Stephen Downes

Can you, like Clark Quinn, "argue, basically, that we are 'meat'. That is, that our cognition is grounded in our physiology, and that there's nothing ephemeral about our cognition. There is no ineffable element to our existence." The response is something like: "Since we haven't (yet) explained consciousness, there must be something more than the physical elements." In my response I point to the cognitivists' employment of a concept of 'content' to fill this role. The idea is that to be conscious is to be conscious of something. But is this really a requirement? What would make it so? And how could this non-physical idea of 'content' have any (physical) impact on our thoughts, experiences or beliefs? (The image suggests, slyly, that the idea of 'content' has no more efficacy than the idea of 'learning style').