IMO, Brian Greene does an excellent job of explaining entropy in Until the End of Time.

Is it possible that electric devices (or anything) have subjective experience and awareness of things, but don't care about, desire, or want to avoid anything?
— Patterner

How could we ever know? — Christopher Burke

Well, yes. Perhaps I didn't word my question well. I think Janus is saying the terms are not defined well. I'm trying to see if we can come up with anything. I'm not asking if we can recognize what it's likeness or subjective experience that lacks cares, desires, or wants in electric devices, or anything else. I'm asking if what it's likeness or subjective experience can exist without those things.

Electronic devices don't care about anything, desire anything or want to avoid anything; animals and humans do. That seems to me to be the most salient difference and that is what I think it means to experience: to feel, to care, to want, to avoid and so on. I don't believe machines do any of that. — Janus

Is it possible that electric devices (or anything) have subjective experience and awareness of things, but don't care about, desire, or want to avoid anything?

And the thing with 'what it is like' is that we intuitively seem to think we know what that is, and yet when asked about it a coherent answer that distinguishes it from merely seeing. hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling cannot be given. — Janus

Perhaps we can work on this. Perhaps a starting point could be asking: Is there a difference between, say, an electronic device with a sensor that can distinguish different frequencies of the visible spectrum, and is programmed to initiate different actions when detecting different frequencies; and me performing the same actions when I perceived the same frequencies? Or is my experience the same as the electronic device's?

I believe this is the same idea as what Douglas Hofstadter said in
I Am a Strange Loop:

'having semantics' (which means the ability to genuinely think about things, as contrasted with the "mere" ability to juggle meaningless tokens in complicated patterns...)

“What it’s like” means subjective experience. There is something it is like to be me, because I have subjective experiences. There is nothing it is like to be a rock, because, while things may happen to a rock, even many of the same things that happen to me, it does not have subjective experiences. There is certainly something real taking place in regards to me that is not taking place in regards to the rock.

Yes, that’s what I was getting at in my last post. — schopenhauer1

I hadn’t read that post. Yes, I see that now.

Yes, events happen to a rock, but the rock doesn't seem to feel it ; to be moved by it --- unless you count gravity & momentum. In humans, the basis of Consciousness is emotion, to be mentally memorially changed by an experience, not literally physically moved by impetus. :smile: — Gnomon

What I was trying to get at is that there was “what it’s likeness” before there were homo sapiens. What you are describing here:

"Likeness" is the ability to make analogies & metaphors to represent experienced reality in abstract concepts. — Gnomon

is not the “likeness” Nagel is describing. He’s just saying there is something it is like to be a bat. A bat has subjective experience. He is not saying a bat has the ability to make analogies & metaphors.

“What its likeness” exists in other animals, and surely existed before homo sapiens showed up. Nagel used the bat as an example. Things happen to rocks. But the rock has no subjective experience of the things that happen to it. There is nothing it is like to be a rock from the rock’s pov, because the rock has no pov.

Things happen to a bat. And the bat has subjective experiences of the things that happen to it. There is something it is like to be a bat from the bat’s pov, because the bat has a pov.

How would you calculate density for a infinite number of things (e.g., Boltzmann brains) in an infinitely large space? — RogueAI

Excellent question. I hadn’t thought of it that way. That being the case, how can we calculate the odds that all of the particles needed to form a BB would ever be near each other?

If the same events would take place due to the laws of physics if I did not have the false belief that what I think is at all relevant, then why have the false belief that what I think is at all relevant? It is difficult to understand why evolution would select for this.
— Patterner

Personally I don't believe evolution is to blame, I think the concept of qualitative properties is the product of culture. But I also don't believe that qualia is the result of some vestigial or useless "ability" as you seem to do, I think it is simply a mistaken idea that can be gotten rid of just by changing your mind. — goremand

I would not have thought that I have been giving the impression that that’s what I believe. I was stating a position that some people believe that makes no sense to me.

Even if that's true, it still would be different in very significant ways that, it seems to me, would not be predictable. — T Clark

Ah! I understand. Thanks.

