On behaviorism, I always liked Morgenbesser’s alleged remark to Skinner: “Let me see if I understand your thesis. You think we shouldn’t anthropomorphize people?”
Meta_and_Meta
Imagine a minimally complete physical duplicate of our cosmos. (So, e.g., the earth travels round the sun consistent with Keplar’s laws, etc.) But: There’s no gravity.
Make it zero dimensions and call it a “day.” All else is Maya.
How can we possibly move on when there are still people who are wrong on the Internet?
And even if you assumed that Einstein’s genius was unique, how could celebrity (of all things) be a function of that? (If Einstein had had a different hairdo...)
Here’s an argument related to Eliezer’s point about the need to have a substantive model of consciousness before you can model removing it from the world:
Consider a hypothetical person, call him “Al.” On the assumptions of property dualism, Al comprises or instantiates certain “formal” natural properties Φ and certain “intrinsic” natural properties Ψ.
The property dualist postulates that Φ and Ψ are necessary and sufficient conditions for consciousness.
Yet we can “clearly and distinctly” conceive of zombie-Al, who is a duplicate of Al in respect of both Φ and Ψ, but who is nonetheless phenomenally void.
Thus, we are right back where we were before Ψ was even posited. Therefore, Ψ is theoretically vacuous.
Finally someone has come up with a word for those awful people.