Sculptor1 wrote: ↑September 9th, 2020, 5:35 am
Gertie wrote: ↑September 8th, 2020, 5:16 pm
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.
Thank you - that is pretty much what TerSta said too.
So I shall also present you with the same follow up.
That aside, how does this statement invalidate the idea of qualia as some on the thread claim is Dennett's belief?
I'd agree that our perceptions represent the outside world. No problem. But my experience of colour and pain are not simple representations of the world. They are only to be understood by the experiencing of them, and may be different for each of us.
I haven't gotten to the bottom of Dennett's view of qualia myself, it's confusing. But this specific point about the representational function occuring as a physical process rather than an experiential mental one doesn't specifically address the existence of the experience of seeing blue (qualia ) either way imo.
But the interviewer then asked what he called ''the big question'' - how do you get from the physical brain processes to the experience of seeing the blue door? (This is what Levine calls the Explanatory Gap, because there is no apparent physical explanation for how physical processes result in mental experience. Significantly not just how physics explains it, how it even could explain it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explanatory_gap ).
Dennett doesn't directly answer. He said you have to address this functionally. He ended up saying science will one day be able to give a full third person (objective, observable) account of You, explain everything about you functionally in terms specific brain processes.
This account won't include first person mental experience (qualia), the 'what it's like' to see a blue door, , the ''what it's like'' aspect of being You at all. Qualia don't need to exist in that functional account of your life - what you do, say and why can all be explained by physical processes. Mental sensory perceptions, their meaning to you, desires, reasoned decisions, etc, are irrelevant from that functional third person perspective. (Effectively dismissing free will).
Then he says -
And qualia don't exist in any other way either. (around 17.30) Ie if the brain is doing all the third person person observable functional work, not only is free will an illusion, but
the existence of phenomenal experience is an illusion.
That's my take.
But at other times he will say phenomenal mental experience
does exist, and
the illusion is that it isn't what we think it is. If we take into account what he says here, then the implication (well my guess) is it only exists as physical brain processes. What that would actually mean to him, I can't make out.
