You mean p-zombies? They might not be (metaphysically) impossible. If consciousness really is something above-and-beyond brain activity and behaviour and whatnot then the p-zombie hypothesis is coherent.

I'd think that his commitment to his own consciousness takes priority. If he could be shown that consciousness really is qualia then he's more likely to accept that he has qualia than deny that he is conscious.

That's not the impression I get from the way he talks about his position. but okay.

but it intrigues me as to why TGW thinks that consciousness must be defined in terms of qualia. — John

That's how the word is ordinarily used -- it isn't 'defined' that way.

I don't think so. Consciousness is ordinarily understood to be consciousness of oneself, other people, animals, things, thoughts, bodily feelings, emotions, memories, not qualia.

The notion 'qualia' is itself not a naturally occurring, ordinary everyday idea, but an artificially produced, extraordinary philosophical idea, probably incomprehensible to, and certainly not spontaneously entertained by, most people.

The very fact that it is widely rejected by philosophers shows that it is far from being a necessary idea.

The very fact that it is widely rejected by philosophers shows that it is far from being a necessary idea. — John

I am not sure what is more immediate than the warmth and cold of touch, the taste of ice cream, the color of the sky, smell of something cooking, and the sound of a familiar song. Even if one or more of these senses are missing, other senses usually become dominant to one's conscious experience. Someone might call them sense perception. Association, reasoning, and conceptual analysis, recognition, or combination thereof, would be various other kinds of mental processes. One may be aware of certain qualias depending on where the mind is putting its attention, but that does not necessarily make the qualia go away, that just makes the value regarding that qualia change. The phenomena of qualia still remains, even if the mind's relationship to it changes. Many classical theories start with the fact that humans have sense experiences and work their way up from there. I don't see how it is relegated to practically nothing in your notion of consciousness.

Also, what are thoughts, bodily feelings, emotions, and the like without linkages to memories of qualia? Objects, even in the mind, have qualia associated with them. Emotions may bring up images and memories that also have qualia. Bodily feelings, arguably are qualia, but that of touch.

I am not sure what is more immediate than the warmth and cold of touch, the taste of ice cream, the color of the sky, smell of something cooking, and the sound of a familiar song. — schopenhauer1

Why do think the things you list are qualia? Remember qualia are defined as something like 'qualities of experience'. I would say that when you see the blue sky you see blue sky not a quality of blueness or the experience of blueness. And likewise for your other examples.

Why do think the things you list are qualia? Remember qualia are defined as something like 'qualities of experience'. I would say that when you see the blue sky you see blue sky not a quality of blueness or the experience of blueness. And likewise for your other examples. — John

I am a bit confused by your definition of qualia then. When you see a blue sky, you see immediate sensations of quality such as blueness- even if you do not recognize what blueness is. The immediate sensation/experience that is perceived is the qualia. The discernment as to "which sensation is blue?" and the concept of "blue in sky vs. blue in pants", is not the same as the quality that is immediately given. In the human mind, qualia may be linked with these mental processes, but they are not the same. The qualia itself is, as you say, the qualities that we perceive or the qualities of experience. The attention given to these qualities, the feelings associated with it, the memories of similar qualities, the bundling of them into immediate concepts, etc. are interesting, but not necessarily the same thing.

I would say that when you see the blue sky you see blue sky not a quality of blueness or the experience of blueness. — John

I've never understood this sort of objection. It seems to me like saying "when I punch a person I punch a person; I don't punch a striking fist".

To punch someone is to strike them with your fist. To see a blue sky is to have certain qualitative sensations. That's what's claimed.

There's a difference between the intentionality of experience (the blue sky) and the substance of experience (the qualia, allegedly).

I don't think so. Consciousness is ordinarily understood to be consciousness of oneself, other people, animals, things, thoughts, bodily feelings, emotions, memories, not qualia. — John

Not really. First of all, if someone asks, 'is he conscious?' what they mean is something like 'is he having experiences?' as opposed to being 'blacked out.' They don't mean 'is he conscious of x?' Second of all, you're not conscious of your emotions, at least not primarily; you have emotions, which are feelings. To be conscious is to have qualia, or experiences, not to be conscious of them.

