Rational cognitive systems have correct beliefs

Subjects radically mistaken about their experiences are irrational. Rational systems—with unimpaired cognitive mechanisms—won't make big errors about conscious experiences. Substituting silicon chips for neurons shouldn't change this rationality.

Even if an individual's neurons have been replaced by silicon chips, that person should still be rational, and thereby have—at least, mostly—correct beliefs and make correct statements about his or her conscious experiences.

David Chalmers (1996).

The Chalmers argument


David Chalmers describes this claim as follows:

"In these cases, however, we are no longer dealing with fully rational systems. in systems whose belief formation mechanisms are impaired, anything goes. Such systems might believe that they are Napoleon, or that the moon is pink. My "faded" isomorph Joe, by contrast, is a fully rational system, whose cognitive mechanisms are functioning just as well as mine. In conversation, he seems perfectly sensible. We cannot point to any unusually poor inferential connections between his beliefs, or any systematic psychiatric disorder that is leading his thought processes to be biased toward faulty reasoning. Joe is an eminently thoughtful, reasonable person, who exhibits none of the confabulatory symptoms of those with blindness denial. The cases are therefore disanalogous. The plausible claim is not that no system can be massively mistaken about its experiences, but that no rational system whose cognitive mechanisms are unimpaired can be so mistaken. Joe is certainly a rational system whose mechanisms are working as well as mine, so the argument is unaffected" (D. Chalmers, 1996, p. 261).

References

Chalmers, David. 1996. The Conscious Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.
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