"I am denying that there are any such properties [qualia]. But… there seems to be qualia.”

A bit later on Dennett states that, concerning colors and their subjective effects “colors…are: reflective properties of the surface of objects…” (Dennett, D. 1991 p.372)

Qualia, in contemporary analytic philosophy are instances of subjective experience. The subjective aspects of qualia are according to Dennett, due to evolution: “…there were various reflective properties of surfaces, reactive properties of photopigments, and so forth, and Mother Nature developed out of these raw materials efficient, mutually adjusted “color”-coding/”color”-vision systems, and among the properties that settled out of that design process are properties we normal human beings call colors.” (p.378)

Dennett says “…lovely qualities cannot be defined independent of proclivities, susceptibilities, or dispositions of a class of observers, so it really makes no sense to speak of the existence of lovely properties in complete independence of the existence of relevant observers.” (p.380)

So, sure, we can't say that qualia are independent of observers, true.

But then, aside from the things postulated by science, we can't postulate anything absent observers.

But he's denying qualia, clearly.

Simulated consciousness would be the (a) genuine article assuming a functionalist account of consciousness (not identity). It's a controversial stance (as is every other), but not obviously wrong. — SophistiCat

According to the sort of account you indicate, it may be possible to produce an artificial consciousness, e.g. in the form of a computer program. But that artificial consciousness would be a genuine consciousness produced by artificial means, not a mere simulation of consciousness.

Such accounts would need to provide some criterion by which we could distinguish artificially produced instances of genuine consciousness from mere simulations; or would need to show that anything that counts as a simulation of consciousness is necessarily an instance of genuine consciousness.

Along those lines, I might ask for a criterion to distinguish information-processing systems in general from conscious information-processing systems.

And again -- those accounts are highly controversial.

Along those lines, I might ask for a criterion to distinguish information-processing systems in general from conscious information-processing systems. — Cabbage Farmer

Before asking for a criterion one would have to justify the distinction. How do you prove that there is a difference at all?

Before asking for a criterion one would have to justify the distinction. How do you prove that there is a difference at all? — Heiko

PS: I guess a promising approach would be:
We cannot create intelligent robot-slaves while maintaining a good picture of ourselves if we would take that possibility for real, so they cannot be conscious. In principle. Problem solved.
That has worked a few times in history and will work a few times more, wouldn't it?

According to the sort of account you indicate, it may be possible to produce an artificial consciousness, e.g. in the form of a computer program. But that artificial consciousness would be a genuine consciousness produced by artificial means, not a mere simulation of consciousness. — Cabbage Farmer

When you oppose consciousness and mere simulation, genuine consciousness and artificial consciousness, you are already denying the functionalist thesis. According to the functionalist, anything that satisfies certain functional criteria of being conscious just is conscious.

If you examine two copies of "Moby-Dick" in a book store, would it be right to say of each of them: "This is the novel 'Moby-Dick; or, The Whale' by Herman Melville," or should you rather say: "Here is one copy of 'Moby-Dick,' and here is another?" Well, there isn't the right way to talk about books, is there? It depends on what you want to say and how you want to say it. Is there the right way of talking about consciousness?

According to the functionalist, anything that satisfies certain functional criteria of being conscious just is conscious. — SophistiCat

That reminds me on "Neuromancer"
"Are you sentient?"
"Well, if you ask me, then: yeah, I am! But I guess that is one of those philosophical problems."

Which is totally right: It just doesn't matter. Case will switch off the deck and he is gone.

What larger cultural norms shape your response to someone else’s hair style? — Joshs

Trust me....not a single one. The sole relevant criterion, in this case, is....that hair style’s affect on my inner sense. Technically, my subjective condition. Conventionally, how it makes me feel.

And the same principle applies with respect to the news, and everything else. You may be correct in general, and perhaps even with respect to my response. But it is not necessary for me to respond at all, thereby eliminating any shape it may have, and as I said, I’m only interested in the general as far as my particularity within it.