This seems to me what people mean by 'consciousness,' and an attempt to redefine it and then deal with that technical notion isn't of that much interest.

The notion 'qualia' is itself not a naturally occurring, ordinary everyday idea, but an artificially produced, extraordinary philosophical idea, probably incomprehensible to, and certainly not spontaneously entertained by, most people. — John

The word isn't naturally occurring, but the idea is. To deny that people have a notion of experience that's pretty much exactly what philosophers call qualia (and ordinarily people just call 'experience' or something like that) seems to me to be absurd and a losing battle. Philosophers don't want there to be such a thing, but that's a different matter.

The very fact that it is widely rejected by philosophers shows that it is far from being a necessary idea. — John

It obviously shows no such thing, but since you knew that I'm not sure why you said this.

There's a difference between the intentionality of experience (the blue sky) and the substance of experience (the qualia, allegedly). — Michael

When people say things like this, I just don't know. Maybe there are p-zombies. Allegedly.

The notion 'qualia' is itself not a naturally occurring, ordinary everyday idea, but an artificially produced, extraordinary philosophical idea, probably incomprehensible to, and certainly not spontaneously entertained by, most people. — John

Over on the other forum, somebody once characterized the invention of qualia (qua concept) as a dialectical response to eliminative materialism. Seems right. All that's really important about qualia is that, whoa, we actually do have qualitative experience which wouldn't be worth pointing out, because everyone knows that, unless someone started truculently denying it. Arguing with such a person, on their terms, is a fool's errand (like arguing with a solipsist) and can lead to desperate attempts to characterize consciousness in a way such a person might find palatable (though of course, they never do, and never will.) That's the real problem with qualia - that so many philosophers clumsily try to fit consciousness into a mould that doesn't make sense. Most objections to qualia are objections to the reification of consciousness, the idea of qualia as individual things. Obviously problems crop up when you use the language of substantives for something that's more like a verb (or adverb.) That's why the blue sky example misses the point, as Michael pointed out.

(By the by, much of what passes, in Dennett, or Churchland for the denial of consciousness is really the denial of a simple, unified, substantial soul. Dennett loves railing on the Cartesian theater. And that's well and good, but consciousness has been distinguished from a substantial soul for a long time, in many ways (one obvious touchstone here is Kant's antinomy re: the soul's substantiality which, for him, has nothing to do with the transcendental unity of apperception.) It's kind of the perfect sleight of hand. Conscious qualitative experience=Cartesian theater. Argue against the cartesian theater. Pretend you've thereby KO'd conscious qualitative experience. )

The OP seems to be the flip side of the question of whether rocks have consciousness. It's entirely possible that folks who are walking around appearing to be conscious are not, and it's entirely possible that things that don't appear conscious are (like rocks).

All that this means is that we can't know for certain what is taking place inside someone's mind, but it doesn't suggest that there'd be no difference between conscious and unconscious entities with exact behavior.

Perhaps a better example than my first:

A painting of a cup is a painting of a cup, not a painting of paint and a canvas. But it is nonetheless the case that the painting is just paint and a canvas.

So an experience of a cup is an experience of a cup, not an experience of an image. But it is nonetheless the case that the experience is just an image (or so one theory goes).

You need something better than "I see a blue sky, not the quality of blueness" to actually address the core issue(s). Those who argue for qualia can accept that the intentional object of the experience is not qualia whilst still maintaining that the substance of the experience is qualia, just as one can accept that the intentional object of the painting is not paint whilst still maintaining that the substance of the painting is paint.

I would say that we have no reason to think that prior to seeing anything as something, for example seeing a blue sky, it is any more a case of seeing

immediate sensations of quality such as blueness — schopenhauer1

than it is of seeing a blue sky. I would say the notion of seeing "immediate sensations of quality" is secondary to and derivative of seeing anything as something.

