Right! And in the quale is there some corresponding shape property of the table? — fdrake

The shape as you experience it is a property of your experience. Whether there's a corresponding shape of the table, as a property of the table, is kind of irrelevant to the qualia question.

The shape as you experience it is a property of your experience — Terrapin Station

Ok! I don't think we're talking cross purposes, then. At least, I think I understand you. I assume there will be an analogous colour quale.

Is the shape quale distinct from the colour quale? Are they distinct properties?

Does this pass your "I can talk in terms of qualia" test? — fdrake

Yep.

Yes, obviously shape and color are distinct. You can have the same shape table where it's a different color or vice versa.

Yes, obviously shape and color are distinct. — Terrapin Station

I agree. Shape and colour are distinct concepts. Are they distinct in the phenomenal character? Are they distinct in the percept?

What assumptions are you explicitly denying? What's a quale to you?

Edit: run me through an encounter you have with a quale? — fdrake

I don't really talk in terms of qualia, but if I had to define them I'd say they're just facets or aspects of subjective, first-person, phenomenal experiences. I don't think they (either experiences or qualia) are "things", separate ontological objects apart from the objects that those experiences are of. That kind of separate-ontological-stuff talk is the sort of assumption I've been explicitly denying.

[I think there are only physical things, and that physical things consist only of their empirical properties, which are actually just functional dispositions to interact with observers (who are just other physical things) in particular ways. A subject's phenomenal experience of an object is the same event as that object's behavior upon the subject, and the web of such events is what reality is made out of, with the nodes in that web being the objects of reality, each defined by its function in that web of interactions, how it observably behaves in response to what it experiences, in other words what it does in response to what is done to it.

In an extremely trivial and useless sense everything thus "has a mind" inasmuch as everything is subject to the behavior of other things and so has an experience of them ("phenomenal consciousness", the topic of the "hard problem"), but "minds" in a more useful and robust sense are particular types of complex self-interacting objects, and therefore as subjects have an experience that is heavily of themselves as much as it is of the rest of the world ("access consciousness", the topic of the "easy problem").]

My trivial point of agreement with philosophers like Jackson that I've been trying to explain without implying any kind of ontological baggage could basically be summed up as "we are not philosophical zombies". I don't think philosophical zombies are possible or even coherent, but I also don't think supernatural things are possible or even coherent, so while I don't think "is natural" or "is not a philosophical zombie" really communicate much of interest, they are complete trivialisms when properly understood, I nevertheless confidently assert that everything is natural and there are no philosophical zombies to be clear that I disagree with that nonsense.

By definition philosophical zombies could not be discerned from non-zombies from the third person, only in the first person can one know that oneself is not a philosophical zombie, and the only trivial thing I think Jackson proves is that there is such a first-person experience that we have, the likes of which philosophical zombies would not have. Which, again, is a complete trivialism because I think everything necessarily has that and it's incoherent to talk about not having it so saying something has it really doesn't communicate anything of greater interest than disagreement with such nonsense.

Are they distinct in the phenomenal character? — fdrake

Yes, otherwise there would be no way to make a distinction between them experientially. You'd not be able to experience the same shape with a different color or the same color with a different shape. That makes them necessarily distinct in phenomenal character/properties/qualia.

y. You'd not be able to experience the same shape with a different color or the same color with a different shape. — Terrapin Station

(1) I see the table, it presents as a certain shape and a certain colour.
(2) The shape and the colour present together. There is a shape-colour quale.
(3) There is no shape quale (in this experience of the table) independently of the colour quale. There is no colour quale (in this experience of the table) independently of the shape quale.
(4) There is a conceptual distinction between shape and colour.
(5) The distinction between "the shape quale of this table" and "the colour quale of this table" is conceptual, it is not based on the percept of this table.

(agree/disagree to list or items?)

You seem to want to say that "the shape quale of this table" and "the colour quale of the table" are distinct within the percept. That they are based on the phenomenal character of this experience. If this is true, what in this experience furnishes the distinction between the shape and the colour of the table?

If they are not distinct in the percept (2), then they can only be distinct in the concept.

I don't think philosophical zombies are possible or even coherent, but I also don't think supernatural things are possible or even coherent, so while I don't think "is natural" or "is not a philosophical zombie" really communicate much of interest, they are complete trivialisms when properly understood, I nevertheless confidently assert that everything is natural and there are no philosophical zombies to be clear that I disagree with that nonsense. — Pfhorrest

Quoting myself to add: it occurs to me that supernatural things are not just a useful analogy for my take on philosophical zombies, they're actually ontologically very similar if not identical things on my account of ontology. For something to be supernatural would be for it to have no observable behavior; for something to be a philosophical zombie would be for it to have no phenomenal experience. Both of those are just different ways of saying that the thing is completely cut off from the web of interactions that is reality, and is therefore unreal.

