If there was memory of the qualia, then its abrupt absence would be noticed. — noAxioms

I think what you have in mind is an incomplete absence of qualia. For instance, the idea of someone losing all five senses at once. Yet, they are blindsighted in all five senses, so they can still navigate the world as before, just without conscious awareness.

But keep two things in mind:

1. Memory is also qualitative. When we remember, we remember images, sounds, feelings. These are just as much qualia as external sensations. It is just that the brain is able to bookkeep these, marking them as internal (schizophrenia might be the failure of this bookkeeping mechanism).

Someone who lost all qualitative awareness would lose the qualitative aspect of memory as well. So, there would be no mismatch, memory (no qualia) would match current situation (no qualia).

2. Feelings are also qualitative. It is not just distress that would be lost, all feelingds would be lost.

No sensations, no feelings, no memory of either of these. If the sim lost qualia, it wouldn't notice a thing.

I am currently away visiting family for holidays, which is why replies are not always prompt. — noAxioms

No worries, happy holidays!

in so far as they are public, we already have 'red" and "sour" to cover that use — Banno

These don't generally refer to qualia. Rather, to public features. We just happen to identify these features by a internal coding system, qualia. How each of our coding systems presents to us is not communicable by language or any other means, as there is no stable referent language can latch onto. — hypericin

I've kind of stayed out of this exchange, but I have to agree here with you. I do not follow any argument that leads to how Banno sees things, and thus I decline to leverage such thinking to support my opinion.

I am currently inclined to agree with Chalmers in that under 'meaning is use', reference to 'my feeling' is relatable to feeling by a similar context, anchoring the meaning.

Dennett repeats Wittgenstein's point, that if two people cannot compare referents, and cannot check criteria, and cannot correct or be corrected, then they are cannot genuinely be said to be “talking about the same thing.” — Banno

But word usage is not about assertions of the referent being the same thing. Most language is pragmatic, and if a Doctor asks me if I'm in pain, nobody suggests he's asking if I'm experiencing his pain, or pain the way he would. I don't buy Dennett's reasoning.

Chalmers thinks he’s appealing to private, introspected items. But every scrap of evidence he uses for “shared structure” comes from public behaviour — Banno

Introspection is valid evidence. Discussion of introspection is presented evidence, which is indeed public.

What most of us do agree is that there is something that it is like to see an apple and smell ammonia. — hypericin

We probably agree that there is something it is like for another human to experience these things, and that the experience is vaguely similar from one human to the next. This might be totally wrong. I know my father's experience of the apple image is somewhat different than my own, that he could not experience red the way I do. As for non-human experience of X, you can assert that there is something it is like for A to experience it, and assert that there isn't something it is like for B to experience it, all at one's own whim. B cannot experience it because B experiencing it in its own way does not lend support to my unbacked belief system.

"The universe is not composed of true statements" is also an indexical — noAxioms

I don't think so. — Banno

In a universe that IS composed of true statements, the statement above would be false (and perhaps nonexistent). That makes it context dependent, and thus an indexical.
It also makes the mistake of implying the existence only one universe, a very idealistic definition being used for ontology. I did say above that almost anybody's definition of 'exists' is an idealistic one. Not being an idealist, I needed to find a definition that was an exception, resulting in my more or less relational view of such things.

- - - - -

I agree with you that relativity - both special and general - taken literally implies 'eternalism'. And, indeed, the existence of time dilation, the limit of the speed of light, black holes, gravitational waves etc corroborate the validity of general relativity. — boundless

Just for reference, light speed is locally c under both relativity and not. Time dilation is a coordinate effect (not real) under relativity (R), but is real under absolutist (A) interpretations.
Light speed has no limit non-locally. I don't know how (A) frames gravitational waves. They nave to exist since they're empirically detectable. Black Holes? Yea, those can only exist under R, so they make a funny sort of private falsification test, sort of like how a test for an afterlife is private.

All this is a nit. Just me spouting my science-forum background.

However, there is other empirical evidence (mostly experiential evidence) that I can't deny that seem to suggest that 'eternalism' is wrong.

Really. They're empirically the same, except for the BH test I mention above.

can you give an example of a 'mathematical truth' that is not based on axioms?

