saturated, unstructured color field — StreetlightX
So, rather than doubting "what is it like" makes sense as a framing device because I'm being insufficiently attendant to first person phenomenology, I'm doubting that it makes as a framing device partly because how people talk about it just doesn't accurately describe how I experience the world. So I suspect that what people think of when they think of a quale is actually a rather structured concept; generalisations of experience, instances of memory, analogies; much different from the sort of stuff 'simply attending to your first person experience" is supposed to reveal. — fdrake
I'm fairly anti-realist about ontology, so I forget that others feel pretty strong commitments. — frank
With Chalmers, the focus is heavily on what we don't know, the approaches that are out there, and the challenge it all poses to science. He uses "first person data" pretty frequently. It's a pretty quiet, cautious, analytical approach. — frank
a feeling of themselves as distinct from their sensory capabilities and self attending bodily processes — fdrake
Why would you be reading the idea that way? — Terrapin Station
Philosophers often use the term ‘qualia’ (singular ‘quale’) to refer to the introspectively accessible, phenomenal (phenomena are introspectively accessibe? or do only introspectively accessible phenomena have qualia?) aspects of our mental (inner? is inner=mental?) lives. In this broad sense of the term, it is difficult to deny that there are qualia. Disagreement typically centers on which mental states have qualia, whether qualia are intrinsic qualities of their bearers, and how qualia relate to the physical world both inside and outside the head (head = mental? experiential = in the head?). — SEP
Having global suspicion about a domain is a pretty strong commitment! — fdrake
And yet he ends up in a qualified panpsychism and — fdrake
..argues that all (or a strong most) hitherto existing science has not dealt with the problem he's posing? — fdrake
Did he? Do you know in which writings he settles down into the view of panpsychism (as opposed to just considering it)? — frank
So let me ask you: when you say that it's inevitable that baggage is drawn into the discussion, what baggage are you dragging in? What theory? — frank
That all seems way more complex than would be warranted by not understanding what you quoted from SEP. :razz: — Terrapin Station
"Introspection" refers to observing one's own mental state. That's how they're accessible — Terrapin Station
But we can't just say that they're accessible and leave it at that. — Terrapin Station
"Phenomenal" refers to appearance, and could be contrasted with "noumenal." When we're talking about qualia, we're talking about appearances to our own mind. — Terrapin Station
You could say that "mental" is "inner" (re your question about this). Our minds are not directly observable to other people. — Terrapin Station
"Inside the head"--that's referring to your mind, on the view that minds are brains in particular states. — Terrapin Station
Edit: I'm pretty convinced that we see ourselves as "in our heads" just because our eyes are there, though. — fdrake
I think I broadly agree with Chalmers - at least his intention of providing a vocabulary for linking phenomenal states with physical ones — fdrake
I don't have the issues you do about selfhood, though. — frank
It may be that a satisfactory theory of consciousness will develop in the context of neutral monism. Who knows? — frank
Introspection's a lot different from awareness. — fdrake
What is accessible by what? — fdrake
I had no idea we needed to inherit the intellectual tradition of Kant in order to process our own experiences. — fdrake
The properties in question. Accessible by individuals. — Terrapin Station
You said that you didn't understand the passage you quoted. I'm trying to help you understand it. You can't expect an entry in a philosophy encyclopedia to be divorced of any theoretical commitments or background. It would be impossible to write an article for an encyclopedia that way. — Terrapin Station
Everything interesting about 'what it is like to experience X' happens outside, beyond this question.
Merleau-Ponty has some beautiful passages trying to get at this: — StreetlightX
You experience properties? Weird. Do phenomenal states consist of properties? — fdrake
It seems just as plausible to me that self awareness is part of everything we could recollect as an experience — fdrake
Look back at SLX's post about how qualia can't be independent items. The same is true of the self. — frank
There isn't anything that is absent properties — Terrapin Station
So yes you experience properties, — Terrapin Station
How could there be something you "could recollect" as an experience that wouldn't have properties? — Terrapin Station
By observation or awareness of one's own mental state. So they're introspectively accessible. — Terrapin Station
"This is a way Terrapin thinks about properties" — fdrake
It's an ontological fact. If something obtains in some way, it has some characteristics, some qualities, some ways that it is, etc. — Terrapin Station
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