Ehhhhh.....you know how it is, right? Somebody’s gotta show the post-moderns how they went off the epistemic rails.

Kidding. Reading a lot does not necessarily indicate learning.

“.....Don't our internal discriminative states also have some special "intrinsic" properties, the subjective, private, ineffable, properties that constitute the way things look to us (sound to us, smell to us, etc.)? No. The dispositional properties of those discriminative states already suffice to explain all the effects: the effects on both peripheral behavior (saying "Red!", stepping the brake, etc.) and "internal" behavior (judging "Red!", seeing something as red, reacting with uneasiness or displeasure if, say, red things upset one). Any additional "qualitative" properties or qualia would thus have no positive role to play in any explanations, nor are they somehow vouchsafed to us "directly" in intuition. Qualitative properties that are intrinsically conscious are a myth, an artifact of misguided theorizing, not anything given pretheoretically....”
(Dennett, 1991a, in a precursor to “Consciousness Explained”)

Not given pre-theoretically carries the implication that, if qualitative properties are possible at all, they must be given pursuant to some cognitive theory. An artifact of misguided theorizing carries the implication that, on the one hand, quality is a property, or, the consciousness of quality in and of itself, is in fact directly accessible to us because it is in fact an intuition. Taken together, it becomes clear that whichever cognitive theory predicates quality with a property, and consciousness of such as belonging to phenomena, is metaphysically empty.

Proper theorizing.....understood herein as opinion, of course, with just a hint of argumentum ab auctoritate.....attributes to quality “the order of degree in time”, as opposed to, e.g., quantity, which is “the order of content in time”. Thus it is, following that opinion, that WIL intuitions grounding WIL language, can never occur as time-determinant conditions alone (which validates “pumping” out those of that kind), for they are themselves necessarily conditioned by it, but may only be indirectly accessible iff it is conjoined to the intuition of a phenomenon which is itself conditioned by successions in time, which gives phenomena their degree. It is therefore only from such degree, that WIL language may ensue. Still, even the possibility of WIL language granted by intuition of degrees in phenomena is not sufficient for its intelligibility, for the degree of a thing..........wait for it...............does not give the order of it.

Not only are “special subjective properties” of quality not special, they are not even properties of a subject; they are merely relative understandings of a subject that thinks order in his conceptions.

Please. Hold the tomatoes. I’m only here cuz it’s too early for football.

So those who don’t perceive them are the ones who don’t trust their senses?
— Mww

Yes, in short. — Olivier5

So if I reject the notion of qualia, but insist my senses are generally trustworthy, I’m just deluding myself? Or maybe it’s the other way around...... if my senses are generally trustworthy in themselves, then I am only deluding myself in the rejection of qualia?

As much as I’m willing to admit to deluding myself upon proper grounds, it remains much more parsimonious, methinks, to allow perceiving its dependability, dismiss qualia as something conditioned by perceiving, and fault understanding a posteriori or judgement a priori, for whatever cognitive errors I make. Things just run smoother that way.

so you cannot actually point at them. But you can perceive them. — Olivier5

So those who don’t perceive them are the ones who don’t trust their senses?

I'm working on an ordinary language rendering of the (consciousness)process. — creativesoul

A worthy endeavor. Opening major will be important.

Carry on!!

The proponents of qualia and quale are the ones who attempt to decouple, sever, and/or otherwise separate some aspects of consciousness from the ongoing process, — creativesoul

Yeah......”raw feels”....”seemings”.....are themselves modes of thought, in as much as a subject can neither ask himself nor tell himself about the “seeming” of a sensation, unless he already has something with which to juxtaposition to it. Any “seeming” implicates a presupposition that must be contained somewhere in the ongoing process, hence “seemings”, or the qualia meant to represent them, cannot be detached from the process in which the juxtapositioned elements are contained, in effect, making them superfluous.
(Incidentally, which is the primary reason “the friends of qualia” needs qualia to be empirically obtained, as opposed to the standing of “a theorist’s useful interpretive fiction”, in order to justify their reality, because epistemologically they are not necessarily so.)

On the other hand, if the predicates of such seemings are pure a priori considerations, in which the subject is not consciously involved, wherein the cognitive system is asking itself about the relativity of a “seeming”, which both speculative epistemology and methodological naturalism actually require, seemings are irrelevant with respect to conscious investigations of the general nature of the system in which they are contained.
(Incidentally, if this is the case, it is why Dennett then relies on the notion that qualia are altogether too ill-conceived to be “exactly” defined.)