I thought this was an accidental discovery by some geeks with a microwave detector in the 1960s. — T Clark

IIRC, The people who got the Nobel accidentally discovered it. They were trying to find the source of the "noise" in there readings. Something like that?

But other people had just started looking for it at the same time, because their calculations told them it should be there. Which sucks for them!!

It's true that we likely could not have predicted many of these things. There's way too much we don't know or haven't figured out.
— Patterner

The claim is they are not predictable even in principle. — T Clark

Why is that? The world does its thing, one level emerging from the previous, in consistent ways. The more we learn about those ways, the more predictions we are able to make. Things have been a total surprise to us in the past. no one knew enough about anything to have predicted the aurora borealis before people first witnessed it. But people have come to understand things, and we have been able to predict where such things might lead. Einstein figured out a lot of things, which then led to our predictions of the background microwave radiation and gravity waves, which were later confirmed. predicting ways we could use what Einstein figured out, people invented the laser, GPS, and the atomic bomb. I suspect we will predict and invent many other things because of our understanding of the basic principles. So why would we not think what is already known to us, all of which is based on consistent characteristics, could’ve been predicted in principle?

Here's a snippet I will sometimes quote. It's from Ernst Mayr, who is a mainstream scientist, and it's about the fundamental difference between living organisms and inanimate matter. It has to do with the ability of DNA to store and transmit information for which there is not an analog in the mineral domain.

Ernst Mayr, one of the architects of the modern (neo-darwinian) synthesis, has been one of the most outspoken supporters of the view that life is fundamentally different from inanimate matter. In The growth of biological thought [15], p. 124, he made this point in no uncertain terms: ‘… The discovery of the genetic code was a breakthrough of the first order. It showed why organisms are fundamentally different from any kind of nonliving material. There is nothing in the inanimate world that has a genetic program which stores information with a history of three thousand million years!’
— What is Information?

On a more general level, it is an instance of the principle that information-based systems, which includes organisms, embody a level of organisation which defies reduction to physics and chemistry. There's an often-quoted meme by Norbert Weiner, founder of cybernetics, to wit, 'The mechanical brain does not secrete thought "as the liver does bile," as the earlier materialists claimed, nor does it put it out in the form of energy, as the muscle puts out its activity. Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day.' — Quixodian

Yes, I just read that a few weeks ago, as I was trying to learn about semiosis. It is a fascinating point!

But it grew up from itself within the framework of laws.
— Patterner

Well, not really. It grew up from within itself in accordance with it's nature and then we called the pattern of that growth "laws." I don't think this is a trivial or nitpicky distinction. — T Clark

It's nature is consistent. Not random or chaotic. The strength of gravity and the strong nuclear force, the speed of light, etc., are what they are. They are aspects of its nature that we have noticed, and we call them laws.

Physics expresses itself as chemistry. But the new laws of chemistry are not unrelated to the laws of physics. If the laws of physics were not what they are, the laws of chemistry could not be what they are. The laws of chemistry emerged from, and are dependent upon, the laws of physics.

Same with chemistry expressing itself as biology.
— Patterner

You say "not unrelated to." That makes you seem like a spokesman for reductionism, which I know you're not. I say "not predictable from." To me, that is the essence of why reductionism doesn't work. — T Clark

It's true that we likely could not have predicted many of these things. There's way too much we don't know or haven't figured out. But us not being able to predict liquidity from three properties of H2O molecules doesn't mean those properties are not directly responsible for liquidity. The physical universe is in the form it is in because of extremely consistent characteristics.

I'm a reductionist regarding the physical. I don't believe consciousness is physical, not a thing nor a process. Consciousness is already responsible for amazing things that never would have come about with obituary the physical. So I'm ultimately not a reductionist.

Is that not exactly how the universe was constructed?
— Patterner

The universe wasn't constructed, it grew up from itself, from within. — T Clark

Yes. But it grew up from itself within the framework of laws. Physics expresses itself as chemistry. But the new laws of chemistry are not unrelated to the laws of physics. If the laws of physics were not what they are, the laws of chemistry could not be what they are. The laws of chemistry emerged from, and are dependent upon, the laws of physics.

Same with chemistry expressing itself as biology.

Well that also is only what consciousness is. It is awareness of and recognition of what’s happening. — Darkneos

I believe otherwise.