Maybe not. Not enough of a mathematician to think of one without help.

Ok, fine. In which case, however, you're saying that something that isn't physical exists

Not being a realist, that depends heavily on one's definition of 'exists', but I often go with 'relates to', which is a relation with something else, and sure, I think there are relations between entities that are not necessarily physical.

you can't be a physicalist (unless you are using the term 'physicalist' to describe a 'broader' position in which the mental supervenes/reduces/emerges/is dependent on the physical but doesn't exclude the existence of non-physical entities).

If you say so, then no word describes a stance that doesn't assert that final qualification. Maybe there is one, but I'm unaware of it.
A physicalist cannot suggest that the physical supervenes on something more fundamental? I've always used 'materialist' to express that stance.

I do not get the point you and Carroll make. I'll read Carroll's paper. At best it seems to me that it is an objection to the 'plausibility' of MUH rather than a critique of its consistency and/or it being a correct description of reality.

It kills so many more theories that just MUH. There are many standard cosmological interpretations that fail this test. This doesn't mean they're wrong, it just means that they cannot be simultaneously justified and true.

To [those suggesting cherry pie cannot have a physical explanation], I would reply that in the case of 'consciousness' I see properties like qualia, the experience of 'free will' etc that seem obviously harder to be understood in terms of what we know of the 'physical' than in the case of 'cherryness'. — boundless

But we're not talking about consciousness or the experience of this pie. The person is asserting that the pie itself, never experienced, is more than a physical state of matter. How would you respond to this person? What evidence would you supply to counter this person's incredulity of the alternative?

I would also add that this implies that the 'ding an sich' has some kind of intelligibility. Otherwise, we would able to distinguish which model is 'better'.

Better can be assessed in multiple ways: Simpler, or making better predictions. The predictions are pretty similar between the sun rising each day, and the alternative of the Earth spinning. So in this case, 'better' probably comes from simplicity, from the lack of additional inventions to get it to work. Maybe it's not simpler. If Earth spins, then why don't we fall off? Gravity is arguably more complicated than just blaming everything on God, who happens to have an awful lot of stuff to move around each day, all seemingly constrained to predictable paths, without any will being exercised to break the monotony now and then. That's an awful brutally boring job to have your deity have to do forever, like the lowest factory worker.

However, the skeptic wouldn't agree that we can say that NM or GR (or QM for that matter) can give us true knowledge.

Does anybody? I mean, what, true, complete knowledge? There's always more to learn, and always parts what are interpretation dependent. So truth is forever unreachable. Your bit from Bernard seems to convey your agreement with this.


Concerning p-zombie plausibility:

I think what you have in mind is an incomplete absence of qualia. For instance, the idea of someone losing all five senses at once. — hypericin

As the story is typically told, the sensory hardware is still there, as is all the brain hardware. But the experience of those senses is gone, leaving only the automoton physical response to the data, not a response to the experience. Except I find this utterly implausible since my reactions (talking about it say) are directly due to the experience, not to the data. The data does have effect. I jump due to sudden noises, and shiver/sweat in response to temperature. I have no conscious control over that, so it's evidence that there is at least some processing of the incoming data that is more direct, before it gets to the experience part.

So yea, I assert that since so much of it is in response to experience (perhaps all of language), a zombie could not function identically without it. I labeled it a fantasy to suggest otherwise.

1. Memory is also qualitative. When we remember, we remember images, sounds, feelings.

Some of it is. Memorizing the digits of Pi seems pretty thin on those qualities, but the memory of qualia once had? Yea, that's very qualitative. But where is that memory stored?

It is just that the brain is able to bookkeep these, marking them as internal

This seems to suggest that the brain stores them, meaning our simulated guy remembers the qualia, but isn't getting it anymore. And the implausible suggestion is that he'll not behave any differently with that turned off.

Someone who lost all qualitative awareness would lose the qualitative aspect of memory as well.

This comment on the other hand suggests that qualitative memory is stored offsite (not in the brain, or at least not via the physical properties of it. So the loss is not noticed, but any reactions to qualitative experience is still lost. How does one interpret speech (recognize a voice say) with the qualitative experience of that voice gone?

Feelings are also qualitative. It is not just distress that would be lost, all feelingds would be lost.

