Nevertheless, moral philosophers have tried to establish systems for deciding how to act. I, personally, like to consider such systematic approaches. — Echarmion

Sure, but what do you take to be an example of a system that would tell you even whether to murder someone else without it being a case where really you could interpret the system to recommend either a positive or negative answer?

The only way around that is to simply specify "Do not murder others" and so on, but you're not going to be able to specify every possible scenario.

Agreed. Explanations would require a language/system that is coherent and watertight, which can be used universally to communicate a concept or idea without becoming distorted by personal interpretation. — staticphoton

You can't have a language without semantics, and you can't have semantics without personal interpretation. There's no way to make personal interpretation universal.

At the very least, this should underscore some of the problems with answering a question like this.

People almost always talk about explanations without analyzing the idea of explanations. Explanations are not that cut and dried that we can just bypass that step.

If the results of applying the model exactly resemble the real thing. — staticphoton

"Exactly resemble" seems to be an oxymoron. It's not going to exactly BE the real thing. And resemblance is a judgment, unless you want to try to set up objective criteria for it somehow.

What would you say determines whether a model resolves a question then?

The criteria is that we can formulate a model that will resolve any question about the universe's workings. — staticphoton

Resolve any question to any arbitrary person's satisfaction?

Amazing. I really appreciate your good will, and the effort you put into answering my honest question. The sad (and said) truth remains, alcontali, that it seems that this expression, "epistemology" is too rich, roo ambitious for what I can take in and digest as knowledge. I can't grasp its essence, because its essence, as per the Vikipaedia excerpt, is numerous. I can't conceptualize this word, because it does not cover one concept, but a whole slew of concepts. — god must be atheist

When you're doing philosophy, you can focus on various subjects, various types of phenomena, etc. For example, there's philosophy of (or about) science, philosophy of (or about) art, philosophy of (or about) morality, etc. Some of those focuses have unique names, like aesthetics (philosophy of art) and ethics (philosophy of morality). Philosophy of science doesn't have a unique name, by the way. It's simply known as philosophy of science.

Well, epistemology is simply philosophy of knowledge. The focus is on questions like "What is knowledge," "What are the criteria for saying that we know something," etc.

If you can interpret things any way you like, that would imply that you know nothing, i.e. that you system simply offers no solution to the question. Which is a flaw if you wish to base your behavior on that system. — Echarmion

In practice, that's how all systems--utilitarianism, etc. work. That's one of the many things that underscores that contra any beliefs otherwise, ethics really comes down to people feeling however they feel, having whatever dispositions they have, about interpersonal behavior. Systems are adopted because they match dispositions people have on the abstract level on which the systems are stated, but when it comes down to using the system to reach a conclusion about a particular scenario, there's a lot more divergence, because all of this stuff is really about persons' preferences, emotions, etc.

There's no way to ever get to a(n objective) fact that amounts to a valuation or prescriptive normative of any sort.

The first thing we need to clarify when we're answering this is just what is an explanation? Just what are the criteria for an explanation? Just what do explanations do?

And likewise, given what you're actually saying in the post (as opposed to the title), just what is understanding? Just what are the criteria for understanding?

The purpose is to underscore that if bats have conscious experiences--and presumably they do have some sorts of conscious experiences, then (a) those experiences are probably quite different from human conscious experiences (if for no other reason than they have some very different faculties than we do, such as an ability to employ echolocation with high precision during high-speed flight), and (b) it's not possible from a third-person perspective, a perspective which is the only one from which we can talk about bat consciousness (and bat brains if we're physicalists or "reductionists" as Nagel puts it in his paper), to know the properties of the conscious experiences of bats, from the bat's perspective, as the bat knows the same.

Tell me the story of how these properties inhere in a quale? — fdrake

Again, what qualia are in the first place are the properties of the experience, as the experience.

"This is a way Terrapin thinks about properties" — fdrake

It's an ontological fact. If something obtains in some way, it has some characteristics, some qualities, some ways that it is, etc.

You experience properties? Weird. Do phenomenal states consist of properties? — fdrake

There isn't anything that is absent properties. So yes you experience properties, and yes, your phenomenal states have properties . . . and that's all that qualia are--those qualities or qualitative properties of phenomenal states.

It seems just as plausible to me that self awareness is part of everything we could recollect as an experience — fdrake

How could there be something you "could recollect" as an experience that wouldn't have properties?

