you look for it.
(sect.  4.3)
	[SOUNDS LIKE DENNETT!]