that we experience qualitative sensations inside our head, such as colours, or the timbre of a musical instrument (the “sound of trumpet”). — Olivier5

That, to me, is mentalism: confusing thoughts (neurological events) with pictures (or other symbols) and with pictured (or otherwise symbolised) objects.

confusing thoughts (neurological events) with pictures (or other symbols) and pictured objects. — bongo fury

I'm certainly not confusing thoughts with neurological events. That would be a category error. And mentalists are people with telepathic capacity, which I don't believe in.

I'm certainly not confusing thoughts with neurological events. — Olivier5

Ok, what are they for you?

And mentalists are people with telepathic capacity, which I don't believe in. — Olivier5

haha, at least that needn't be a substantive issue. I just meant, believing in mental furniture. Whatever you want to call that. Phenomenalism? Psychism?

Hence the "hard problem". And yet, mental events must be underwritten by physical events. There’s no information without some material support. Genes need DNA, a poem needs paper. — Olivier5

Yes, the hard problem, agreed. I think most hard problemers would agree with the physical events part. As for information, I agree that information is instantiated in physical events, but is this not a case of Cartesian Theater yet again? Whence the first person aspect from information itself? What makes information experiential or have a subjective "what it feels like" aspect?

Ok, what are they for you? — bongo fury

Thoughts are information, written down and processed by neurons.

Thoughts are information, written down and processed by neurons. — Olivier5

Interesting. Symbols? Sentences? Images?

It's neurons encoding for this or that.. but then encoding itself has to be explained as for why it is mental states. The problem lies in positing a hidden dualism. Mental states exist, yes or no? If yes, whence mental states? We keep referencing another complexity of physical states. It's not like if you pile on more physical explanations, "poof" mental states appear. — schopenhauer1

A certain kind of complexity seems necessary for our consciousness; from neuroscience it seems to be a dynamic (causal-spatio-temporal) kind of organized complexity (rich differentiation and integration). It seems that an object needs to be complex in this way in order to be "conscious". A single neuron is probably not conscious but a complex collection of neurons may be; but it's difficult to describe how because while we may be conscious of the quality of a collection of neurons we don't know the qualities of the neurons themselves and we don't know how the qualities of neurons compose the quality of a collection of neurons. The quality of the collection is not identical to the qualities of the constituent neurons because the collection is not identical to any of the constituent neurons; it is an object in its own right, with its own intrinsic/non-structural identity (quality).

You may think that a collection of objects is not an object in its own right but all objects you see around yourself are collections of other objects. What is a "real" object then? One that is not a collection, one that has no parts? But that may be just a special kind of object, an empty collection, that is no more "real" than non-empty collections. I think our problem with collections is that when we imagine an example of a collection we usually imagine something like a collection of apples and we see no usefulness in regarding this collection as a separate object and so we deny its separate identity. We may be right about the uselessness of such an identity but wrong about its existence. On some introspection, we then generalize this conclusion to all collections and conclude that only non-composite objects are "real". William James expressed something similar: a collection of conscious people does not have its own consciousness. From this we are tempted to conclude that a collection of neurons (which are probably unconscious themselves!) cannot be conscious. But as a I wrote above, a conscious object needs to have a certain kind of complexity, and examples like a collection of people or a collection of apples may be far from complex in this sense. It's difficult to imagine how the qualities of parts compose the quality of their collection (beyond perhaps some vague sense of "blending"), let alone if it is a highly complex collection and due to the significance of its dynamic nature the collection is not just a 3-dimensional spatial object but a 4-dimensional spatio-temporal object.

I'll just say what we agree on to see where the interesting debate lies:

A certain kind of complexity seems necessary for our consciousness; from neuroscience it seems to be a dynamic (causal-spatio-temporal) kind of organized complexity (rich differentiation and integration). It seems that an object needs to be complex in this way in order to be "conscious". — litewave

Agreed

A single neuron is probably not conscious but a complex collection of neurons may be; but it's difficult to describe how because while we may be conscious of the quality of a collection of neurons we don't know the qualities of the neurons themselves and we don't know how the qualities of neurons compose the quality of a collection of neurons. The quality of the collection is not identical to the qualities of the constituent neurons because the collection is not identical to any of the constituent neurons; it is an object in its own right, with its own intrinsic/non-structural identity (quality). — litewave

It seems like non-structural identity (quality) needs to be explained. What is this such that a collection of neurons would instantiate it? Its pushing the Cartesian Theater to a different location it seems.

