Steven Reidbord (1992) Would you Choose Unremembered Pain? . Psycoloquy: 3(41) Consciousness (22)
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Psycoloquy 3(41): Would you Choose Unremembered Pain?

WOULD YOU CHOOSE UNREMEMBERED PAIN?
Commentary on Bridgeman on Consciousness

Steven Reidbord
Department of Psychiatry
Box CSN-0984 UCSF
San Francisco CA 94143

reidbord@macpsy.ucsf.edu

Abstract

Bridgeman appears to equate epistemology with ontology, but these are different issues. While memory recall may be needed to know or PROVE conscious experience, it does not COMPRISE conscious experience. Conscious experience matters greatly even in the absence of the memory needed to prove that it occurred. An account of consciousness must not establish an epistemology so stringent that ontology gets lost in the process.

Keywords

consciousness, language, plans, motivation, evolution, motor system.

References