Philosophy Discussion Forums

Greta wrote: ↑May 29th, 2020, 2:26 am

Consul wrote: ↑May 28th, 2020, 11:36 pm For example, consider these results: Deep image reconstruction from human brain activity

Just more correlation between brain patterns and a sense of being. Why doesn't a Spirograph pattern, for instance, generate a sense of being? Why these particular patterns? What is special about these patterns that creates qualia? How can observations of patterns in neuron dynamics be used to create qualia? If these patterns were reproduced in another medium, would that result in qualia?

The fact is that we don't know whether these patterns are qualia being created or filtered. I have pointed this out many times. There's no point putting the same correlations to me over and over and expect me to equate those correlations with causation. Repetition does not erase the logical fallacy that you keep putting to me, that correlation of brain states with certain neuronal dynamic patterns must necessarily imply causation.

Your idea of a neuronal "filtering" of qualia makes no sense (to me at least). And what those reconstruction experiments show isn't only that subjective perceivings and neuronal firings in the brain are correlated with one another, but also that the former are encoded in, and thereby physically realized and implemented by patterns of neuronal spike trains.

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"So what appears in inner perception as an image, feeling, or thought with a certain content and a certain tone, that would, if we could view ourselves in the same moment perfectly transparently both as an organic body and in our physical structure, be encountered as a coordination of molar and molecular motions of the central parts in nerve cells and nerve fibers, and vice versa."
[© my transl. from German]

(Jodl, Friedrich. Lehrbuch der Psychologie [Textbook of Psychology]. Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, 1896. p. 57)
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Gertie wrote: ↑May 29th, 2020, 7:14 amThat's an awful lot to reply to!

I read the first 3 quotes, and they're stating different opinions, which I do understand exist.

Could you highlight the points and quotes you think I need to reply to, and why? Or perhaps summarise your continuing objections to my view, supplemented with one or two quotes, and/or say why you think your view is better in a similar way?

I do appreciate the time, knowledge and background info you bring to these discussions. But I'd like to try to stay focussed on the views and reasoning which you and I favour on the issue of Subject and Self, to try to keep the exchange manageable - at my end at least!

Okay. The three central questions:

1. Do experiences depend on experiencers/subjects of experience?
(My answer is yes.)

2. Are experiencers/subjects of experience different from their experiences (by being nonexperiences)?
(My answer is yes.)

3. What kind of entities are experiencers/subjects of experience (or "selves", "egos")?
(My answer is that natural subjects are animals: I am a human animal, so my existence, persistence, and identity conditions are those of human animals.)

The self-consciousness of corporeal, organismal "selves" comes in different degrees or levels of evolutionary development. Phenomenally conscious bodies or organisms are more or less cognitively, intellectually or perceptually conscious of themselves, of their physical states and their mental ones.

Consul wrote: ↑May 29th, 2020, 11:55 am

Greta wrote: ↑May 29th, 2020, 2:26 am Just more correlation between brain patterns and a sense of being. Why doesn't a Spirograph pattern, for instance, generate a sense of being? Why these particular patterns? What is special about these patterns that creates qualia? How can observations of patterns in neuron dynamics be used to create qualia? If these patterns were reproduced in another medium, would that result in qualia?

The fact is that we don't know whether these patterns are qualia being created or filtered. I have pointed this out many times. There's no point putting the same correlations to me over and over and expect me to equate those correlations with causation. Repetition does not erase the logical fallacy that you keep putting to me, that correlation of brain states with certain neuronal dynamic patterns must necessarily imply causation.

Your idea of a neuronal "filtering" of qualia makes no sense (to me at least).

It's obvious. If brains are not the exclusive generator of consciousness - that qualia comes from, say, the major body systems working in tandem - then the correlations being observed are due to the brain's filtering.

As we all know, the brain's main job is filtering sensory input - massive amounts of data - into comprehensible forms, with each aspect of the organ's operation evolved to improve reproductive success. Does the brain need to provide a sense of being, if survival is so easily achieved without it?

When discussing an animal's fitness in evolutionary terms, we never speak of the animals' subjective affects - their sense of being - and its role in their survival and reproduction. Why? It's not relevant. Qualia does not seem to be needed to explain what other organisms (or humans) are doing. It can all be explained via processing and behaviourism (seemingly). As far as we are concerned, they could all be robots, simply following natural scripts without actually experiencing the world.

In fact, that is how people thought of other species for many years - including the most respected experts of the time. That disastrous error - the cause of untold cruelty and suffering meted out to other animals as a result - show us just how misguided experts can be when they extrapolate their findings. They can just as easily be wrong again.

If there is not CONCLUSIVE scientific evidence, I think it is better to question and keep considering rather than adopt a position and stick. The latter is not philosophy, it's politics.