Introspection's a lot different from awareness. — fdrake

No, you're reading that into it. A common definition of "introspection" is "the examination or observation of one's own mental and emotional processes." Observation can obtain via simple awareness.

Introspection can be more than that. But it isn't necessarily. In the context of qualia, we're simply talking about properties from a subjective perspective, as you experience them. Awareness is sufficient for that.

What is accessible by what? — fdrake

The properties in question. Accessible by individuals.

I had no idea we needed to inherit the intellectual tradition of Kant in order to process our own experiences. — fdrake

You don't. But it's something you should be familiar with when trying to read and understand a philosophy encyclopedia.

I'm not being snarky about anything in the post in question. You said that you didn't understand the passage you quoted. I'm trying to help you understand it. You can't expect an entry in a philosophy encyclopedia to be divorced of any theoretical commitments or background. It would be impossible to write an article for an encyclopedia that way.

That all seems way more complex than would be warranted by not understanding what you quoted from SEP. :razz:

So take that one part at a time.

One, we could say that qualia are either accessible or not. The standard idea of supporters is that they're accessible.

But we can't just say that they're accessible and leave it at that. Because my qualia are not accessible to you. So we have to qualify just how they're accessible. "Introspection" refers to observing one's own mental state. That's how they're accessible. By observation or awareness of one's own mental state. So they're introspectively accessible.

"Phenomenal" refers to appearance, and could be contrasted with "noumenal." When we're talking about qualia, we're talking about appearances to our own mind.

You could say that "mental" is "inner" (re your question about this). Our minds are not directly observable to other people.

"Inside the head"--that's referring to your mind, on the view that minds are brains in particular states.

a feeling of themselves as distinct from their sensory capabilities and self attending bodily processes — fdrake

Why would you be reading the idea that way?

I'm trying to figure out a way to comment on this without simply pointing out that "future people have/do not have moral standing" can't be correct/incorrect or true/false, but an angle on that is escaping me.

Antinatalism is the only moral "theory" that explicitly addresses the notion of future people. It wouldn't have to be, of course, but there's no other common moral theory, at least, that explicitly addresses them.

With other common moral theories, it seems to me that you could interpret things any way you like with respect to future people. For example, if you're a utilitarian, you could interpret any stance about the moral weight or lack of the same of future people as being or not being a benefit to people in general.

lol - you're not going to say which paper that was supposed to be?

:lol:

whole papers have been written by eminent philosophers, cognitive scientists and psychologists entirely on the subject of the fact that 'what it's like' does not make sense in terms of conscious experience. — Isaac

Did you give an example of a paper that you believe is claiming that "'What it's like' does not make sense in terms of conscious experience"?

It's not though. Not in Jackson, not in Chalmers, not in Lewis, Byrne, Janzen. In all of these uses, and the use it is put to here, it constitutes more than just the qualitative properties of your experiences (where qualitative is meant as in subjective judgement, feeling). The feeling one has when experiencing something is entirely measurable and comminicable "it made me feel happy". The argument of Jackson is that the facts there are non-physical. The argument of Chalmers is that they cannot be reduced to physical mental states, even in theory... — Isaac

Your reading comprehension problem here: somehow you read me as implying something about "physical" versus "nonphysical." I didn't imply anything about that, and my comment has nothing to do with that.

Seriously, you've got to be one of the most annoying posters I've ever encountered because all you want to do is argue, but I don't think I've ever seen you respond to a single thing where you're not instead just exhibiting reading comprehension problems.

Usually I'd try to be more gentle and more or less ignore the reading comprehension problems, but you just won't stop trying to argue.

And by the way, no, "qualitative" does not denote a subjective judgment. Qualitative refers to properties (just not quantitative properties).

Anyway, how about intentionally trying to not argue with everything? That might work better.

The terms are not ideal, but the best way to make sense out of this distinction is that "natural" preferences are not about cultural artifacts. They're rooted purely in biological facts, in genetics, and they're preferences that members of a species tend to have--they're very common in that species.

I don't understand Nagel's question. Is he asking what it is to be the whole bat, or just it's brain, or what? — Harry Hindu

The qualitative properties of the bat's experiences, from the bat's perspective.

I just don't experience things like that. I've never felt like there's something which it is like to be me. How the hell am I supposed to tell? — fdrake

It's just the qualitative properties of your experiences. You must have qualitative properties to your experiences.

