These are great points! Saying the feeling is the function is the big leap/hypothesis here, not something the mechanics proves directly. The exact ‘why this feeling for that function’ map isn’t figured out yet – Section 9 flags that as ongoing research. It’s called ‘mechanical’ because the underlying process described (the predictive modeling stuff) is physical/computational.
I added a note to conclusion to make it clearer the goal here is different from something like dual-aspect monism (which might posit two basic aspects). This article is trying to see if the feeling can be explained from the mechanism itself, even if that explanation isn’t complete.
These are great points! Saying the feeling is the function is the big leap/hypothesis here, not something the mechanics proves directly. The exact ‘why this feeling for that function’ map isn’t figured out yet – Section 9 flags that as ongoing research. It’s called ‘mechanical’ because the underlying process described (the predictive modeling stuff) is physical/computational.
I added a note to conclusion to make it clearer the goal here is different from something like dual-aspect monism (which might posit two basic aspects). This article is trying to see if the feeling can be explained from the mechanism itself, even if that explanation isn’t complete.