Music is classes of sound events.

Colour is classes of illumination events.

Pain is classes of trauma events.

I thank you.

He is saying only that qualia do not enter into the language. He does not deny their existence... — Luke

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

"For since I began to occupy myself with philosophy again, sixteen years ago, I could not but recognize grave mistakes in what I set out in that first book."

Can you show that he rejected that aphorism? Because there are plenty of folk who will argue that it is one of the things he carried through to PI and On Certainty. Kenny, for a start,

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. Whether qualia exist or no, they are of no use if they cannot enter into the conversation.

Can you show that he rejected that aphorism? — Banno

Can you show that he didn't? Wittgenstein himself - not one of his interpreters - states the Tractatus contained "grave mistakes". I've provided relevant quotes from the PI and my reading of them in relation to qualia. You now appear to want to change the subject rather than to address these directly.

Whether qualia exist or no, they are of no use if they cannot enter into the conversation. — Banno

You’ve been talking about them qualia for weeks. FYI.

That's risible. You selectively quoted Wittgenstein and when challenged used another misplaced quote to defend your misreading. You're better than that.

You’ve been talking about them qualia for weeks. FYI. — Olivier5

Oooo snap. How clever you are.

You selectively quoted Wittgenstein and when challenged used another misplaced quote to defend your misreading. — Banno

What challenge? A random quote from the Tractatus which you have failed to demonstrate was a view Wittgenstein still held in his later years? I met your random quote with my own. Try an argument instead.

Edit: As for your accusation of selective quoting, I believe that the private language argument and the sections of it I have quoted from the PI are much more pertinent to Dennett's paper and this discussion than your one unsupported quote from the Tractatus.

Just attempting to think coherently and to express myself clearly. You should try it one day. We'd miss your mind farts though.

No, I'm saying that no one is conscious of the causes of our phenomena: we have no knowledge of objects that cause phenomena except indirectly through phenomena; we have no awareness of light lensing through the eyeball and being projected onto the retina; we have no consciousness of outline detection occurring, of images being turned upside down, of colour being whiteshifted, or any of the other processes of the brain that create qualia: the objects of experience and their properties. What we get is, if not an *end* result, a late iteration of a metaview of the data. That is immediacy of qualia. — Kenosha Kid

How can you not see the contradiction here? How can someone claim that we can't be aware of the causes while at the same time explaining the causes as if they had "direct" knowledge of the causes? :chin:

If you aren't aware of any of this then how is it that you are able to report it and explain it? "Indirect" and "direct" are meaningless terms if you are asserting facts about the world. The way you are asserting these things makes me think that you are perfectly aware of how your experiences are caused.. How did you come to know about these causes and report them if you dont have any awareness of them?

How can someone claim that we can't be aware of the causes while at the same time explaining the causes as if they had "direct" knowledge of the causes? :chin: — Harry Hindu

By all means, point out where I suggested that I have direct awareness of, say, stabilising my field of view or whiteshifting the colours I see. My statement was that abstraction from subjective experience is a necessary part of understanding subjective experience because the causes of subjective experience are not part of subjective experience. For instance, I am not aware of turning the retinal image upside down; I am only aware of the transformed image (which is why I am happy to talk about qualia at all). The fact that I can be extremely confident that this transformation occurs does not rely on subjective experience, or divine revelation for that matter, but on scientific progress and study. It might yet transpire that science and books and research journals are a conspiracy to mislead us or some such, but I'm happy that that's a vanishingly small likelihood.

If everything is physical (physicalism), then how do we account for (i.e. categorise) the mental/experiential? — Luke

The experiential in this context is metacognition or 'conception' of qualia arising from brain plasticity. This domain is always changing as we acquire more information about the world and is designed to do so, for instance Freudian concepts have entered public consciousness and affected behavior. The key is to facilitate its maximum adaptiveness and versatility so we can incorporate new concepts as they arise from science and elsewhere, as rationality, the best reasons for holding our various perspectives. Veering too far into materialism, nonanalytical emotion, mysticism or any particular perspective to the exclusion of contrary ones quickly becomes maladaptive. Experimenting balance and progress is the ultimate human value. Rationality isn't foolproof, but its the best metacognitive strategy we've got, and while not necessary in every situation, effort should be exerted to make it the core of culture.

Either you can explain what you're referring to when you use "conscious sensations" or you cannot. — creativesoul

The colors you see, the pains you feel. I thought that was clear.

The green tea leaves?

Your being a pain in my ass?

By all means, point out where I suggested that I have direct awareness of, say, stabilising my field of view or whiteshifting the colours I see. — Kenosha Kid

You imply that you have "direct" awareness by describing these facts. What is missing from your explanation of the facts of the causes of our experiences? My point was that "direct" and "indirect" are meaningless if you are still able to know the facts, which you just reported, unless you are saying that you don't know what you are talking about.

My statement was that abstraction from subjective experience is a necessary part of understanding subjective experience because the causes of subjective experience are not part of subjective experience. For instance, I am not aware of turning the retinal image upside down; I am only aware of the transformed image (which is why I am happy to talk about qualia at all). The fact that I can be extremely confident that this transformation occurs does not rely on subjective experience, or divine revelation for that matter, but on scientific progress and study. It might yet transpire that science and books and research journals are a conspiracy to mislead us or some such, but I'm happy that that's a vanishingly small likelihood. — Kenosha Kid

If you aren't aware of the cause, then how can you even say anything about it? What is missing from your report of the state-of-affairs that precede our experience of something? How would someone who has direct awareness of these states-of-affairs describe them compared to someone who has indirect awareness of those same states-of-affairs? If they both say the same things, then what is the difference between indirect and direct awareness? If the person that had direct awareness says something different, then does that not mean that you don't know what you are talking about because you are only aware indirectly?