It's difficult to imagine how the qualities of parts compose the quality of their collection (beyond perhaps some vague sense of "blending"), let alone if it is a highly complex collection and due to the significance of its dynamic nature the collection is not just a 3-dimensional spatial object but a 4-dimensional spatio-temporal object. — litewave

Yes, so why would a collection of neurons be qualitative, first-person experience without simply positing a dualism somewhere in there already?

Why do you expect anything to be "added"? — Luke

If nothing is added, why bother?

Adding unneeded entities also adds confusion,

It seems like non-structural identity (quality) needs to be explained. What is this such that a collection of neurons would instantiate it? — schopenhauer1

In my metaphysics, every object is something in itself (which constitutes its intrinsic identity), as opposed to its relations to other objects (which constitute its extrinsic/relational/structural/compositional etc. identity). A collection is an object too, so what are its intrinsic and extrinsic identities? Its extrinsic identity is defined by its relations to other objects, and among these other objects are its parts because none of the parts is the collection; the collection is an object in its own right, additional to the objects that are its parts. (The extrinsic identity of the collection constituted by its relations to its parts may also be called its "compositional" identity.) The intrinsic identity of a collection is something else than its parts or its relations to its parts, so it is not its structure; it is something structureless, so I also call it "quality". It is the "object in itself" that stands in relations to other "objects in themselves". Every object has such a quality (or we can say that every object in itself is such a quality) but only the objects that are complex in the sense we agreed above have "conscious" qualities, that is qualities that are contents of what we call "consciousness" (qualia or qualitative aspects of consciousness).

Yes, so why would a collection of neurons be qualitative, first-person experience without simply positing a dualism somewhere in there already? — schopenhauer1

My view is that reality is constituted by qualities and relations between them.

Maybe it is troublesome for materialism/functionalism, but can it seriously be questioned whether we have taste and pain and other phenomenal first-person experiences — Luke

It appears that some people do deny it. People vary in their ability to hold mental images. People who lack the ability say they didn't realize that anybody can do it. Maybe it's like that.

A memory is also a qual? — Banno

Yes. Qualia are elements of subjective experience. When we subjectively experience a memory, we just experience a different kind of qual. I admit when I said it before, I was just expressing my own discomfort, but since then I've gathered that the idea that memories are qualia isn't that controversial, even taught at colleges :o https://ruccs.rutgers.edu/what-is-cognitive-science/icalrepeat.detail/2007/11/01/179/-/memory-qualia

You seem to be agreeing with me...? — Banno

Yeah, I'm pretty much on board with Dennett, and so with you by extension. It's interesting to wonder what, if qualia explain absolutely nothing, the point of them is. To me, what differentiates qualia from the colder subject-object interaction is simply that our brain is dumping information (that is not necessarily relevant) into our consciousness for consideration. The redundancy is an aspect of the fact that it's not computed in advance what is relevant and what is not. The conscious part of the brain is an algorithmic problem-solver that apparently understands data in a certain, pre-processed way that makes it amenable to that sort of processing. The sorts of intuition pumps Dennett presents are not statements about the conscious brain's API but about the absence of new information in qualia themselves. And that's fine. We know the brain does an awesome job without qualia, far more than it does with. The question then remains as to why qualia exist at all, which seems to me a question of what form that same information happens to be required to be in for our conscious brains to do what they do.

we experience qualitative sensations inside our head — Olivier5

...but I would not accept that wording. There's a slide going on here that I would avoid. It starts with the taste of milk and ends in nonsense such as disembodied sense-data... A large part of my objection to qualia is that they have fallen into being no more than neologised sense-data.

If nothing is added, why bother? — Banno

For the interests of philosophical discussion, I suppose.