No. I'm not saying that. The distinction is between the shape of the table as a property of the table, and the shape of the table as you experience it. — Terrapin Station

To my way of thinking this is an unhelpful, misleading way of talking. The shape of the table is not different than the way the shape of the table is perceived from different vantage points. The appearances of the table from different vantage points reveal the shape of the table as such; we could say they are functions. as it were, of the actual shape, they are not different shapes.

So, what is the actual (in itself) shape of the table, anyway? Is it as it would be seen, as it were, from no vantage point? Or is it some imagined totality of how it would be seen from every possible vantage point? I would say the actual shape of the table is just an idealized or formal abstraction derived from the information accumulated from different views of the table.

Would you say it is ever possible for the shape of the table as it appears to be the same as the actual shape? If not, then what, for you, is the actual shape of the table?

what in this experience furnishes the distinction between the shape and the colour of the table? — fdrake

Not that any of this matters for whether there are qualia, by the way, but one is extensional relations and the other is an electromagnetic frequency. Those aren't the same thing experientially.

I'm not referring to qualia in any unusual manner. — Terrapin Station

You said "It's just the qualitative properties of your experiences. You must have qualitative properties to your experiences."

In Nagel, Jackson and Chalmers (three of the major users of the term you were trying to define) it does not simply mean the qualitative properties of your experience without you using 'qualitative' in some specific or technical way (which is why I specified the definition I was using). 'Qualitative' properties, by my definition, are attitudinal responses - like/dislike, positive/negative. These are things which could - in theory - be measured and determined by a third party. The position of Nagel, Jackson and Chalmers is that qualia cannot - even in theory - be reduced to facts which are accessible by a third party, As you later specified with regards to the question of what it's like to be a bat.

Chalmer's P-Zombie, for example, is predicated entirely on the fact that all brain functions (including feeling - happiness, sadness etc) could go in and yet still some aspect of qualia be missing - this elusive 'what it's like' that we're trying to get you to define.

But as Hacker points out, if attitudinal feeling is what they meant then "Such questions can be answered, and one need not be an X or similar to an X in order to answer them. One merely has to be well informed about the lives of Xs"

A lot of what you call my 'reading comprehension' issues are me trying to charitably interpret something you've said that is superficially trite and uninteresting as if it were a meaningful contribution to the debate. To do that I have to do an awful lot of reading in to what little you write. As @fdrake said "More words please".

This is a case in point. My first reaction to that single sentence you felt like gave an definition of qualia was that by 'qualitative', you meant the second definition I quoted - 'what it's like', the 'quality' of the experience. I charitably dismissed that option because to define it that way would be pointlessly circular. Perhaps I was wrong and you did in fact mean to be pointlessly circular?

I'm guessing that you mean Hacker's "Is There Anything It Is Like to Be a Bat"? I'll have to read through that again, but I don't recall him saying anything that amounts to "What it's like' does not make sense in terms of conscious experience" — Terrapin Station

even for the limited range of being transitively conscious of something or other, it would be quite wrong to suppose that there is always or even usually an answer to the question ‘What was it like for you to be conscious of ...?’

It is equally misconceived to suppose that one can characterize what it is to be a conscious creature by means of the formula ‘there is something which it is like to be’ that creature, something it is like for the organism.

The sentences ‘There is something which it is like to be a human being’, ‘There is something which it is like to be a bat’, and ‘There is something which it is like to be me’, as presented by the protagonists in this case, are one and all awry.

it is wrong for Nagel to suggest that ‘we know what it is like [for us] to be us’, that there is something ‘precise that it is like [for us] to be us’ and that ‘while we do not possess the vocabulary to describe it adequately, its subjective character is highly specific.’ It is mistaken of Edelman and Tononi to assert that we all ‘know what it is like to be us’, and confused to of them suppose that ‘there is “something” it is like to be us’. And it is a confusion to think, as Searle does, that for any conscious state, ‘there is something that it qualitatively feels like to be in that state’.

Some experience does not involve words. All characterizations thereof do. There are extremely important existential and elemental distinctions between a characterization of an experience and the experience being reported upon. All "what it's like" descriptions are existentially dependent upon words. Not all experience is.

To put it a bit simpler:There is experience prior to words. What that experience amounts to and/or consists of is what matters here, it seems to me.

If all stipulated characterization(what it's like) is a report, and that which is being reported upon is something that exists in it's entirety prior to words(to be a bat), then that report can most certainly be mistaken. Some experience(bat experience) is prior to words. When something is prior to words, it can be neither existentially dependent upon them nor consist of them. Any and all reports that stipulate otherwise are mistaken.

