:cheer:

This is nonsense, absolute bollocks, and typical of the debasement of the subject of philosophy by American materialist ‘philosophers’. What is really at issue is quality of being, what quality being entails or enjoys, and what it means. And that is a profound question, but to speak about it in terms of pseudo-intellectual nonsense terms such as ‘qualia’ debases the conversation — Wayfarer

In my defense I used the "qualia" as a representative word for all subjective mind experiences.

yes but that is my point. It is a nonsense word that has crept into the philosophical lexicon, and ought not to be used. The only place you will ever encounter it, is in discussions involving this clique of American materialist philosophers - Dennett, Rosenberg, Churchlands and a couple of others. Using it legitimates their attempted coup. :-)

yes but that is my point. It is a nonsense word that has crept into the philosophical lexicon, and ought not to be used. The only place you will ever encounter it, is in discussions involving this clique of American materialist philosophers - Dennett, Rosenberg, Churchlands and a couple of others. Using it legitimates their attempted coup. :-) — Wayfarer

:ok:

Compare the above scenario to the fact that when there's brain activity, there's qualia and when there's no brain activity, there's no qualia. — TheMadFool

There is always brain acitivity unless the person is dead. Further the coffee is added to the situation. The brain is not added to the situation.

But again, that situation is not parallel to the hard problem of consciousness.

The hard problem of coffee is HOW the coffee keeps you awake not THAT it keeps you awake.

While it may sound like advanced science, it's really pretty simple. As the brain creates adenosine it binds to adenosine receptors. That binding of adenosine causes drowsiness by slowing nerve cell activity. The adenosine binding also causes the brain's blood vessels to dilate, most likely to let in more oxygen during sleep.

Caffeine looks just like adenosine to a nerve cell. Caffeine therefore binds to the adenosine receptor. But unlike adenosine, it doesn't slow down the cell's activity. As a result, the cell can't identify adenosine -- the caffeine is taking up all the receptors. Instead of slowing down because of the adenosine's effect, nerve cells speed up. The caffeine also causes the brain's blood vessels to constrict. It is, after all, blocking adenosine's ability to open them up. This is why some headache medicines contain caffeine -- if you have a vascular headache, caffeine will close down the blood vessels and offer relief.

Now, you have increased neuron firing in the brain. When the pituitary gland sees all of this activity, it thinks an emergency must be occurring. The pituitary, therefore, releases hormones to tell the adrenal glands to produce adrenaline (epinephrine). Adrenaline, the "fight or flight" hormone, has a number of effects on the body:

Pupils dilate.
Breathing tubes open (which is why people suffering from severe asthma attacks sometimes can be injected with epinephrine).
The heart beats faster.
Muscles tighten up, ready for action.
Blood pressure rises.
Blood flow to the stomach slows.
The liver releases sugar into the bloodstream.

This explains why, after drinking a big cup of coffee, your muscles tense up, you feel excited, your hands get cold and you can feel your heart beat increasing.

So, all that would make it harder to sleep. We know the mechanism. That brains are present when there is qualia (in us, but perhaps not limited to those times) does not mean we know the answer to the hard problem consciousness. We don't know why the make up of the brain leads to qualia. And we also do not know if qualia are limited to brains. I've given some reasons for this last already.

You guys keep talking about the physical, but none of you know what that means. Particle or wave? You can't even determine that. The Uncertainty Principal. Perspective: completely limited. So I don't even understand what you're saying when you say qualia is physical, and I know you don't know either.

The real problem, as I see it, is one of identity. Why would a bunch of dead, lifeless matter, in any assemblage, believe it is a person. All of us knowing what being a person entails. If everything is dead and lifeless, I can't imagine how this could be the case. It would be a cruel abberation, and I certainly see no evolutionary advantage to it.

So what do we do? We roll back. It's all an illusion and means nothing. I've never heard a more elegant formula for slavery.

Thanks for your reply. G'day.