Why? — Isaac


I could ask the same of you. Why is your standard so low? — khaled

Charity as much as anything else. But also, meaning is related to use, so any (intentionally) successful use has to have an element of understanding meaning, otherwise we end up arbitrarily disassociating meaning from use. This leads to all sorts of ontological issue reifying the 'meaning' of words.

Anesthesia prevents both (you don't move during surgery). And in that case we have behavioral equivalence (the complaints are removed). — khaled

No it doesn't. I bet those patients who were accidentally merely paralysed complained a great deal afterwards. Again, you're applying arbitrary parameters to make the evidence match your model. Why place an arbitrary time restriction on complaints? They are clearly not behaviourally equivalent at all.

So you are seriously suggesting that with enough knowledge the surprise would be eliminated. I think that's a much less reasonable expectation. — khaled

I'm not sure what your opinion of reasonableness has to do with it.

Does it also follow then that we can teach children colors by having them look at enough fMRI scans and reading enough neurology books? — khaled

No. Not unless you're suggesting that all the empirical data about colour in the world is somehow written down in neurology books. That would be some book!

Incorrect. The doctor knows that the private experience we each describe as "like knives" is indicative of a certain condition that is not the same as the descriptor "like blunt force". — khaled

How does he know this?

I already think it will be a waste of time from reading the first bit. — khaled

Well, there's not much point in pursuing a line of argument based on the data if you're not going to take the time to read it - let's leave that line of argument for now.

Let me just dig into this a bit. So if I say "I am experiencing red", you would reply "Actually, you're not experiencing red, you're.....". What is the ......? Could you do that for "I am in pain" too? What exactly would you put in place of those dots? — khaled

"Actually, you're not experiencing red, you're... reaching for the word 'red' as a model to help you explain, predict and act on your actual experience which may or may not have included stimulation from some particular wavelength of light". As I've said, it is virtually inarguable at this stage that your awareness of mental processes is post hoc.

Now you can have the definition of 'experience' in this context to be just whatever story your brain puts together to model the interioception events, but then the investigation must end there.

You cannot conclude we have 'red' quale from that. You might, other people might not. Someone who's never heard of the idea of a qualia certainly won't have a 'red' quale. You're trying to have your cake and eat it here. On the one hand you want to establish a discursive reality to your experiences as they appear to you to be, then on the other you want to use this to make claims about our shared experience (there is such a thing as qualia, we experience redness, we have experiences etc). None of this derives from the mere fact that you've told yourself a story about what's happening in your brain. If you want to divorce the actual mechanisms from your experience of them (the story you tell yourself about them), then that's fine, but all you have left is a story, you can't then treat it as some matter of fact that can be further investigated. For one it will change minute-to-minute.

Give them a spectrometer and tell them that anything with a wavelength of approximately 625-740 nanometres is called 'red'. — Isaac


That's like saying you can teach a kid math by giving him a calculator. I obviously meant for them to be able to distinguish it alone. — khaled

Why? As per the comment with which I opened this post, why are you setting arbitrary limits to what constitutes understanding a term? I've answered for me, but you've not given me your answer.

Our use of language. — Isaac


That's absurd. Does this mean birds don't see colors? — Marchesk

Why would it mean that?

why don't we have the equivalent language for the rest of the EM spectrum or sonar? — Marchesk

Because we have no signals from either of those wavelengths to model.

I'm not clear on what you're getting at here at all.

I'm not clear on what you're getting at here at all. — Isaac

It sounded like you were denying color sensations. But perhaps you prefer to call colors models of wavelength or reflectivity.

But also, meaning is related to use, so any (intentionally) successful use has to have an element of understanding meaning, — Isaac

An element of understanding doens't translate to the colloquial use of "Do you understand X". Being able to use the word correctly in one sentence doesn't show understanding as it is commonly used. Just like knowing that the derivative of x with respect to x is 1, doesn't mean you understand calculus. Passing a test would.

I bet those patients who were accidentally merely paralysed complained a great deal afterwards. Again, you're applying arbitrary parameters to make the evidence match your model. Why place an arbitrary time restriction on complaints? They are clearly not behaviourally equivalent at all. — Isaac

Fair enough. But then again, a couple comments ago you said that if a colorblind person says "Hand me the red apple" that that does the same job as an ably sighted person saying it. Even though the colorblind person would clearly behave differently from an ably sighted person upon being handed a green apple.

