Individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. If Dennett can succeed in deconstructing qualia, he must show that somehow there is no such thing as conscious experience (what it is like-ness) and that this concept is somehow fundamentally flawed.

We shouldn't think Dennett to be a p-zombie for suggesting this. We should think of him as a rather dogmatic materialist, though. Someone who has made up his mind about materialism without considering all the angles.

Of course we can't prove that Dennett has qualia, just as we can't prove that Dennett or anyone else outside of our own even have minds. This is Witty's box-beetle analogy all over again.

From a naive point of view, pain in the left big toe actually is in the big toe. But after contemplation we understand that there is no actual pain in the left big toe. It just seems that way. Should those who adhere to the naive point of view think that we don't actually feel pain in our left big toe when we stub our toe? Both camps feel pain, but identify them in different areas.

So Dennett "feels" (tongue in cheek) qualia but does not think there is actually any qualia at all. He does not assert this, he actually goes to great lengths attempting to show how our feelings of qualia are misguided. He attempts to deconstruct qualia.

Now, if we could adequately show or prove that qualia is a real thing, and Dennett still did not change his mind, then we would think him dogmatic or mentally compromised. We might even be able to claim that he is a p-zombie. But until we show the qualia is an actual thing, we're begging the question.

I'm not saying he's plugging his ears. I'm saying maybe he doesn't understand the concept because he has no qualia. — The Great Whatever

But this begs the question. Do we all have qualia? I'm apt to say that anything conscious does have qualia. But to say that Dennett is a p-zombie because he denies qualia is to beg the question that it is already proven that we have qualia.

Self-esteem, executive agency, praise, positive interactions, etc. -- all these things are pleasurable. — Bitter Crank

I will distinguish between the sensual pleasures and the higher-order pleasures. Sensual pleasures are like sugar, sex, a massage, etc. Higher-order pleasures often contain sensual pleasures but are distinct from them. These higher-order pleasures are dependent upon one's self-esteem.

But why do people want to feel worthy or significant? — csalisbury

Because they are people, capable of introspection and who have a distinct sense that they are finite beings in an infinite world. Those capabilities threaten the survival of the person, who is one organism in a long chain of organisms, all who have survived by having advantageous traits, some of them behavioral. Because these capabilities allow the organism to see the world as it actually is, the human comes to understand his own impending death - an unacceptable conclusion - and must harness these same capabilities to create a cozy psychological shelter away from this threat.

In other words, people desire to feel worthy and significant because it staves off the idea of death. If an organism did not fear death, it would not survive very long. Culture arises in human society, which is a perpetual drunken haze sublimating this global fear into sects that people can identify with and extend their existences to.

But philosophers claim precisely not to be able to understand it, or that it's fundamentally confused, mistaken, or unintelligible. Aren't you just helping my case? — The Great Whatever

You're equivocating not being familiar with something with not understanding what it is. Dennett, for example, is familiar with the concept of qualia, but does not seem to understand it in the way that qualia-supporters do.

If I give good reasons for denying the reality of color (say I create an argument that attempts to reduce color to something non-colorful in the same way Dennett attempts to reduce qualia to something non-qualitative), you wouldn't call me blind. I'm just arguing that color as an actual thing is a myth, better understood by appeals to reduction.

So Dennett isn't plugging his ears and claiming the elephant in the room doesn't exist. He's just claiming that the elephant (simpliciter) isn't an elephant but something else.

Subjective, qualitative experiences. Dennett uses intuition pumps to try to break down this qualia and make it seem like a concept of folk psychology. He doesn't deny the prima facie ontology of qualia, though. Qualia is just a myth, according to Dennett.

It's not as if when defenders of qualia try to point out flaws in Dennett's reasoning, Dennett is metaphorically plugging his ears "lalala I can't hear you!" It's not as if Dennett and his opponents are talking about two different things. Dennett seems to be able, like any other rational human being, to change his mind. Should we automatically think that those who believe qualia is non-real are p-zombies? Shouldn't we give them the benefit of the doubt?

A philosophical zombie wouldn't even be able to comprehend the very concept of qualia. It would be like a blind man denying the color spectrum. Dennett is not a philosophical zombie (from the perspective of a supporter of qualia) because he clearly understands what qualia is supposed to be, and tries to reduce qualia to something non-qualitative. To his opponents, Dennett does not lack qualia, and to his supporters, everyone lacks qualia because qualia is seen as a myth.

