Kyle's Homework Assignment
Explain your position on whether Causal-Theoretical Functionalism is a realistic perspective for addressing the issue of Qualia (aka "The Hard Problem").
Or, just rant about Canada's performance at the Olympics.
When I first saw Kyle's questions I was going to tackle the first one since I hadn't really been paying attention to the Winter Olympics this year. But, after looking at some websites and the above headline on yahoo.ca, I have to wonder why anyone would want to rant about our performance.
I mean for total medals we were 3rd. And for total gold medals we were 5th. In my mind that's pretty good. We've had much worse standings in past Olympics. See standings here.
Maybe everyone's upset that the men's hockey team didn't get gold. Well, I've always had a problem with professional players joining Olympic teams. I always thought that the Olympics should be for amateur athletes. So if they didn't win I'm not to heart broken. They can go back to the NHL and continue losing there.
So, I will fail this question cause I'm not gonna rant about an Olympic performance that is the best in our Nation's history. Instead, I'm gonna tell all the people who had a problem with our medal count and achievements to take a look at the broader picture and wake up. How can you be upset with third overall in total medals? Honestly!?
And, no I don't think that causal-theoretical functionalism is a realistic perspective for addressing the issue of qualia because we have to take masochism into consideration. If a sense of pain can be defined by electrical impulses and signals and then those definitions read by another person and they are to be able to understand what the sense "feels" like, then how do we know that the person reading about the pain isn't a masochist. They will "feel" the pain differently if it actually happens to them. But if they are simply shown the "feelings" of a non-masochistic person they may not receive the same pleasure. So therefore qualia is not something that can be simply translated and shown to another person for them to be able to fully understand the sensation.
Or, just rant about Canada's performance at the Olympics.
When I first saw Kyle's questions I was going to tackle the first one since I hadn't really been paying attention to the Winter Olympics this year. But, after looking at some websites and the above headline on yahoo.ca, I have to wonder why anyone would want to rant about our performance.
I mean for total medals we were 3rd. And for total gold medals we were 5th. In my mind that's pretty good. We've had much worse standings in past Olympics. See standings here.
Maybe everyone's upset that the men's hockey team didn't get gold. Well, I've always had a problem with professional players joining Olympic teams. I always thought that the Olympics should be for amateur athletes. So if they didn't win I'm not to heart broken. They can go back to the NHL and continue losing there.
So, I will fail this question cause I'm not gonna rant about an Olympic performance that is the best in our Nation's history. Instead, I'm gonna tell all the people who had a problem with our medal count and achievements to take a look at the broader picture and wake up. How can you be upset with third overall in total medals? Honestly!?
And, no I don't think that causal-theoretical functionalism is a realistic perspective for addressing the issue of qualia because we have to take masochism into consideration. If a sense of pain can be defined by electrical impulses and signals and then those definitions read by another person and they are to be able to understand what the sense "feels" like, then how do we know that the person reading about the pain isn't a masochist. They will "feel" the pain differently if it actually happens to them. But if they are simply shown the "feelings" of a non-masochistic person they may not receive the same pleasure. So therefore qualia is not something that can be simply translated and shown to another person for them to be able to fully understand the sensation.
4 Comments:
Sweet! You answered both. Nicely done. I like the masochism take. Very unique.
And hey, you can always rant about how awesome we were. And really, we were pretty freaking awesome.
2010's gonna be fuuun....
By
Kyle, at 7:26 a.m.
Dear Mike:
Happy Birthday to you.
Wish you have a beautiful birthday night.
By
Cindy, at 7:54 a.m.
mike,
is it your bday? if so, happy freakin birthday, eh. i'm always the last to know.
about your olympics rant, there is no such thing as an amateur athlete anymore, unless you're from madagascar. so, why not just have the best athletes (i.e. nhl players) participating?
By
bubba, at 9:58 p.m.
"And, no I don't think that causal-theoretical functionalism is a realistic perspective for addressing the issue of qualia because we have to take masochism into consideration."
...What the %#$@# does that even mean??!??
By
Anonymous, at 8:57 a.m.
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