Philosophy Discussion Forums

Consul wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 11:27 am Most philosophers and psychologists regard qualia as qualities of certain kinds of mental occurrences or occurrents, with "occurrence"/"occurrent" used as an umbrella term for facts/states/events/processes. But some disagree (e.g. Philip Goff, Harold Langsam, Martine Nida-Rümelin, Jeff Speaks, Peter Unger), because they regard qualia not as qualities of subjective experiences but of subjects of experiences, such that the bearers/havers (possessors/exemplifiers/instantiators) of qualia aren't occurrences/occurrents but substances or continuants. (I side with these guys.)

In my view the attempted distinction there doesn't hold water.

Consul wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 11:02 am Then it's up to you to explain what's antiscientific about his naturalistic property dualism (NPD)!

Dualism in any form is anti-scientific by virtue of inventing properties and then defining them so that they are forever inexplicable to scientific practices.

Basically, I don't think philosophers get to change the rules of how we study and explain biological phenomena without an argument that is extraordinary and absolutely convincing. Telling me that you can sit in the safety of your armchair and simply imagine someone could be identical to you physically in every way yet not be conscious does not cut it by any stretch. Not even close. But it is the best that believers in the hard problem can do. Just pathetic.

Consul wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 11:02 am Of course, if being scientific entails accepting eliminative or reductive physicalism about experiential/phenomenal qualities (qualia), then it is antiscientific, since NPD entails the rejection of reductive physicalism about qualia.

Well, the possible positions one can take are even more nuanced than that. You can be science minded and a full out materialist but still reject both eliminative materialism and reductionism, as Dennett does. (And I completely agree with him on this.) Keep in mind, when Dennett and myself adopt a position like this, we are adhering to the very strict formulation of what reductionism requires in order to apply.

Faustus5 wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 11:31 am

Consul wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 11:02 am Then it's up to you to explain what's antiscientific about his naturalistic property dualism (NPD)!

Dualism in any form is anti-scientific by virtue of inventing properties and then defining them so that they are forever inexplicable to scientific practices.

Basically, I don't think philosophers get to change the rules of how we study and explain biological phenomena without an argument that is extraordinary and absolutely convincing. Telling me that you can sit in the safety of your armchair and simply imagine someone could be identical to you physically in every way yet not be conscious does not cut it by any stretch. Not even close. But it is the best that believers in the hard problem can do. Just pathetic.

Consul wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 11:02 am Of course, if being scientific entails accepting eliminative or reductive physicalism about experiential/phenomenal qualities (qualia), then it is antiscientific, since NPD entails the rejection of reductive physicalism about qualia.

Well, the possible positions one can take are even more nuanced than that. You can be science minded and a full out materialist but still reject both eliminative materialism and reductionism, as Dennett does. (And I completely agree with him on this.) Keep in mind, when Dennett and myself adopt a position like this, we are adhering to the very strict formulation of what reductionism requires in order to apply.

Agree with all of that, too, and I'm an example of a physicalist who rejects eliminative materialism.

Gertie wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 11:10 am
Because you believe the physical firing of C-fibres is exactly the same thing as feeling pain, scientifically study the C-fibres and you understand 'what it is like' to feel pain too?

Well, if a cluster of C-fibers were sitting in a petri dish and firing, that wouldn't be pain in my view. Pain is something a fully embodied organism experiences, in a proper context.

Richard Rorty once wrote (and I paraphrase), "Once you've described everything that happens, you're done".

Applying this principle to consciousness, once you have a theory or series of theories which tells you what kinds of things are happening in people's bodies that lead them to perform various motor activities, up to and including reports about what they are experiencing in whatever detail you care for them to do so, you're done. You've explained consciousness. That's it, there's nothing more for you to do.

Consul wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 11:27 amThe moral of the story is that to deny the existence of qualia as special qualities of experiences is not necessarily to deny their existence as special qualities of experienceRs, of subjects of experience.

Then, an experience or experiential event/state simply consists in the having of an experiential quale by an object/subject. I have experiences by having experiential qualia, so qualia are qualities of mental subjects rather than of mental items such as mental events/states. As Peter Unger puts it, when I have an experience "I'm an experientially qualitied particular."

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 11:18 am

Gertie wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 11:10 am

Because you believe the physical firing of C-fibres is exactly the same thing as feeling pain, scientifically study the C-fibres and you understand 'what it is like' to feel pain too?

Or because you believe that the 'what it is like' experience of feeling pain doesn't exist? We just talk about experiencing it, we don't really have the experience itself? Or what exactly?

Nothing is the same when it's observed from afar as when it's observed from being immersed in it. That doesn't suggest that there's anything mysterious about all of those other things. Why would it suggest that there's something mysterious about brains-functioning-mentally?

