These words are too abstract for me, an example might help.

but there is "indirect experience", right? — hypericin

I don't know, I'd have to figure out what sort of thing you might mean by that before I can answer.

Sure they do, or at least they CAN: an illusion can lead you to make a prediction, and your prediction can be *wrong*.

I'm in a desert and I see an oasis in the distance, a deep pool of fresh water. I predict I'll be drinking in an hour when I get there. I walk towards it and an hour later, there's no water and I realize I was looking at a mirage.

How is that not an epistemic error even if humans are robots? This robot had a model of it's surroundings, it used that model to make a prediction, the prediction was wrong, followed by realization that the model was wrong.

When I say "experience itself", yeah it's either synonymous with or at least close to phenomenal experience. It's the most immediate thing you're aware of in your existence - it's qualia, it's what a baby who doesn't know anything experiences the first time they open their eyes - it doesn't require knowledge or analysis, it's just your experience.

Your analogies are all about things that aren't *experience itself*. A TV isn't experience itself. A baseball game isn't experience itself. I think you misunderstood the words you quoted from me.

I'm thinking there are perhaps situations where you can rationally believe something based on your personal experience, and also accept that you can't convincingly communicate that experience to someone else so you should allow them to rationally reject the thing you rationally believe.

And then of course there's always room to question your own memories. Did I really experience that the way I remember? Memories are very malleable things, I find that quite interesting.

that quote doesn't make sense unless you believe they don't reflect photons. I never said they didn't.

I don't think it was a twist, I quoted your words directly and I didn't have to twist them, they don't make sense to me as they are

they do not have photons which are perceptible to our senses.

But, what if I say that I actually saw a ghost once. — javi2541997

You say it's not perceptible to our senses,

And then say you saw it.

I can't make heads or tails of these claims. They're all over the place

Which science? — AmadeusD

Well my example was from physics

how do ghosts, or the photons they reflect, know what you believe? Seems like your theory also requires telepathy

Science would have to entertain the hypothesis. — unenlightened

Contrary to popular opinion, I think science is very liberal with which hypotheses it entertains. What better example is there than quantum mechanics? Quantum mechanics is arguably weirder than ghosts and astrology - yet it's accepted by the scientific establishment because, unlike ghosts and astrology, it made predictions and those predictions were verified. So however weird quantum mechanics is, it earned its place at the table.

Ghosts or astrology aren't too weird for scientists to take them seriously.

What one does not believe exists, one can find another explanation for. and it happens in science frequently - the aether, dark matter, dark energy etc. — unenlightened

If you have to find an explanation for a ghost you saw, that's fine, you still saw it. He's suggesting people who don't believe in ghosts can't see them, not that they can see them but think there's an alternate explanation.

I reject the hypothesis that you can only see x if you believe in x. I don't necessarily reject the hypothesis that people who don't believe in x might try to find alternate explanations - that's fine

2) As you say, different arrangements of atoms can bring about the same mind state. That means something else is involved, not just arrangements of atoms. — Patterner

It means there is a layer of abstraction involved, where multiple physically realizable states correspond to the same layer of abstraction.

2 very different computers are capable of implementing the same algorithm, even if they have very different ways of encoding the instructions for that algorithm and different arrangements of logic gates (think a 32 bit computer vs a 64 bit computer). Is the brain-state situation possibly analogous to this? It seems so to me.

I suppose there's a small difference in analogy there, in that the mind-state has a sense of multiple-realizability in a way the chair does not.

You might be able to create the exact same mind state using an entirely different arrangement of matter, whereas you might not be able to create the exact same chair using an entirely different arrangement of matter.

Is "your chair" and "all the atoms that make up your chair, in that exact arrangement" the same thing? Are brain states and mind states different things in the same way that your chair is different from the complete arrangement of all the atoms that make up your chair?

It feels to me like calling them "different" Vs "the same" might be a semantic disagreement.

The only times I've heard of things being visible depending on belief are

• fairies
• santa clause
• unicorns

The thing that unites those things is, most rational people reject their existence from a lack of evidence. This is the first time anybody has suggested I add Ghosts to that list too - I've never heard 'ghosts are only visible to believers' until now.

I really have no idea what you're arguing for or against at this point. I'm just saying, if ghosts are visible, they ought to be visible to everyone regardless of belief.

Some people are color blind, so they might have trouble making certain shapes out in some contexts, some people are blind entirely and can't see anything, but I don't know of anything that is visible *depending on what you believe*.

Wonderful hypothesis, sounds like it's available for evidence-gathering and scientific analysis.

I'm pretty sure some people are sensitive to magnetic fields, and science was capable of sussing that out, so it should be capable of sussing this one too.

What about the ones who are not welcome to accept their existence? Would their senses allow them to see a ghost at all? — javi2541997

I don't have any reason to suppose that, if ghosts are real, and actually send visible photons to human eyes, that some humans eyes would be immune to those photons. It's either visible or it's not, what someone believes doesn't matter much. They may rationalise their experience differently afte rthe fact - like your example, they may chalk it up to hallucination - but I have no good reason to think their eyes aren't capable of taking those photons in, and sending that information to the visual cortex, and that results in a visual experience, and so on. I don't have any reason to think that whole process would change for someone just because of what they believe.

