Whence the boundary of the white triangle? In the perception or in the judgement? — Banno

Dualism of scheme and content. Davidson would tut at you.

@Luke The denial of double transduction looks to me to be the same issue discussed here, whether it's appropriate to conceive of perception itself with or without perceptual intermediaries. If it goes object -> intermediary -> consciousness, that's a double transduction of raw data into formatted data (transduction 1) and formatted data into perceptual features we are conscious of (transduction 2). If it goes object -> consciousness, there's a single transduction - the single arrow becomes the whole perceptual relationship.

Nice dress, isn't it?


Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun: la Baronne de Crussol

Nice dress, isn't it? — Olivier5

It only seems that way.

A page from Paul Klee's notebooks

I'm stuck in Mary's room. What frequency is it?

Paul Klee: In The Begining

I'm stuck in Mary's room. What frequency is it? — frank

A fact you can’t know without being told the dress seems to be red.

it seems that I’m enjoying Klee’s work, but I remind myself that it’s just a bunch of mindless robots playing a trick on me.

Don't you be fooled by your own eyes...


Mark Rothko: Orange, Red, Orange

Yep.

That we see the squares for A and B as different shades of gray is a visual illusion. Does this mean we only seem to see two shades of gray? That the illusion of color difference is itself an illusion?

Or is the seeming to have a conscious experience the what it’s like for any conscious activity? There is a what it’s like to see red because it seems we see red. You can’t have a seeming to be conscious without there being something it’s like to be seeming.

The seeming is consciousness.

Amazing!

Amazing — Olivier5

Is it, really? Where, exactly, is the illusion? Do you see A.)....you are being TOLD there is an illusion, and B.)....you are being COERCED, by means of the subtlety of the declared illusion, in conjunction with the manufactured proofs thereof, into contradicting your own experience.

In a way, though, you’re correct. It is amazing what folks will do to convince themselves that what they know can so easily be undone.

I don't see qualia, I see pretty pictures.

It's pretty easy to argue through shitpost isn't it?

Is it, really? Where, exactly, is the illusion? — Mww

The illusion is that you perceive the A square as markedly darker than the B square, while in fact they are of the exact same shade of grey... (I actually had to check on MSPaint by sampling each hue, and I can confirm that they are the same)

I already knew that our visual systems compensates for light color and intensity but still, this is pretty incredible.

You don't "see qualia". "Seeing" is qualia. Though I suspect we're not talking about the same thing.

I don't see qualia, I see pretty pictures. — fdrake

You didn't get the memo? Pretty pictures don't exist, Drake. Their concept was found too hard to define by Dennett, so they were cancelled.

See my discussion with Luke here, this is related to covered ground.

One way of explaining what the program did is: "the program added the natural number 1 to the natural number 2 and computed the result, it then outputted the result 3", but did my computer really add the natural number 1 to the natural number 2? Or was the process actually more like: "fdrake opened up a software environment and wrote in high level code and called it, the computer took that calling instruction and through a laborious process translated the input lines of code into machine code, which caused a bunch of transistors allocated for the task to enter into a specific complex of high and low voltage states, which gets passed up back a complex of circuits into the software environment and the display". If it's the latter, adopting the first description will be an inaccurate approximation that gets even the type of entities wrong; the physical process in the computer is not adding mathematical abstractions together, there aren't even any natural numbers in my computer; but it's a decent functional explanation for a demonstrative purpose. IE, the first is essentially a lie to children, which may suffice for some purposes but certainly not understanding what was actually going on in (in!) my computer. — fdrake

Although you call the former a "lie for children" it is still the case that whatever explanation you want to use to explain what's "really going on" cannot CONTRADICT the lie. Assuming the lie is true, ie, the program being explained is the same in both explanations and the lie explains the algorithm accurately. If your explanation says at the end that ".....back a complex of circuits into the software environment and displays 5 on the screen" your explanation would be incorrect.

In other words, if you "collapse" the in-depth explanation is must agree with the lie for children.

If you want to call "A red patch is a combination of a shape quale and a colour quale combined in experience" a "lie for children" I'm fine with that. I am not advocating a certain explanation of our experiences. BUT, if the explanation you want to replace the lie with ends with "....and as a result, after a 700 nm wavelength enters khaled's eye khaled experiences nothing" then THAT I have an issue with because it contradicts my experience. When you say "Qualia doesn't exist" do you mean:

1- Qualia is an abstraction that doesn't accurately explain how experience occurs.

or

2- Tea tastes like nothing and you are all philosophical zombies which think they're not philosophical zombies.

I don't care if you want to argue for 1. My problem (and I think most people's problem) is if you are trying to argue for 2.

or is it something else entirely?

2- Tea tastes like nothing and you are all philosophical zombies which think they're not philosophical zombies. — khaled

Which idea of qualia am I trying to extirpate? Everything real has properties, and since I don't deny the reality of conscious experience, I grant that conscious experience has properties. I grant moreover that each person's states of consciousness have properties in virtue of which those states have the experiential content that they do. That is to say, whenever someone experiences something as being one way rather than another, this is true in virtue of some property of something happening in them at the time, but these properties are so unlike the properties traditionally imputed to consciousness that it would be grossly misleading to call any of them the long-sought qualia. Qualia are supposed to be special properties, in some hard-to-define way. My claim--which can only come into focus as we proceed--is that conscious experience has no properties that are special in any of the ways qualia have been supposed to be special.