When it comes to what we say about the experience of a non linguistic creature, we can be mistaken, in exactly the same way that we can be wrong in what we say about that anything and everything that exists in it's entirety prior to our report of it.

We can be wrong about the elemental constituency thereof.

There is most certainly experience prior to words. There is most certainly experience that does not consist of words. There is most certainly experience that is not existentially dependent upon words.

What does all experience have in common such that having it is exactly what makes it an experience?

Not words, so not Quale.

Bats do not experience the brownness or smoothness or roundness of the table they are hanging beneath. Those terms are used - they are the means - for us to draw distinctions between kinds of colors, textures, and shapes. As such, they are an aspect of a comparison/contrast. Those are all existentially dependent upon language use. A recently awakened/disturbed bat hanging beneath a brown round table is having some sort of experience, no doubt, but brownness, smoothness, and roundness are not a part of that experience.

This is not an attempt to set out 'what it's like' to be a bat. There is no universally applicable minimalist criterion for "what it's like" to be anything. Rather, there's most certainly something that all experience has in common such that the combination thereof is adequate for rudimentary level experience. When we realize that the same 'set' of basic elemental constituents are present in each and every undeniable/obvious case of experience, we will have made progress setting out what all experience consists of.

'Qualitative' properties, by my definition, are attitudinal responses - like/dislike, positive/negative. — Isaac

???

I even addressed this before. "Qualities" are properties. But qualitative properties are different than quantitative properties. In other words there are properties that are qualities and properties that are quantities. Hence why I'm specifying qualitative properties, because usually when we're talking about qualia we're not talking about quantities.

It's not saying anything at all about attitudes, preferences, valuations, etc.

It's not using the word "quality" in the colloquial, evaluative sense as in when you'd ask, "Is this a quality computer?" (Just as "like" in "what's it's like" isn't using that term to refer to analogies or similes, which papers that you linked to, such as the Hacker paper, emphasize--that "like" isn't being used in the sense of or to refer to comparisons.)

It's not saying anything at all about attitudes, preferences, valuations, etc. — Terrapin Station

Unfortunately I'm not trying to establish what it's not saying, otherwise that response would have been very helpful. Call me crazy, but that seems like a rather long-winded way of going about establishing what you mean. What I'd prefer to know is what it is saying.

So,if not attitudinal, then what kind of property are qualitative properties, how does the term qualitative help us understand what 'what it's like' language is trying to capture?

So,if not attitudinal, then what kind of property are qualitative properties, — Isaac

All properties that are not quantities (that are not simply numerical).

In other words, all properties are exhausted by the qualitative/quantitative dichotomy.

The issue here is trying to define in more precise terms what the expression /question "what it's like" is referring to, or being used to communicate.

So far, after having got over the knee-jerk "...but you know what it means", we've had suggestions that it is referring to something consequent to experience, but which is somehow unique and ineffable (but we haven't established how it has either property). We've had that it refers to qualia, but defining 'qualia' seems no less mired, and we've had that it refers to 'qualitative' properties of experience, but 'qualitative' here seems to just mean 'what it's like', so that doesn't get us anywhere useful either.

The issue here is trying to define in more precise terms what the expression /question "what it's like" is referring to, or being used to communicate. — Isaac

It's referring to the properties of experience, or we could say "the things in experience," from the perspective of that experience.

A table was brought up earlier as an example.

(a) "The properties of the table"

are different than

(b) "The properties of the table as you experience it"

If for no other reason simply because your experience doesn't literally have a table in it.

(b) are qualia

All properties that are not quantities (that are not simply numerical). — Terrapin Station

So when you said...

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


It's just the qualitative properties of your experiences. You must have qualitative properties to your experiences. — Terrapin Station

And...

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


The qualitative properties of the bat's experiences, from the bat's perspective. — Terrapin Station

You were referring to any property of experience that isn't a numerical?

So the property of judgement (attitudinal properties) which you said you weren't talking about, are they numerical, or excluded for some other reason?

Are you fixated, for some reason on defining things by what they're not? You seem to only want to clarify what you're saying by talking about what it's not. Why is it proving so difficult to say what it is? Are you suggesting that there's such a near-infinite number of properties that would count as qualitative that simply listing them is impossible, leaving you only with the option to say what they're not?

It's not a complicated idea, by the way. It's just that some people deny qualia, partially because they don't want it to be the case that there's something about mentality that's inherently third-person-inaccessible, because that's a problem for tackling mentality from a scientific perspective.

This whole issue grew out of attempting to devise scientific theories of mind/mentality, as well as functional theories, and practically, out of working on AI, etc.