I happen to disagree with Dennett on his position, but I certainly don't think that just because Dennett thinks qualia isn't real means that Dennett somehow is a philosophical zombie. I just think he's missing some pieces, and I believe that if these pieces were adequately brought forth, he might change his mind on his position.

Trump is either lying or doesn't know what he is talking about. — Bitter Crank

Por que no los dos?

Sanders probably won't be nominated unless Hillary is indicted before the Democratic Convention. Hillary's indictment after the convention will look a lot like a conspiracy, but it will probably sink her candidacy. — Bitter Crank

If Sanders has any chance of winning if Hillary is indicted, then he needs to make his presence felt not as a second-choice, plan B candidate but one that literally rises from the ashes of the Democratic party.

What's wrong? The phenomenon is the existence of the world. The explanation or interpretation of this are various appeals to god (theism) or a rejection of these appeals (atheism).

Absurd. Those who believe in god are not so radically different from those who do not in the way that someone without qualia is different from someone with qualia. A belief regarding the ontology of qualia does not lead to you actually representing this ontology.

Right, so since this view is obviously false, one hypothesis is that Dennett thinks this because he has no qualitative experiences, so they're incomprehensible to him. — The Great Whatever

But Dennett is a typical human being with a similar structure to other human beings that profess having qualitative experiences. If those other people are right in that qualia is something, then Dennett most likely also experiences qualitative episodes. If those other people are wrong that qualia is something, then Dennett is right and everyone does not have qualia.

Should we think that those who believe in god are somehow structurally different than those who do not? No, one group just lacks a belief in what another group has. The phenomenon is the same, the interpretation is different. Otherwise it's basically begging to question.

I highly doubt there are actually p-zombies. It'd be begging the question to assume that a structurally similar human being doesn't have consciousness...just because.

Those who deny qualia don't deny the seduction of appeals to qualia. You need to understand what people are talking about when they refer to qualia in order to even argue against it. Dennett does not deny that there are prima facie qualitative experiences, for example.

I would like to know which philosophers claim they are p-zombies. P-zombies are entities that distinctively lack something, while philosophers like Dennett don't think they lack something while others have it - they think that qualitative experience as a whole is a myth.

What's up, I've seen you over at the other forum. Welcome to our little garage band - we're still waiting for the moment when we'll hit the front page of Google. 8-)

You can't really get that from a TV show, which only has time for the middle of the middle of the main plot, and so ends up feeling like more of an obvious contrivance, like a soap opera, where characters behave the way they do because the writers need them to, and not because they might be seen as part of a larger functioning world. — The Great Whatever

I agree. Although the show originally motivated me to read the books. It's not really the fault of the producers that they can't show every detail of the books - that's just the nature of television. It's always going to cut up the story into an easily-digestible 45 minute amount. The key to success it seems is to minimize the butchering, and personally I think that most of the time GoT does it better than other shows or movies.

I'm worried that if time looping is introduced to the book series this way, that will all go out the window. Time travel is prime a shark-jumping tool, and once it's in there, all bets are off, because anything can or could have happened.

I'm not too fond of the show and thought the latest episode was really bad character death porn. — The Great Whatever

I am half-way through AFFC right now but I jumped ahead in the show. I was not really impressed by the latest episode, but I think overall the show does a good service to the books. At the very least, it's entertaining in more than one way ;)

Does the time travel thing happen in the books or was that introduced by the producers?

Why would the Will create beings that can oppose the Will? If the Will's nature is to Live, then why would it even allow creatures that can counteract its nature?

Gravity for example keeps us rooted to the ground. But we still made airplanes and rockets that counteract this gravity. We have to work against gravity but we can still do it. But gravity is not a metaphysical, all-encompassing force. Gravity is within the world. So it is understandable that we can counteract gravity, for we are not objectifications of gravity. But if we are objectifications of the Will to Live, then it should be apparent that it should be impossible for us to have evolved cognitive capacities to counteract this Will to Live. It would be against the fundamental nature of the Will to create beings that do not Will.

The Will would presumably "want" to continue to Will for as long as possible. Creating beings that do not Will only hastens the end of the Will. Consciousness and the ability to reflect upon the pointlessness of the Will should not be possible if we are manifestations of the Will. Our consciousness and reflective ability must have come from something else if we are to take seriously this theory of the Will.

the laws are an objectification of it. — The Great Whatever

Then why is it possible to not strive for life? Why is it possible to meditate, enjoy aesthetics, commit suicide, etc? Surely these would also be objectifications of the Will?

