So is experiencing eating cake different from eating cake? — Banno
There's something profoundly amiss with the "...like..." in "something it is like...". We see what it is like for Roger to eat cake. — Banno
That's not how the turn of phrase is supposed to work, as far as I understand. — bert1
There is something it is like for John to see red = John experiences red
There is nothing it is like for Roger the Robot to see red = Roger the robot does not experience red — bert1
And why are we saying "what it's like" rather than "what it is" to be a bat? — Harry Hindu
To make this claim it is necessary for there to be some thing it is to experience red, which is itself a fact, but which is not derivable from the physical facts of seeing red. — Isaac
This is the very issue at stake. How can you demonstrate that this is the case? Of course there is something it is like for the robot to see red. It is like having some sensation register and some action occur in response. — Isaac
I was pointing out an equation between 'what it's like' language, and the language of experience. — bert1
I just don't experience things like that. I've never felt like there's something which it is like to be me. How the hell am I supposed to tell? — fdrake
I don't understand Nagel's question. Is he asking what it is to be the whole bat, or just it's brain, or what? — Harry Hindu
It's just the qualitative properties of your experiences. You must have qualitative properties to your experiences. — Terrapin Station
It's not though. Not in Jackson, not in Chalmers, not in Lewis, Byrne, Janzen. In all of these uses, and the use it is put to here, it constitutes more than just the qualitative properties of your experiences (where qualitative is meant as in subjective judgement, feeling). The feeling one has when experiencing something is entirely measurable and comminicable "it made me feel happy". The argument of Jackson is that the facts there are non-physical. The argument of Chalmers is that they cannot be reduced to physical mental states, even in theory... — Isaac
less a color or a thing, therefore, than a difference between things and colors, a momentary crystallization of colored being or of visibility." (The Visible and the Invisible) — StreetlightX
Does anyone not understand what these two people are saying? — bert1
Jack: I wonder what it would be like to be a seagull?
Jill: Fantastic, I would imagine. The feeling of swooping through the air, the effortless traversing of long distances. Pecking people, nicking chips. I'd love it. — bert1
I dunno, it might not feel like how you imagine at all. We're very different from seagulls. It's like trying to imagine what it's like to be a snail, we're just too different.
Jill: Maybe, but even though I can't imagine what it is like to be a snail, I reckon there is still something it is like to be a snail, even though I'm not sure what. — bert1
Not like rocks though, there's nothing it's like to be a rock. — bert1
whole papers have been written by eminent philosophers, cognitive scientists and psychologists entirely on the subject of the fact that 'what it's like' does not make sense in terms of conscious experience. — Isaac
Did you give an example of a paper that you believe is claiming that "'What it's like' does not make sense in terms of conscious experience"? — Terrapin Station
Did you give an example of a paper that you believe is claiming that "'What it's like' does not make sense in terms of conscious experience"? — Terrapin Station
You’re going way out of the way to import much deeper metaphysical baggage to this really ordinary way of talking than is called for, which makes it look like you’re just looking for something to disagree with just to win the argument, when nothing you’re saying in “rebuttal” disagrees with anything I’m saying so I really see no need for that. — Pfhorrest
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.