Perhaps it may be said that primordially there are patterns, but primordial patterns do not count as qualities, since qualities are the reflexive judgements of subjects, and on any view of 'perception as constructed' (whether by nature or culture) subjects arise co-temporally with objects (such as the blue sky).

Perhaps it is not even appropriate to say that primordial patterns are seen (as opposed to say, simply registered) ( but then, is even the idea of simple registaration consonant with ideas of primordial noumenality?) prior to seeing as unless you want to posit unitary souls in both animals and humans, souls for whom the world is always already pre-conceptually intelligible.

than it is of seeing a blue sky. I would say the notion of seeing "immediate sensations of quality" is secondary to and derivative of seeing anything as something. — John

This is just wrong, though. You can have visual experiences without seeing anything 'as' anything, but the reverse isn't true. So what sense of secondary can you possibly mean?

Can you give an example of a visual experience that does not consist in seeing something as something?

Afterimages, having light flash at you, jaundice, shutting your eyes, scintillating scotoma, the ever-elusive and mythical phenomenon of not being sure what you're looking at, you know, crazy philosopher shit.

They are not examples of not seeing something as something. You see an afterimage as an afterimage. a light flashed at you as a light flashed at you, scintillating scotoma as scintillating scotoma and so on. Otherwise how would you be able to identify and differentiate those experiences as such?

Remember, seeing something indefinite counts as seeing something as something as much as seeing something definite does. Both experiences are always already conceptually articulated as either definite or indefinite.

They are not examples of not seeing something as something. You see an afterimage as an afterimage. a light flashed at you as a light flashed at you, scintillating scotoma as scintillating scotoma and so on. Otherwise how would you be able to identify and differentiate those experiences as such? — John

Not really, no. You don't have to individuate something as 'a flash of light' to experience a flash of light. In fact that would make seeing really fucking hard, you'd never be able to see anything, always having to think about what it was before you could experience anything.

Remember, seeing something indefinite counts as seeing something as something as much as seeing something definite does. Both experiences are always already conceptually articulated. — John

So evidence against your position counts as evidence for it.

Not really, no. You don't have to individuate something as 'a flash of light' to experience a flash of light. In fact that would make seeing really fucking hard, you'd never be able to see anything, always having to think about what it was before you could experience anything. — The Great Whatever

You're misunderstanding what I am saying; I am not saying you have to explicitly think about what you are seeing in order to see things. Animals see things too, I imagine. The understanding of what you are seeing is pre-explicatory; but if there is no implicit (I hesitate to say "pre-conceptual" but would certainly say "pre-linguistic") understanding of what you are seeing then it makes no real sense to say that you are seeing anything.

I don't understand how anything could be evidence against your position. Not seeing something as something for you is just evidence you see it 'as' something indistinct.

If there is no possible evidence against it, then it must be correct, no? 8-).

But then again, we are supposedly talking philosophy, and philosophical positions generally do not admit of evidence, but are rather judged in terms of clarity, coherence and consistency, no?

What would constitute evidence against any of the well-worn standpoints? Plato's Forms, Aristotle's notion of causality, Spinoza's idea of substance, Hegel's Absolute Spirit: what do you imagine could constitute evidence against any of those ideas?

And I would not word it that way. I would say that not seeing something as distinct is seeing something as indistinct; in both cases something is seen as something. It simply does not make sense to speak of seeing in cases where nothing is seen.

OK, I disagree. So what?

and philosophical positions generally do not admit of evidence, — John

Sure they do -- but this insight into how you see the matter is illuminating, I guess.

Can you give an example of some evidence (presuming here that you mean empirical evidence and not merely 'evidence' from a theory's "clarity, coherency and consistency") that supports or goes against any philosophical position?

I smell an epistemicist.

Some say that current science is evidence against traditional materialism (which differs from modern physicalism) and the naïve realist view of perception.