“....Thus, the criterion for the possibility of a conception (not its object) is the definition of it...”
(CPR, B154)
——————

On another note, assuming you’re still here.........

The arena where qualia exert their influence, tacitly granting there are such things, is the domain of sensibility. In the ongoing process, sensibility extends only from the appearance of an external object (physiological perceiving apparatus has been affected by something) to the imagination of a particular phenomenon related to it (intuition), all of which operates without the consciousness of our cognitive system, but only the requisites of the physical system, re: particular ways and means of specialized data transmission to the corresponding specific regions of the brain. Hence, there is as yet no empirical knowledge, no conscious experience (as if there was any other kind).......and absolutely no language use. Whether or not any of the speculative stuff is actually the case, the assets of it do necessarily exist in their entirety, and they necessarily consist of integral correlations. Maybe not what you’ve always had in mind, but perhaps congruent to it.

What's left? — creativesoul

Experience is a synthesis, not an aggregate. Experiences cannot be disassembled, they may only be analyzed.

Beware misplaced concreteness.

Also, it seems you didn't quite understand my take on the issue. — TheMadFool

Wasn’t trying to. You asked, I answered. Using my understanding.

I meant to say that (....) the idea of an actual infinity is...well...something doesn't add up. — TheMadFool

Ok, fine. You’re entitled to that. Still, the infinity of space or time makes perfect sense to me. Doesn’t make it a fact, only that I don’t contradict myself by thinking it, as far as my knowledge currently permits.

First a duck, then a rabbit are each seemings in themselves, yes. Easily understood. Shaded bars are not illusory seemings, insofar as I do actually intuit a shaded bar from a given appearance, and as such, some qualia (phenomenal representation) pertains to it, and will so pertain until I am shown the illusion, which suffices as a qualitatively different appearance, with different pertinent qualia (phenomenal representation), facilitating a different experience.

Nutshell?

The seeming part. — Marchesk

Ok, but some illusions are actual seemings, re: the bulging part of the checkerboard, and some illusions do not seem so but must be illustrated as such, re: the shaded square and the shaded bar. What then of qualia?

So.....qualia advocate, then? What part are they playing in these illusion scenarios, do you say?

Interesting. Still, that human sensibility is susceptible to hoodwinking, is hardly contestable. Seen one constructed illusion, seen ‘em all, right?

Just sayin’ I don’t hold the same incredulity, that’s all.

this is pretty incredible. — Olivier5

Ok.

How then the notion of an actual infinity, completed as it must be? — TheMadFool

I suppose....keyword, notion. An actual infinity would have to be thought as a concept in and of itself, merely to represent that of which the totality is either incomprehensible or altogether impossible, under the auspices of a particular cognitive system. Problem is, every conception must have an object at least thought as belonging to it, from which follows, in certain idealist doctrines, those objects may be merely another conception. But even then, metaphysical reductionism, or, which is the same thing.....logic.... mandates that eventually, we absolutely must rely on experience to ground all of those conceptions. Hence, we have the concept of actual infinity, justified by the a priori conception of time, which is justified in turn by the a priori conception of change, which can be given to us by sensibility, from which we finally arrive at experience. So...we haven’t experienced infinity, but only justified, logically validated, the conception of it, completed in itself. In effect, a bottom-up systematic rendition of the actually infinite.

On the other hand, if the complementary nature of human reason is granted, re: yes/no, right/left, right/wrong, up/down....for any conception its negation is given immediately.....then because bounded things are known with certainty, otherwise we could never even talk about that which is perceived as real, unbounded things are given necessarily by it, otherwise our cognitive system is inherently inconsistent. In such cases, what those unbounded things are is irrelevant, only that they must be possible. In effect, a top-down systematic rendition of the potentially infinite.

Amazing — Olivier5

Is it, really? Where, exactly, is the illusion? Do you see A.)....you are being TOLD there is an illusion, and B.)....you are being COERCED, by means of the subtlety of the declared illusion, in conjunction with the manufactured proofs thereof, into contradicting your own experience.

In a way, though, you’re correct. It is amazing what folks will do to convince themselves that what they know can so easily be undone.

