trifle trifle
THE MYSTERY OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Thomas Nagel asked the question ‘what’s it like to be a bat?’, supposing that if there’s something that it’s like to be a thing, then that thing must be conscious. This raises the question of how scrutable biological events give rise to subjective experience or qualia, called ‘the hard problem of consciousness’ by David Chalmers.
THE REDUCTIONIST SOLUTION
Peter Carruthers rejects the hard problem on the grounds that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain and requires no further explanation. We wonder at what point on the continuum of complexity consciousness emerges, and on which side of this point Vesper exists.
THE DUALIST SOLUTION
Descarte thought of consciousness as a property of the human soul (the ghost in Vesper’s head). This raises more questions than it answers, like: what’s a soul?
THE ELIMINATIVE MATERIALIST SOLUTION
To Dan Dennett most of the subjective experience or qualia is more a kind of illusion than something that requires explanation. To Dennett questions about Vesper’s love of music are irrelevant.
AN IDEA FROM ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Alan Turing argued that if a thing could adequately function as a conscious being, then that being must be conscious. We wonder whether Vesper could be no more than a music detecting machine, with no subjective experience to consider.
In the end we think the world needs to know what it’s like to be a music loving bat, and according to Vesper – it’s like something.
TRIFLE: Paul Angas–drums; Jamie Harrison–bass; Ian Lehmann–guitar.
‘Vesper the Bat’ composed by I. Lehmann.
Recorded at Satchel Studio, Adelaide Hills, South Australia.
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