Agree. Don't agree that the lack of feelings will result in identical behavior compared to somebody with them. The key difference is the implausibility of somebody totally lacking qualia somehow describing feelings never felt, and insisting that the experience it doesn't have cannot be explained physically.

I have on occasion claimed to be a p-zombie (in all seriousness) simply because it's so obvious to somebody who's conscious, and I only used the words (conscious, qualia, feelings) due to imitation of others, not due to actually having the inexplicable thing that I cannot know. The obvious solution to this disconnect is that some of us are zombies and some not. We don't behave the same. What is so clear to you is baffling to me, and we only use the words because everybody else does.

happy holidays!

Thanks, and same to you if it's holidays. One can never tell.

It honestly seems to me that you missed the point. So for example your "Most language is pragmatic, and if a Doctor asks me if I'm in pain, nobody suggests he's asking if I'm experiencing his pain, or pain the way he would" seems to me to be making the same point as Dennett.

Yes, indeed, there need be nothing "the same" between your pain and the doctor's pain, apart from the game of assessing pain level and location and prescribing solutions. We need not have a shared referent. You reaffirming the idea that meaning and successful communication do not require private referential identity.

So if we agree to talk of a qual of coffee - even if here, now - what is it that is being agreed on? The term "the aroma of coffee" perhaps picks out a pattern of behaviour and report, coordinates shared expectations, and is indexical but public. But it does not pick out a thing. We may avoid the hypostatisation.

What we have is not a qual, but the aroma of coffee.

That makes it context dependent, and thus an indexical — noAxioms

It's not just being context-dependent that makes an indexical. The truth value of an indexical changes with who is doing the uttering.

"I am Australian" is true in my mouth, perhaps not in yours. But the truth value of "The universe is not composed of true statements" does not depend directly on who says it in this way.

Think division of responsibility. Different parts of the brain are responsible for different functions. When receiving information from the world, one part of the brain translates that information into a form that can be easily processed and acted upon. Then the executive, the conscious part, uses that translated information to learn and to act. — hypericin

What I mean is, why is the form it's in not the form that it can most easily process and act upon? I've never asked this question of my own view, but certainly should.

All this is a nit. Just me spouting my science-forum background. — noAxioms

I assume that by 'absolutist' you mean theories like the modern versions of Lorentz Ether Theory (LET). There have been attempts to build versions of LET compatible with GR, but my point wasn't about that. To be honest, I'm not really interested in those attempts, which seem to be somewhat 'forced'. Perhaps, 'eternalism' will be shown to be incompatible with quantum gravity, but I am not enough informed on that topic.

I meant that 'eternalism' seems to be in contrast to our experience of change, 'free will' etc. Perhaps those things are illusory, but personally I need more evidence that they are illusory to accept the idea.

Maybe not. Not enough of a mathematician to think of one without help. — noAxioms

Same here. But, anyway, didn't Godel prove that even simple mathematical structures are based on unprovable axioms? In fact, the very impossibility to prove 'everything' (as 'formalists' like Hilbert believed) was seen by Godel himself IIRC as a proof of 'platonism'. After all, if everything was provable by humans, it would make more sense to think that mathematics is purely an invention (not a decisive point, but nevertheless an evidence against 'realist' views).

This doesn't mean they're wrong, it just means that they cannot be simultaneously justified and true. — noAxioms

Ok, perhaps I see more the point now. However, it is isn't a 'fatal' point against MUH.

The person is asserting that the pie itself, never experienced, is more than a physical state of matter. How would you respond to this person? What evidence would you supply to counter this person's incredulity of the alternative? — noAxioms

Yes, I understood in this way your point. I would answer as I answered in my previous post.

Better can be assessed in multiple ways: Simpler, or making better predictions. — noAxioms

Yes, I would add that if 'physical reality' wasn't (at least partially) intelligible, predictions would be impossible. Indeed, IMO if physical reality didn't have an order, it would be quite difficult to explain how could predictions be possible in the first place.

Does anybody? I mean, what, true, complete knowledge? There's always more to learn, and always parts what are interpretation dependent. So truth is forever unreachable. Your bit from Bernard seems to convey your agreement with this. — noAxioms

Yes, I would perhaps say that IMO physical reality is less 'veiled' than D'Espagnat thought. At the same time, however, I also see the 'total undrestanding' of physical reality as unreachable. Still, I do not see this unreachability as evidence against its intelligibility.