I also didn’t think they really rebutted the objection that illusion only makes sense if you have a reality to compare it to. If you don’t know what reality is then the term illusion looses all meaning. The same would apply if you said everything is an illusion, the term would be meaningless. — Darkneos

That's true.

And an illusion that is viewed as real by itself seems strange.

Have you read "More is Different" by P.W. Anderson?

…the reductionist hypothesis does not by any means imply a constructionist one: The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe. In fact, the more the elementary particle physicists tell us about the nature of the fundamental laws, the less relevance they seem to have to the very real problems of the rest of science, much less to those of society.

The constructionist hypothesis breaks down when confronted with the twin difficulties of scale and complexity. The behavior of large and complex aggregates of elementary particles, it turns out, is not to be understood in terms of a simple extrapolation of the properties of a few particles. Instead, at each level of complexity entirely new properties appear, and the understanding of the new behaviors requires research which I think is as fundamental in its nature as any other. That is, it seems to me that one may array the sciences roughly linearly in a hierarchy, according to the idea: The elementary entities of science X obey the laws of science Y…
— More is Different - P.W. Anderson — T Clark

I have not. Thank you.

The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe.

Is that not exactly how the universe was constructed? It does not imply we can do that, but that is exactly how things work. At least physical things.

I wonder if we could have anything we would call a city without buildings.
— Patterner

Aren't we getting into Aristotelian causes? A building design could be considered a building without materials. A city plan could be considered a city without buildings. — T Clark

I have no earthly idea what Aristoyelian causes are. But I was thinking wondering about the minimum definition of "city." If a certain number of people live in a given area, but do not have any structures, all sleeping on the ground. Can nomadic communities be called cities, even if they don't bother with tents? Way of on a tangent, I know. But no consciousness, no city, whatever the setting.

To vastly oversimplify, chemistry doesn't make biology, it manifests as biology. That's one of the ways it is expressed in the world. In the same way, neurology doesn't make consciousness. Consciousness is a manifestation, an expression, of neurology. — T Clark

I don't know if you're saying something I'm not catching. I don't know what the best wording to describer three idea is, but Kurzweil spells it out like this:

It should be noted, before we further consider the structure of the neocortex, that it is important to model systems at the right level. Although chemistry is theoretically based on physics and could be derived entirely from physics, this would be unwieldy and infeasible in practice, so chemistry has established its own rules and models. Similarly, we should be able to deduce the laws of thermodynamics from physics, but once we have a sufficient number of particles to call them a gas rather than simply a bunch of particles, solving equations for the physics of each particle interaction becomes hopeless, whereas the laws of thermodynamics work quite well. Biology likewise has its own rules and models. A single pancreatic islet cell is enormously complicated, especially if we model it at the level of molecules; modeling what a pancreas actually does in terms of regulating levels of insulin and digestive enzymes is considerably less complex.

I have no problem saying chemistry "manifests" as biology. But it is still reducible to the chemistry. Just as the pressure inside a balloon could be thought of as, and calculated using, the individual air molecules hitting the inside surface of the balloon. If we could possibly manage such numbers.

The problem I see with viewing pain as only functional is that it is not functional.
— Patterner

It is functional, evidence shows that organisms without a pain response don't live long (as do people who have a condition that prevents them from feeling it). But it can be both functional and not functional, though mostly it is functional. — Darkneos

Yes, I agree. I was speaking for those who say consciousness is only our observation/recognition of what is happening. A byproduct. (I'm not wording that well...) It does not have any causal power. It merely observes that nerves are sending a signal that damage is being done to some part of the body. But the physical chain reaction that is set in motion would move the body so that it is no longer in contact with whatever is causing the damage. In that scenario, pain is not functional.

Back to the unbridgeable chasm. Some people see it that way and others don't. As I noted, that's where the argument runs into a brick wall. — T Clark

Indeed.

Back to my architectural argument. The properties of materials and characteristics of buildings are physical, but at the next step up, the properties of cities are not. They are social, economic, organizational, political. — T Clark

I agree entirely. Because consciousness is at least as important to the existence of cities as buildings. Cities are the next step up from the combination of physical and mental properties. (I wonder if we could have anything we would call a city without buildings.)