Greta wrote: ↑May 29th, 2020, 7:43 pm It's obvious. If brains are not the exclusive generator of consciousness - that qualia comes from, say, the major body systems working in tandem - then the correlations being observed are due to the brain's filtering.

As we all know, the brain's main job is filtering sensory input - massive amounts of data - into comprehensible forms, with each aspect of the organ's operation evolved to improve reproductive success. Does the brain need to provide a sense of being, if survival is so easily achieved without it?

When discussing an animal's fitness in evolutionary terms, we never speak of the animals' subjective affects - their sense of being - and its role in their survival and reproduction. Why? It's not relevant. Qualia does not seem to be needed to explain what other organisms (or humans) are doing. It can all be explained via processing and behaviourism (seemingly). As far as we are concerned, they could all be robots, simply following natural scripts without actually experiencing the world.

In fact, that is how people thought of other species for many years - including the most respected experts of the time. That disastrous error - the cause of untold cruelty and suffering meted out to other animals as a result - show us just how misguided experts can be when they extrapolate their findings. They can just as easily be wrong again.

If there is not CONCLUSIVE scientific evidence, I think it is better to question and keep considering rather than adopt a position and stick. The latter is not philosophy, it's politics.

If there is zero scientific evidence for neither generating nor filtering, then why adopt either position?

We know the brain filters sensory perceptions, so its filtering role is well-known and its shaping of perceptions based on past learning is increasingly known. Many machines use these principles too. However, if we knew how a sense of being comes about then we should be able to create it and measure it, or at least have blueprints for such creations waiting for technology to be sufficiently advanced.

Greta wrote: ↑May 30th, 2020, 12:45 am We know the brain filters sensory perceptions, so its filtering role is well-known and its shaping of perceptions based on past learning is increasingly known. Many machines use these principles too. However, if we knew how a sense of being comes about then we should be able to create it and measure it, or at least have blueprints for such creations waiting for technology to be sufficiently advanced.

Yeah, but how is this relevant to the problem of qualia?

You said that there is no evidence for filtering and I responded to that claim.

A sense of being IS qualia (in context of comments made in my post quoted above), so I am questioning how brain-centric theorists can be so sure that the brain generates qualia when we have no idea how to generate or even measure qualia?

I am questioning the certainty in the proposition rather than the proposition itself, which is reasonable enough given the circumstantial evidence. But that evidence is not conclusive enough for me, given some considerations I raised a little earlier that need no more repetition.

Greta wrote: ↑May 30th, 2020, 3:12 am You said that there is no evidence for filtering and I responded to that claim.

A sense of being IS qualia (in context of comments made in my post quoted above), so I am questioning how brain-centric theorists can be so sure that the brain generates qualia when we have no idea how to generate or even measure qualia?

I am questioning the certainty in the proposition rather than the proposition itself, which is reasonable enough given the circumstantial evidence. But that evidence is not conclusive enough for me, given some considerations I raised a little earlier that need no more repetition.

I think equating qualia with a sense of being just misses the point. A sense of being is a subset of qualia.

Even if it gets proven that the sense of being extends beyond the brain, the eliminativists can just say: okay, so it does extend beyond the brain, but there is still no reason to posit any kind of qualia.

Atla wrote: ↑May 30th, 2020, 4:06 am

Greta wrote: ↑May 30th, 2020, 3:12 am You said that there is no evidence for filtering and I responded to that claim.

A sense of being IS qualia (in context of comments made in my post quoted above), so I am questioning how brain-centric theorists can be so sure that the brain generates qualia when we have no idea how to generate or even measure qualia?

I am questioning the certainty in the proposition rather than the proposition itself, which is reasonable enough given the circumstantial evidence. But that evidence is not conclusive enough for me, given some considerations I raised a little earlier that need no more repetition.

I think equating qualia with a sense of being just misses the point. A sense of being is a subset of qualia.

Even if it gets proven that the sense of being extends beyond the brain, the eliminativists can just say: okay, so it does extend beyond the brain, but there is still no reason to posit any kind of qualia.

There must be different definitions. I have always known it as a sense of being. Looking it up (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia), there appear to be four uses of the term:

1. Qualia as phenomenal character. There is something it is like for you subjectively to undergo that experience.
2. Qualia as properties of sense data.
3. Qualia as intrinsic non-representational properties.
4. Qualia as intrinsic, nonphysical, ineffable properties.

I am interested in #1. As far as I know, that is the subject of the hard problem.

Greta wrote: ↑May 30th, 2020, 6:11 am

Atla wrote: ↑May 30th, 2020, 4:06 am
I think equating qualia with a sense of being just misses the point. A sense of being is a subset of qualia.