But perhaps we mean different things by it. From the SEP article on Qualia:

1. Uses of the Term ‘Qualia’

(1) Qualia as phenomenal character. Consider your visual experience as you stare at a bright turquoise color patch in a paint store. There is something it is like for you subjectively to undergo that experience. What it is like to undergo the experience is very different from what it is like for you to experience a dull brown color patch. This difference is a difference in what is often called ‘phenomenal character’. The phenomenal character of an experience is what it is like subjectively to undergo the experience. If you are told to focus your attention upon the phenomenal character of your experience, you will find that in doing so you are aware of certain qualities. These qualities — ones that are accessible to you when you introspect and that together make up the phenomenal character of the experience are sometimes called ‘qualia’. C.S. Peirce seems to have had something like this in mind when he introduced the term ‘quale’ into philosophy in 1866 (1866/1982, para 223).

There are more restricted uses of the term ‘qualia’, however.

(2) Qualia as properties of sense data. Consider a painting of a dalmatian. Viewers of the painting can apprehend not only its content (i.e., its representing a dalmatian) but also the colors, shapes, and spatial relations obtaining among the blobs of paint on the canvas. It has sometimes been supposed that being aware or conscious of a visual experience is like viewing an inner, non-physical picture or sense-datum. So, for example, on this conception, if I see a dalmatian, I am subject to a mental picture-like representation of a dalmatian (a sense-datum), introspection of which reveals to me both its content and its intrinsic, non-representational features (counterparts to the visual features of the blobs of paint on the canvas). These intrinsic, non-representational features have been taken by advocates of the sense-datum theory to be the sole determinants of what it is like for me to have the experience. In a second, more restricted sense of the term ‘qualia’, then, qualia are intrinsic, consciously accessible, non-representational features of sense-data and other non-physical phenomenal objects that are responsible for their phenomenal character. Historically, the term ‘qualia’ was first used in connection with the sense-datum theory by C.I. Lewis in 1929. As Lewis used the term, qualia were properties of sense-data themselves.

(3) Qualia as intrinsic non-representational properties. There is another established sense of the term ‘qualia’, which is similar to the one just given but which does not demand of qualia advocates that they endorse the sense-datum theory. However sensory experiences are ultimately analyzed — whether, for example, they are taken to involve relations to sensory objects or they are identified with neural events or they are held to be physically irreducible events — many philosophers suppose that they have intrinsic, consciously accessible features that are non-representational and that are solely responsible for their phenomenal character. These features, whatever their ultimate nature, physical or non-physical, are often dubbed ‘qualia’.

In the case of visual experiences, for example, it is frequently supposed that there is a range of visual qualia, where these are taken to be intrinsic features of visual experiences that (a) are accessible to introspection, (b) can vary without any variation in the representational contents of the experiences, (c) are mental counterparts to some directly visible properties of objects (e.g., color), and (d) are the sole determinants of the phenomenal character of the experiences. This usage of ‘qualia’ has become perhaps the most common one in recent years. Philosophers who hold or have held that there are qualia, in this sense of the term, include, for example, Nagel (1974), Peacocke (1983) and Block (1990).

(4) Qualia as intrinsic, nonphysical, ineffable properties. Some philosophers (e.g, Dennett 1987, 1991) use the term ‘qualia’ in a still more restricted way so that qualia are intrinsic properties of experiences that are also ineffable, nonphysical, and ‘given’ to their subjects incorrigibly (without the possibility of error). Philosophers who deny that there are qualia sometimes have in mind qualia as the term is used in this more restricted sense (or a similar one). It is also worth mentioning that sometimes the term ‘qualia’ is restricted to sensory experiences by definition, while on other occasions it is allowed that if thoughts and other such cognitive states have phenomenal character, then they also have qualia. Thus, announcements by philosophers who declare themselves opposed to qualia need to be treated with some caution. One can agree that there are no qualia in the last three senses I have explained, while still endorsing qualia in the standard first sense.

In the rest of this entry, we use the term ‘qualia’ in the very broad way I did at the beginning of the entry. So, we take it for granted that there are qualia. — SEP article

In my initialy reply, I was thinking of meaning (1), rather than Dennett's more restricted meaning (4). I consider myself a physicalist in the sense that I don't believe there is any other "substance" in the universe. My view/guess is that this issue is linguistic or perspectival, rather than substantial. However, I don't believe that the mind/body problem can be dismissed by pronouncing "there is no mind".

Adding unneeded entities also adds confusion, — Banno

Indeed.