IMO the skeptics just go too far. We might see as 'through a glass, darkly' to borrow an expression from St. Paul the Apostle but we are not 'blind'.

So if we agree to talk of a qual of coffee - even if here, now - what is it that is being agreed on? The term "the aroma of coffee" perhaps picks out a pattern of behaviour and report, coordinates shared expectations, and is indexical but public. But it does not pick out a thing. We may avoid the hypostatisation. — Banno

There is no hypostasisation. A quale is not a material thing, it is more an event. But it is concrete, not abstract. The "aroma of coffee" picks out the subjective character of the internal event that occurs when coffee is smelled. (While patterns of behavior, expectations, etc are all real, this is just not what "the aroma of coffee" refers to).

The privacy of qualia is philosophical, it doesn't necessarily have significance in linguistic practice. In practice, there is a cousin to naive realism, call it "naive intersubjectivism": the presumption that we all internally experience basically the same things. Even though philosophically, the subjective aroma of coffee is private, by presumption we can talk about it as if everyone is talking about the same thing, everyone experiences what I experience. Moreover, that which prompts the experience is public. And so the discourse can function, even if its philosophical presuppositions are suspect.

Even if naive intersubjectivism is abandoned, we can still discuss qualia. We just abandon the idea that we can understand concretely what others experience. "The aroma of coffee" becomes relative, that which the sniffer experiences when smelling coffee. There is no singular, concrete content, but rather a conceptual structure: that particular experience which each individual undergoes.

Cool answer. But I'm not seeing how a discreet internal event isn't as problematic as a "thing"; it remains that no one else can check that you are correct. It's still a only understood in terms of public performance. The point is indeed that privacy has no significance in linguistic application.

The aroma of coffee is hardly private. The discourse functions without qualia, on the basis that what we smell is the smell of coffee, regardless of whether it is the very same for each of us or not.

So yes, the discourse can function without the metaphysical introduction of qual. That only confirms the Dennettian/Wittgensteinian insight.

The discourse functions without qualia, on the basis that what we smell is the smell of coffee, regardless of whether it is the very same for each of us or not. — Banno

But what is the conversation about? What can we say about coffee that doesn't involve qualia?

What can we say about coffee that doesn't involve qualia? — Patterner

:worry:

"can I please have some coffee? I prefer Turkish. The coffee needs to be pulverised. That one has a nutty aroma. $5 for a flat white is outrageous!"

None of these directly involve qual. The presence of qual is quite specifically something inferred by a subgroup of philosophers. And I'm saying that there is no evidence here of qual. None of this requires positing private mental items.

I don't think preference or aroma are about anything but qualia. And why does the coffee need to be pulverized?

I don't think preference or aroma are about anything but qualia. — Patterner

Well hang on - the aroma of coffee is not private - anything but! And a preference is not a sensation, is it? that seems odd. If anything, a preference is a pattern of behaviours.

And if it's not pulverised it will not make a good Turkish coffee. And it will stick between your teeth.

But I'm not seeing how a discreet internal event isn't as problematic as a "thing"; it remains that no one else can check that you are correct. — Banno

If you claim you smell coffee, I cannot look inside your head to verify. But I can attend to my sense of smell: do I experience the internal sensation I have leaned to associate with coffee, or don't I? I do. i can confuse that you are experiencing the same smell that I am. Or more sophisticated, that both of us are experiencing the internal event we associate with coffee (even if these are different).

That these sensations off coffee may be entirely different between us is ultimately only of philosophical significance, the discourse functions the same either way. But without these sensations, the discourse wouldn't happen at all.

That everyday discourse functions without the philosophical notion of qualia is not under dispute. But what relevance is that to us purported philosophers?

Molecules of the liquid floating through the air is not a private thing.

My subjective experience of it is, and it might be very different from yours. We might have preferences that are different to the point that one of us hates it and the other loves it. That's not accounted for by the physical events of the molecules landing on the mucus of the olfactory epithelium inside the nose, traveling through the mucus until they reach the olfactory receptor cells, binding to the olfactory receptor cells, which send electrical signals to the region of the brain known as the glomerulus, which sends the signals to yet other parts of the brain for identification.