I'd just like to run something by you for your views: What's the difference between an actual infinity and a potential infinity? — TheMadFool

I’d say mathematicians might hold with actual completed sets of infinite members, but philosophers tend to hold with the potential of infinitely continuous series.

I favor Enlightenment continental metaphysics, which holds with the actual infinity of space and time, but also with the potential infinity of limitless sequential natural numbers, so I guess it just depends on the context of its use, which kind of infinity is to be considered.

Truth be told, Everydayman doesn’t have much use for either one, and I am that before all else.

But anyway.....my views thank you for asking about them.

Agreed, on consciousness, and understood on Dennett.

Thanks.

how do you know this, our, universe isn't (...) infinite? — TheMadFool

It is impossible to know, which makes it irrational to ask how I know.

Physicalism is adequate. — Marchesk

Yes, adequate, with respect to empirical knowledge. Would you agree with me, that human reason is often not satisfied with the merely adequate?

What say you? — TheMadFool

What say I? Nothing more than.......

........to keep adding implies infinity hasn't been “gotten”, and infinity “gotten” implies there is no adding, “gotten” tacitly understood to indicate “arrived at”;
.......the pure a priori concept of quantity is far the more a beginning, than the schemata subsumed under it;
......the notion of “other-worldly” is impossible to derive from the predicates contained by the concepts given in “our universe” and “thought by us”, which the emphasis in the originals should have illustrated.

Rhetorically speaking, of course.

Are there an infinite number of dimensions higher than the 4d spacetime that defines our universe — an-salad

Given the conditions under which the conception of infinity is thought by us, the question is irrational with respect to our universe.

Have we invented the hard problem of consciousness? — Beautiful Mind

The problem didn’t need inventing; it occurs immediately from the invention of consciousness itself. Not much doubt the problem has been made difficult, merely from disagreement with respect to the conditions under which a purely metaphysical construct can serve as a necessary human quality.

Irreducible Mind, E. Kelly et al. — Wayfarer

I’ve appreciated methodological parallelism since James, 1890b, v1, and this book since I downloaded it 8 years ago.

Good read, interesting information, despite its psychological leaning.

How could proof from empirical brain science say anything about intuition if it cannot use the term? — Isaac

Proof that the grass is shorter now then it was before implies no necessity for the term “lawnmower”.

Your

intuition remains philosophical — Mww

........is out of context.

Addendum. I seem to be running amok with them today.

Ask it 'how are you?' If it can answer, it's not a zombie. — Wayfarer

How about we ask it to enclose a space? If it cannot, it is a zombie.

I can see a contradiction. — Olivier5

Gotta be careful here, though. The theoretical construction of p-zombies makes explicit they must be indistinguishable from humans, but it is just as theoretical that humans appeal to intuitions. If it should become established that humans, metaphysically speaking, via some Kantian-like paradigm shift, don’t necessarily appeal to intuitions, or physically speaking, from proof of empirical brain mechanisms in which intuition is irrelevant, then the contradiction disappears.

Until either of those comes about....I see the same contradiction.
————-

Addendum:
Speaking of Kantian paradigm shifts....it is the case therefrom, that intuition is not used in pure thought, which is accomplished from conceptions alone. Therefore, if a p-zombie doesn’t exhibit any a posteriori affects, that is, if he only thinks, or when he only thinks, which he is permitted to do because he is indistinguishable from a human which does think without the use of intuition, a human could never recognize its zombie-ness, at least from the appeal to intuition.

Still, it's pretty sloppy for Dennet to use the very psychological term "intuition" — Olivier5

I think it sloppy for anyone to use intuition as a psychological term; intuition remains philosophical, as far as my use of it will ever extend. But you know what is said about opinions.......
—————-

Even if somebody perfectly described to you the taste of his dinner.....does that description give you taste? No, it does not, which immediately suffices to prove experience by means of second-hand sensibility is impossible, and subsequent attempts to shore up empirical impossibilities, with mere a priori abstractions such as imagination and its offspring, is absurd. In other words, a priori qualitative analysis is non-transferable, from which follows necessarily, both, I have no sufficient cause to tell myself “what it is like”**, and, I don’t even possess a rational method to tell you “what it is like”.

**self-correction subsequent to erroneous judgement aside.....

Ridiculous, aye!! Concur, and I would add, it is preposterous to conceive of a thing missing the very attribute (e.g., conscious experience, Kirk, 2005) necessarily belonging to the thing from which it is meant to be indistinguishable.

