"Can Information Theory Explain Consciousness?" by John R. Searle -- a review of Consciousness: Confession of a Romantic Reductionist by Christof Koch.
Review published in The New York Review of Books, Jan 10, 2013
[excerpt]
...the qualitative charactistic of drinking beer is different from that of listening to music or thinking about your income tax. This qualitative character is subjective in that it only exists as experienced by a human or animal subject. It has subjective or first-person existence (or "ontology") unlike mountains, molecules, and tectonic plates that have an objective or third-person existence...
-- I HAVE SOMETHING TO ASK YOU, DARLING, SAYS LILLIAN
-- SURE DARLING. TURN DOWN THE MUSIC AND PASS ME A BEER, PLEASE?
-- OF COURSE, DARLING. HERE IS A GLASS OF COLD MILLER BEER.
-- THANK YOU!
-- YOU'RE WELCOME. DID YOU FINISH OUR TAXES YET?
Jan Galligan
75Grand/Sur
Santa Olaya, PR
http://JANGuarte.posterous.com [art blog]
http://cinefestsanjuan.posterous.com [cine blog]
http://about.me/JanGalligan [about me]