Sunday 7 November 2010

Quotes Without Context



„there are certain features of the bodily sensations especially, but also of certain peceptual experiences, which no amount of purely physical information includes. Tell me everything about physical there is to tell about what is going on in a living brain, their relation to what goes on at other times and in other brains, and so on and so forth, and be I as clever in fitting it all together, you won’t have told me about the hurtfulness of pains, the itchiness of itches, pangs of jealousy, and about the characteristic experience of tasting a lemon, smelling a rose, hearing a loud noise or seeing the sky.”
Frank Jackson
Epiphenomenal Qualia
In David J. Chalmers (ed.) Philosophy of Mind
Classical and contemporary readings (page 273)


„Suppose we tried to say that the redness or blueness of light was nothing but a specific wavelength of EM waves. Well, if we tried such an ontological reduction, the essential features of the light would be left out. No description of the extrinsic wavelenghts of EM waves could possibly convey the intrinsic character of (objective) visible redness and visible blueness for the simple reason that visible properties of light are distinct from the physical properties of EM waves. This argument is ludicrously simple and quite decisive.”
Paul M. Churchland
The Rediscovery of Light
In David J. Chalmers (ed.) Philosophy of Mind
Classical and contemporary readings (page 363)