Each of us has identified our internal, private sensation as coffee. — hypericin

Have we? Or have we co-ordinated our behaviour? What more, exactly, is there to "identifying my internal, private sensation as coffee" than is found in "I smell coffee"?

These sensations may or may not be the same for us. That they may be entirely different is ultimately only of philosophical significance, the discourse functions the same either way. — hypericin

Well, yes. But play close attention to your conclusion: "without these sensations, the discourse wouldn't happen at all". How could you possible know that? Discourse functions even if our sensations differ... so what is the place of the sensation?

That everyday discourse functions without the philosophical notion of qualia is not under dispute. But what relevance is that to us purported philosophers? — hypericin

It raises the question just asked: What more, exactly, is there to "identifying my internal, private sensation as coffee" than is found in "I smell coffee"? What is it that qual do? Your “identifying an internal, private sensation as coffee” is doing no explanatory work. It’s simply re-describing the public behaviour from the inside, then insisting that this interior décor must be metaphysically indispensable.

The discourse functions regardless of any supposed private qualitative sameness.

The molecules are public. Good. So is the language and other behaviour. Is the difference the result of different qualia, or of differences in physiology, learning, associations, preference, classification...? None of that requires a private mental item.

Is your point that there is a difference between the physics and the smell? But the aroma is not the qualia.

So this doesn't help you.

Have we? Or have we co-ordinated our behaviour? — Banno

Both. We coordinated on the basis of internal sensations. That is part of the mechanism. Lacking this, you might say "I smell coffee", I might say "I smell bacon", one would be as groundless as the next.

What more, exactly, is there to "identifying my internal, private sensation as coffee" than is found in "I smell coffee" — Banno

Nothing. One just makes explicit what is already contained in the other.

Discourse functions even if our sensations differ... so what is the place of the sensation? — Banno

Since sensations are private, there is no need for them to be consistent between people. They only have to be consistent within an individual. Smell sensations are like a private, internal symbol table. We learn by consistently matching a public event, coffee brewing, with a private symbol, the smell of coffee. Then, when we later encounter the private symbol, the smell of coffee, we can infer the public event, coffee is brewing, is nearby.

How can this system function without the private symbol? And so how would smell discourse function without the system?

Both. We coordinated on the basis of internal sensations. That is part of the mechanism. Lacking this, you might say "I smell coffee", I might say "I smell bacon", one would be as groundless as the next. — hypericin

But here, the only basis you have for positing an internal sensation is the public response; and that has been learned and fostered over time, so that "I smell bacon" is an inappropriate response to the smell of coffee. Again, what is being posited as private is quite clearly pubic - the smell of coffee, not bacon.

What more, exactly, is there to "identifying my internal, private sensation as coffee" than is found in "I smell coffee"
— Banno

Nothing. One just makes explicit what is already contained in the other. — hypericin

Then we have no need for qualia, since we already have "smell of coffee".

How can this system function without the private symbol? — hypericin

Wrong question. The right question is to explain why the functioning system requires a private symbol.

Notice how the sensation has now become a symbol.

So let's play that game, after Wittgenstein. Suppose that your qual of coffee changes over time, but you do not notice; so that the way coffee smells for you now is utterly different to how it smelt to you as a child.

Now, what is it that is the same now as it was when you were a child? Well, it's not the qual, since that has changed. It's the language and behaviour around the smell of coffee that has stayed the same

The system functions entirely without the consistent private symbol. It is not required.

Is your point that there is a difference between the physics and the smell? But the aroma is not the qualia. — Banno

The aroma is the qualia, whether it's the smell of coffee, the color red, the taste of feta cheese, the feeling of pain, or whatever. Yes, there is a difference between the physics and any qualia. To largely quote what I just said in another thread, we can mess with subjective experience by affecting voltage gated calcium channels, serotonin reuptake proteins, and any number of other parts of neurons. But that doesn't even begin to address how those physical things don't only release ions when photons of one particular range of wavelengths hit the retina, but experience redness, and don't only act on themselves in feedback loops, but are aware of their own existence. The physics can explain how we differentiate molecules that enter our nose, how they trigger stored information regarding prior contact with molecules of the same chemical structure, and lead to a response based on experiences that took place during past exposures. But those things don't explain the accompanying subjective experiences, and could take place without them.