Look up the statistics for osteoporosis among black women and white women, — DingoJones

That's one of the things I was looking at. Again, it's inconclusive that it has anything at all to do with genetics.

Well there IS differences in bone density. Its a fact. — DingoJones

Again, I'm skeptical that this is a fact, and a brief perusal of the claims online underscore that it's not clear that it is a fact (especially one that has something to do with genetics).

<duplicate post>

Racist against which race? Just all races in general, or did you have a specific race in mind? — DingoJones

Racism involves believing (a) that there are real "races," real (at least significant) differences between them (due to genetics), and (b) that those differences make different races superior/inferior to each other with respect to those differences.

Don't you believe (a) and (b)?

Ok, so bone density has no effect in difference of physical ability? (Its uncontroversially understood that black people have higher bone density that white people for exsmple) — DingoJones

That sounds doubtful to me, but at any rate, even if it were the case, no, bone density isn't going to have any difference in athletic ability. We're not talking about breaking bones.

You've said a number of things that suggest you might be a bit racist, by the way.

You dont think there are ability differences between races? None? Why do american blacks dominate most american sports? Culture? — DingoJones

Yes, I think that sports/"race" correlations are cultural, which explains why there are various shifts in the demographics of different sports over the years. For example, there aren't a ton of Hispanics playing baseball now because they only recently were allowed to play or because they're inherently better at baseball. It's because baseball is really popular in a lot of Hispanic countries/cultures. And eastern Europeans and Canadians aren't inherently better at hockey. Etc.

Would you say absolutely zero difference in physical ability? — DingoJones

Correlated to "race," yes.

And right, re geographical factors having an impact on some things, too.

Another thing that's important here is what/where scouts put their focus, with it being the case that scouts will concentrate on geographical areas, schools, etc. that have produced a number of great players. People working in sports tend to focus on statistics in a way that's pretty blatantly superstitious (including that the vast majority of athletes are very superstitious, very ritual-oriented in that, etc.), where they strongly believe in streaks even when there's no rational reason to believe in them. So if a number of great hockey players have come out of Slovakia, say, scouts are going to put more attention on potential Slovakian players, because they believe in streaks.

god, religion, theology — tim wood

I prefer to just assume that one is using one of the standard definitions (a la those found in major dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc.), unless one specifies otherwise.

Hah, I can't believe I am the only one so far to have owned up to possessing no philosophical education. — SophistiCat

I'd own up to barely remembering a crapload of stuff, if that counts.

Perhaps the idea is easier to understand with gender/sex. Assume a sought after managerial job position would be open for everybody, males or females, but the requirements would be besides managerial qualities also that the person has to qualify at least two of the three demands: has to be 180cm or over tall, able to lift 100 kg and run 3000m in 12 minutes. Now of course there can be women that fill those requirements, but those are few, hence it's obvious that the selection prefers males. Naturally this doesn't mean that the requirements are indeed there to discriminate women, there can perhaps be a practical and logical reason for the height requirement etc. But if there aren't good reasons for it, then it is this kind selection is hidden discrimination. — ssu

What would be requirements like that that have anything to do with race, though? You'd have to believe that there really are ability differences due to race, but there aren't.

And what would be some practical examples of requirements like that which affect gender that don't have something to do with the practical aspects of a particular job?

If people are colorblind, there can't BE any differences that stem from racism.

The upshot of this is that obviously there are a lot of people who aren't colorblind, and that's the problem.

BANNO: Colorblindness, means that white people ignore the minority status of others and think racism doesn't exist anymore when they don't "see color". Colorblindness bolsters dog whistle politics and gives refuge to white racism. — ssu

That could be what he's essentially saying, but if so, I don't see how that makes any sense. If people are colorblind, how would racism arise? No one would even see race.

You just typed almost 500 words in response to 10 words from me and a very short quote, where you started out your response by bickering with me.

Yeah, it was a jokey comment. Normally I joke around a lot.

That was Dust in the Wind. — Harry Hindu

But that's not funny.

Yes, but the point is that it doesn't really say anything at all without either analogy or attitudinal report — Isaac

. . . the latter of which isn't necessarily an analogy. (Not that I'm agreeing with the dichotomy you're specifying . . .after all, there's not even any communication requirement for qualia.)

It's a simple error of people reading "like" to refer to analogies, but in this context, it doesn't refer to an analogy.