Connectionism and the problem of consciousness

This paper falls into three parts. in Part 1 I give my reasons for rejecting two aspects of Horgan and Tienson's position as laid out in their book, the language of thought and belief-desire explanations of behaviour, while endorsing the connection they see between linguistic syntax and the syntax of a motor skill, in Part 2 1 outline the theory that the brain consists of two input-output transformation systems consciousness whose function is (a) to categorise problematic inputs, (b) to select a response appropriate to such inputs once they have been categorised and (c) to initiate and monitor the execution of such response once selected, and the "zombie-within" whose function is (a) to identify and alert consciousness to any inputs that are problematic and (b) either to ignore those that are non-problematic or route them to output as an automatic reflex. In Part 3 1 consider how far the properties of the two systems outlined in Part 2 can be understood in terms of the known properties of connectionist networks.