Of course Dennett doesn't say that 'consciousness is an illusion' in so many words, but it is the only reasonable surmise as to the implication of his ideas, which is that mind, or even being (as in, human being) is an illusory consequence of the co-ordinated activity of cellular and molecular processes which alone are real. He's a materialist, right? That's what materialism says. — Wayfarer

It's not the "only reasonable surmise"; it's a surmise based on certain assumptions that Dennett rejects. What we experience is what we experience, and only a fool or a mad person could deny that. Dennett doesn't deny that we experience, and that it seems as it does. It is a "consequence of the co-ordinated activity of cellular and molecular processes" according to Dennett, but not an illusory consequence; it is a real consequence and to say otherwise would make no logical sense. It is our intuitive ideas of what consciousness is, which are language-driven reifications; that consciousness is something non-physical and completely independent of the physical that is the illusion he refers to.

I don't agree that liking or disliking certain foods necessarily has anything to do with judgement. The taste may simply be unpleasant and you might simply avoid it without any conscious thought about it at all

But he's denying qualia, clearly. — Manuel

As I said I take him to be denying that there are experiential entities, qualia, over and above the qualities that we find in things. I don't see how Dennett could seriously be thought to be denying that there are qualities that we routinely encounter and are aware of; tastes. colours, textures and so on. To deny that would be insane, and I don't believe Dennett is insane. As with consciousness, I take him to be just saying that those quantiies are not what we might think they are due to our intuitive tendency to reify and create superfluous entities via language.

As I said I take him to be denying that there are experiential entities, qualia, over and above the qualities that we find in things. I don't see how Dennett could seriously be thought to be denying that there are qualities that we routinely encounter and are aware of; tastes. colours, textures and so on. To deny that would be insane, and I don't believe Dennett is insane. — Janus

What is "over and above" the qualities we find in things? Is there anything like that? All we can say about the world is going to be related to whatever happens to interact with our cognitive capacitates and sensations.

Clearly Dennett is smart, speaks well, gives good examples. But he's leaving plenty of room for doubt when he says "there seems to be qualia".

I take him to be just saying that those quantiies are not what we might think they are due to our intuitive tendency to reify and create superfluous entities via language. — Janus

What is the colour experience red, aside from our experience of it? We can proceed to speak of wave-lengths, but that's not colour experience.

What is "over and above" the qualities we find in things? Is there anything like that? All we can say about the world is going to be related to whatever happens to interact with our cognitive capacitates and sensations. — Manuel

I would say that what we think about those things we find is over and above them.

That's just the thing, Dennett is far from being clear on what he stance is. Searle, Strawson, Tallis, McGinn, Goff, Kastrup and many others take Dennett to be denying these things. — Manuel

What exactly do they take him to be denying? Perhaps their interpretations of Dennett's thoughts are based on assumptions he doesn't share; in which case they would be bound to misunderstand him.

Clearly Dennett is smart, speaks well, gives good examples. But he's leaving plenty of room for doubt when he says "there seems to be qualia".

I take him to be just saying that those quantiies are not what we might think they are due to our intuitive tendency to reify and create superfluous entities via language. — Janus


What is the colour experience red, aside from our experience of it? We can proceed to speak of wave-lengths, but that's not colour experience. — Manuel

I think he is right to acknowledge that there seem to be qualia. But red colour experiences are nothing more than seeing red things; there are no red quales, even if there might seem to be; that is what I take Dennett to be saying. According to our investigations there are electromagnetic wavelengths that give rise to seeing coloured things in suitably equipped percipients, but those wavelengths are not themselves consciously experienced, obviously.

Then I am embarrassed for not making it clear I wasn’t talking about flavor.

It seems there's no reason to suppose that packing more and more information-processing functions into a program would ever yield the sort of "subjective character" of experience that's said to generate the hard problem of consciousness.

John Searle has provided influential arguments along these lines dating back to 1980. ...