The adjectives describing those of us holding with the “disease of what passes for philosophy these days” is legion, and precious few of them are complimentary.

My point is: p-zombies have no ability for intuition that I can see. — Olivier5

While I agree with that, under a certain set of conditions for the metaphysical conceivability of zombies in the first place, it is at the same time contradictory to say p-zombies are indistinguishable from humans. If a zombie has no capacity for intuition, which is in essence the faculty of representation a posteriori, then it must be distinguishable from an entity that does, which includes humans. At least includes humans pursuant to one particular speculative epistemology.

The entire zombie thesis hinges on the modality of the human cognitive system. If it is not representational, intuitions have so much less the import, hence may not even be necessary, which means the absence of it in zombies won’t serve as a legitimate means to distinguish one from a human counterpart.

Ask it 'how are you?' If it can answer, it's not a zombie. — Wayfarer

True enough, with the proviso that a human object of the query wasn’t ignoring me, or just didn’t hear me.
————

On 1637!!!.....just goes to show: all the good stuff has already been done.

How do p-zombies define "intuition", by the way? — Olivier5

Damned if I know; theoretically, I wouldn’t be able to distinguish one as such, even if he was standing right in front of me. Still, I imagine I would treat the definition as if it came from a rational agency like me, especially if there was no possibility of ever discovering it didn’t. It doesn’t matter the source of definitions given to me anyway; they must all be met with my judgement as the only permissible criterion for their validity.

First off.....excellent dissertation. Pretty much as I view the human condition as well. That being said, permit me a couple minor caveats, if you will:

This doesn't mean experienced reality is only subjective — Wayfarer

......experience itself, is altogether impossible, in fact has no meaning at all, without a cognitive subject to which it belongs. Thus, while reality in general is not subjective, the particular experienced reality, is;

the objective world has only an apparent reality as part of this cognitive process (as per Kant). — Wayfarer

......the objective world is reality, re: “...the schema of reality is existence in a determined time...”, schema here being the manifold of extant objects in the world. I don’t think the fact we cannot prove with certainty the nature of the objective world, is sufficient to say the reality of the objective world is itself merely apparent to us. So saying, we must admit the existence of objects in a determined time is itself merely apparent, from which follows necessarily knowledge of such objects becomes immediately impossible because we have no means to distinguish whether it is the object or the determined time of that object, that is apparent.

Nevertheless, I would welcome an textual extract supporting your proposition. Or maybe just a clarification, to bring me back from way out in left field where I have this tendency to go sometimes.....
—————

Or is he, as his philosophy suggests, simply another noisy chimp? — Wayfarer

I read “Consciousness Explained” when it first came out, and I thought.....hmmmm, hasn’t it already been explained? It has to my satisfaction, satisfaction being merely a euphemism for intellectual prejudice, so because of it....yep, noisy chimp. But then, I’m stuck in the Enlightenment, for which I offer not the least apology, perfectly exemplified by your “the subjective element is intrinsic to any judgement, statement, or thought about the world”, so even if he turns out to be a noisy chimp who happens to be correct with his “we should explore the default possibilities first. This is the pragmatic policy of naturalism”, I’m not affected.
————-

Dennett's philosophy contains an innate contradiction — Wayfarer

I know what you mean, but I would expand the notion: from 1995, “....Sometimes philosophers clutch an insupportable hypothesis to their bosoms and run headlong over the cliff edge...”, we are then presented with 2013’s “Intuition Pumps”. C’mon, man......intuition isn’t something that can be PUMPED!!!

Anyway....thanks for the good talk.

It seems to me to be something like the Kantian dictate, that if the unconditioned is given, so too must every possible condition also be given. To that which exists In its entirety (the unconditioned) belongs all conditions of its reality (basic elementary constituency), hence, no further reduction to even more basic constituency is possible. Or, which is the same thing, any further reduction admits no new knowledge, or may even invoke contradictions, and is thus either superfluous, or just meaningless.

But I could be mistaken.

Qualia....a metaphysical invention by those to whom “representation” doesn’t say enough, by means of that which is itself a representation, but attempts to say too much.

