Man, Hanover’s stuff hasn’t received any credit. — javra

I know, right?

The evolution of humanity is toward greater life expectancy, less hunger, less strife, less war. I extrapolate from what I see a trajectory toward perfection, not destruction.

Demonstrating again that you address the argument you want to hear, not the argument I am making. — Banno

Yep. Is there someone here who does that? — Banno

An existence of which we can say nothing doesn't count. — Banno

And pretending like the cup is indistinct from the perception of the cup is just pretending to speak of the cup.

join Hanover in failing to commit to the red flower's existing. — Banno

I commit to its existing. I've not argued for idealism.

shows that qualia are not widely accepted in the professional philosophical community. — Banno

The OP asks how useful a discussion of qualia are, and I can't say much time has been spent by me on the topic. I'm open to figuring our how all these hairs are split among the differing choices in the philosopher poll, but I see representationalism entailing some degree of acceptance of qualia. If we admit to a (1) a world and (2) an interpreted phenomenal world, we must admit that phenomenal world has composition and then we must describe those properties some way. What else to call those things and those properties within the phenomenal world other than "qualia"?

That is, it just seems some overlap is necessary among the representationalists and qualia folks.

One of philosophy's greatest mysteries, even more mysterious than the hard problem, is the mystery of how Daniel Dennett ascended to prominence in anglo-american philosophy — sime

I found his book Consciousness Explained useless, as in not making any useful points.

For good measure, here's a measure:

From the PhilPapers Surveys
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?

Other 393 / 931 (42.2%)
Accept or lean toward: representationalism 293 / 931 (31.5%)
Accept or lean toward: qualia theory 114 / 931 (12.2%)
Accept or lean toward: disjunctivism 102 / 931 (11.0%)
Accept or lean toward: sense-datum theory 29 / 931 (3.1%) — Banno

"Representationism, also called Representationalism, philosophical theory of knowledge based on the assertion that the mind perceives only mental images (representations) of material objects outside the mind, not the objects themselves. The validity of human knowledge is thus called into question because of the need to show that such images accurately correspond to the external objects. The doctrine, still current in certain philosophical circles, has roots in 17th-century Cartesianism, in the 18th-century empiricism of John Locke and David Hume, and in the idealism of Immanuel Kant."

https://www.britannica.com/topic/representationism

How does this survey result help your position?

If that were right, then there is no point in introducing them into the discussion.

Your reason for supporting the use of qualia is your odd insistence that we only ever say things about our perceptions, and never about the everyday objects that make up our world. It is a symptom of your failure to commit to reality.

And that's my reason for rejecting talk of qualia: it leads to bad philosophy. — Banno

And your problem is that you believe understandable philosophy is the goal as opposed to dealing with the reality that there are experiences of things, which means we have (1) experiences and (2) things, which means we now need to offer descriptions of the (1) experiences and of (2) the things.

It's just an unfortunate reality that reality is composed of two things and this pesky dualism can't be dispensed with simply because it leads to confusion within our philosophical systems, namely that we can best describe our (1) experiences, but not (2) things. That problem is most significant under your construct because the things you hold most obvious are the least obvious. Experiences are the most obvious, and, actually, the only thing we actually know...

I bump into something: an experience. The experience has properties? What is the nature of the properties? Are they experienced? Are they part of the experience itself? Or part of something else not the experience itself; e.g., the experience of reflecting on the experience? And then do we reflect or experience the reflection, & etc., etc., etc.? Or I feel happy (or whatever): an emotion. Or is "emotion" simply a name for a certain kind of experience? And does one know of such things directly or mediately?If directly - immediately - then how? Or if mediately, then what actually and exactly do we know and how do we know it? — tim wood

Asking what properties qualia has is no different from asking what properties an object has. You bump into a cup, what properties does that cup have? It has color, shape, and all sorts of other things.

You have an experience, you can then describe all the properties within it by listing properties you experience, like how you feel cold, anxious, tired, all the while seeing, hearing, and doing all sorts of things, all being a part of your single phenomenal state.

Under this analysis, all perceptions would be held unified under a single moment of consciousness, which is what you bump into. See, Kant's transcendental apperception: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_apperception

Not having put out milk last full moon doesn't justify a belief that fairies exist and cursed his cabbages.

Whereas seeing something that looks like a cow in his field may justify his belief that there is a cow in his field. — Michael

To one subscribing to internalism, a justification is valid if one's internal subjective reasons are considered sufficient to hold to a belief.

To one subscribing to externalism, a justification is valid only if there are external facts considered sufficient to hold to a belief.

