Toward a Science of Consciousness LO21961

Tom Christoffel (tjcdsgns@shentel.net)
Wed, 23 Jun 1999 08:43:20 -0400 (EDT)

Replying to LO21944 --

LO folk:

Jim Laukes <jlaukes@U.Arizona.EDU> post of this conference Toward a Science
of Consciousness listed relevant topics under

>Philosophy: conceptual foundations, qualia, ontology, explanation, self,
>intentionality, mental causation, reality, free will

"qualia" jumped out as a new term, one not found in my handy dictionary.
First I was going to e-mail Jim and ask what it meant, but then decided to
use my handy AltaVista search and found:
<http://www.qualia-manifesto.com/index.html>

The Qualia Manifesto - Official Home Page of the Qualia Movement
Portal site for the Mind-Brain Problem
(webpage initiated on 26th November 1998)
Mission Statement

Qualia are the subjective sensory qualities like "the redness of red" that
accompany our perception. Qualia symbolize the explanatory gap that exists
between the subjective qualities of our perception and the physical system
that we call the brain. Elucidating the neural basis of qualia is central
in understanding the principles of the "integrated parallelism" in
cortical information processing. The so-called "binding problem" is a
typical aspect of the above mentioned "integrated parallelism". The study
of qualia is important not only in understanding the neural basis of our
conscious mental experience but also in bridging the gap between the "two
cultures" (C.P. Snow). The Qualia Manifesto is a mission statement that
puts qualia at the center of scientific and cultural movement in years to
come."

Tom

-- 
Tom Christoffel, AICP * e-mail: tjcdsgns@shentel.net
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