Even if it gets proven that the sense of being extends beyond the brain, the eliminativists can just say: okay, so it does extend beyond the brain, but there is still no reason to posit any kind of qualia.

There must be different definitions. I have always known it as a sense of being. Looking it up (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia), there appear to be four uses of the term:

1. Qualia as phenomenal character. There is something it is like for you subjectively to undergo that experience.
2. Qualia as properties of sense data.
3. Qualia as intrinsic non-representational properties.
4. Qualia as intrinsic, nonphysical, ineffable properties.

I am interested in #1. As far as I know, that is the subject of the hard problem.

1 looks more like an easy problem to me, and doesn't seem to make much sense (technically there is no "I" that "undergoes" experiences). 2 is also rather outdated. The hard problem more like concerns 3 or 4 as far as I know (well, depends on what we mean by "physical").

The term “qualia” (singular: quale and pronounced “kwol-ay”) was introduced into the philosophical literature in its contemporary sense in 1929 by C. I. Lewis in a discussion of sense-data theory. As Lewis used the term, qualia were properties of sense-data themselves. In contemporary usage, the term has been broadened to refer more generally to properties of experience. Paradigm examples of experiences with qualia are perceptual experiences (including nonveridical perceptual experiences like hallucinations) and bodily sensations (such as pain, hunger, and itching). Emotions (like anger, envy, or fear) and moods (like euphoria, ennui, or anxiety) are also usually taken to have qualitative aspects.

Atla wrote: ↑May 30th, 2020, 8:13 am…(technically there is no "I" that "undergoes" experiences).…

Yes, technically, there is, since an experience is not an independent entity. Where there is a subjective experiencing there must be an experiencing subject.

Consul wrote: ↑May 30th, 2020, 9:29 am

Atla wrote: ↑May 30th, 2020, 8:13 am…(technically there is no "I" that "undergoes" experiences).…

Yes, technically, there is, since an experience is not an independent entity. Where there is a subjective experiencing there must be an experiencing subject.

There is more to existence than such word tricks and circular reasoning.

Atla wrote: ↑May 30th, 2020, 9:41 am

Consul wrote: ↑May 30th, 2020, 9:29 amYes, technically, there is, since an experience is not an independent entity. Where there is a subjective experiencing there must be an experiencing subject.

There is more to existence than such word tricks and circular reasoning.

"Circular reasoning"? Where?!
Anyway, I'm not doing semantics; I'm doing serious ontology!

The basic error of event/process ontologies postulating "subjectless (or objectless) events" (Wilfrid Sellars), "pure events" (Grover Maxwell), "absolute processes" (Charlie Broad), "free processes" (Johanna Seibt), "pure processes" (Wilfrid Sellars & Johanna Seibt), "subjectless processes" (Nicholas Rescher), or "unowned processes" (Nicholas Rescher) is their hypostatization of dynamic properties (expressed by dynamic verbs), with "to hypostatize" meaning "to make into or treat as a substance" (OED), i.e. to treat something as an independent substantial entity. Doings or happenings aren't independent entities, because they depend on some "substratum" which does something or to which something happens. An event or process such as a flowing or a walking cannot possibly occur without something having the dynamic property of flowing or walking. Pure-event/pure-process ontologies as we find them e.g. in Buddhism commit "the Cheshire cat category mistake" of postulating "catless grinnings":

"I've often seen a cat without a grin, but I've never seen a grin without a cat!"
—Alice (in Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll)

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"'Changes', 'is changing' are again Fregean functions requiring completion. If someone says to me 'changes' or 'is changing' I can make no sense whatsoever of what they are saying unless something tells me what changes, what is changing. The same applies to 'pains' or 'hurts'. If Santideva or anyone else thinks otherwise it is up to them to explain how they can make sense of 'is changing' without explicitly or implicitly involving a subject."

(Williams, Paul. Altruism and Reality: Studies in the Philosophy of Bodhicaryavatara. Surrey: Curzon, 1998. p. 250n94)

"The concepts deployed in the construction of my theory have made it impossible, I should think, that there be subjectless events, events that are not changes in something. I suppose that I could be said to have argued that events are changes, that changes are exemplifyings, and that there can be no exemplifyings unless there are things that exemplify. If such an argument were accused of being question-begging, I think I would find it hard to see precisely what question was being begged. I do not see how to get a grip on the concept of an event without seeing the concept of an event as bound up with the concept of change; and I do not see how to get a grip on the concept of change without seeing change as what objects undergo. But this is just to insist that the points from which my theory starts (though perhaps not where it ends) are obvious truths. As I see it, to suppose that there are subjectless events is to suppose that there are events that are not changes; and I don't think I understand such a supposition."