It appears that some people do deny it. People vary in their ability to hold mental images. People who lack the ability say they didn't realize that anybody can do it. Maybe it's like that. — frank

Yes, and some people are deaf or blind or lacking in some other sense(s). Maybe someone somewhere has been born without any senses or phenomenal experiences whatsoever, but that would have to be a rare exception.

My view is that reality is constituted by qualities and relations between them. — litewave

Can you explain what it means to be constituted by qualities? Is that like a sort of pansychism?

A large part of my objection to qualia is that they have fallen into being no more than neologised sense-data — Banno

So if qualia is equivalent to sense-data.. what is the objection of sense-data that you hold? If it is equivalent, what Dennett holds about qualia, is what he holds about sense-data. If this is so, then he thinks sense-data is an "illusion". However, how he uses illusions might be misleading. Rather, it is an illusion of origins, not the actual phenomenon itself. If it is about the thing-itself, then Dennett's illusions are nothing more than another name for mental states, which bring us back to square one: What ARE mental states?

Indeed. All the objections to sense-data get imported. WHat are mental states? over-indulged.

we experience qualitative sensations inside our head
— Olivier5

...but I would not accept that wording. There's a slide going on here that I would avoid. It starts with the taste of milk and ends in nonsense such as disembodied sense-data... — Banno

You have no sensations? No sense of colour, the food you eat tastes nothing, and music doesn't exist for you? yours must be a rather sad life.

What ARE mental states? — schopenhauer1

What IS matter?

What IS time?

What IS space?

This sort of questions is above our pay grade. We cannot know the noumenal. It's been known for a while.

Best to focus on questions which we can possibly answer, in my view.

Symbols? Sentences? Images? — bongo fury

Of course! Also humor, dreams, ideas and music. You don't have those?

is this not a case of Cartesian Theater yet again? Whence the first person aspect from information itself? What makes information experiential or have a subjective "what it feels like" aspect? — schopenhauer1

Personally I believe that these questions must have some simple biological answer. Living organisms self-reproduce. Animals have a piloting system that helps them chose where to go. They try to protect themselves from hazards. Our immune system constantly fight against other organisms who try to squat inside our body. I conclude that there are many biological foundations for the sense of self, that such a sense is necessary for self preservation, self affirmation and self reproduction, which are characteristics of life.

Yes, and some people are deaf or blind or lacking in some other sense(s). Maybe someone somewhere has been born without any senses or phenomenal experiences whatsoever, but that would have to be a rare exception. — Luke

Then why would a person claim to be a p-zombie?

Thoughts are information, written down and processed by neurons.
— Olivier5

Interesting. Symbols? Sentences? Images? — bongo fury

Of course! Also humor, dreams, ideas and music. You don't have those? — Olivier5

I was ready to be schooled in information theory, or some such. But you revert to a pre-philosophical declaration of wonder. Which is fine. Don't you want to refine it into theory plausible as literal truth, though?

People vary in their ability to hold mental images. — frank

And equally, of course, in their literal theorising of what "holding a mental image" actually amounts to.

Can you explain what it means to be constituted by qualities? Is that like a sort of pansychism? — schopenhauer1

A better term might be "panqualityism", which means that reality is made up only of qualities. If you think that all qualities deserve to be called "conscious" then it is panpsychism. But I would reserve the term "conscious" only for qualities of certain complex collections.

I think calling qualia sense data is an equivocation, or at least non-standard use:

]On the most common conception, sense data (singular: “sense datum”) have three defining characteristics:

i) Sense data are the kind of thing we are directly aware of in perception,
ii) Sense data are dependent on the mind, and
iii) Sense data have the properties that perceptually appear to us. — SEP

Feelings and experiences vary widely. For example, I run my fingers over sandpaper, smell a skunk, feel a sharp pain in my finger, seem to see bright purple, become extremely angry. In each of these cases, I am the subject of a mental state with a very distinctive subjective character. There is something it is like for me to undergo each state, some phenomenology that it has. Philosophers often use the term ‘qualia’ (singular ‘quale’) to refer to the introspectively accessible, phenomenal aspects of our 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. The status of qualia is hotly debated in philosophy largely because it is central to a proper understanding of the nature of consciousness. Qualia are at the very heart of the mind-body problem. — SEP

SEP on qualia and sense data.

