Chalmers is a dualist, recall, and the alleged puzzle arises from taking dualism for granted.
You don't get to talk about a hard problem of consciousness with people who don't take dualism for granted. — jkop
The reason that we can meaningfully talk about red apples is because our physical sensory systems are, in the relevant sense, the same. But they need not be, as considering how one would communicate the idea of red apples to a blind person demonstrates. — Andrew M
he thinks every single version of physicalism fails, which is why he says he was led to endorse a form of property dualism. — Marchesk
Chalmers isn't like a theist arguing for God. — Marchesk
But how on earth could anyone know that every single version of physicalism fails to account for consciousness? — jkop
What if you put Mary in a room with a blue, yellow and red ball and said 'which one is red?' if until that moment she had never seen any colours how would she know that, until someone pointed and said 'that is the red one'? Until that moment 'which was the red ball' would have been something she didn't know. — Wayfarer
The German philosopher Martine Nida-Rümelin, an innovative dualist and a strong defender of the knowledge argument, clarifies Churchland’s point by offering a modified version of the Mary’s Room thought experiment. Remember that Mary already knows what colors particular objects like stop signs and ripe bananas are, so if someone were to bring these objects into the room, she would be able to name their colors. So instead, suppose that someone brings Mary objects that are randomly colored — say, toy blocks. Again, Mary sees colors for the first time — but in this case, she cannot identify them.
This scenario, says Nida-Rümelin, shows knowledge by acquaintance, or knowing what it’s like. Mary becomes acquainted with colors whose descriptions she already knew, but at this point she is not yet able to relate correctly the new experience of each color with her knowledge of it. For instance, she may think that the color of the red block is what people call “blue.” Churchland and Nida-Rümelin agree that no learning has occurred at this stage, and so no disproof of physicalism. We can see this because Mary has not actually learned anything new about the world: she’s wrong about the red block being blue.
But, Nida-Rümelin continues, when Mary then leaves the room and sees the blue sky, she does learn something new: she learns that the color of the blue block she saw earlier is what people are referring to when they say the sky is blue. Mary acquires knowledge about other people’s experience (assuming they have normal vision). According to Nida-Rümelin, the knowledge argument only claims that Mary learns something in this final stage
The general approach of dualists is to demonstrate that qualia are an additional set of properties of the world, over and above its physical traits.
But how on earth could anyone know that every single version of physicalism fails to account for consciousness? He even looks like a christian rock musician O:)
But how on earth could anyone know that every single version of physicalism fails to account for consciousness? He even looks like a christian rock musician O:) — jkop
You don't get color, smell, etc from shape, number, etc. This isn't a problem until you need to explain the mind, since it's part of the world. — Marchesk
How many violins can you build out of a pile of bricks? Does it depend on the size of the pile? The quality of the bricks? Brick technology? Some yet-to-be discovered brick? — Wayfarer
Well it would have to be a problem in principle: that subjective reality in principle can't be reduced to objective reality, that this is a category error. — Cavacava
The argument is really simple, actually. Physical concepts are objective. Conscious concepts are subjective. — Marchesk
It really goes back to Locke and his primary/secondary property distinction. If you use only the primary properties to describe the world, your explanation will leave out the secondary ones.
You don't get color, smell, etc from shape, number, etc. This isn't a problem until you need to explain the mind, since it's part of the world.
That's why it's a problem for physicalism. — Marchesk
Only under the assumption of property dualism: the dubious idea that the colour wouldn't be a physical pigment for instance but some mysterious entity lurking inside your consciousness. Hence the appearance of a "hard problem" of consciousness. — jkop
Only under the assumption of property dualism: the dubious idea that the colour wouldn't be a physical pigment for instance but some mysterious entity lurking inside your consciousness. Hence the appearance of a "hard problem" of consciousness. — jkop
So then where is the color we experience? Is it identical with some biological process, or does color supervene on the entirety of visual perception? — Marchesk
A physical pigment of what, though? I take it you don't think rocks have color experiences. That would be panpsychist. — Marchesk
..is a material that changes the color of reflected or transmitted light as the result of wavelength-selective absorption. — Wikipedia
If in the future we fully simulate vision, would the software have color experiences? Is there a way of arranging the bits such that they are conscious? — Marchesk
Nagel's way of putting this is that science provides objective, third person explanations. But experiencing red is first person and subjective. So something is left out with any objective explanation. That explanation can be scientific, mathematical, computational, or functional and it will still leave the experience out, because all of those are objective explanations — Marchesk
So, the experience is not just a firing of neurons but reaches out to the external objects and state of affairs that set the content of the experience. The internal experience that you have is, in this sense, inseparable from the external object or state of affairs that you experience. — jkop
Perhaps an alternative way of framing the issue to the usual subjective/objective framing. — Andrew M
It is an alternative, but it prevents us from speaking of the world when humans aren't around, which would be most of the time, since humans only occupy part of the surface of one little pale blue dot for the past 50 thousand years or so. — Marchesk
That is, the correct report of my experience is that I saw a green apple that appeared red due to the lighting. — Andrew M
We experience and describe the world from a human vantage point but it is still the world, independent of what humans say about it, that we are experiencing and describing. — Andrew M
Color is a lot tricker than taste. Nobody is a taste realist, I take it. Nobody thinks that the apple objectively tastes sweet. It tastes sweet to animals whose taste buds detect a certain amount of sugar content. But what if we didn't' have a sense of taste or smell at all? Maybe we detected chemical content via spectroscopic eyes or some other sensory organ. — Marchesk
Independent, in what sense? We have sensory organs that are adapted to a particular range of stimuli, and intellectual capacities that we are told nowadays are the consequence of biological evolution. So how do we rise above those capacities and see the world 'independently' of those capacities? How do we know we're capable of seeing the world 'in itself' and as distinct from or apart from the categories of understanding through which we view it? I think that 'independence' is really a working assumption that is often treated as a metaphysical principle. — Wayfarer
Why can't you accept #5? That seems like an unsettling declaration that lacks objectivity (no pun intended), or is perhaps based on a misunderstanding of Idealism..... — Victoribus Spolia
On what grounds do you believe that there exists more than consciousness and conscious content? — Victoribus Spolia
So that seems to beg the question. Science assumes a mind-independent reality, how can you therefore use such to prove the existence of such? — Victoribus Spolia
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