'Brains functioning mentally' can mean different things, and I'm not sure it's what Faustus is talking about here. I might be wrong tho, I'm still trying to pin it down.

Nothing is the same when it's observed from afar as when it's observed from being immersed in it.

From our experiential first-person perspective, that's true. But the scientific method suggests the object is the same no matter how close to it we are. And so I can take on board the knowledge that when my head pops out the top of my jumper, the world didn't really disappear into darkness after all, and trains don't get smaller as they go past.

The difference between mental and physical properties seems to me to be a difference in kind. The first-person perspective, tied to its private nature making it inaccessible to direct objective observation and measurement, the phenomenal 'what it is likeness'. And there's the issue of physical brains having contradictory properties to mental states simultaneously.

This makes the mind-body relationship an unusual type of problem. And one which our current scientific toolkit struggles to get a handle on. Maybe it's beyond our cognitive toolkit too, the Mysterions think so.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 11:30 am

Consul wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 11:27 am Most philosophers and psychologists regard qualia as qualities of certain kinds of mental occurrences or occurrents, with "occurrence"/"occurrent" used as an umbrella term for facts/states/events/processes. But some disagree (e.g. Philip Goff, Harold Langsam, Martine Nida-Rümelin, Jeff Speaks, Peter Unger), because they regard qualia not as qualities of subjective experiences but of subjects of experiences, such that the bearers/havers (possessors/exemplifiers/instantiators) of qualia aren't occurrences/occurrents but substances or continuants. (I side with these guys.)

In my view the attempted distinction there doesn't hold water.

Why?

Gertie wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 11:40 am
From our experiential first-person perspective, that's true. But the scientific method suggests the object is the same no matter how close to it we are.

Aren't you familiar with relativity, for example?

Consul wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 12:00 pm

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 11:30 am
In my view the attempted distinction there doesn't hold water.

Why?

You're not something different than experiences, occurrences, etc.

Gertie wrote: ↑
29 minutes ago

Because you believe the physical firing of C-fibres is exactly the same thing as feeling pain, scientifically study the C-fibres and you understand 'what it is like' to feel pain too?

Well, if a cluster of C-fibers were sitting in a petri dish and firing, that wouldn't be pain in my view. Pain is something a fully embodied organism experiences, in a proper context.

Ok, so you think pain is real when C-fibres fire in a human body.

Richard Rorty once wrote (and I paraphrase), "Once you've described everything that happens, you're done".

Applying this principle to consciousness, once you have a theory or series of theories which tells you what kinds of things are happening in people's bodies that lead them to perform various motor activities, up to and including reports about what they are experiencing in whatever detail you care for them to do so, you're done. You've explained consciousness. That's it, there's nothing more for you to do.

But that's not how the scientific method works. it doesn't ask people how they feel about gravity to formulate a scientific Theory of Gravity. It doesn't just say stuff moves about like this, job done. It comes up with a theory of gravity which offers an explanation which enables testable predictions. And tries to tie in with the existing scientific model of how the world works. Which results in people going off to look for evidence of gravitons. And knowledge increases, theories are strengthened or debunked.

When that methodology hits a wall, as seems to be the case with phenomenal experience, you either look for ways around it (which is basically the project of Philosophy of Mind), or start talking about in ways which imply there's nothing real to see here. Which is the tack Dennet takes.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 12:02 pm

Gertie wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 11:40 am
From our experiential first-person perspective, that's true. But the scientific method suggests the object is the same no matter how close to it we are.

Aren't you familiar with relativity, for example?

We've met briefly.

Gertie wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 12:12 pm

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 12:02 pm

Aren't you familiar with relativity, for example?

We've met briefly.

Well, so generally in science, things are different from different reference points or different frames of reference.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 12:22 pm

Gertie wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 12:12 pm

We've met briefly.

Well, so generally in science, things are different from different reference points or different frames of reference.

Yeah you got me.

So your point is that things seem different to us when we're immersed in them. The tricky part is explaining how that would pan out specifically in terms of the mind-body relationship.

Gertie wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 12:07 pm
But that's not how the scientific method works. it doesn't ask people how they feel about gravity to formulate a scientific Theory of Gravity.

That's because gravity has nothing to do with feelings but a theory of consciousness does.

Faustus5 wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 12:30 pm

Gertie wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 12:07 pm
But that's not how the scientific method works. it doesn't ask people how they feel about gravity to formulate a scientific Theory of Gravity.

That's because gravity has nothing to do with feelings but a theory of consciousness does.

Yes it certainly does. And feelings aren;t accessible to objective/third party observation.