Because people who don't like cauliflower try to avoid eating cauliflower independently of the circumstances.
Because an optical illusion cannot be reasoned away, it will crop up again and again, independently of the circumstances.
Because you can recognise the timbre of a musical instrument, the scent of a rose, the color of a dress in spite of them being always a little bit different than the last time.
Because you can recognise the taste of some food that you haven't had for decades, e.g. Proust's madeleines.
Because dogs can follows trails, and find corpses even under water.
Because the same applies to words: their meaning varies from one sentence to the next, and yet we still use them and we still recognise their meaning somewhat. — Olivier5
I think the point is that none of these require talking in terms of qualia in order to be effectively and exhaustively explained. — creativesoul
you can't have flavour preferences if flavours don't exist. — Olivier5
It is a logical claim. As such, it could be disproved by using propositional logic. I am saying something like:you can't have flavour preferences if flavours don't exist.
— Olivier5
What kind of claim is that? Is there anything that could convince you that it's false? — Srap Tasmaner
You can’t have movie preferences without movies. — Marchesk
It is a logical claim. As such, it could be disproved by using propositional logic. — Olivier5
We're just denying that preferring how one coffee tastes to how another coffee tastes necessitates there being such an entity as how each coffee tastes to me. — Srap Tasmaner
Would you be able to recognise the coffee you like in a blind test?How would you go about proving that if I like how this coffee tastes, there is an entity, how this coffee tastes to me, that I like? — Srap Tasmaner
How would you have a preference if the coffee didn’t taste like something to you? — Marchesk
Would you be able to recognise the coffee you like in a blind test? — Olivier5
I'm working on an ordinary language rendering of the (consciousness)process. — creativesoul
But that's wrong. I've stipulated that I'm experiencing something; I'm denying the platonist inference that there's something I'm experiencing, period. — Srap Tasmaner
How much do you need to complexify it? — Olivier5
Grammar, in the schoolbook sense, is not a sure guide to ontology. Think of Quine's puzzle about "seeking" and friends: if I'm looking for a spy, that doesn't mean there's a spy I'm looking for. — Srap Tasmaner
So the question regarding "the sensation itself" I have is: what makes a sensation be more than relational, dispositional and functional properties?
I take it you'll agree that sensations are relational, dispositional and functional to some degree. Or have those as a component. Let's take as an example putting my hand on something too hot and reflexively withdrawing it. The sensation of heat derives from a relationship between my skin and the hot thing (relational), the reflex (a behaviour) of withdrawing my hand is coincident with treating the hot object as a threat to withdraw from (dispositional), and detecting sufficient heat serves as a cause of the reflex of withdrawal to end the threat that I have (functional).
It seems to me if I removed the relational component from the experience, I'd no longer be talking about the same thing at all. If I removed the behavioural component of it, I'd have had a different experience - my hand possibly would not have withdrawn in the reflex. If I removed the dispositional component, I'd no longer have unconsciously appraised the gathering sensation of heat as a threat. Furthermore, I removed that dispositional component, it seems to me I'd be removing the components of my experience that coincide with its character as a threat triggering a reflex - the stress, the panic, the pain, the unpleasantness - and removing those things also removes a substantial component of "what it was like" for me. If I remove the composite of these things and their functional relationships, I'm no longer talking about the experience at all - or I would have both done and felt nothing and burned off my finger. — fdrake
So it seems if there are phenomenal properties in that experience, they cannot be independent of relational, functional, behavioural, and dispositional properties, as if I changed all of those I'd change "what it was like" for me and even the scenario I was considering in the first place. Given that, why should someone commit themselves to an independent "phenomenal" type associated with the experiences, when the elements of the phenomenal type ("what is it likes") vary with changes in the type they are supposed to be independent of? — fdrake
I'll leave figuring out how memory works to neuroscientists. — Srap Tasmaner
the end of all this discussion, however successful Dennett is in his intuition pumping, I wish to preserve the what it’s like. That is the one aspect of conscious experience for which a denial is prima facie absurd — Marchesk
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