Representative Realists, I think there may have been an e-mail glitch when I sent out the first post on this '''Welcome John Gregg''' thread, so some of you may not have received it. If you haven't yet seen it, I encourage you to visit this thread to read it. http://canonizer.com/thread.asp/88/6/5 This is where I introduce John as a new member of this camp, and propose canonizing at least one of his ideas ('''"Its the light, not the either"''') in the representative and real camp statement. We've also recently created new Mind Experts entry for him and Richard Wilson here: * [http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/81/23 Richard Wilson] * [http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/81/16 John Gregg] I encourage everyone who hasn't yet, to indicate who they think their top 10 or so experts are on this topic so we can better communicate to the rest of the world who the worlds bests experts are (and are not) on consciousness according to their peers. I'm enjoying watching the horse race going on here and between the two consensus sub camps: Qualia arises from anything functionally equivalent vs. Nature has phenomenal properties. If Steven Lehar switches camps, as he has argued he believes in this camp forum, the one person one vote canonization will still put the arises camp in the lead. But when you switch to the new mind experts canonizer, so you can compare the scientific consensus to the general population consensus, the nature has phenomenal properties will be far in the lead. I'm looking forward to seeing the state of this horse race a year from now when we have a much more comprehensive representation of more experts than we have now. Upward, Brent Allsop

Representative Realists, I'd like to welcome John Gregg as another new member of our camp (he recently joined the [http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/7 Nature has Phenomenal Properties] supporting sub camp of this representative and real camp. He is the maintainer of [http://home.comcast.net/~johnrgregg/ John Gregg's Consciousness Site]. Where he has many great essays on the issue proving his commanding expertise on the topic. I think there is much stuff there that can be used to improve our camp statements. One of my favorite of these visionary ideas comes from his [http://home.comcast.net/~johnrgregg/hardprob.htm Hard Problem essay] and simply is: "'''It is the light, not the either'''" statement. I love the way this one simple concise statement totally devastates many of the arguments comparing qualia to old failed theories. I propose we canonize this idea in our camp statement with the following change to the 4th paragraph of our statement. Brent Allsop ------------- Old Version of 4th Paragraph: -------------------- In his book: "Consciousness Explained" Daniel Dennett claims we don't experience qualia "It just seems like we do." (P 375). But the very meaning of 'to seem' is to have knowledge that doesn't accurately represent its referent, making this an obvious logical error; for we are only talking about actual phenomenal qualities, which really has nothing to do with whether such phenomenal qualities are misrepresenting something or not. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- --------- Proposed new version: ------------------------------- Many people often compare the idea of qualia to many failed theories of the past such as vitalism, phlogisten, either and so on. The problem with many of these arguments is they entirely miss classify the nature of qualia as John Gregg states in [http://home.comcast.net/~johnrgregg/hardprob.htm his essay on the Hard Problem]. "The problem is that subjective consciousness (or qualia) is not something we drag into the picture to explain something or other that we observe, as elan vital was invoked to explain what we observe about life, or to use another example reductive physicalists like, as the luminiferous ether was invoked to explain light waves in the 19th century. Consciousness is the raw data, the observed thing that needs explaining. '''It is the light, not the ether'''." People like Daniel Dennett make similar categorical errors when they claim we don't have qualia "it just seems like we do" (Consciousness Explained P 375). The very meaning of 'to seem' is to have knowledge that doesn't accurately represent its referent. Qualia have to do with the nature of our seeming. Whether or not they are mistaken representations is irrelevant. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------