As to your first statement, I would hold that justification invalid to an internalist. It is incoherent. As to the second statement, the justification is valid to an externalist.

All you never wanted to know on the subject: https://iep.utm.edu/int-ext/

How about books or blacks? — baker

They affect parts of me, not my knees, but probably my emotions, my intellect, my knowledge. Somewhere between my hat and my neck.

You don't impose it, you are subjected to it; that's just what it means to be a subject. — Janus

This confusion arises over how we are referring to the person. I have all along held that a person is composed of a variety of organs, each with their own function. That might seem obvious, but there is a trend within this thread to hold that it's the entire organism that experiences as a single holistic entity. So, it is accurate for me to say that my eye caused me to see the cup (as evidenced by my closed eye no longer seeing the cup). So, yes, I am subjected the image of the cup, but it might well be from another part of my body that I am so subjected to it, including a memory portion of my brain.

There is the belief that the homunculus objection overrides my claims of varying organs having different functions or, more specifically, that certain areas of the brain have particularized functions. The truth is that they do, which protects the homunculus concept from being a fallacy, unless you hold to the incorrect proposition of infinite regress.

An interesting wiki article on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortical_homunculus

All of this is to say that there is an "out there," which I don't take to be another world, but the same world, just different objects within it. The "out there" affects me, a conglomerate of parts in many different ways. The cold affects different parts of me in different ways and there's no reason to speak only in the singular "me" as if cold makes me shiver. It does, but it also makes my nose run and my eyes burn.

My nose allows me to smell, which is me doing something to me, which is a thing, and which is not complicated or unusual.

And I know you've not said things to the contrary to much of what I've said to have elicited such a response. I'm just responding to everything right now, sort of as a summation of sorts.

I pointed out that experienced properties of the object are not imposed by us (that is, are not subjectively imposed), then you cited the genesis of non sensorially produced phenomenal states by drugs, brain stimulation, tumors and brain dysfunction, and I pointed out that those are not imposed by us either.

So I was just purporting to refute your claim is all. — Janus

My position is that you have an experience, and it might be caused by a variety of things, but the sensation itself ultimately was caused by your brain, or some such internal faculty that experiences. It's like asking what caused the blip on the radar screen. The wave bounced off the object, did this, did that, and then a blip. A malfunctioning screen might also create blips as might a blip appear if we stick a probe in the circuitry. What ultimately caused the blip is a causal chain question like any other. We can look to first initiating cause or last cause, much like what caused the billiard ball to fall in the hole. Was it my muscle contraction, the cue, the slope of the table, the resiliency of the various other balls, etc.?

What are the chances you'd be able to do it if you weren't experiencing the same words on the screen? Even if you copy and paste the words you'd still need to interpret the scribbles, "copy and paste" the same way I do. — Harry Hindu

I don't think either of us disagree with whether we are speaking to one another intelligibly. The disagreement is whether there has to be a common point of reference in order to do so. I don't see why there must be, considering we speak of pain to one another, yet there is no pain outside the phenomenal state to point to to be sure we're speaking of the same thing.

We both look at a cup and we may have no idea what part of the cup is descriptive of the cup and what are things we impose in order to better navigate our world. It's likely we see the cup the same way, but not necessarily so, and it's not required in order for us to speak of the cup.

well done apocalypse (as opposed to a half-assed piece of rubbish) raises this unpleasant question: If our light of the world could be so easily extinguished, what earthly good were we in the first place? A lot less than we like to think. — Bitter Crank

Don't be clouded by the apocalyptic visions of Christianity, That is but one vision, which lacks the unrestrained positivity inherent in other traditions.

In the end everything will be perfect. If things aren't perfect, it must not be the end

The generally positive trajectory of civilization, with decreased suffering, greater cures for ailments, increased prosperity, and an overall improvement in all important measures, would indicate the end of the world would be a vision of no war, and no suffering.

The end here, unless one has a literal messianic vision of the rising of the dead, would be metaphorical, as a new age of universal cooperation is ushered in.

Those are also imposed on us though, aren't they? — Janus

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Every event has a cause.

We do not impose those properties; they are imposed upon us, like it or not. — Janus

I've acknowledged it's causative, but there other ways to evoke phenomenal states other than perceptual input, like chemicals, electrodes in the brain, tumors, mental dysfunction.

The noumenal certainly doesn't seem very helpful but have you ever heard any of Kant's jokes? — Tom Storm

There's a very small audience for such jokes, right?

So there is a thing that causes us to have congruent sensations of plastic cups but is not a plastic cup. — Banno

The properties experienced of the object are subjectively imposed. An object absent its properties is not describable. While that might not make you happy, it's the way the world works.