It is outside those laws and all physical laws, because those laws are just objectifications of it. It isn't a metaphor because it's more real and concretely known than any physical or represented thing. — The Great Whatever

No offense but this is kind of a cop-out. If it's outside the laws, how can it act on them?

Why would the Will (to live) create something that would eventually lead to a rejection of the will to live? Why would it hasten its own demise?

A disturbing quote to this effect from Schop.: "...the will must live on itself, for there exists nothing beside it, and it is a hungry will." Schop's favored image of how the world works is one animal eating another. Since we are all objectifications of the same will, it is literally eating itself (and people in harming each other are aware in a vague and traumatic sense that they are harming themselves). — The Great Whatever

How does the Will live on itself without eventually running out of anything to feed on? Like an ouroboros, it cannot constantly eat itself. Unless of course the Will is outside of the laws of thermodynamics and energy conservation, in which case it just becomes a mystical metaphor with little actual explanatory power except for illuminating the human condition.

If life did not exist, would there be any Will to self-cannibalize? Are we talking entropy here?

I watched the episode and was thoroughly confused regarding that aspect. Bran time traveling back in time causing Hodor to lose his wits, which later caused Hodor in the future to be what he is, but Hodor in the future had to be what he is before Bran could warg into him...it's contradictory.

It is not that it is trying to cause as much suffering as possible, but that it's constantly striving for nothing in particular and this causes constant action and force in lower gradations, and suffering in conscious and self-conscious gradations. — schopenhauer1

The nature of the Will, i.e. the "striving" of it, seems to have a correlation to creation and an abrupt halt in interest in this creation. Perhaps we can envision the Will as a kind of deistic god, one that creates things simply because it can and has a divine case of ADHD. I'm going off more of a metaphorical account of cosmology rather than a strict metaphysical account, but we can imagine the world being sustained by the very interest of the Will. As the Will loses interest, so does the Idea fade (entropy).

I don't quite understand though why the Will would create something that can seemingly oppose it because it suffers due to the Will. Is it just by accident that the Will creates beings that can suffer? Why does there seem to be exceptions to the Will? Not everything in the world is chaotic, random, or striving. I'm not sure why or how the Will would create a world that is not in its own nature. Perhaps as the Will loses interest, the Idea fights back and attempts to sustain the world, creating conscious life (like mini-Wills) in a vain attempt for self-preservation.

In a way, Schopenhauer's Will reminds me of the teleology of Aristotelian metaphysics. A substance is drawn towards its telos because of its very essence. But not everything can reach perfection.

This is a good point. It is more of a tepid Will than a ferocious Will. But maybe, even if we can think of a worst possible world, this is actually how bad it can get? — schopenhauer1

Schopenhauer uses an appeal to modality to argue against Leibniz' claim that this is the best of all possible worlds. He does so by arguing that god could change the parameters of possibilities - and if he cannot, then he is no god after all.

But if the Will is the source of the Idea, then I don't understand why the Will seems to be constrained. We can imagine a world worse than this (just as we can imagine a world better than this). I can imagine myself stuck at work for another hour overtime instead of writing this post. I can imagine suddenly and intensely feeling lust for an unknown subject. I can imagine there being one more African in Sierra Leone mining blood diamonds than there are in the actual world.

It's because of this that I believe that Schopenhauer over-emphasized the Will. Indeed I don't think that there is a harm of existence, but rather harms in existence. I doubt this is the best of all possible worlds, and I doubt that this is the worst of all possible worlds.

but why is it this kind of world with this hefty PSR/Time/Space/Causality? Why would that be how it manifests itself? — schopenhauer1

Good question. Too bad Schopenhauer is dead, I have some questions for him.

What I never understood about Schopenhauer's idealism is that if the Idea is the result of the Will, and the Will is an unrelenting, striving force, then why is the world not even worse than it is? We certainly do "will" towards things, but then again we can tame this will. We can meditate, look at aesthetics, sublimate into projects, hang out with good friends, etc. Why are we able to do this? And why are we even able to understand the Will (for understanding leads to attempts to reject the Will - the exact thing the Will would not want).

If there really is a Will, then I wonder why the world is not just an exponentially-growing pit of never-ending slavery to desire, with the inhabitants literally dragging their feet on the ground as they attempt to cope with the desire but ultimately unable to reflect upon it.

Torture should be kept for those cases which are crystal clear only. — Agustino

I'm assuming you believe that there ever can be a crystal-clear case? Presumably all those who have been executed were thought to be crystal-clear guilty. And yet there were some who were innocent.

