I haven't seen a good explanation for what consciousness is... — Marchesk

The ability to attribute meaning.

:up:

Indeed; it's bad thinking. In the next breath the phenomenal becomes all there is; the experience becomes the ontology. Most philosophical problems are built on lack of attention to the language being used.

Or to put it another way, even if we dispense with the notion of qualia, consciousness still poses a problem for physicalism, becuase 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). — Marchesk

Those colors and pains are absent from ALL explanations.

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

And teach/learn from past mistakes...

What I should have said was...

What qualia?

And teach/learn from past mistakes...

What I should have said was...

What qualia? — creativesoul

Yep. I agree with those who say you don't really understand an issue unless you can argue either side.

Without biological machinery there is no conscious experience of seeing red cups; however differently they may appear to each individual. — creativesoul

What I mean is that knowledge of the biological machinery doesn’t allow us to know how the cup appears to people. We can know the sufficient conditions for being able to act as though you perceive the red cup. That’s all neurology can tell us.

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 nauseam) was just hostility. — frank

I feel bad Frank. I've not been here long. I'm still trying to place people on the deranged/perspicacious continuum, and I haven't taken in everything people have been saying ad nauseam.

You go ahead and tell us all again what Dennett was doing, and if there is even the tiniest hint of hostility I will defend you fiercely even if I know you are wrong, like a mother whose son has stolen a car and committed some dreadful felony.

knowledge of the biological machinery doesn’t allow us to know how the cup appears to people — khaled

That's not true either. It tells us much about the autonomous involuntary aspects of all conscious experience of red cups, including whether or not the color matters to the creature.

You go ahead and tell us all again what Dennett was doing, and if there is even the tiniest hint of hostility I will defend you fiercely even if I know you are wrong, like a mother whose son has stolen a car and committed some dreadful felony. — Daemon

Yeah I may have been a little melodramatic there.

I did really want you to explain (again) about what Dennett was doing though Frank.

Did you read the essay?

No but I will if you point me at it.

What I mean is that knowledge of the biological machinery doesn’t allow us to know how the cup appears to people. — khaled

You sure about that?

Tell us exactly what it is that is missing.

And if your answer is "the qualia", then...

...all you have done is engage in the circular argument that the biological machinery cannot tell us about the qualia, and the qualia are what the biological machinery cannot tell us about.


But all of this is no different from the very start of the discussion. It's becoming tedious.

To All:

You can't tell us what qualia are, because they are ineffable.

And you cannot show them to us what they are, because they are private.

Were this any other argument, you would join us in rejecting them.

Ah you mean Dennett's essay. Some time ago, but I'll look again.

He's giving you reasons to doubt that other people have qualia. Hopefully you'll connect the dots and realize you can doubt what appears evident to you about the matter.

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. — frank

No, I don't imagine they are, by their adherents, conceived of as "little ghosts" (whatever that means), but as something like non-physical mental representations; intermediaries between the perceiver and the perceived. Dualism, the Cartesian theatre with the observer as a kind of homunculus. This folksy intuitive notion goes right back to Plato's Cave.

I read a lot of science fiction when I was a kid too, from the age of about 8 into my teens, as my old man had an extensive collection. I don't recall encountering the idea of qualia. Which author(s) do you have in mind?

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? — Harry Hindu

I think you're conflating observable with observed. Something doesn't need to be observed, or better detected, to be counted as physical; it needs to be observable or detectable, even if only in principle. The entire physical universe is detectable in principle, even though the vast bulk of it will probably never be detected (by us at least).

Ah you mean Dennett's essay. Some time ago, but I'll look again. — Daemon

...and we all went back to Dennett's essay. Remember Dennett's Essay? This is a song about Dennett's essay.

(Apologies to Arlo...)

but as something like non-physical mental representations; intermediaries between the perceiver and the perceived. Dualism, the Cartesian theatre with the observer as a kind of homunculus. This folksy intuitive notion goes right back to Plato's Cave. — Janus

It's experience, Janus. It's not complicated.

I want to instead ask, what's the problem with introducing that layer anyways, even if we don't need to... — khaled

Ockham's razor applies.

If it's just 'experience' then why do we need it? What does it give us, what does it clarify, that 'experience' doesn't?

You can't tell us what qualia are, because they are ineffable. — Banno

When you try, you end up talking about plain simple tastes and smells and pains and apples.

You try and try to explain the "something more" that you want to be there, and each time it's just more tastes and smells and pains and apples; even when you try to talk in terms of the psychology, and physiology, you get eth same thing.

If it's just 'experience' then why do we need it? What does it give us, what does it clarify, that 'experience' doesn't? — Janus

It's just experience. Plain and simple. Nothing more. Nada.

It is experience.

Did you read the essay? — frank

Hey now! This thread is about not reading Dennett. You're risking a tangent on Quining Qualia.

Hey now! This thread is about not reading Dennett. You're risking a tangent on Quining Qualia. — Marchesk

I'm just spinning in the void shooting out woo tangents like lighting bolts

You think there must be something more; you need there to be something more. Otherwise it's all just physics, and you think this would make it all pointless, meaningless.

You know, of course, that it is all just physics. Where you go wrong is thinking that this makes it pointless and meaningless. All along, it was up to you to give it meaning, to find a purpose.

It is all just physics, in the end; all the more reason to make it poetry, to make it beautiful, to make it kind.


Rejecting qualia does not diminish Monet's water lilies, does not detract from “Ozymandias”, does not render your love empty or your hopes, vain.

I read a lot of science fiction when I was a kid too, from the age of about 8 into my teens, as my old man had an extensive collection. I don't recall encountering the idea of qualia. Which author(s) do you have in mind? — Janus

Arthur C Clarke in his 3001 book has Hal and Dave tell the humans that the monolith around Jupiter isn't conscious. It's just a really sophisticated machine. They're able to use this information to logic bomb it to death.

And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, "And creating a nuisance." And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing, father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench.

Permutation City by Greg Egan is a classic mind-uploading science fiction novel where the main character uploads a digital copy of his brain in the 2050s when there's enough computing power. His copies always commit suicide, so he disables that ability for the last one in order to run various tests to see whether it will effect the copy's conscious experience. The copy goes on to develop his dust theory of consciousness.

On Star Trek The Next Generation, they show Data's dreams from a first person perspective one episode when a secret dream chip is activated.

On the terminator movies, they usually show a brief first person perspective of the killer robot from which looks like human vision with various information overlays.