How does he know this? — Isaac

From noticing that everyone complaining from a stabbing pain usually has this ailment but if they're complaining about blunt force pain then they usually have this other ailment.

"Actually, you're not experiencing red, you're... reaching for the word 'red' as a model to help you explain, predict and act on your actual experience which may or may not have included stimulation from some particular wavelength of light". — Isaac

The "actual" in "actual experience" is redundant. Experience is talk on a phenomenological level. Your experience is your experience (another way of saying "the way things seem like to you is the way things seem like to you"). Saying "actual experience" makes no sense as it implies a distinction between "fake experience" and "actual experience". Fake experience would translate to "The way things seem like they seem like to you but don't actually seem like that" which makes no sense. You cannot think you're experiencing something and actually not be experiencing that thing.

You cannot conclude we have 'red' quale from that. You might, other people might not. — Isaac

The fact that I cannot conclude what other people's experiences are like is why qualia are private.

On the one hand you want to establish a discursive reality to your experiences as they appear to you to be, then on the other you want to use this to make claims about our shared experience (there is such a thing as qualia, we experience redness, we have experiences etc). — Isaac

These claims that I am making are based on the (what I think is a reasonable) assumption that our experiences are similar in structure (unless either of us is disabled). This assumption stems from the fact that, on average, we all call the same things red. I cannot based on that conclude that your experience of red is my experience of red, nor did I, all I can conclude is that we both call them "red". In other words, that whatever experience we are having, we both tell the same story about it. What is the issue? How does this lead to the conclusion that we are not having experiences which we tell these story about (again, to have an experience is for it to seem like X or Y, it is not a neurological statement, but a phenomenological one)

If you want to divorce the actual mechanisms from your experience of them (the story you tell yourself about them), then that's fine, but all you have left is a story, you can't then treat it as some matter of fact that can be further investigated. For one it will change minute-to-minute. — Isaac

What do you mean here? The way things seem like to me, is, as a matter of fact, and always will be, the way things seem like to me. I don't see what's non-factual about this.

why are you setting arbitrary limits to what constitutes understanding a term? I've answered for me, but you've not given me your answer. — Isaac

I have repeatedly. You have yet to give an example where knowing a list of things and their colors, but never actually having seen the color results in the same behavior as people who’ve seen that color. I keep giving you examples where colorblind people may know that lakes are blue but will still repeatedly fail a test where they're shown drawings of purple lakes and red skies. I am saying that without having seen something red, you will never be able to use the word as appropriately as people who've seen red things.

Your reply was: Give them a spectrometer. But if "understanding" for you means that a kid with a calculator understands math despite not being able to solve any problems without the calculator, then I think the definition is ridiculous and misleading.

think Hilton's is more about the overlapping of sensorimotor and surrounding tissue nerve ending, the superhighway idea is a consequence of it, but my expertise ends at the neck, so I'm not sure. — Isaac

Too tired to look it up, it may be Davis' law is about the superhighway and Hilton's is about generalization of pain, unilateral to bilateral, then all over.

Anyway, I was asking how an anti-qualist puts that into words. A person with chronic pain complains of a bout of the ”same pain" but we know the cause is not necessarily the same.

Denying that there is any conscious awareness, or "phenomenal aspect" and saying that it is not what we might intuitively think it is, that it is not a mysterious non-physical "something", are not the same. — Janus

You seem to be thinking of qualia as little ghosts. I was introduced to the idea at around 12 years old when I started reading sci-fi in earnest. The idea of little ghosts has never been part of it.

I would say the theory is ideal, in that it's humans creating a map of the territory, while the territory itself might be understood as physical, assuming a physicalist ontology. That does allow for the possibility that the theory is missing something fundamental. A map is only as good as the map makers and their knowledge of the territory. — Marchesk

just means "in terms of observable phenomena". — Janus

Humans, maps and territory are all observable, so I don't know what Marchesk means by "ideal" other than that they like the theory, or that it works for them. The fundamental aspect that is missing is causation - of how maps can be about territories.

