Even if we experience the same subjective flavours, how do I really know what you mean by "nutty"? Does it taste like a particular type of nut? Do all peanuts taste the same, for example? And what sort of bitterness are we talking about? There are many shades of difference here which language cannot easily capture. We could go on endlessly trying to refine it. I think this is what Dennett criticises (or what qualia advocates are referring to) when he speaks of the ""homogeneity" or "atomicity to analysis" or "grainlessness" that characterizes the qualia of philosophical tradition." A picture is worth a thousand words in other words, and language has difficulty doing justice to the sight before our eyes (or the taste on our tongue, etc.), especially when attempting to convey it to others in high fidelity. — Luke
↪fdrake Problem is that when it comes to myself, I'm not positing anything theoretical when I taste spicy food. It just tastes spicy, red cups look red, and nutty coffee does taste a bit bitter to me. And that's prior to any philosophizing about internal states and "what it's like". Our sensations are not linguistic constructs or self-reports to make sense of behavior. They're just part of experience. — Marchesk
If I have those interoceptive states in that context, I feel hunger - you see what I mean? — fdrake
And you learned to identify it as hunger from your earliest interactions with your community in the form of your caregiver, as Lacan suggests. — frank
By abstract, do you mean "quantitative"?Numbers are abstract quantities that you can perform mathematical operations on. Sure, you could assign 0 to purple and 1 to green, or use the standard digital hex value or HSLA. But numbers can be assigned to represent anything, from unicorns to philosophers.
Colors are not abstract quantities. You don't say there's "green squares" to represent a number of squares. — Marchesk
Or we could just ask a mathematician whether a color is a number, but they'd probably think we were trolling.
Numbers are abstract quantities that you can perform mathematical operations on. Sure, you could assign 0 to purple and 1 to green, or use the standard digital hex value or HSLA. But numbers can be assigned to represent anything, from unicorns to philosophers. — Marchesk
It revolves around the simple question: do you understand what a p-zombie is? Dennett describes it in the article and seems to accept it as a meaningful idea.
1. If you agree that it makes sense, then you should be able to see the logical wedge this drives between qualia and function.
2. If it doesn't make sense to you, all bets are off — frank
Can you give an example of one (or more) of these properties. I assume redness is out. Bitterness? — Luke
I don't think that's what he is doing. Because many around here are Dennett readers and they don't propose any alternative conceptual framework or theory to understand how come we can spot sugar from salt, or dislike cauliflower.Not in this paper. But supposedly that is what he is doing. — khaled
Cool. Yes, I'm interested. My cousin has a genetic anomaly that's known to be associated with perfect pitch. She's always had it. She started playing piano at 3 years from watching her mother play.
But it's true that jazz musicians demonstrate the ability to perceive key transitions that normal people can't. Supposedly there is a study. I could find if you need it. — frank
But it’s there for very good reason, and it can’t easily be rejected. — Wayfarer
But it can be revealed through analysis.
It was Galileo Galilei who wrote ‘the book of nature is written in mathematics’ and whose legacy includes the astonishing leaps that science made in subsequent centuries. It is true that understanding the laws that govern just those attributes of bodies that can be made subject to precise quantification, combined with Descartes’ newly-discovered algebraic geometry, laid the ground for the ‘new science’ that is at the basis of modern scientific method, which has universal scope and application, and spectacular results, not least these amazing ‘typing machines’ we all seem to have nowadays. And you can’t let subjective preferences play a role in engineering specifications. — Wayfarer
This is all the subject matter of another of Thomas Nagel’s books, namely, Mind and Cosmos. He says
The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop.
