I'm still not sure how you expect to point at something somewhere in a human interacting with their environment and say, "Right there! That's the quale." — Srap Tasmaner
Actually, that phrase: "something it is like to..." is what does violence to the language. It's a recent invention found almost only in philosophical discourse, and so is inherently fraught. — Banno
What use are they for what? Qualia are "the way things seem to us". Why do they need to have a use?
— Luke
Because they're a word and words without uses are meaningless — Isaac
Can "the way things seem to us" be theoretical?
— Luke
It is only theoretical. We can only tell the story of how things were, not how things are. Our brains simply don't work in real time. and that story of how things were is filtered through several theories. — Isaac
Thanks for clarifying. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I take the "perceptual relationship" to be the perception itself — Luke
and I further assume that the perception has properties, such as seeing a red flower, or tasting bitter coffee. Would it be problematic to refer to these properties of perception as the qualia?
I assume the response will be that it might mislead us to think that such properties are subjective rather than objective, and that if the flower is perceived as red or if the coffee is perceived as bitter, then each of them really are red and bitter. Except that's not how everyone perceives them? — Luke
The main sticking point for me is the definition of privacy that I gave earlier. Qualia or not, conscious experience is surely private in the sense that nobody else can experience (or "see") your conscious experience. Nobody can look into your skull and compare whether you see red the same as they do. — Luke
I'm deeply skeptical that learning is just recording earlier instances and referring back to them. — Srap Tasmaner
So those who don’t perceive them are the ones who don’t trust their senses? — Mww
Behaviors are secondary to subjective experience, which must take center stage. — Olivier5
Senses are there for a reason, which is to help the animal navigate the world. They can be trusted, they keep us alive every day. — Olivier5
you seem to have settled into thinking of yourself as the spokesman for life and flavor and joy and everyone on the other side is some dreary life-denying ivory-tower dweller.
That's all horseshit, of course. — Srap Tasmaner
To deny one's subjectivity is by definition to deny one's own life. — Olivier5
you're the one neglecting the body and thinking exclusively in terms of the mind, consciousness sovereign of all, center of the universe. — Srap Tasmaner
Denying the usefulness of the subjective/objective dichotomy is to deny one particular accounting practice. — creativesoul
consciousness sovereign of all, center of the universe. — Srap Tasmaner
So those who don’t perceive them are the ones who don’t trust their senses?
— Mww
Yes, in short. — Olivier5
Given that we both acknowledge the occurrence of the word "quality" in the English language (you've made use of it), and if in your view conscious experiences do not consist of quality, where does quality take place?
Or is it your view that quality does not take place anywhere, that it has no occurrence, thereby making the term fully meaningless to you? — javra
Accounting by whom and to whom?
We always return to the subject. — Olivier5
mind and body are one. — Pop
To deny one's subjectivity is by definition to deny one's own life. — Olivier5
You invoked "subjectivity". I argued for it's uselessness as a means to further discriminate between our differing claims about conscious experience. — creativesoul
That's just another way to say the same thing though.sense experience is not a subject-object affair; it's an interaction of organism and environment — Srap Tasmaner
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.