Once you start to treat 'properties' as nothing more than a reification of the quirks of ancient Greek grammar, watching people treat it as an ontological category is like watching shamans on a small isolated island argue over which voodoo doll is the most effective. Like, once you distance yourself from it, it becomes almost an anthropological study of a bunch of culture-bound humans who have learened to use words in a funny way.

ou were referring to any property of experience that isn't a numerical? — Isaac

Yes.

So the property of judgement — Isaac

Qualia talk is typically focused on experiencing things-in-the-world, not our own mental content per se. So in other words, experiencing sights and sounds and tactile sensations and so on, and not our judgments and desires and emotions and so on.

Could we talk about our own mental content in terms of qualia? Sure, but that's kind of redundant, because the whole issue is focused on properties per experience being non-identical to objective properties.

So if one were an ontological idealist or a solipsist, the whole issue would be moot, because you'd think that there's no difference between a table and the table in your experience. You'd think that everything IS your experience, or at least is experience without necessarily being yours. (Although possibly in the latter case this would still be an issue, since there would be no way to know that different experiences were similar).

It's referring to the properties of experience, or we could say "the things in experience," from the perspective of that experience. — Terrapin Station

What does "from the perspective of the experience" mean here? The properties of the experience might well be the brain states it instantiates, but that's accessible via third parties, so that's not it. The difference is something to do with this "from the perspective of the experience", but I cannot fathom what that might mean. I don't understand how an experience can have a perspective.

(a) "The properties of the table"

are different than

(b) "The properties of the table as you experience it"

If for no other reason simply because your experience doesn't literally have a table in it.

(b) are qualia — Terrapin Station

Again, (b), by this definition, might well be brain states completely accessible to a third party. The 'properties' of the table as you experience it might well be the effects it has on the brain, in the same way as the 'properties' of the table in reality could be the effects it has on passing photons, gravity etc..

some people deny qualia, partially because they don't want it to be the case that there's something about mentality that's inherently third-person inaccessible, because that's a problem for tackling mentality from a scientific perspective. — Terrapin Station

I don't see how this helps, we could equally say that some people need to cling to qualia to preserve human-uniqueness, or pet theories about consciousness and free-will. As @fdrake pointed out, there's all sorts of baggage going along with these concepts. Neither party can play the innocent.

once you distance yourself from it, it becomes almost an antropological study of a bunch of humans who have learened to use words in a funny way. — StreetlightX

I think that's true, but I don't think it precludes any value in such an anthropological approach, nor does it preclude an attempt to unravel what is meant by it in their own terms. Unless I've misunderstood what you're saying?

So in other words, experiencing sights and sounds and tactile sensations and so on, and not our judgments and desires and emotions and so on. — Terrapin Station

But part of the experience of sights and sounds is our judgement about them. It's inextricably linked.

What does "from the perspective of the experience" mean here? — Isaac

As opposed to talking about the table as the table. Or from the perspective of the table, using "perspective" in the sense it's used in the visual arts.

(In other words, what I just explained above re the post with (a) and (b) where I explained that (b) are qualia.)

It almost seems like you're intentionally trying to not understand this, because you don't want to, or because you want to be difficult or something like that, because it's difficult to believe that it would be this difficult for you to grasp these relatively simple ideas.

I think that's true, but I don't think it precludes any value in such an anthropological approach, nor does it preclude an attempt to unravel what is meant by it in their own terms. Unless I've misunderstood what you're saying? — Isaac

Nah for sure, it's interesting to understand why 'properties' tend to be our 'go-to' when thinking about this kind of stuff. But I am honestly amused - like it makes me smile irl - to think people look out at the world around them and honestly believe in their heart of hearts that what they see are 'properties'. Like, the amount of cultural conditioning it takes to get someone to think that this is their 'spontaneous' self-report is incredible. The degree of abstraction from perception is actually thoroughly impressive, when you really stop to think about it.

What you'd think we see other than properties, who knows?

Yeah, agreed. I come at this stuff from a very different angle to you, I think, but I feel the same way about this idea that objects (physical or otherwise) have 'properties' somehow attached to them which can later be dissected for analysis - this 'property' is its colour, this 'property' is its shape...and so forth.

But I reach that point out of nominalism, I sense you're getting there some other way?

I'm a nominalist, so you're going wrong somewhere.

You believe that objects wouldn't have various ways they are, various characteristics, etc.? How would that make any sense?

As opposed to talking about the table as the table. Or from the perspective of the table, using "perspective" in the sense it's used in the visual arts. — Terrapin Station

That's not helping I'm afraid, I've no idea what perspective might mean in the visual arts either. It seems you just want to say that some 'properties' are attached to the table where others are attached to our experience of it, but I can't see how properties attach to a table.

(I'm going to stop putting properties in inverted commas, I don't really hold to the concept but it's a phaff to make that clear by my punctuation every time I type it).