Would that be a direct sort of pain in your behind?

You imply that you have "direct" awareness by describing these facts. — Harry Hindu

No, you might infer it. I do not imply it. By explicitly stating that we don't, there is no implication that we do. "My name begins with J and is not John" does not imply "My name is John and is not John."

All direct experience is of phenomena. If we have some raw data and a black box that produces all of my phenomena, there is no contradiction between "I do not have direct experience of the raw data or the black box" and "the black box transforms raw data into my phenomena." You might question the existence of the raw data and the black box, but that doesn't constitute a contradiction.

No, you might infer it. I do not imply it. By explicitly stating that we don't, there is no implication that we do. "My name begins with J and is not John" does not imply "My name is John and is not John." — Kenosha Kid

That wasn't the type of argument I was making. If your "indirect" description of events that cause experiences is no different than a "direct" description then what is the point of even using the terms "direct" and "indirect" when it comes to awareness/knowledge of some event preceding the experience?

All direct experience is of phenomena. — Kenosha Kid

What is an indirect experience of phenomena? If there is no such thing, then why use the term, "direct" in the first place? All experience is of phenomena. Then I would ask, Is there anything else, other than experience, that can be of phenomena? For instance, could effects be of their causes?

If your "indirect" description of events that cause experiences is no different than a "direct" description then what is the point of even using the terms "direct" and "indirect" — Harry Hindu

But they are different. Again, I said quite the opposite.

What is an indirect experience of phenomena? If there is no such thing, then why use the term, "direct" in the first place? — Harry Hindu

Precisely because you seem confused by it.

But they are different. Again, I said quite the opposite. — Kenosha Kid

How do you know? Isn't what you said prior to your present experience of what you said? Can't you only infer what you previously said since it happened prior to your present statement of what you previously said?

Precisely because you seem confused by it. — Kenosha Kid

If confusing me is your intent, then you have succeeded.

Maybe the problem is one of relation: some people (BigBrains like me) are Spirit filled pneumonics and have qualia. Some folks are automata-like hylics; B. F. Skinner could figure them out in a long weekend.

In the middle are the psychics, imbued with Soul but not Spirit. They are condemned to navel gazing- questioning if they experience qualia or not. Alas, for all that navel gazing, they will never join us in our navel gassing, so bloated with enlightenment and filled with pneuma are we.

oh, Marchesk, when you gonna listen?

an intrinsic aspect of quantum superposition in matter is the qualia constituents that contribute to colors, sounds and feels, conjoined in specific and relatively rare ways to generate qualitative experience in brains and elsewhere....(and so on)
— Enrique

Tell me again how talk of qualia clarifies things. — Banno

...Human qualia are not action potentials alone, they're wave interferences between quantum resonances in cells and the global quantum field of the brain that is exuded by trillions of simultaneous action potentials, producing along with additional factors an extremely complex array of superpositions. — Enrique

For all the little Banno buddies who still think we need to argue this til the year 3000, maybe you didn't get it the first time lol Qualia aren't about soul/mind/body anymore, they're about distribution of quantum processes within nature and the body, something introspective thought might shed light on.

Hello Everybody,

Thanks for the link and the discussion so far.

1. It's not clear to me what it is that Frankish is claiming to be an illusion. My understanding is broadly that "qualia" is a collective term for experiences. Frankish seems to not like qualia because they have mysterious non-physical properties, but he's relaxed about experiences. Why do qualia have mysterious non-physical properties and experiences don't? What am I missing?

It's said that Frankish "doesn't think the experience has any properties of qualia. It just seems to be that way." What is meant by "properties of qualia"?

2. "Keith suggests that one the one hand there is the perceptual account. But then there is a separate internal monitoring of the perceptual processes that gives rise to the sense of a rich, internal world. And the reason for this illusion is to make ourselves and other humans feel special. The seeming hardness is a feature of the illusion, with the implication being one of survival and ethical considerations."

What's the perceptual account? Bacteria can swim towards a favourable environment, we can explain this process exhaustively by describing chemical processes (stunning knowledge!). Is the bacterium perceiving the light, sugar?

Or does the perceptual account involve seeing?

The separate internal monitoring. Is that not a homunculus?

Maybe that's enough to be going on with for now.

@creativesoul Would that be a direct sort of pain in your behind? — Marchesk

Going deeper in our examination, is the pain in creativesoul’s behind ineffable?

The separate internal monitoring. Is that not a homunculus? — Daemon

There’s always a “humunculus”. The hypothesis cannot be avoided. Homunculi R us.

Are you ever going to explain what you're talking about? What are you picking out to the exclusion of all else with "conscious sensation"?

One assumes conscious sensations are to be contrasted with... unconscious sensations...?

1. It's not clear to me what it is that Frankish is claiming to be an illusion. — Daemon

I agree, but would add that this might not be down to Frankish; that notion of qualia is ill-defined is part of the issue here. Advocates of qualia seem to treat them as if they are something more than just sensations; after all, why introduce them at all if they are just sensations?

I've come to think that qualia are really too mysterious to be explained in physical terms. — Keith Frankish

So instead, he suggests that qualia are an illusion — Marchesk

So much of the discussion of the hard problem seems to be based on this flawed reasoning.
The fact that we cannot think of a physical model, is neither grounds to say qualia are non physical, nor that they are some kind of "illusion".