You're assuming the joke was funny.

But in all seriousness, this isn't necessarily a solid rebuttal of the idea that mental states emerge from brain states, and are supervenient in relation to them.

Think of a song that makes you feel strongly. Now, go and look at a file that contains all of the data for the amplitues and frequencies of all the sounds in the song. Is looking at that data going to make you feel the way the song itself is going to make you feel? No. BUT the data does include all the necessary information to replay the entire song, which if you did that, would make you feel those things.

The full information of your brain state would be enough to recreate a brain with your thoughts, but it doesn't mean *looking at the data for those brain states* is going to give you an inherent and intuitive understanding of what those brain states correspond to in terms of mind-states, or what thoughts you would have, in the same way looking at the data of an mp3 file doesn't give you an inherent and intuitive understanding of what it's like to listen to the song.

And fundamentally, our human ignorance of how brain states produce mind states shouldln't be considered proof that brain states do not produce mind states. We're ignorant of a lot of things, not knowing how things work doesn't mean things don't work.

Otherwise, there are people who never experience ghostly vibes because they take their non-existence for granted. — javi2541997

They never experience them BECAUSE they take their non existence for granted?

That's... I mean, that's honestly pretty crazy. You think ghosts somehow know if people believe in ghosts, and choose not to appear in front of people who don't believe in ghosts? That's what it sounds like you're saying.

If it's true that only people that believe in ghosts are capable of seeing ghosts, I would take that as evidence of the non existence of ghosts. Apples don't disappear if someone doesn't believe in apples.

Now, if you're a person who hasn't had ghostly experiences, and don't consider yourself a believer in ghosts, then ask yourself this:

What experience could you have that would convince you? How could you know it's not a hallucination?

Is there anything another person could tell you about their own experiences that would convince you, even if you didn't experience it yourself?

I think there's an interesting question about epistemology here.

Imagine someone who has been trained to be rational, and has no superstitious bias whatsoever - they've not been taught explicitly to believe any religion, nor explicitly taught *not to*, they've just been trained on the tools of rationality, to be aware of human bias, and so forth.

Situation A: This deeply rational, non-superstitious person experiences something that, on the surface, seems very ghost-like to them - maybe they're walking in a grave and see, 20 meters away, a ghostly figure that looks just like a shrouded human walking. Should they then believe in ghosts? Should they place more credence on other alternatives, like that they hallucinated, or are misremembering what they experienced (because an experience becomes a memory all too fast, and memories are malleable), or any other skeptical explanations?

Situation B: This deeply rational person never has such an experience, but about 1% of the people they speak with *have* had such experiences, and believe in ghosts, and perhaps even some significant fration of those people are also trained to be deeply rational, and our deeply rational person knows they are. Should our deeply rational person believe them? What types of things can these people express to the deeply rational person that should convince the deeply rational person that they are telling the truth, and are not misremembering or hallucinating or in some other way incorrect about their ghostly experiences?

I think "sense data" and "qualia" must just refer to different things in different contexts - though I feel like "qualia" is mostly stable in meaning.

Most people who are sighted and not colour blind, I think, understand (or are at least capable of understanding) what the qualia, or experience, is that we call "red", and non-naive realists are further capable of separating that experience with (a) the wavelengths of light that tend to cause that experience and (b) the cells on our retina that are sensitive to those wavelengths.

In that case, allow me to go back here and change my reply to this quote:

I don't get the distinction between sense-data and qualia — Michael

I don't think there is a distinction. But the quote you were quoting also wasn't making that distinction.

You know what, I am. It looks like they're using sense data in a way that's synonymous with the experience, ie synonymous with qualia. My mistake

that's right, explaining it in "logical terms" from you didn't work, because your only definitions of "everyone" were either (a) not normal at all and completely arbitrary, or (b) left the claim untrue

How can anyone converse normally with you if you keep claiming that you're using everyone in a normal way, and are still refusing to lay out what that normal way is?

https://iep.utm.edu/qualia/#:~:text=As%20Lewis%20used%20the%20term,generally%20to%20properties%20of%20experience.

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.

thanks for the well wishes. Let me know if you can find a single other person here who agrees with your claim - it might be you who has lost the plot after all.

That's a very interesting piece of information, but I think it's still the case that most people talking about qualia here are talking about the experience, and not the data.

should be easy, it's just an ordinary definition of everyone, right? What ordinary definition is the claim true for?

I don't get the distinction between sense-data and qualia — Michael

Qualia is the experience. Data is the information that comes into our body, via eyes or nose or whatever. The data isn't the experience. The data can trigger the experience, but it isn't the experience.

What ordinary definition of 'everyone' is it true for?

You don't believe it. You know it to be false. You're just being dishonest.

I don't think thats the case. There's no ordinary definition of 'everyone' for which it's true.

Don't admit you're wrong then, just don't say it again because you know it's untrue.

Well it is your problem not understanding ordinary linguistic expressions. — Corvus

I understand it perfectly well, it's just untrue.

You are very, very confused in this conversation. I'm not disputing that minds come from brains. I'm disputing "everyone knows minds come from brains".

"X" - I agree with this claim
"Everyone knows X" - I disagree with this claim.

X and Everyone knows X are not the same claim. I can agree with one and disagree with the other.