At best, a sense datum has properties which are introspectively accessible and are part of one's subjective state. In other words, a sense datum has qualia (or is associated with qualia), rather than is qualia. eg. If a sense datum of vision is the totality of visual appearances of which a person is aware , and that sense datum contains an apple , the visual qualia associated with the apple in the sense datum would be the totality of "introspectively accessible" feelings associated with (or identical to) appropriate apple properties. If the qualia is the red of the apple in my subjective state, it isn't identical to the light wavelengths of red or the apple's light reflectance/absorption profile simply because a component of my state is not part of the apple - the apple isn't the sense data or qualia featuring it. Keeping track of exactly what means what, and how you're carving up experience into those meaningful components is important.

A distinct way of fleshing that out would be to say that qualia are properties of "properties that perceptually appear to us", the subjective aspect of perceptual properties, and the perceptual properties constitute the appearance. Another distinct way of fleshing that out would be to say that perceptual properties (properties of appearances) which are also "introspectively accessible" and "are part of the subjective state" immediately count as qualia. Though that will make qualia have a representational aspect or be a means of representation of object properties, as they are now constitutive of an agent-object relation rather than being a (the subjective/felt) component of the agent's perceptual state (the current sense datum). Like my "red-quale" upon seeing the apple is in a correspondance/modelling relation with certain apple properties (not apple appearance properties) vs my sense-datum of the apple is in a representational relationship with the apple object and the red in the sense datum is simply a component of how that state feels to me. Those two accounts mark the distinction between (1) qualia being components of the agent-object perceptual relationship (qualia as relational components which may or may not be representational) and (2) qualia being subjective components associated with the agent-object relationship in a specific time/place/form (which might be a sense-datum, or other instance of experience).

Are the qualia "in the agent", are they "in the object", are they "in the relationship" between agent and object? Are they themselves when considered together equal to the perceptual relationship between agent and object, are they outputs of an agent's perceptual relationship with an object in the perceiving agent, are qualia object properties as represented in an agent? Are qualia subject properties in a correspondence relationship with object properties when perception operates the correspondence relationship? Need there be any correspondence at all? (eg, dream/hallucination quales)... All distinct theses.

You really have to pay attention to precisely what you're talking about if you want to talk about it. Come on qualia advocates, don't vaguely gesture towards qualia and equivocate-through-appeal-to-intuition just like the article accuses you of (while you dismiss it).

There is a way this cauliflower tastes to you right now. Well, no. the taste changes even as you eat it, even as the texture changes as you chew. — Banno

Cant you say that for anything, including your brain states?? Observed brains and their neurons change.

So qualia don't exist, but they change? What is it that is changing then?

Intuition pump #2: the wine-tasting machine.
As a tool for convincing those who disagree, this strikes me as singularly useless. Dennett will say there is nothing missing form the machine description; advocates of qualia will say that there is...

Except that they cannot say what it is that is missing; qualia are after all ineffable. But this never stops their advocates from talking about them... — Banno

How do neural activity explain the quality of taste? Sound like we taking about Suffern things altogether. Why would there be a report of taste if neural activity explained it all?

Again, what is added to talk of the difference between "700 nanometer wavelength electromagnetic wave" and talk of red by introducing qualia? — Banno

Well for one, a 700 nanometer wavelength electromangnetic wave moves through space but "red" doesn't.

I was ready to be schooled in information theory, or some such. But you revert to a pre-philosophical declaration of wonder. — bongo fury

But what are images, if not information? What are symbols if not information vehicles? What exactly is 'pre-philosophical' about images or symbols?

If you need to learn, then be ready to unlearn your prejudice about what constitutes a legitimate philosophical issue. I contend that colours as we perceive them form a significant field in neurology and psychology, a domain extensively studied by modern science as a sort of gateway to the hard problem; that colours and how to reproduce them were a major incentive for technological advances in chemistry, printing, TV, computer displays, and scores of other economically important domains; that there are several theories or systems of primary colors, complete with mathematical space coordinates and functions; that we can see colours for a reason: because natural selection built the system, wich is useful to spot berries and stuff.

Colours are an important part of human experience, economy, art of course, technology and science. What makes you believe philosophy has to deal with them with a ten foot pole?