Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Philosophy Club

[Gertie]

GE

Thank you for taking the time to do this.

I have questions!

So the claim is that that qualia are phenomenal experience, and a property of brain processes? That's a pretty mainstream idea.

That would be misleading. Qualia are not properties of brain processes, but products of brain processes.

Could you clarify how the difference works here?

Isn't the reduction then simply a framing which says it's not qualia doing the representing of a blue sky, it's the configurations of and interactions of the nervous system in response to external stimuli? And the phenomenal experience is just a property of how those particular processes manifest?

That is, in my view, the proper way to conceive of qualia --- as the mode by which the brain presents to consciousness information about the wavelengths of light the senses are delivering to it.

Just to agree some terms - would you go with qualia are akin to units of certain types phenomenal experience like sensory perceptions, emotions and sensations? Or all 'what it's like' experience?

And what do you mean by 'consciousness' here, which the brain ''presents phenomenal experience'' to? Other types of experiential states, a self which is something different to experiential states, or something else?

My own view is a conscious Self is no more than a feature of the way experiential states (qualia, intentional states, whatever) manifest in complex conscious beings - hence the question

A quale is an experiential "tag" that allows us to distinguish (say) red light from light with different wavelengths.

Again, what is the ''us'' or Me here doing the distinguishing?

Each one represents some experiential differertia. We can think of those tags as arbitrary; they bear no predictable or necessary logical or structural relationship to the physical processes that produce them (just as words for things are arbitrary, having no structural or other physical relationships to the things they name).

If I'm reading you correctly, you're saying Dennett believes it's arbitrary that sticking my hand in a fire feels bad, and and eating when I'm low on calories feels good? It could just as easily be the other way round? Because our reward system looks a lot like it's tuned by evolution.

Qualia terms are also unanalyzable and thus ineffable --- they are linguistic primitives, with no simpler parts or distinguishable properties. Hence they cannot be described (description consists in listing the properties of things).

Umm OK. I'd thought Dennett disputed their inneffability.

They are also intrinsically subjective --- there is no way for me to know whether the sensation you experience when seeing red is the same as mine --- that question doesn't even make sense.

Right it is unknowable, but the claim the question doesn't make sense implies a whole lot more.

In Frank Jackson's "Mary" thought experiment, Jackson asks whether Mary, who has lived her life in a black-and-white room and never perceived color, but knows all the science there is to know about light, learns anything new when she perceives a red rose for the first time. Yes, she does --- not anything new about the world, but how her brain presents that wavelength information to her consciousness.

I recall Dennett disputing Jackson's knowledge argument, but all I remember now is a banana - and that might not have been him lol. That makes sense I guess, if you think consciousness consists of something other than experiential states manifesting in different ways.

Every conscious creature knows that qualia are "real" enough. We just have to accept that, for the reasons above, they are unanalyzable, and, more importantly, that there is no need to analyze them.

Heh.

[Terrapin Station]

Again (and again and again and again . . . ) no one can prove any empirical claim, period. For any empirical claim, the contradictory empirical claim is always a possibility. What you should focus on instead are reasons to believe one possibility over another.

(b) is very easy to show re having a good reason to believe it. For one, we can produce different frequencies of electromagnetic radiation, expose people to them, and very predictably receive responses about what color the person is being exposed to.

Re (c) we do this all the time when we mix paints, for example. We can easily use a spectrometer to show what EM frequencies a particular paint blob is giving off. We can easily see what color the paint blob is. And then we very reliably know what colors we'll get when we mix different paints, and we can use spectrometers on those too.

It's ridiculous that I have to explain any of this to you, and it's typical that rather than offer any sorts of counterargument whatsoever, rather than attempting to explain what's supposed to be so mysterious about something like magenta, you resort to stupid insults. That's all you're really capable of. Because you're an insecure moron.

Scientific proof doesn't work via 'what people say', it works by objective observation, measurement. As a physicalist, have you never heard of physics before?

Science doesn't prove anything. It provisionally verifies them in lieu of falsification. Have you never heard of science methodology or philosophy of science before?

[Terrapin Station]

Re magenta, by the way, what the hell are you even thinking? That it's just some random quale that people have that's otherwise inexplicable? Are you not thinking that it's reliably in response to objective facts? That it's not a reliable perception of objective properties? How would you explain being able to reliably print things (for example) that people perceive as magenta? Seriously, it seems like I'd be talking to a retard to have to even explain this.