I would simply state that I feel very sorry and concerned for the family, but I really am not the criminal. — Agustino

Psychopaths can lie.

What makes you think everyone can be redeemed based only on external forces? — Agustino

I don't believe everyone can be redeemed. But I believe they ought to be given a chance.

The "original intent" of the eye-for-an-eye rule was to keep vengeance proportionate. If, for instance, somebody stepped on your sore toe, you didn't get to gouge out their eyeball as punishment. If somebody accidentally shot your cow during deer hunting season, you don't get to slaughter their family. "Proportionate vengeance" said Hammurabi. — Bitter Crank

But the eye-for-an-eye making the whole world blind analogy is arguing for forgiveness.

Again - if they admit to the crime, and laugh at the justice, and mock the family... how can we possibly be wrong? — Agustino

It's not really about how we can possibly be wrong in these kinds of situation. It's that the law is not written in a case-by-case basis. We don't get to say that one person is obviously guilty while someone else is obviously innocent. Executing an innocent person cannot be excused. The desire for vengeance does not excuse an innocent's execution. We may be confident that x is guilty of death, and in fact x is indeed guilty, but executing x leads to the slippery slope of executing y, who is innocent. No executions, period.

In some cases - in other cases, not fighting for justice is seen as weakly and cowardly, or even worse, immoral. — Agustino

We wouldn't let these people go free. But you can release an innocent person from prison. You can't un-do an execution. You can't apologize to an innocent person for being tortured. Prison itself is a necessary evil, but we can accommodate everyone else in prison without killing or torturing them.

Simple. If they show remorse during the torture, then they will be put in prison and will undergo the usual punishment. If they don't, then they will be killed. — Agustino

What if you're actually innocent? Wouldn't you be coerced to admit to a crime you didn't commit?

Do you think he somehow doesn't deserve that kind of punishment? — Agustino

By killing someone you extinguish all potential for redemption. By executing someone, you are giving up on them. "It's time to die, because we hate you and can't/don't want to see you redeemed."

If somebody mocks your family by raping and brutally murdering someone from your family after having subjected them to the worst kinds of suffering imaginable, and then feeling proud of it, then you sure as hell kill them, even if the law were absurdly to refuse to punish them. — Agustino

Well I think this is an equivocation of the word mock. Making fun of someone's family is mocking, throwing eggs on their windows is mocking. Killing someone's daughter is not mocking, it's murder.

The murderer wouldn't go unpunished. But they wouldn't be killed or tortured, either. Sooner or later you are going to end up torturing or killing an innocent person. It's happened before and it will happen again if we continue to allow it to.

Why do you think that many people, when done grave injustices, resort to taking matters into their own hands, and some of them are even willing to go to the end of the earth and to sacrifice their own lives to ensure that justice is done? There is something in the human spirit which pushes them to do this - it's apparent in much of our literature, where such cases are best exemplified. — Agustino

It's also often seen as a tragic aspect of human nature. Our inability to make peace with others and swallow our desire for justice and vengeance creates even more conflict. We end up fighting conflict with more conflict. And in the end, all we feel is a sense of relief.

This is false. I think many people would enjoy torturing such a person. I for one would. Do you think I'm a psychopath? I think there is ample evidence that human beings have a sense of justice, which they are willing to go to their own death to ensure that it is not violated. I wouldn't enjoy harming or torturing or anything even close to that a normal, regular criminal. In fact, punishment for such criminals should not really be or be called punishment, it should be rehabilitation. But when it is one of those extreme and hideous crimes, that's an entirely different story. — Agustino

How do you determine when someone is able to be rehabilitated vs when they ought to be slaughtered like the dogs they are? Your gut feeling? Your (biased) desire for justice?

I will say plainly that I highly doubt your ability to kill someone else out of a sense of justice. There are ample stories of functionally normal people in guard positions in prison who executed those on death row and later live lives of severe depression and guilt, or guards who just couldn't do it and were replaced by those who apparently could.

Apologies beforehand, but I don't get it. If there's a cup, then there's a cup. If you agree that Trump is the worst candidate for office, then you believe that Trump is the worst candidate for office. Agreement necessitates belief.

So if the guy mocks the family and laughs about his actions we can be wrong? -_- — Agustino

You don't usually kill someone for mocking your family.

Exactly! This is exactly why we must step down on it in the harshest way imaginable. — Agustino

We certainly can't allow this behavior to continue. But we shouldn't stoop to their level and execute or torture them. This doesn't do anything but provide a catharsis. The psychopath isn't going to learn by torture, and she can't repent after she's dead.