You're arguing against Kant, not me.
Tell someone who cares.The notion of the noumenal, and its various misunderstandings, are amongst the worst ideas ever had — Banno

The point that you don't care is irrelevant. My point was you weren't arguing against what I said, but what Kant said. Your declaration against Kant is relevant only to the extent someone was awaiting your final conclusory opinion about him relevant.

Here's the problem we were addressing: you claim that there are phenomena before each of us that are sufficiently similar that we can have a discussion about them, but that we can say nothing at all about what causes those phenomena - that we can talk about images of red cups, but not about red cups. — Banno

I've claimed the noumenal causative of the phenomenal. You're arguing against Kant, not me.

They are shared phenomena? SO now you are saying that my perception-of-cup is shared with you? That you and I both feel the pain in my back?

This conversation teeters on insanity. — Banno

So you've read my comments as suggesting that the sensory input required to illicit pain is conversation about pain?

This conversation isn't insane, it's just nonsensical interpretation. Interesting, though, how representations of reality are often muddled by differing ways we process.

The images on the screen are not the same. But they might be images of the same cup. Which is exactly what you cannot claim, since for you there is no cup. — Banno

Why must the image be of something real to be seen? We can't compare my randomly created image againstyour by discussing them online without submitting the images to one another?

Yes, you are right that your unshared phenomena drop out of the discussion, and what we can talk about is the shared world.

But that's my point; the beetle argument counts against our talking about the unshared mental phenomena you want to make central.

You are shooting yourself in the foot here. — Banno

They are all shared phenomenona. Pain, cups, flowers, the whole lot. If pain can be an shared without there being pains out there to measure against so can cups

Failure to commit. You want to talk about red plastic cups without committing to there being red plastic cups - isn't that right? — Banno

No. You so miss the point here. When we were talking of the image on our screen, not the cup. I was talking about the image on my screen, you of yours. How do we know they're the same image?

Substitute "screen" for phenomenal state, and you have the same answer.

The beetle would be to pretend that there was an unsharable mental object - perhaps, for example, an unsharable perception of something - that could somehow play a role in a language game. — Banno

Not "perhaps" That's the exact point.

Pain is the beetle, yet we talk of pain, never sharing our pain with one another.

When I say "I am in pain" how do you know what I mean if there is no pain we both can look at, but are limited to our phenomenal states?

If we can do this with pain, we can with cups?

But that would be to talk about what you choose to call the noumenal, which you insist we cannot talk about. — Banno

No. That would require that we talk about our respective phenomenal states.

If they were talking about their perceptions, then since your perception-of-Dell is distinct from their perception-of-Dell, you would never be able to talk about the same thing. — Banno

Is this not a violation of the beetle in the box thought experiment:

"That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of 'object and designation', the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant."

That is, we can talk about the thing without concern for what the thing is, which I took to be the punchline of what W was saying in regards to the irrelevancy of metaphysical analysis, but here you argue that it's critical we know that we have the same beetle in the box if we wish to speak of beetles.

Tha answer is blindingly simple: Both Banno's-peception-of-Janus and Hanover's-perception-of-Janus are of Janus; Janus exists independently of those perceptions, and it is Janus to whom "Janus" refers. — Banno

You're not following.

If we can discuss the differences between the two different cups we each see without the other seeing the other's respective cup, we are speaking only of our respective phenomenal state without access to the other's cup.

If there are discrepancies between the two images we could discover them by each of us describing what we see on our computer. — Janus

Exactly, which would enable us to similarly distinguish how our phenomenal states varied.

See https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/627569 — Banno

This is entirely non-responsive to my post.

Your claim was that if we spoke only of the phenomenal, we could not meaningfully speak because we would be speaking of different things. I would be speaking of the X in my head and you of the X in your head, so why even refer to both as X would be your claim.

I pointed out that we can and do speak of different things as if they are the same, regardless of whether we're talking about cups or just experiences of cups.

For example, let's talk about this:



It's the famous red solo cup.

Are we taking about the cup on your computer or mine?

The footprint and the flower are Hume, not Kant at all. See “constant conjunction”. — Mww

I've acknowledged that my claim the noumenal causes the phenomenonal was a departure from Kant. Kant wouldn't allow any claims be made of the noumenal.

Not sure who here you're claiming is Humean, but I've not implicated him because Hume denies causation entirely, a view I reject. I accept the idea that causation is synthetic a priori, without which an understanding of the phenomenal would be impossible.