(pp. 35-36)
So what you see with eliminative materialism is this dogmatic insistence that the objective view of modern science is complete in principle, if not in detail. Whatever ‘consciousness’ is, it must be something which can be accommodated inside this schema, otherwise it’s reality is either illusory or deceptive. That’s their view in a nutshell. — Wayfarer
So what’s involved in rejecting it is retracing the steps, as it were, to how that situation arose and re-framing the whole issue. — Wayfarer
The solution, as I see it, is to put qualities like color, etc., back in the world where they belong. It is the apple that is red, there is not red qualia in people's minds, or anywhere else. We see that the apple is red because it is red. Just as we see that there is one apple because there is one apple. That is nature from our perspective (the relational interaction between ourselves and the world that we are a part of). — Andrew M
The solution, as I see it, is to put qualities like color, etc., back in the world where they belong. It is the apple that is red, there is not red qualia in people's minds — Andrew M
Because that is how colour blind people see a red apple.But how come some (colorblind) people see the apple as green? — khaled
And how do you confirm that it isn't in fact red?And how do you confirm that the apple is in fact red? — khaled
But if you agree that it is red, that's an end to the discussion. Well, for everyone else but you, perhaps.You can’t see the apple from my perspective to confirm that when you say “red” you are referring to the same experience as when I say “red”. — khaled
But someone can be seeing inverted colors from me and there will be absolutely no way to confirm or deny that. — khaled
Because that is how colour blind people see a red apple. — Banno
And how do you confirm that it isn't in fact red? — Banno
But if you agree that it is red — Banno
The only issue here is you insisting on attempting to "eff" it, anyway. — Banno
So then “red” must not be an inherent property in the apple right? — khaled
That's because of the way you talk about experience. We have ample data that we see apples - some of them - as red. Some are green, some yellow; the conformity is more than sufficient for some of us to plant orchards, breed a huge variety of apples of different colours and sell them to green grocers. What more do you want? Ah, perhaps you want philosophy. Hence:We can agree it reflects a certain wavelength but beyond that we have no data to indicate that that wavelength produces the same experience in everyone. — khaled
You can choose the red apple from amongst the green ones; buy it; eat it; cook it. The only time you have a problem with it's being red is when you come to the Philosophy Forum.And how do you confirm that it isn't in fact red?
— Banno
I don’t have to. I’m not the one proposing to attribute experiences to the objects that produce them as properties. — khaled
Don't ever apprentice yourself to a green grocer, then.I agree that the color I’m experiencing is called red. But I don’t agree that when I say “red” and you say “red” that we’re necessarily referring to the same thing. — khaled
And I'm saying that there is no reason to believe that my experience of red is not the same as your experience of red. Because of the overwhelming agreement as to what is red and what ain't, what you'r saying is irrelevant; more than that, it is senseless; nonsense; meaningless; it has no referent; it makes no difference; it drops out of the discussion, unnoticed by anyone but those few, such as yourself, who misunderstood what was going on.I’m not trying to eff it. When did I do that? I’m not trying to describe red to someone who has never seen it. That would be effing. I’m saying that there is no reason to believe that my experience of red is the same as your experience of red. In other words, while the experience of red is ineffable, we have no reason to believe that your ineffable experience is identical to my ineffable experience. That’s all I’m saying. — khaled
And that's the problem with qualia; if they are worthy of inclusion in our musings, then they are just the colours, smells and tastes of which we already speak; and if they are more than the colours, smells and tastes of which we already speak, then they are outside our musings. — Banno
Ah, perhaps you want philosophy — Banno
Some are green, some yellow — Banno
Don't ever apprentice yourself to a green grocer, then. — Banno
And I'm saying that there is no reason to believe that my experience of red is not the same as your experience of red. — Banno
what you'r saying is irrelevant — Banno
it has no referent; it makes no difference; — Banno
And that's the problem with qualia; if they are worthy of inclusion in our musings, then they are just the colours, smells and tastes of which we already speak; and if they are more than the colours, smells and tastes of which we already speak, then they are outside our musings. — Banno
So you have a way to distinguish garlic from cinnamon through "distinct tastes". Amazing!Each mouthful had several distinct tastes, sometimes the garlic, sometimes the 'roo, sometimes the cinnamon, each time in a different combination.
To describe a qualia of curry would be a nonsense. An utter failure to recognise the complexity of the experience. — Banno
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