The aroma is the qualia, — Patterner

Then it's not novel, and not private. It's just smell. taste, colour...



Seems your argument is that physics explains behaviour, but that given such an explanation, there seems to be something left over: the private “what it’s like.” Therefore, there must be irreducible qualia.

Note the gap. It's not unlike the "and this we all call god" at the end of Anselm's arguments.

Perhaps that “something left over” is an illusion of language and introspection, and since all evidence comes from publicly observable criteria, no extra metaphysical object is needed.

Or, my preference, the smell of coffee just is those chemicals, under a different description.



But either way, you are now a long way from that private, ineffable sensation.

But that doesn't even begin to address how those physical things don't only release ions when photons of one particular range of wavelengths hit the retina, but experience redness, and don't only act on themselves in feedback loops, but are aware of their own existence. — Patterner

You say what now?

We got us a homunculus? Somewhere inside the feedback loops of neurons there's a tiny “observer” that experiences redness and smells coffee?

But either way, you are now a long way from that private, ineffable sensation. — Banno

If it was not private, if it was quantifiable and able to be studied, the way the molecules and noses are, we would know whether or not your experience of red and my experience of read was the same thing.

We got us a homunculus? Somewhere inside the feedback loops of neurons there's a tiny “observer” that experiences redness and smells coffee? — Banno

I don't suspect that. I suspect the entire system (each of us) experiences its own existence in a way that cannot be studied, or even detected, from the outside, and cannot be explained by physics.

You reaffirming the idea that meaning and successful communication do not require private referential identity. — Banno

That I am.

The term "the aroma of coffee" perhaps picks out a pattern of behaviour and report, coordinates shared expectations, and is indexical but public.

"The aroma of coffee" does not reference a particular public reaction to it. It is bending the meaning considerably to suggest so. It is not a reference to the detected particles in the air. It is a reference to an indexical private thing, and no particular private thing since the subject is missing, but the language usage works due to a presumption that the private thing referenced is similar from one human context to the next.
Note that I say human. Humans cannot see yellow, but squirrels can, meaning that if a squirrel sees a printed picture of a banana, it doesn't look yellow at all because it isn't. And it's not the same from one human to the next. Again, my father, when asked to pass the yellow token, doesn't know which I am requesting.

But it does not pick out a thing.

It does not pick out a particular, but not all referents designated as 'things' are particulars. I speak of a banana, and that's a thing, but not a particular. "This banana" is, or it would be if I was indicating a specific one.
An example from lyrics of non-object that are nevertheless designated 'thing' in language use:
"Silver-white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things"

Thus selected because every other 'thing' in that song was an object. No, the example is not one of a qual like 'the aroma of coffee'. Not even an abstraction. More of a process being treated linguistically as an object.

We may avoid the hypostatisation.

Why, when language is so full of it?

Why is the language usage relevant in any way to the topic of first person being mysterious or not?

It's not just being context-dependent that makes an indexical. The truth value of an indexical changes with who is doing the uttering. — Banno

The definition of 'indexical' mentions only context dependency, with no requirement at all that the statement is something necessarily uttered, although many of the examples are of typical utterances. "The cold mountain is to the left" you labeled an indexical despite it not being dependent on who says it. It was listed as an objective statement lacking context, but even if we give it context (e.g. I am the one uttering it), it doesn't give information needed.

"I am Australian" is true in my mouth, perhaps not in yours.

Sure, but that's a self reference to the speaker. The statement is arguably meaningless if printed. My statement is not.

But the truth value of "The universe is not composed of true statements" does not depend directly on who says it in this way.

It doesn't depend on it being said at all. But it does depend on context, meeting the definition of 'indexical'. Perhaps you're using a more anthropocentric definition of the word than the one I see if I just google it.

I assume that by 'absolutist' you mean theories like the modern versions of Lorentz Ether Theory (LET). — boundless

Yes. Pretty much anything that denies both premises of SR. Hard to deny just one since one postulate is a particular instance of the more general one.