Maybe you can answer this.
I'm watching this Dennett video. At 12:40 minutes they get on to "qualia".
To versions of colour perception are set on for blue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSaEjLZIDqc

1 Having a phenomenal quality of blue instantiated in my brain.
and
2 The quality of blue is represented by my brain.

Dennett claims that 1 is wrong and that 2 is correct.

For my money the idea of a qualia seems right. Others on this Forum page have claimed that Dennett has ejected the notion as crap.
SO I have two problems. What is the actual difference between 1 and 2, and does Dennett's acceptance of 2 invalidate the idea of qualia. If so why?

Dennett simply means that there's no literal instantiation of blue in your brain, and no literal door. In other words, the color blue won't literally be found in your brain and neither will a door. You rather have a "representation" of blue and the door in your brain. It's kind of like how the color blue isn't literally in the word "blue," but the word (at least with semantic aspects "attached") is a representation of the color.

[Terrapin Station]

No, it isn't. "magenta" is a name for a range of wavelengths that produce specific qualia in perceiving subjects.

So is this:



just a name?

He wrote that it's a name for a range of wavelengths. He didn't write that it's just a name <stop>

[Terrapin Station]

That would be misleading. Qualia are not properties of brain processes, but products of brain processes.

I don't agree with that. Qualia are properties of mental brain states. They're not something different than mental brain states that the brain only produces.

That is, in my view, the proper way to conceive of qualia --- as the mode by which the brain presents to consciousness

As if brains and consciousness are something different. They're not.

[Atla]

Scientific proof doesn't work via 'what people say', it works by objective observation, measurement. As a physicalist, have you never heard of physics before?

Science doesn't prove anything. It provisionally verifies them in lieu of falsification. Have you never heard of science methodology or philosophy of science before?

Empirical proof is a commonly used term, I already told you like 5 times that I'm not interested in the childish evasion tactics where you pretend to not understand what it means.

Although I suppose it's possible that you really don't know what it means. After all, you also didn't know that science deals with objective measurement. And we've also established prior that you missed like the entirety of 20th century scientific development, that was relevant to philosophy.

In short, you have an almost Flat-Earther level understanding of the physicalism you think you subscribe to. That would explain why you are so confused, but think that others are confused.

[Atla]

So is this:



just a name?

He wrote that it's a name for a range of wavelengths. He didn't write that it's just a name <stop>

Maybe, maybe not. Magenta doesn't even have a known wavelength btw.

[Faustus5]

It's kind of like how the color blue isn't literally in the word "blue," but the word (at least with semantic aspects "attached") is a representation of the color.

That is a great way of putting it!

[Terrapin Station]

Seems to me that if qualia were really well defined there should have been no disagreement. I mean after all, if qualia really exist and are the most obvious thing in the world, how could some people think their qualia were changing and others not? This disagreement and confusion pretty clearly indicate to me that qualia are a thoroughly theoretical construct.

One issue here would be if people believe that they can have unconscious mental content, and whether unconscious mental content have qualia.

So, for example, they might think, "I have unconscious mental content, but I understand the 'what it's like' idea to refer to something I'm necessarily aware of, so I'm not sure how to answer."

Or in my case, I don't agree that there's any good reason to buy that there is unconscious mental content.

But then someone else might think that they have unconscious mental content and that their unconscious mental content necessarily have qualia, too.

So the problem wouldn't be that qualia are necessarily unclear. It could be that people have different views about and/or aren't sure about unconscious mental content or its relation to qualia.

[Terrapin Station]

He wrote that it's a name for a range of wavelengths. He didn't write that it's just a name <stop>

Maybe, maybe not. Magenta doesn't even have a known wavelength btw.

It's not a "single wavelength." It's a combo of wavelengths. Why would a combo be illegitimate?

You might as well say that there's no scientific account of musical harmony or a chord. Musical harmony/chords are by definition not just one pitch. They're a combination of pitches. Is it illegitimate to talk about a combination of musical pitches? Why would it be illegitimate to talk about combinations of EM frequencies?

[Atla]

Maybe, maybe not. Magenta doesn't even have a known wavelength btw.

It's not a "single wavelength." It's a combo of wavelengths. Why would a combo be illegitimate?

You might as well say that there's no scientific account of musical harmony or a chord. Musical harmony/chords are by definition not just one pitch. They're a combination of pitches. Is it illegitimate to talk about a combination of musical pitches? Why would it be illegitimate to talk about combinations of EM frequencies?

Again, I don't care about the new physics you keep inventing, where two different things are identical to a third single thing. Prove it.