If "physical" means observable, then "physical" isn't fundamental as the physical property of some phenomenon is dependent on the existence of observers. Are observers physical? What about observations? Only a fraction of the universe is observable, so does that mean that only a fraction of the universe is physical?

Side note: for your last few replies to me, I haven't received a notification. I'm not sure if that's on your end or mine. I'll try signing out and in again to see if that helps.

Because you seem to be invoking privacy even between normally-sighted people.
— Andrew M

I await your distinction between practical privacy and philosophical privacy. — Luke

The Cartesian Theater metaphor shows the difference. If what we perceive is in the mind then it is inaccessible to others. If what we perceive is in the world then it is, in principle, accessible to others. (Even if, for some reason or another, it's not accessible right now.)

Either way, I don't think you've addressed the privacy issue that I noted previously:

"You can't perceive or experience another person's perceptions and experiences. That's just a fact of being you and not them." — Luke

Obviously if I stub my toe, then it is me that feels the pain, not you. It is my pain, not yours. But, all else being equal, if you stub your toe then you will feel the same pain that I do when I stub mine. Similarly with looking at a red apple. All else being equal, you will have the same experience as I do.

The Wikipedia article on Qualia gives the following definition of privacy: "all interpersonal comparisons of qualia are systematically impossible." — Luke

Yes, that's the Cartesian viewpoint. Which has no use in ordinary discourse. We talk about pains and colors because we know that we can compare and communicate our experiences with others.

If the difference between a normal-sighted person and a colour-blind person is not in their supposed "phenomenal layer", then how are they different? Why does colour-blindness involve a practical privacy but normal-sightedness doesn't? — Luke

Because color-blind people can't make the color distinctions that normally-sighted people can. But, in turn, normally-sighted people can't make some of the color distinctions that certain animals can (and vice-versa). That's just a difference in perceptual capability, which has a physically identifiable basis. There's no need to introduce an artificial "phenomenal layer" to account for that difference.

There's no need to introduce an artificial "phenomenal layer" to account for that difference. — Andrew M

I keep hearing this argument by all the Quiners here. I want to instead ask, what's the problem with introducing that layer anyways, even if we don't need to (not that I'm convinced of that)? What are y'all afraid might happen? What confusion have you been trying to avoid?

It sounded like you were denying color sensations. But perhaps you prefer to call colors models of wavelength or reflectivity. — Marchesk

Yes, that's right. Public models. By which I mean ones which, although in individual minds, are kept similar by repeated use to accomplish similar tasks in a social context.

An element of understanding doens't translate to the colloquial use of "Do you understand X". Being able to use the word correctly in one sentence doesn't show understanding as it is commonly used. — khaled

From where are you getting this empirical data about 'common', 'colloquial' use of the expression 'to understand the meaning of a word'?

But then again, a couple comments ago you said that if a colorblind person says "Hand me the red apple" that that does the same job as an ably sighted person saying it. Even though the colorblind person would clearly behave differently from an ably sighted person upon being handed a green apple. — khaled

I wasn't talking about their response to the next event, I was talking about their public use of the word 'red'. In the example of paralysis/anaesthesia, you we're talking specifically about the behavioural response to pain. Two different cases. In mine we have two events - the use of the word to get a job done, and the response to that job having been done incorrectly. In yours we have just one - the response to tissue damage.

How does he know this? — Isaac


From noticing that everyone complaining from a stabbing pain usually has this ailment but if they're complaining about blunt force pain then they usually have this other ailment. — khaled

The question I asked was how does he know that "the private experience we each describe as "like knives" is indicative of a certain condition". I've bolded the relevant section. Knowing that a person using the expression 'like knives' is usually complaining of a certain ailment doesn't in any way give him knowledge about what you're calling 'private experience'. It is just response based. He would know this no less if he didn't consider 'experience' at all. He has no need of it.

Experience is talk on a phenomenological level. Your experience is your experience (another way of saying "the way things seem like to you is the way things seem like to you"). Saying "actual experience" makes no sense as it implies a distinction between "fake experience" and "actual experience". Fake experience would translate to "The way things seem like they seem like to you but don't actually seem like that" which makes no sense. You cannot think you're experiencing something and actually not be experiencing that thing. — khaled

Say I knocked you out and then brought you round in a perfect virtual reality simulation of swimming in the ocean and I later explaining that what you were actually experiencing was a virtual reality set-up. You're saying that my use of the term 'actually experiencing" there would make no sense to you at all, you wouldn't know what I was talking about? Seems unlikely. You may not prefer to use that term, but the idea that it "makes no sense" is ridiculous. Surely we can come to some mutual understanding of what is meant?