...But the simulation of mental states is no more a mental state than the simulation of an explosion is itself an explosion. — John Searle — Cabbage Farmer

I believe there is reason to suppose that a program can yield experience. We understand that our brains are information-processing system comprised of neurons that have functional properties. This is sort of the foundation of neural networks in machine learning. I think it's reasonable to suppose that one day a very advanced / trained artificial neural network will be accustomed to self-reflection and discussing their own "experiences" and how things "look" to them. I don't think we should distinguish the physical process of the neurons in our brains to that of transistors.

Also, John Searle's argument seem to say nothing about the simulation of the mental state or of an explosion. A simulation of an explosion may or may not be an explosion.

They take him to be saying that he denies consciousness. Dennett always says, he's not, and adds "Consciousness exists, obviously, but it's not what most people think it is." So Dennett and those I mentioned must be talking about two different things.

Yeah, red or sour or music is nothing more than things we perceive as red, things that taste sour and things that sound like music, but I find them to be very important.

Honestly, it doesn't matter much to me, in the sense that I find other people much more interesting than Dennett. I think you are interpreting him a bit too charitably, but that's fine. I could be misunderstanding him like others.

It looks to me like Dennett style approaches, shared to some extent by the Churchlands and even more radically by Rosenberg, try to step over "the hard problem". But there's plenty of hard problems in philosophy, not "only" experience.

According to our investigations there are electromagnetic wavelengths that give rise to seeing coloured things in suitably equipped percipients, but those wavelengths are not themselves consciously experienced, obviously. — Janus

Dunno - if the experience is thought as some kind of "detector", does that notion make sense? Given: the vocabulary is obviously different.

What matters to me is the issue at had: is experience what we have or is it illusory in some manner. — Manuel

I think it should be evident that we have experience, as we think we have. Our intuitions are correct in this point. — Manuel

Good. :up:

Consciousness is like Gravity. We know it yet when we get down to the barebones we're clueless. It is okay to a low resolution understanding of something.

The phenomenological perspective seems like the most constructive way to look at consciousness imo as it does away with dualism (or rather 'brackets' it out) rather than get sidetracked with this extrinsic question. All I see that has come from dualistic posturing is the empty idea of panpsychism (empty because it doesn't really say anything much other than 'we don't know!').

The point being we understand well enough what happens when we jump just as we understand well enough what being conscious means. Anything beyond this is not really in our scope yet so it's mostly guesswork until better concepts and experience comes along.

We're quite capable of viewing the brain and we're gaining a better understanding of how items like awareness and authorship function via our neural networks.

ANYTHING else on this subject is more about constructing different lingual terms to frame and segment the perceived problem and/or blind speculation where wishful thinking often dooms sensible ideas thoughts on the matter.

David Chalmers: 'First-person experience is such that it cannot be fully described in third-person terms. Experience is inherently subjective, it has a quality of "something it is like to be...", and that quality is inherently irreducible to an objective description.'

Daniel Dennett: 'No, it isn't. A properly elaborated third-person description will leave nothing out. So there is no "hard problem" at all.'

That's the debate in a nutshell. I agree with Chalmers. I think Dennett is a classical illustration of what has been called elsewhere 'the blind spot of science' (1, 2, 3.)

The phenomenological perspective seems like the most constructive way to look at consciousness imo as it does away with dualism (or rather 'brackets' it out) rather than get sidetracked with this extrinsic question. — I like sushi

:up: That is exactly what Husserl set out to do, as I understand it. But I also think phenomenology is much better accepted in European philosophy than in Anglo-American philosophy.

David Chalmers: 'First-person experience is such that it cannot be fully described in third-person terms. Experience is inherently subjective, it has a quality of "something it is like to be...", and that quality is inherently irreducible to an objective description.' — Wayfarer

A coupla points:

1. Yep, there's a what it is like to be conscious we can't ignore. This is inaccessible to another person. So, if I were a scientist researching consciousness, my research would ineluctably be incomplete.

However, I don't agree with the characterization of this issue as the "hard" problem of consciousness. To me, that description would've made sense if and only if it's the case that there's something inexplicable, in physical terms, about consciousness. That, I'm afraid, isn't the case.

If a scientist could find a way to observe the first-person subjective side of consciousness, the so-called "hard" problem of consciousness doesn't preclude a physical explanation.