(Lombard, Lawrence Brian. Events: A Metaphysical Study. London: Routledge, 1986. p. 242)
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"Qualia. The subjective qualities of conscious experience (plural of the Latin singular 'quale'). Examples are the way sugar tastes, the way vermilion looks, the way coffee smells, the way a cat's purr sounds, the way it feels to stub your toe. Accounting for these features of mental states has been one of the biggest obstacles to materialist solutions to the mind-body problem, because it seems impossible to analyse the subjective character of these phenomena, which are comprehensible only from the point of view of certain types of conscious being, in objective physical terms which are comprehensible to any rational individual independently of his particular sensory faculties."

("Qualia," by Thomas Nagel. In The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, edited by Ted Honderich. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. p. 736.)

"Qualia include the ways it feels to see, hear and smell, the way it feels to have a pain; more generally, what it's like to have mental states. Qualia are experiential properties of sensations, feelings, perceptions and, in my view, thoughts and desires as well. But, so defined, who could deny that qualia exist? Yet, the existence of qualia is controversial."

(Block, Ned. "Consciousness." In Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, edited by Samuel Guttenplan, 514–520. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994. p. 514)
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Definitions such as Nagel's and Block's are controversial, partly because it's controversial whether qualia are really properties of "conscious experience", of "sensations, feelings, perceptions and…thoughts and desires." Following Nagel&Block, most philosophers attribute qualia to occurrences (facts/states/events/processes) rather than to substances (objects)—but are they right? Are qualia really properties of mental events or states rather than of subjects of mental events or states? (Yet another possibility is that qualia are higher-order properties of certain mental properties had by subjects.)

Consul wrote: ↑May 29th, 2020, 12:16 pm

Gertie wrote: ↑May 29th, 2020, 7:14 amThat's an awful lot to reply to!

I read the first 3 quotes, and they're stating different opinions, which I do understand exist.

Could you highlight the points and quotes you think I need to reply to, and why? Or perhaps summarise your continuing objections to my view, supplemented with one or two quotes, and/or say why you think your view is better in a similar way?

I do appreciate the time, knowledge and background info you bring to these discussions. But I'd like to try to stay focussed on the views and reasoning which you and I favour on the issue of Subject and Self, to try to keep the exchange manageable - at my end at least!

Okay. The three central questions:

1. Do experiences depend on experiencers/subjects of experience?
(My answer is yes.)

2. Are experiencers/subjects of experience different from their experiences (by being nonexperiences)?
(My answer is yes.)

3. What kind of entities are experiencers/subjects of experience (or "selves", "egos")?
(My answer is that natural subjects are animals: I am a human animal, so my existence, persistence, and identity conditions are those of human animals.)

The self-consciousness of corporeal, organismal "selves" comes in different degrees or levels of evolutionary development. Phenomenally conscious bodies or organisms are more or less cognitively, intellectually or perceptually conscious of themselves, of their physical states and their mental ones.

Thanks Consul


My summary position position is -


What makes me worth calling a Me, is all about my experiential states. The underlying explanation for how that ties in with our materialist model of the world is an open question.

TLDR version -

I'm suggesting we start by examining what we mean by terms like Subject and Self. What constitutes such a thing.

And I'm suggesting it is essentially experiential. The properties which constitute being a Me, rather than just another object 'out there', lie in the way experience manifests.

In humans experiential content and the ways it manifests results in a Sense of being a discrete, unified, first person pov moving through space and time correlated to a specific body acting in an 'external' world. These properties enable us to have a mental model of our Self which we are aware of, can introspect, and give traits and agency to in the context of our overall model of the world, how it works and how we fit in.

This is what being a Self, a Subject, a Me, means (for humans). And I'm suggesting treating that as our foundational starting point for thinking about Selves and Subjects. (Rather than trying to use as foundational our current materialist model of the how the world works, and materialist based ways of thinking and associated causality ingrained in the grammatical structures we think in. Subject --> verb --> Object. Then seeing how that sense of self might fit in).

Then once we agree what we're talking about, we can explore the explanation for how that Sense of Self arises. From idealism to reductive materialism, and all the isms in between. That's an open question.

So whether it makes sense to talk of Experiencers as something different from the experiencing, will depend on the (as yet unknown) mind-body relationship. There is a fact of the matter explanation for the correlation we observe between some substrates/physical processes and associated experiential states, but we don't know what it is. If/when we do, we can know whether the questions and answers you give here are getting to the heart of that relationship, or a mis-framing of what's really going on.

So it might or might not be appropriate to use a dualistic framing of Substrate/Experiencer and Experiencing. You believe the evidence points to that being a reality based appropriate type of framing, and you could be right. I happen to think we're probably missing some more fundamental understanding of how the world works, which might make that type of framing inappropriate.

Never-the-less, this experiential Sense of Self is real, and has properties which are inherently experiential, and those are what I've tried to encapsulate in my sorta definition.