You cannot conclude we have 'red' quale from that. You might, other people might not. — Isaac


The fact that I cannot conclude what other people's experiences are like is why qualia are private. — khaled

You cannot conclude that qualia even exist. Other people may not have the experiences you have. You may not even have those experiences in the next five minutes. It might seem to you that the colour 'red' has an experience associated with it, it might not seem that way to others, it might not seem that way to you tomorrow. Others might feel that talk of 'experiences' at all doesn't make sense. You might feel that way tomorrow.

we both call them "red". In other words, that whatever experience we are having, we both tell the same story about it. What is the issue? — khaled

What you can tell is that when presented with an object, both you and I respond in similar ways (reaching for the word 'red', for example). This gives you no information whatsoever about mental 'experiences'. Any further information you draw from this similarity in response is entirely speculative and without a grain of substance.

What do you mean here? The way things seem like to me, is, as a matter of fact, and always will be, the way things seem like to me. I don't see what's non-factual about this. — khaled

Because it is a trivial matter to prove that the way things seem to you (at time t0) will definitely not always be the way things seem to you (at time t1), even on the subject of exactly the same stimuli.

You have yet to give an example where knowing a list of things and their colors, but never actually having seen the color results in the same behavior as people who’ve seen that color. — khaled

Why would it need to result in the same behaviour? I don't think either of us is under the delusion that all people understand terms to the same extent.

I keep giving you examples where colorblind people may know that lakes are blue but will still repeatedly fail a test where they're shown drawings of purple lakes and red skies. I am saying that without having seen something red, you will never be able to use the word as appropriately as people who've seen red things. — khaled

Yep. And what I'm asking you is why you've drawn the arbitrary line at that particular level of understanding.

Your reply was: Give them a spectrometer. But if "understanding" for you means that a kid with a calculator understands math despite not being able to solve any problems without the calculator, then I think the definition is ridiculous. — khaled

We're not talking about understanding a practice (maths) we're talking about understanding a word (red). Understanding a practice means being able to carry out tasks according to it's rules, that's not the same thing at all as understanding how to use a word. The proper equivalent for what we're talking about is whether a kid knows how to use the word 'maths'. You're saying that an inability to detect something is the same as an inability to apply the term for that something once detected. It's clearly two different issues. I can only detect neural activity with an fMRI scanner. Now that I can no longer access such machinery, have I lost my ability to use the term 'neural activity' simply because I can no longer identify it?

Anyway, I was asking how an anti-qualist puts that into words. A person with chronic pain complains of a bout of the ”same pain" but we know the cause is not necessarily the same. — frank

I thought I'd answered that. There's one-to-one relationship with the neurons in the post central gyrus where the location of pain signals is interpreted. I don't see the fact they're imperfectly wired causes any issue. I could say that the patient showed neural activity in the upper section of the post central gyrus corresponding to the lower back, despite tissue damage in the upper thigh. This activity causes them to reach for terms like 'lower back', and to show defensive reflexes there. I don't seem to need to talk about their 'experiences' even, let alone 'qualia'.

I keep hearing this argument by all the Quiners here. I want to instead ask, what's the problem with introducing that layer anyways, even if we don't need to (not that I'm convinced of that)? What are y'all afraid might happen? What confusion have you been trying to avoid? — khaled

For me it's...

The doctor knows that the private experience we each describe as "like knives" is indicative of a certain condition — khaled

doctors talk about qualia all the time — khaled

How do we explain this [Hilton's Law] without resorting to talk of phenomenal consciousness? — frank

Maybe painkillers and anaesthesia kill more than complaints. Maybe that's why they're not called complaint-killers. — khaled

how might we teach the colorblind person to be able to distinguish all the colors perfectly in each situation? And that includes seeing new things for the first time too? Answer: We can't. — khaled

... and a dozen others.

The constant refrain of the idealist.
"X is not amenable to empirical evidence from the material world of the physical sciences" - before proceeding to expound exactly how an understanding of X should impact our behaviour in the aforementioned material world.

