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Sunday, October 15, 2006

In the latest NYRB John Searle reviews Nick Humphrey's new book Seeing Red: A Study in Consciousness. I haven't read Humphrey's book yet, so I won't comment on the content of Searle's review. He concludes:
It seems to me Humphrey makes a fundamental error from the beginning. He thinks that the solution to our problem has to be in the form of an equation, mind = brain, rather than in a causal account. Why should we make this assumption? There are lots of explanations in science and philosophy that are not in the form of equations. In fact, equations are rather rare in biology. Think of the germ theory of disease or the theory of evolution. What we are interested in, in these cases, are causal mechanisms, not equations. What causes disease symptoms? What is the causal account of the evolution of human and animal species from simpler forms of life? And now, what causes consciousness?
I'm still waiting to see what Searle's "brains cause qualitative subjectivity" explanation looks like.

The New York Review of Books: Minding the Brain

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