anticipating an objection

I blogged earlier about the major flaw with the "no horse in my head" argument, and now I want to anticipate an objection. A dedicated substance dualist might counter that the information encoded on the Blu-ray disc still contains an "aboutness"-- a meaning-- that requires a mind to understand it. This merely pushes the issue of intentionality back a step, and it certainly doesn't destroy the dualist's case.

My reply to this objection is that aboutness is not the point of the analogy: the point is that, with the proper apparatus, information that at first looks nothing like a horse can be decoded such that a horse will appear to us, and this is just as true for a human brain as it is for a Blu-ray disc. That's what the analogy shows: the conceivability of decoding the human brain.

Dr. V argued the following:

1. Marty [the Martian scientist studying human brains from a distance] knows all the physical and functional facts about my body and brain during the time I am thinking about a dog.
2. That I am thinking about a dog is a fact.
3. Marty does not know that I am thinking about a dog.
Therefore
4. Marty does not know all the facts about me and my mental activity.
Therefore
5. There are mental facts that are not physical or functional facts, and physicalism is false.

I would dispute (3). If Marty has the proper decoder, then he would be aware that I'm thinking about a dog, and that would undermine Dr. V's two therefores.


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