This activity causes them to reach for terms like 'lower back', and to show defensive reflexes there. I don't seem to need to talk about their 'experiences' even, let alone 'qualia'. — Isaac

So you would explain the law in terms of the range of words uttered, not in terms of the subject experiencing the same pain.

So you would explain the law in terms of the range of words uttered, not in terms of the subject experiencing the same pain. — frank

More or less, yes. I don't see the need for a speculative 'middle man' with no empirical support for it's existence.

Stimuli cause responses. We can examine the mechanisms by which that happens. We just don't need 'Stimuli cause experiences which then cause responses'. It doesn't aid our understanding at all and it contradicts most of what we know about how the process between stimulus and response actually works.

It just appears that you're saying we can be fairly confident that a silent patient is not in pain.

It just appears that you're saying we can be fairly confident that a silent patient is not in pain. — frank

Why would we rely on the spoken word as the sole response? We could measure prostaglandin for example, or activity in the thalamus.

From where are you getting this empirical data about 'common', 'colloquial' use of the expression 'to understand the meaning of a word'? — Isaac

Sigh.... Fine you win. A 3rd grader with a calculator understands integral calculus. And a blind person equipped with a spectrometer that says the associated color of the wavelength it receives knows what color is.

He would know this no less if he didn't consider 'experience' at all. He has no need of it. — Isaac

Fair. But how does the patient tell between blunt force pain and stabbing pain? He doesn't know what condition he has nor has he performed any physical tests (which is why he has gone to the doctor). And despite this the patient always has enough information to distinguish between the two different ailments (he doesn't know how to use the info, the doctor does). How come? Where did he get this info that is so crucial to the diagnoses?

were actually experiencing was a virtual reality set-up. You're saying that my use of the term 'actually experiencing" there would make no sense to you at all, you wouldn't know what I was talking about? — Isaac

No. In that context "actually" could indicate emphasis. Like saying "This actually tastes so good". As proven by the fact that if you had just said "You are experiencing a virtual reality set-up" I would have understood you just fine.

Or it can be indicating that the source of the experience is actually virtual reality not the real world. As proven by the fact that if you had just said "The source of your experience is actually VR not the real world" I would have understood you just fine.

Neither of these uses implies "fake experience". Which is what I say doesn't make sense.

Other people may not have the experiences you have. — Isaac

Correct. I assume others experience things (have qualia). It is not proven. And the more I talk to you the more it seems like it was a mistaken assumption :rofl:

You may not even have those experiences in the next five minutes. It might seem to you that the colour 'red' has an experience associated with it, it might not seem that way to others, it might not seem that way to you tomorrow. Others might feel that talk of 'experiences' at all doesn't make sense. You might feel that way tomorrow. — Isaac

Sure. But one thing is a matter of fact: "Right now it seems to me that the color red has an experience associated with it". Try as you will, that is a fact. I didn't claim that qualia are constant. Maybe I wake up tomorrow colorblind because of a stroke or something. Who knows.

This gives you no information whatsoever about mental 'experiences'. — Isaac

I am not basing my information of whether or not I have mental experiences on whether or not I reach for the word red. I am having a mental experience, as a matter of fact, and I am reaching for the word red to explain it. I don't know about you, but I assume you do too.

Because it is a trivial matter to prove that the way things seem to you (at time t0) will definitely not always be the way things seem to you (at time t1), even on the subject of exactly the same stimuli. — Isaac

I am only claiming that the way things seem to me at time t0 is the way things seem to me at time t0. I do not understand what is so difficult here. When did I even insinuate that our experiences don't change over time?

'Stimuli cause experiences which then cause responses' — Isaac

How about "stimuli cause experiences and also responses"? That's more what I think is happening.

before proceeding to expound exactly how an understanding of X — Isaac

When did I do that? As in even claim that an understanding of X (qualia that is not my own) is possible. I only know what experiences I am having, I don't know what experiences you're having. What matters is the words you use.

And besides:

"X is not amenable to empirical evidence from the material world of the physical sciences" - before proceeding to expound exactly how an understanding of X should impact our behaviour in the aforementioned material world. — Isaac

There is a non sequitor there. Why is it the case the if X is not amenable to empirical evidence that that should not impact our behaviour?