Sure, it all might be possible, but we do not believe that, we conclude that it is likely other people are conscious and that aliens would be conscious, based on physical evidence alone. — Jabberwock

I think how similar something is to us also has a lot to do with whether or not we think it is conscious. we give the benefit of the doubt to each other. We’re the same species, after all. Other primates are an awful lot like us, and we assume they have at least a pretty good degree of consciousness. But the farther something is from us taxonomically, the less sure we are. This is why Nagel chose the bat. It’s a mammal. It’s a lot closer to us than a wasp or a flounder. All mammals have a neocortex, and nothing else does.

Although, yes, behavior is obviously a big factor in our decision. The octopus is not even in our phylum, but we assume some degree of consciousness there. Although the eyes help.

but what would an AI have to do to convince us? Their behavior will have to be far more convincing than any animal's, since they are so very different from us. extraterrestrials could be as different from us as any AI we make. Would we give them the benefit of the doubt?

But how can we know what they say and do? Only by perceiving them physically with our senses. We have no way to get into immaterial mental communion with them. Any evidence that they are conscious would be physical. If we are studying their behaviors, we are studying their physical bodies. We conclude that the body is mental by what the body does. Otherwise we would have to assume they are just self-propelled Chinese rooms. — Jabberwock

It is a pickle. They could be p-zombies. My wife could be a p-zombie. Of course, I don't have reason to believe you are even that, since I only see words on my cell screen.

And some chat program might be conscious.

Suppose aliens come to us. Can we study them to a point that we decide that they are very likely conscious? — Jabberwock

We might believe they are as conscious as we are, depending on the things they say and do. I think it would be a point in favor of consciousness that they built spaceships and flew here. But if we just had their physical bodies to study? What would we look for that would be be the proof that they were? What physical characteristic is proof of consciousness?

But what physical properties, at any level, explain the various aspects of consciousness - such as my experience of blueness, or my awareness at different levels - that exist on top of the physical properties that explain vision and behavior?
— Patterner

First off, I appreciate the clear, direct response. I've been in a lot of discussions about consciousness and it always comes down to this. I keep telling myself not to get involved, but the subject is right at the heart of the kinds of issues I like best. Even when it never gets resolved, I get to reexamine my understanding of how the world and my own self-awareness work. — T Clark

Exactly. Reexamining ourselves is not necessarily a bad thing. And keeping the communication going can't be bad, either.

I think what bothered me most about this particular iteration of the conflict is it's blatant circularity. The evidence that there is a hard problem of consciousness is that it consists of mental processes which can't be studied by science because of... the hard problem of consciousness. Of course, as I noted, all these arguments come down to this same contradiction. — T Clark

I look at it this way... If we saw a skyscraper made entirely of liquid water, we would be stunned. To put it mildly. The properties of water and/or H2O molecules do not allow for such a thing. But here it is! A skyscraper made of water! We'd think there was something going on that we are, for some reason, unable to see. And we'd put quite a bit of effort into figuring out what was going on.

The case of consciousness seems even more unfathomable. Even if the properties of water cannot account for a skyscraper, at least both things are physical. There seems some hope off figuring out what the trick is. And properties of particles and groups of particles give us other physical properties, such as lift, friction, and aerodynamics, so flight is entirely explainable in the physical.

But, while everything about the brain and body are physical, consciousness does not seem to be. What properties of particles, or bio-chemical energy running along neurons, or brain structures, suggest that the system can be aware of itself? Or have subjective experience, even without awareness? If beings from elsewhere studied our brains in all possible detail, what would they point to and say, "Ah! They are conscious! You can tell, because of X, Y, and Z."

And on top of that, the physical things and processes in the brain are already doiny something. They are making more complicated physical processes, such as vision and behavior. How is it that those same physical things and processes are making something very different at the same time? That seems to be asking quite a lot.