The wording on wiki is very empirical, whereas the wording in Einstein's paper is more metaphysical. Light is measured to locally move at c, vs. light moves locally at c. The difference between LET and SR is metaphysical only. They make the same empirical predictions, so absolutist interpretations are actually the same theory as relativity, with a few exceptions, opening a door for an almost-falsification test.

I meant that 'eternalism' seems to be in contrast to our experience of change, 'free will' etc.

But both interpretations of time involve that same experience, else there would be a falsification test.

But, anyway, didn't Godel prove that even simple mathematical structures are based on unprovable axioms?

Probably, yes. Any axiom is by definition unprovable. If it could be proved, it would be a theorem (based on deeper axioms), not an axiom.

In fact, the very impossibility to prove 'everything' (as 'formalists' like Hilbert believed) was seen by Godel himself IIRC as a proof of 'platonism'. After all, if everything was provable by humans, it would make more sense to think that mathematics is purely an invention (not a decisive point, but nevertheless an evidence against 'realist' views).

I don't see how mathematics being an abstraction follows from axiom-free mathematics. I don't think raw MUH is a form of Platonism, but the kind of MUH that Tegmark suggests is such a form. He's a realist. MUH can also be a non-realist view.

Ok, perhaps I see more the point now. However, it is isn't a 'fatal' point against MUH.[/quote

It renders MUH empty (completely lacking in evidence) unless the problem is fixed, making it a modified MUH. I do believe that there have been attempts to do so, so maybe my protest has been addressed. But in a satisfactory way?

Yes, I understood in this way your point. I would answer as I answered in my previous post.

Your answer in the previous post was that you share similar incredulity, just about a different topic. This in no way lends evidence one way or another about the true nature of a pie.

We might see as 'through a glass, darkly' to borrow an expression from St. Paul the Apostle but we are not 'blind'.

Exactly

Perhaps that “something left over” is an illusion of language and introspection, and since all evidence comes from publicly observable criteria, no extra metaphysical object is needed. — Banno

Not sure how you mean this. If people did not experience colors, why would they begin referring to the colors of things in order to distinguish between them when communicating? How would that have been successful if people were not actually experiencing color?

Also, how are we imagining an experience that we're not actually having? How is it that we can consistently identify things? How would I be able to identify spheres off different colors, you rearrange them while my eyes are closed, and I correctly identify them by color when I open my eyes again? And you and I agree on which color they all are?

Can we start referring to things by a characteristic that nobody has ever mentioned, and bring that new characteristic into illusory existence, which people will soon be claiming they are experiencing?

But both interpretations of time involve that same experience, else there would be a falsification test. — noAxioms

The problem with eternalism is: are those experiences (i.e. that 'time flows', the appearance of 'free will' etc) compatible with eternalism? Again, eternalists seem content to say they are 'illusory' and leave at that. But to me it isn't a real answer. In fact, as I said before, if we deny those 'raw' experiences, can we trust empirical knowledge?

Probably, yes. Any axiom is by definition unprovable. If it could be proved, it would be a theorem (based on deeper axioms), not an axiom. — noAxioms

Yeah, that wasn't Goedel point, sorry.

IIRC, Goedel's theorems showed that even in relatively simple mathematical structures you get true yet unprovable (within the structure) propositions. So, you can't derive all mathematical truths by a set of arbitrary axioms.
This clearly suggests that mathematics isn't 'invented' IMO (although, to be honest, my own 'realist' view about mathematics doesn't depend on a controversial interpretation of Goedel's theorems).

He's a realist. MUH can also be a non-realist view. — noAxioms

Interesting, however I'm not sure how to conceive it.

It renders MUH empty (completely lacking in evidence) unless the problem is fixed, making it a modified MUH. I do believe that there have been attempts to do so, so maybe my protest has been addressed. But in a satisfactory way? — noAxioms

Ok, I see. If you take MUH as a scientific theory, then yes the criticism is important, I agree. But as a metaphysical view, I don't think it is shown as inconsistent.

I do believe that MUH is defective, however. Other than the problem of change, I also believe that things like consciousness, ethics, aesthetics and so on require more than just 'math'.

