Valerie Hardcastle:
I also claim (and here I think he disagrees with me) that "open to empirical testing" means "open to empirical testing using the tools we currently have available
Right, I do disagree, and thanks for pointing out the logical positivist grounding of your postmodern line on scientific explanation. To the Vienna Circle the idea of an as-yet-undiscovered-science was quite meaningless, and all the LitCrit people did a few decades later was to point out the social nature of the criteria used in the construction of meaning. I actually think this is at the root of the Churchland-Penrose argument, and that it really has nothing to do with microtubules at all.
Unfortunately, and despite my background in sociology, I don't buy the relativism argument. Like Penrose and Hayes (funny to bracket those two together!) I'm just an old fashioned boy at heart and still hold to that quaint old idea that science is trying to tell us something real about the universe and that it approximates to how things are, rather than just addressing the needs and prejudices of some socially defined group.
Consciousness does present a puzzle within our current science and from where I stand the idea of a future science doesn't contravene the principles of naturalism. I would refer to my attitude as "humbleism" and here I vote with McGinn. But I don't share his pessimism -- sure we're too stupid to understand consciousness at the moment, but that doesn't rule it out for the future.
Jim Newman:
Keith, please speak for yourself. The reason I study consciousness is because is an important scientific problem.
I suppose its a little bit trite to point out that its only because you're conscious that you are aware its a problem at all. But I think the very passion which surrounds this debate is because its about what we are, or think we are rather, than something more arcane. Here I'm with Metzinger in his introduction to *Conscious Experience*:
"The problem in a strong sense concerns *ourselves*: it is always our *own* consciousness, among others, that we want to understand. Therefore the problem of consciousness is also a problem of self-knowledge. It affects all of us, not just philosophers and scientists."
Jim Newman:
"Until consciousness as-such is studied in a methodical way" is happening NOW, Keith.
Varela would certainly disagree. As to whether GWT is a theory of conscious experience or of the NCC, I'm looking forward to Chalmers' reply to Baars and the rest of his critics (due out this autumn).
Keith Sutherland
keith@imprint.co.uk
jcs-online
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