Echoing what Daemon said earlier, your view has consequences in the realm of morality. If we ask what it's like to be a rape victim, the answer would be: tachycardia, hypertension, soft tissue trauma, inflammatory response, etc.

This is one of the many reasons this view, which we might call p-zombieism, is going to be a hard sell. A lot of people will just be revolted by it.

p-zombies would make for lousy hedonists.

p-zombies would make for lousy hedonists. — Marchesk

Nice cartoon idea.

"I live for pleasure!"
*attempts suicide*

I'll get to your recent comments, but my replies require a bit of paving, so...

...conscious experience of seeing red cups requires the capability of seeing red cups, and that all the evidence suggests that biological machinery plays an irrevocable role in helping to provide that capability.
— creativesoul

Do you agree? — creativesoul

Yes — khaled

What you said doesn’t contradict what I said. — khaled

But it does, for it contradicts this...

We don’t know the connection the biological machinery has to the experience...

The connection is one of existential dependency and elemental constituency. Without biological machinery there is no conscious experience of seeing red cups; however differently they may appear to each individual.

THE END

Weak sauce. Banno-inspired perception-related debates used to go 100+ pages. And it often included talk of apples.

We could probably do it if somebody would paste in half of War and Peace.

We could probably do it if somebody would paste in half of War and Peace. — frank

Have we come to any sort of consensus as to what color is? Or pain?

If it's not qualia, is it ... a model? A language game? A private beetle we can't talk about?

Have we come to any sort of consensus as to what color is? Or pain?

If it's not qualia, is it ... a model? A language game? A private beetle we can't talk about? — Marchesk

I think you'd have to look to context of use. In cases where qualia is being talked about, some of the posters here would understand, some would understand with annoyance, and some apparently wouldn't understand at all (which is odd).

I think all Dennett wanted to do was shift the burden of proof (which is usually supposed to be on him).

I've been willing since I first jumped into this thread and admit that qualia is problematic (certainly as Dennett discusses it). But I haven't seen a good explanation for what consciousness is if it isn't something along the lines of qualia.

Or to put it another way, even if we dispense with the notion of qualia, consciousness still poses a problem for physicalism, because those colors and pains are simply absent from any biological, chemical or physical explanation of the mechanisms behind conscious experience (as best we understand them).

Somehow color and pain pop into existence from the structure and function of the biological systems. I guess one could bite the bullet and endorse spooky emergentism, which would be a form of non-reductive physicalism.

But I'm not sure how strong emergentism is different from property dualism. And I also don't know why you couldn't have a physical universe absent that spookiness. To paraphrase Chalmers: "God has to go to extra work to add in law for consciousness when the right structure and function are in place." And by God, Chalmers just means the additional supervenience that's not logically necessitated from the physical.

I've been willing since I first jumped into this thread and admit that qualia is problematic (certainly as Dennett discusses it). But I haven't seen a good explanation for what consciousness is if it isn't something along the lines of qualia. — Marchesk

I think one of the confusions in this thread is that Dennett was directly attacking some commonly accepted understanding of qualia, so that he expected his audience to walk away convinced that there is no such thing.

I found it impossible to get across that this is a misconception. The result of trying to explain what he was doing (which I did ad nauseum) was just hostility. So my interest went back to where it usually lands: just looking at the conflict psychologically, anthropologically, and culturally.

Or to put it another way, even if we dispense with the notion of qualia, consciousness still poses a problem for physicalism, because those colors and pains are simply absent from any biological, chemical or physical explanation of the mechanisms behind conscious experience (as best we understand them).

Somehow color and pain pop into existence from the structure and function of the biological systems. I guess one could bite the bullet and endorse spooky emergentism, which would be a form of non-reductive physicalism. — Marchesk

My understanding is that non-reductive physicalism is the prevailing view in philosophy of mind. There are some pretty persuasive arguments for it.

But I'm not sure how strong emergentism is different from property dualism. And I also don't know why you couldn't have a physical universe absent that spookiness. To paraphrase Chalmers: "God has to go to extra work to add in law for consciousness when the right structure and function are in place." And by God, Chalmers just means the additional supervenience that's not logically necessitated from the physical. — Marchesk

I'm not sure what you mean here. Could you explain?