Your answer in the previous post was that you share similar incredulity, just about a different topic. This in no way lends evidence one way or another about the true nature of a pie. — noAxioms

But I explained why I think the two cases are different. Yes, I don't think that there is a model that can 'fully explain' the emergence of a cherry or a pie from fundamental physical objects. At the same time, however, I believe that consciousness has properties that can't be explained via emergence from what we know about physical reality. So, I think that in the case of consciousness the skepticism is more reasonable than in the case of pies and cherries.

If it was not private, if it was quantifiable and able to be studied, the way the molecules and noses are, we would know whether or not your experience of red and my experience of read was the same thing. — Patterner

Notice that we manage to name the smell of coffee and the shade of red in the paint shop, despite supposedly not being confident that your smell of coffee and your sensation of red has anything in common with mine?

How's that work, then. The qualia are again irrelevant here.

What fixes the meaning of “coffee smell” or “red” are the public practices, not any supposed private qualitative object.

So the fact that we can name and coordinate these things is not evidence for qualia — it’s evidence we don’t need them.


As for the mysticism, not my cup of tea.

"The aroma of coffee" does not reference a particular public reaction to it. — noAxioms

To be clear, that was not what was claimed.

It is a reference to an indexical private thing, and no particular private thing since the subject is missing, but the language usage works due to a presumption that the private thing referenced is similar from one human context to the next. — noAxioms

If you and I both smell coffee, it cannot be a reference to an indexical private thing, since we both smell it. Your qualia is not my qualia, by definition. The presumption is not of a reference to a private thing, but to the very public smell of coffee. We hypostatise that, if you like.

Qualia here are again irrelevant.

"The cold mountain is to the left" you labeled an indexical despite it not being dependent on who says it. — noAxioms

Well, yes it is. If we face each other, then if it is to my left, it is not to your left. It matter who says it. That's why it is called indexical.

If people did not experience colors — Patterner

But people do experience colours. The problem is that some folk want now to talk about ineffable private experiences of colour, instead of yellow.

It's this new, philosophical sophistry of "qualia" that is being questioned.

Notice how the sensation has now become a symbol. — Banno

Not a new position. The smells are symbols. Smells exhibit the characteristic one way relation of symbols. The smell points to the event, brewing coffee, but you can analyze the coffee for a thousand years and you will never derive the smell.

Note that any suitable medium can function as symbols: roads use signage, books use glyphs, brains use qualia.

Suppose that your qual of coffee changes over time, but you do not notice; so that the way coffee smells for you now is utterly different to how it smelt to you as a child.

Now, what is it that is the same now as it was when you were a child? Well, it's not the qual, since that has changed. It's the language and behaviour around the smell of coffee that has stayed the same

The system functions entirely without the consistent private symbol. It is not required. — Banno

This does not follow.

It is theoretically possible that all of our private symbols vary over our lifetimes without our noticing. But for this to work, our memories have to vary in lockstep. If they do not, then not only would we notice, but the symbols would become useless. If what we remember as coffee yesterday smells like bacon today, then the symbol does not communicate anything.

It is as if you are arguing words are not required for language to function, because theoretically words might be varying without our noticing (along with our memories and all printed text).

Or, my preference, the smell of coffee just is those chemicals, under a different description. — Banno

This is very wrong. The smell is certainly not the chemical. This feels like naive realism.

If the smell were the chemical, an alien could analyze the chemical and derive the correct subjective smell. This is clearly impossible. The smell is not a chemical property. Smells are the end product of the conjunction of the chemical and the human sensory system.

It is theoretically possible that all of our private symbols vary over our lifetimes without our noticing. But for this to work, our memories have to vary in lockstep. If they do not, then not only would we notice, but the symbols would become useless. If what we remember as coffee yesterday smells like bacon today, then the symbol does not communicate anything. — hypericin

Yep. So much the worse for that semiotics.

Any semiotic theory that starts from inner signs is already lost. If its coherence requires the “lockstep variation” story, then the right conclusion is not that the lockstep story is possible, but that the basic picture is wrong. If the private-symbol model requires “lockstep drifting qualia” just to keep meaning afloat, then abandon the model. Meaning doesn’t live there anyway.

If the smell were the chemical, an alien could analyze the chemical and derive the correct subjective smell. — hypericin

On the presumption that there is such a thing as "the correct subjective smell", which is the very point at issue.