The last thing of interest to me, upon the occasion of experience, is what the experience is like; given enough experience I already know what it is like, and if not enough experience, I wouldn’t have to means to know what it is like anyway. I’ve seen the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, in person as a simple thinking subject, and I’m here to tell ya.....there is NOTHING that experience is like. And to say that experience is like, or similar to, an equally first person experience of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, does nothing but take away from each that which belongs to it alone. When asked about the former, one never offers the latter as a similarity, which makes explicit the “what it is like” explication, these “properties of conscious experience” subliminally attached to subjectivity, has no more qualitative authority then the representations they were theoretically meant to replace.

It is an indubitable aspect of the human condition to progress, not to leave well enough alone, but rather, to advance for the sake of knowledge generally. Granting that the concept “qualia” is nothing but the speculative evolution of the concept “representation”, it remains questionable as to whether qualia advance speculative epistemology any more than representation already has.

Context is important, so fortunate to find a workaround for the subscription requirement.

Put the two side-by-side; there’s more than a single point of contention involved here.

Strawson, to which Dennett replied:

https://web.ics.purdue.edu/%7Edrkelly/StrawsonDennettNYRBExchangeConsciousness2018.pdf

https://www.degruyter.com/california/view/book/9780520907836/10.1525/9780520907836-007.xml?language=en

Gotta dig pretty deep to find the notion of a “mediator” in the opening text of the first Meditation, as posited by Garber.

who was the son of a bitch who invented this problem — Felix1982

Maybe the same guy that invented the third thing, in order to demote “problem” to mere “inconvenient consequence”.

But it seems to me that Kant has failed to prove that external objects actually exist. — Dusty of Sky

Failed to prove presupposes the attempt, which Kant had no intention of doing. It is entirely sufficient that the external world be given, as a product of sensibility:

“...For, otherwise, we should require to affirm the existence of an appearance, without something that appears, which is absurd.....”
—————

Kant argues that the external objects we represent to ourselves need not be at all similar to the external objects which actually exist. — Dusty of Sky

Not so sure about that. If the representation is from intuition, then similarity is given from the sensation by which the external objects affects, which makes the assertion false; if the representation is from conception, or even a mere idea, then similarity to extant objects need not be given, re: transcendental objects, but the representation is not of external objects in the first place, which makes the assertion confused.
—————-

He argues that truth is the agreement between concepts and their objects. — Dusty of Sky

“....The definition of the word truth, to wit, the accordance of the cognition with its object...”

It is possible to have a conception that does not proceed to a cognition: think of counting for twenty minutes and you can conceive of arriving at a number at that time span, but you cannot cognize the truth of which number. If you think the succession of numbers contained in a given time, you can cognize the truth of a certain number, but you have technically not counted, but rather, you’ve instituted a judgement on a mathematical construction.

Concepts.....that which arises spontaneously from the faculty of understanding....cannot in themselves, serve as criterion of truth. The accordance of a concept with its object is a judgement, and the only source of error in this particular speculative epistemology generally, is in fact, the faculty of judgement.
————-

Premise 4: Causality does not apply to perceptions. — Dusty of Sky

Technically correct, insofar as causality suffices as the rule for the succession of moments of perception in time. And while causality is not a perception, it remains applicable to it.

“...That something happens, then, is a perception which belongs to a possible experience, which becomes real only because I look upon the phenomenon as determined in regard to its place in time, consequently as an object, which can always be found by means of a rule in the connected series of my perceptions....”

Causality is a category, and while itself transcendentally determined, is always and only empirically applicable. And that to which any category is empirically applicable presupposes a necessary perception, or a possible perception.
————

Am I being faithful to Kant? — Dusty of Sky

Not really, but then......if you’re presenting a theory of your own, with, as you say, a different structure, how could you be? Besides, while an interesting read in itself, the thread title and the body of the opening comment don’t seem to have much to do with each other. Even if......

The basic idea is that we require a concept of the external world in order to discern a temporal order among our perceptions. — Dusty of Sky

......is the case, nothing is contained therein sufficient to refute idealism as a doctrine, and certainty doesn’t relate to Kant’s exposition on it, which breaks down the overall doctrine into two specific types, of which only one is refuted. The other being merely.......mmmmm.....frowned upon, shall we say. What I mean is, your body of text is taken from “Analogies of Experience”, but Kant’s refutation of idealism is taken from “Postulates of Empirical Thoughts in General”. I guess I would have liked to see these two connected somehow within the body of the opening text, such as found in A228/B281, which no one unfamiliar with Kantian epistemology would ever ascertain on his own.

Anyway.....good work.