[Gertie]

Re magenta, by the way, what the hell are you even thinking? That it's just some random quale that people have that's otherwise inexplicable? Are you not thinking that it's reliably in response to objective facts? That it's not a reliable perception of objective properties? How would you explain being able to reliably print things (for example) that people perceive as magenta? Seriously, it seems like I'd be talking to a retard to have to even explain this.

Maybe you can answer this.
I'm watching this Dennett video. At 12:40 minutes they get on to "qualia".
To versions of colour perception are set on for blue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSaEjLZIDqc

1 Having a phenomenal quality of blue instantiated in my brain.
and
2 The quality of blue is represented by my brain.

Dennett claims that 1 is wrong and that 2 is correct.

For my money the idea of a qualia seems right. Others on this Forum page have claimed that Dennett has ejected the notion as crap.
SO I have two problems. What is the actual difference between 1 and 2, and does Dennett's acceptance of 2 invalidate the idea of qualia. If so why?

When Dennett says blue is represented by my brain, all I think he's saying is that the the neural interactions resulting from patterns of photons (which we call blue) are the ''representation'' of blue.

So blue is represented by different neurons firing to those that fire for red, or an itchy toe, etc.

I think he's just saying the physical processes are what's doing the ''representaion'' function.

He's not talking about the experience of seeing blue, only to say he doesn't label the experiencing part the representational part (as some do). He labels the physical processes the functional representation process.

It's not saying much imo. And the interviewer didn't help clarify that. But I could have misunderstood.

[Terrapin Station]

It's not a "single wavelength." It's a combo of wavelengths. Why would a combo be illegitimate?

You might as well say that there's no scientific account of musical harmony or a chord. Musical harmony/chords are by definition not just one pitch. They're a combination of pitches. Is it illegitimate to talk about a combination of musical pitches? Why would it be illegitimate to talk about combinations of EM frequencies?

Again, I don't care about the new physics you keep inventing, where two different things are identical to a third single thing. Prove it.

Wait--you don't buy that chords consist of multiple pitches? hahahaha

[GE Morton]

No, it isn't. "magenta" is a name for a range of wavelengths that produce specific qualia in perceiving subjects.

So is this:



just a name?

No. That is a magenta square. "Magenta" is the name for the wavelengths of light reflected or emitted by that square. The qualia is whatever distinctive experiential state is induced in your mind when your nervous system detects light of those wavelengths, that informs you that light of those wavelengths is now stimulating your nervous system.

[GE Morton]

78 user_id=48013]

The term is reasonably well-defined and descriptively useful.

Is it, though?

I remember one hilarious talk Dennett gave where he illustrated change blindness to an audience. (Two images which appear to be identical are flashed repeatedly over and over. There is a change from one to the other but it takes several repetitions before a subject will consciously perceive it. He proceeded until everyone verified they had noticed the change from one slide to the other.)

He asked the audience what (to me, anyway) should have been a simple question for which the answer should be obvious and unanimously reached: "Were your qualia changing during the experiment?" Some people raised their hands, some people didn't.

Seems to me that if qualia were really well defined there should have been no disagreement. I mean after all, if qualia really exist and are the most obvious thing in the world, how could some people think their qualia were changing and others not? This disagreement and confusion pretty clearly indicate to me that qualia are a thoroughly theoretical construct.

Ooops, mistake. "Qualia" is well-defined --- they are the specific, distinctive, phenomenal states you experience when presented with various stimuli (via internal or external sensors). But no particular quale is well-defined --- they are not definable at all. We may fairly assume everyone experiences qualia, as above defined, else they would not be able to distinguish red from blue, or the smell of ammonia from the smell of cinnamon. But we have no idea what the quale for ammonia is, or is like, for anyone but ourselves, and we will only know what it is for ourselves by experiencing it --- no one can tell us in advance.

The Dennett problem you pose, BTW, is confounded by the problem of attention. We often judge two slightly different things to be the same, on first glance. The problem is not that the quales for those two things changed; it is that the small differences between them were ignored (at first glance). If the two things are perceptibly different, after "careful inspection," then their quales were always different too --- the difference just wasn't noticed, or attended to.

Thanks, and I think I have an answer. With reference to the definition of reduction I gave earlier, you can't take the vocabulary of mental state talk and transform its terms into the vocabulary of neurology talk, neither through logical deduction nor through scientific "bridge laws".

I agree.

This is no big deal and does not call for metaphysical extravagance where we think we need to add phenomenal properties to the list of physical properties found in the natural world.

I agree there too. There are no "phenomenal properties." A quale is the brain's mode of representing a particular physical property to itself.