Posted by Noctillucent on July 05, 19101 at 20:09:22:

In Reply to: Now we're getting somewhere! posted by John Tchoe on July 04, 19101 at 03:24:38:

If I AM my brain’s cortex, how can I NOT have direct knowledge of it? Indeed, how can I have knowledge of anything EXCEPT the cortex? Yet nothing in my subjective experience gives any insight into the cortex, or that it even exists. Even more oddly, what I experience are things that lie all together outside my brain. How is that possible if I AM my cortex? Obviously my subjective experience is not the cortex itself, but something that is ontologically distinct from the cortex. That should be obvious to anyone.

Yet your whole thesis seems to hang on the idea that subjective experience IS the cortex. Yet when I put that forward as a very serious claim, you back away from it. And for obvious reasons.

So it’s very hard to pin down what you actually believe about the brain and it’s subjective experience.

As for a copy of your brain, my question was: If your brain were ITSELF made of a different set of atoms, would you exist, or would it be someone else who only ACTS like you?

Note: I am not speaking here of a separate duplicate brain.

Follow Ups:

• There is no spoon. John Tchoe 12:04:12 7/06/101 (3)
  • Re: There is no spoon. Noctillucent 07:36:39 7/10/101 (2)
    • One step forward, two steps back. John Tchoe 12:39:22 7/10/101 (1)
      • My reply at the top. Noctillucent 09:14:56 7/13/101 (0)

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