So, the "hard" problem of consciousness does not rule out physicalism. All it does is show us a limitation of scientific methods/techniques. So, it's not the case that nonphysicalism is true, it's just that physicalism can't prove itself. To then conclude that nonphysicalism is true or that there's something to it is an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy.

2. What about empathy and the golden rule? It appears that a person can gain knowledge/insight into another person's state of mind. In other words, a third-person point of view of a first-person point of view.

It's so easy: the problem is for the wrong reasons called hard. It assumes consciousness can be translated into a theoretical framework. In the materialistic framework it's obviously called an illusion, to mapped one to one to supercomplex matter evolutions. I, on the other hand, assign a real existing content to matter, call it physical charge, like the electric and color charges. ust as abstract, but more in touch with reality. From whatever perspective, it doesn't take away the conscious experience itself. Which is divine.

To me, that description would've made sense if and only if it's the case that there's something inexplicable, in physical terms, about consciousness. That, I'm afraid, isn't the case. — TheMadFool

But that is an assertion, not an argument.

In the materialistic framework it's obviously called an illusion — GraveItty

Illusions are errors in consciousness. Only a sentient being capable of judgement can be subject to them.

Illusions are errors in consciousness. Only a sentient being capable of judgement can be subject to them. — Wayfarer

So if I hear a piece of music and my consciousness errs, the music is an illusion only? I consider the music very real! Maybe the physical part of the music can be wrongly interpreted, that's true. It is an illusion that the sound pattern is an infinite sum of mutually orthonormal cosine waves. As a member of mankind, a sentient being, I can indeed judge if my interpretation errs.

But that is an assertion, not an argument. — Wayfarer

What about the so-called "hard" problem proves that nonphysicalism is true.

Do you know what the paper is called, and who wrote it?

Anima et materia
Sunt magnopere ab invicem
Anima in materia
Refert circa animam
Et donum divinum
Ultimum dualitatem
Subridens corpus tertium

Sancta Trinitas

It seems there's no reason to suppose that packing more and more information-processing functions into a program would ever yield the sort of "subjective character" of experience that's said to generate the hard problem of consciousness. — Cabbage Farmer

Yes, and I think a plausible explanation of that is we have evolved over billions of years from single-celled organisms who have had to struggle against environmental forces and other organisms in order to survive; so things primordially matter to organisms and have come to matter to us in ever more complex ways, ways in which things could never matter to a computer; in fact nothing at all matters to a computer. It seems reasonable to think it is the mattering or significance of things that is at the heart of subjectivity.

Then I am embarrassed for not making it clear I wasn’t talking about flavor. — Mww

That you like cauliflower now, but dislike it later, are each nonetheless aesthetic judgements. That you are fickle with respect to your feelings regarding cauliflower over time, does not carry over to the fickle-ness of the judgements regarding the stuff, insofar as each judgement arises simultaneously with, and necessarily representative of, the feeing. — Mww

OK, then I am not sure what you were trying say with the post I responded to, exemplified by what I've just quoted above. You seem to be claiming that liking or disliking the flavor (or texture, it doesn't matter) of a food is an aesthetic judgement rather than being merely a bodily reaction. In my view an aesthetic judgement always carries a discursive dimension, and I don't see a discursive dimension being involved in simply liking or disliking foods. (That is not to say there cannot be more complex culinary judgements that do involve some discourse, of course—first course, second course or main course :wink: ). But again, perhaps I have misunderstood you.

Dunno - if the experience is thought as some kind of "detector", does that notion make sense? Given: the vocabulary is obviously different. — Heiko

Are you suggesting that we experience the effects of things prior to cognitive experience. If so, that would not be conscious experience, though. Sorry, beyond that guess, I'm not sure what you're getting at; can you explain a little?

where wishful thinking often dooms sensible ideas thoughts on the matter. — I like sushi

Yes, there does seem to be a lot of wishful thinking that serves to obfuscate in these matters. Some people just won't allow that we could be material beings; it seems such a thought is just not emotionally acceptable to them.