I'd agree, though, that Kant says nothing about causation within the noumenal realm, but that's because that realm is beyond analysis. However, to the extent we wish to depart Kant and speculate upon the noumenal, we'd be required to impose causation upon it because that's what synthetic a priori truths do - they force a particular view on the world.

I'll also defer to others on this because it's also a precondition for any comment about Kant that someone explain how you've misunderstood him.

If they were talking about their perceptions, then since your perception-of-Dell is distinct from their perception-of-Dell, you would never be able to talk about the same thing. — Banno

How could what you say possibly be true, considering we are talking about the same thing, yet reading entirely different words. That is, the words on my screen are not the words on yours. They consist of different molecules and such. I trust my phenomenal state of your thoughts, as reduced to symbols, and transmitted in a way that accurately represents what you see in your head to what I see in my head allows this conversation.

How can you deny the layers of representationalism between you seeing a cup at your home thousands of miles from mine, your translating that into linguistic symbols, it being reduced to electronic impulses, it being transmitted through wires and airwaves, it being received and interpreted to my screen, and you still say we must see the same same cup to speak of the same?

Frankly, the approach you are adopting strikes me as singularly bad for your mental health. — Banno

Interesting psychological twist here. I suppose strict adherence to secular philosophy might lead to feelings of isolation and that might form a personal basis to choose certain theories, but that fear isn't on my radar, largely because at heart I'm a theist.

But should one day I snap, and find myself amid helicopter search lights and yelping hounds, it will be for something far more glorious than an errant choice of indirect realism as an explanatory theory.

Truth a religious concept? Tell me the truth. Do you really believe that? — Cartuna

As noted in a prior post to @Ciceronianus, he asked why the obsession with an evil demon, a world denying entity. But of course the Meditations was not a nihilist discourse. The evil demon was destroyed by God. It's a simple take on Descartes, but that's how the story ended.

The point here is that you've got to assert faith in something at the end of the day, and even if it's something as basic as realism, such is still faith.

Now why is that? Why shouldn't it be possible to see nature like it is? Why should nature hold secrets? — Cartuna

Because truth is a religious concept. You want to know how things really are? Believe in something.

When someone else asks what size Dell is, they are not asking about your perceptions, they are asking about Dell. — Banno

They are talking about their perception. They aren't talking about the cup. That they think the cup and their perception are the exact thing and therefore speak that way is the consequence of the naiveté inherent among naive realists.

It's an odd disconnect from reality, taught in first year philosophy. It's a test to see who amongst the students can see beyond such poor arguments to move to second year Philosophy. — Banno

The point of such debates isn't to prove an ultimate winner. The question of scientific realism is one pretty much accepted as unanswerable. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_philosophy#Metaphilosophy

I see the second year (and third year and on and on) as a chance to better hone one's logic and reason, and even perhaps to settle on theories that suit one's worldview. If these things were not debatable, they wouldn't be philosophy, but they'd be physics, biology, or something else.

. A thing-in-itself about which we can say nothing is vacant. Since we can say nothing about it, it cannot enter into our conversations. It's no more than word play, along the lines of the little man who wasn't there. — Banno

The significance of unobservables: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobservable

Sure. But here's an important thing... those "phantom things" are not what we see, taste and touch; they are what our seeing, tasting and touching, at least in part, consists in. They are not what we see, but part of our seeing; not what we touch, but part of our touching; not what we taste, but part of what you have called the activity of touching. — Banno

Under this construct, there's a cup , and I impose upon it a certain shape and color, and then I have a phenomenal state. The cup is what we have imposed the shape and color upon. My phenomenal state is therefore a representation of the cup, with the shape and color added to it.

We then analyze precisely what the cup is. We determine it is the phenomenal state minus those attributes added by my acts of touching, tasting, and seeing. Since the cup is composed of only those things I can't sense, I cannot tell you anything about the cup because the only things I know about a thing are the things I sense.

How is this not indirect realism?

I think that risible. Shall we give your perception of the plane a proper name - "Fred" perhaps?

Better, surely, to think of the plane as an individual, and your seeing it as something you might do, rather than as an individual. — Banno

Perceiving is the act, perception is the thing. I can't think of the phenomenal state I possess of the computer before me as a verb and something that is happening anymore than I can think of the actual computer screen as something that is being done. There is molecular movement in every event in the universe and nothing lies still, so I understand my perception is occurring in an ongoing sense, but so is the computer screen.

We will name my perception of the computer screen "phenomenal state" and we will name the computer screen itself "noumenal state." The former we call "Dell," but the latter has no name because we don't know enough about who it is.