Interestingly enough, it is easy to condemn someone to death, but far more difficult to actually do it. You either have to be a psychopath yourself to enjoy torturing or killing the guilty, or you end up with a lot of guilt, remorse, and suicidal thoughts.

Just knowing that a person "got away" pisses us off. It's not fair. It's not how we want things to be. But I wonder if you would be willing to kill someone yourself to restore order. You might walk away from the kill wondering if you just made things worse.

These people are beasts, they are worse than beasts. — Agustino

Do you suppose people pop out of the womb with identical clean slates, and that somehow some mystical metaphysical soul has the capability of choosing without constraint from causality?

We should be angry that these people made bad choices and caused harm to others. These people after all felt like they had a free choice to do these things.

And yet the capital punishment of death or torture for acting in one's nature is also wrong. If Schopenhauer argues that we want punishment in order to maintain justice, I would argue that by doing so we are simply reassuring ourselves that we live in a rational, just world when we in reality do not. A psychopath laughing about killing people for fun threatens the very foundation of our society. It shakes us to the core, and is therefore a prime target for the media. We feel inexplicably drawn to this menace in order to try to figure out why the psychopath is laughing and how this can fit in our view about a rational, coherent world.

So by saying "I want justice!", it seems like you are really saying "I want order!, I want safety, I want things to go the way I want them to!" By punishing someone you are trying to get them to repent and assimilate back into society, back into the submerged group-think.

More pragmatically, though, I am against torture and death penalties because we might be wrong in our judgement. Every single death penalty carried out was carried out with full reassurance from the law, and yet there are cases in which the prisoner was actually innocent and thus a victim of our over-zealous desire for justice. There's no point in killing them or torturing them. It's irrational, risky, and pointless.

I have no idea what controversy you're talking about, though. To be honest, I've only heard this kind of moral haranguing from conservative politicians wanting to beat out their opponent on the conserv-o-meter and show their constituents they bleed red-white-blue and believe in traditional values.

But, I accept that my experiences are conditioned by what is a rather conservative state. — Moliere

Funny you say this. I was motivated to make this thread because I was talking to an acquaintance who happens to be fairly conservative.

Then again, there are People's Republics of [insert city here] spread across the world that are dominated by the far left and the progressive ideology and are advocating for these kinds of things.

A practical solution I've seen implemented is to have three restrooms -- male, female, neutral. So those who wish to adhere to traditional roles can do so, and those who do not can also do so. — Moliere

The only problem I find with this is that it would require a tremendous amount of money and bureaucracy.

For one, I think many of us would feel good to see such a person subjected to the worst kinds of suffering until he begs for mercy. Would you disagree? — Agustino

Absolutely I disagree. And eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

All your reasoning here shows is our insatiable desire for vengeance and a deep belief in blood debts.

Maybe if enough of these lexit left-wingers left Europe, there would be room for all the refugees.
/s

not being for gay pride events in gay-friendly areas. — csalisbury

I'm not against gay pride events, I just don't particularly like them nor find them to be necessary. They tend to be over-the-top and make the LGBT community filled with special snowflakes.

I don't think theyre a prime rape spot tbh. — csalisbury

Isn't the very reason we have separation of sexes is because of the possibility of rape or something similar?

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mind. Got this baby for a bargain. Original price was $150, I got it for $40. Best book on philosophy of mind I've ever read.

I always get a little concerned when people talk about the world's 'dreamlike quality" For 'dreamlike' to be in any way meaningful, it must be possible to distinguish between dreamlike and non-dreamlike. Dreams are dreamlike in opposition to what? Not the world, certainly, if the world itself is 'dreamlike.' — csalisbury

I think dreamlike here means the phenomenological appearance of the analyzed world. We either live in a metaphorical dream in an unanalyzed world, or we confront the world and analyze it only to find that it reminds us of a dream.

Schopenhauer should be recognized as among those philosophers who utilize the 'strange loop' structure at the very basis of their thought. In Schopenhauer, to recall, this involves the peculiarity of saying that although my mind is in my head, my head is in my mind, and although my head is in my mind, my mind is in my head. This mind-bending thought gives one extended pause.

Thanks for this. I never knew there was literature surrounding this idea.

You and your translations... ;)

Hey, look what I found! Arthur Schopenhauer's Studies in Pessimism. This should prove interesting to the discussion.

Independent philosophical studies are like epistemology, metaphysics, logic, etc. These are used in the various philosophies of x's, but can be studied by themselves.