Christine P. Watling (cwatling at pop.srv.ualberta.ca) wrote:
: In article <herwin-2305961933490001 at news.gmu.edu>, herwin at gmu.edu says...
: >
: >Who is Nagel and what is his question?
: Are you referring to Thomas Nagel perhaps? He is a philosopher with an
: interest in the philosophy of mind (among other things). His question
: "What is it like to be a bat?" was the title of one of his essays. In
: that article he questions the ability of cognitive scientists to explain
: the subjective aspect of consciousness, i.e., to explain how it is that
: certain brain states result in our FEELING something. His point, and his
: question, continue to come up in most discussions of mind relating to
: consciousness.
Since I'm modeling early auditory processing in the bat for my
dissertation, that seems to explain why it was suggested that the research
may help answer Nagel's question. The comment came out of the blue.
Thanks
--
Harry Erwin, Internet: herwin at gmu.edu, Web Page: http://osf1.gmu.edu/~herwin
PhD student in computational neurosci and lecturer for CS 211 (advanced C++)