The standard reaction to this claim is the complacent acknowledgment that while some people may indeed have succumbed to one confusion or fanaticism or another, one's own appeal to a modest, innocent notion of properties of subjective experience is surely safe. It is just that presumption of innocence I want to overthrow. — Dennett

If you want to talk about whether the properties of experience are appropriate to distinguish from functional properties/"extrinsic relational properties", please do so. Or otherwise engage with the paper or its ideas.

When Dennett claims to be a p-zombie, he's not saying that he's incapable of experience. He's saying that the distinction between p-zombies and humans makes no sense. Notably, Quining Qualia doesn't talk about p-zombies.

I admit I don't understand that part. He claims that "properties of states of consciousness" exist but "a modest, innocent notion of properties of subjectives experience" doesn't exist. What is the difference between "properties of states of consciousness" and "properties of subjective experience"?

When I read it it sounded like he just put this part:

Everything real has properties, and since I don't deny the reality of conscious experience, I grant that conscious experience has properties. I grant moreover that each person's states of consciousness have properties in virtue of which those states have the experiential content that they do. — fdrake

Not to sound ridiculous but then immediately dismissed it.

What notion exactly is Dennett trying to attack here?

What notion exactly is Dennett trying to attack here? — khaled

A bunch of things, as I read him:

(1) The idea that qualia are experienced. Disentangling "I tasted the tea", taste there is a relation, from "I had a tea taste quale", tea taste there is a property (and there's a question of what bears the property!). I went through that previously in the thread.

(2) He's trying to highlight that standard moves philosophers make when introspectively analysing experience have serious problems. Going from "The coffee I had today tasted bitter" to "Coffee taste experiential properties are time dependent" will be done by invoking (1) and not noticing.

(2a) There's the issue of if qualia are properties, what are they properties of? And how do those entities which the properties are predicated of behave? That's related to the "experiential entity" discussion @Isaac, @Kenosha Kid, @Luke and I had.

(3) He's throwing some skepticism on the idea that the first order properties of experience (like tea having "a taste") are individuated like we introspect/label them to be by highlighting that those first order properties are contextually variable.

(4) He's trying to show that common second order properties of qualia are untenable (the list of four things I've brought up).

(5) All the above are done in the context of distinguishing qualia from functional, behavioural and intentional properties - Dennett is arguing against making such a distinction (ie, the argument in paper is for the claim that experiential properties are functional, behavioural, intentional).

"Seeing" is qualia. Though I suspect we're not talking about the same thing. — khaled

I think Dennett would actually approve of "Seeing is qualia", since that emphasises that experience is relational. The caveat is whether the relation is moved "into the head", which a discussion I'm having with @Luke and what I imagine @Banno 's been gesturing toward. There's also the (2a) question of whether an experiential entity is mediating the perceptual relationship.

The underlying dispute there is the subject-object distinction - I believe Dennett's views undermine it without trying to collapse it to one side (idealism vs global eliminativism towards minds), and he's expressed approval of the claim that his works undermine it in an interview.

People attack Dennett like he's an eliminativist towards minds, he's not.

this is pretty incredible. — Olivier5

Ok.

?

I went through that previously in the thread. — fdrake

Where might I ask? And just to clarify Disentangling "I tasted the tea" is not done by saying "When you drink tea no tasting/experience of any sort occurs, that's just an illusion"

individuated like we introspect/label them to be by highlighting that those first order properties are contextually variable. — fdrake

I don't know anyone who thinks qualia are individuated (although they are admittedly labeled that way). Anyone who's tried a blind taste test would know.

There's the issue of if qualia are properties, what are they properties of? — fdrake

Even I don't agree with that one. I'd classify qualia as a phenomenon. Something that happens as a result of sensory input that is different from the chemical and physical reactions.

All the above are done in the context of distinguishing qualia from functional, behavioural and intentional properties. — fdrake

I don't know what any of those 3 are but I'll get there eventually.

He's trying to show that common second order properties of qualia are untenable (the list of four things I've brought up). — fdrake

These?:

(1) ineffable (2) intrinsic (3) private (4) directly or immediately apprehensible in consciousness

People attack Dennett like he's an eliminativist towards minds, he's not. — fdrake

He sounds like it!

Just sayin’ I don’t hold the same incredulity, that’s all.

He sounds like it! — khaled

Everything real has properties, and since I don't deny the reality of conscious experience, I grant that conscious experience has properties. — Dennett

It's a clear misreading.

Where might I ask? — khaled

I tried to open up that line of discussion on page 3, that post concerns trying to locate what a quale is and the ambiguities in it. This response to @Kenosha Kid deals with the distinction between qualia as perceptual entities vs perception as a relation. There's more, but if you want to look for it in thread, it's discussed between @Luke, @Isaac, @Kenosha Kid and I.

There is something stubborn about optical illusions. Even when you understand your perception error intellectually, it doesn't make the subjective (and factually false) impression less glaring. Like in this one, where you see a bulge in the center of the checkers board, but in actual fact all the lines are straight:



... or here, where he background is a color gradient and progresses from dark gray to light gray. The horizontal bar appears to progress from light grey to dark grey, but is in fact just one color:

Everything real has properties, and since I don't deny the reality of conscious experience, I grant that conscious experience has properties. — Dennett

Dennett thinks people endorse things like hardness or redness because they're doing the best they can to interpret neurological functioning, not because those things are properties of experience. He speculates that the illusion of phenomenal consciousness may arise from verbal streams. In short, he equivocates. He does the same thing with free will.