As I pointed out, the relationship between chemistry and life is analogous to the relationship between neurology and mind. Are you saying there is a hard problem of biology too? If that's true, then there must be a hard problem of chemistry also. Otherwise how to explain all those atomic processes all mixed up with chemical processes. — T Clark

Many of us do not share the belief that "the relationship between chemistry and life is analogous to the relationship between neurology and mind." We do not see a hard problem of biology, because chemistry and biology are both physical processes. We see a hard problem of consciousness because, while neurology is a (bunch of) physical process(s), we believe consciousness is not. Physical processes, like movement or flight, are reducible to the physical properties of the involved entities, which are ultimately reducible to the properties of the particles that make everything up. Even processes of the brain, like vision and behavior, fall into this category.

But what physical properties, at any level, explain the various aspects of consciousness - such as my experience of blueness, or my awareness at different levels - that exist on top of the physical properties that explain vision and behavior?

My issue is: why do we insist that the familiar world is appearance behind which lurks some Reality ? As far as I can tell, it's only by taking brains and eyes in the familiar world seriously that we can find indirect realism plausible, but indirect realism says those same brains and eyes are mere appearance.

I sincerely don't think this objection has been addressed sufficiently by indirect realists. — plaque flag

Sounds to me like that makes the familiar worried doubly removed. Because we're only getting appearances from organs that are, themselves, appearances.

Well it's really just a tangential point, I will rephrase the question so we get back on track: why do you believe that pain has a qualitative component? As you know I view pain only as functional, what is the problem with this? — goremand

Your belief that an atheist cannot hear thunder if someone says it is god's will is probably an important topic. But, yes, a different topic.

The problem I see with viewing pain as only functional is that it is not functional. If my awareness of these things and my conscious thoughts about them are not causal, because everything that happens happens because of, and is explained by, your functionalist account - ultimately, nothing but the properties of particles and laws of physics - then what we (in your view) mistakenly believe to be qualitative serves no function. If the same events would take place due to the laws of physics if I did not have the false belief that what I think is at all relevant, then why have the false belief that what I think is at all relevant? It is difficult to understand why evolution would select for this.

It is also difficult to understand how a system comprised of nothing but physical events can have false beliefs.

It doesn’t matter what the origin of thunder is. You can claim it’s an act of god. That doesn’t stop an atheist from hearing thunder.
— Patterner

Yes it does, technically. If thunder is an act of god, by definition, then if god does not exist then no one can hear thunder. The "thunder" we would hear would not be thunder, as it did not come from god, but something else.

I think you need to consider the difference between defining something and describing it, the two are very different. — goremand

Yes! Exactly right. Describing it and defining it are very different things. We couldn’t guess all the different definitions/explanations/theorized causes for pain that are believed throughout the world. But we felt pain when we were babies, not knowing anyone believed any explanation at all. And we still feel pain when someone sneaks up on us and jabs us with a needle.

What we feel doesn’t change every time we hear a new definition that we don’t accept. I still hear thunder even after hearing what I think is a crazy explanation for it.

Perhaps you meant "I don't just think, I know I feel pain"? But I'm not interested in how confident you are, I want to know how you know. — goremand

Yes, that’s what I meant. And I know because I feel it. How doI know I have five fingers on both hands? Because I see them. How do I know the toast is burning? Because I smell it.

To illustrate with a different example, let us say that I defined "thunder" as an act of god. That would mean all the atheists of the world would have to say "I don't believe in thunder", which would make them look pretty foolish. — goremand

It doesn’t matter what the origin of thunder is. You can claim it’s an act of god. That doesn’t stop an atheist from hearing thunder.

Not thinking pain is qualitative doesn’t stop you from feeling pain. If someone sneaks up behind you and jabs you with a needle, you’ll know it.

Yes, I believe in consciousness or subjectivity, but I'm a direct realist (which is maybe the source of the misunderstanding?) I think of consciousness as being, as awareness of the world. The world exists for me. If I daydream, then even that is part of the world with the firetruck and the cloud. It just exists differently--but still in the same and only causal-semantic nexus of interdependent entities. — plaque flag

I can’t say I understand, everything you’ve written. But I agree with everything I understand.

You do not experience blueness or pain?
— Patterner

No, not as defined by you.

This what I meant by "laying claim to words" earlier, you have claimed the word "blueness" and "pain", and now I look stupid by having to deny that I experience color or pain. It is very important that you answer my question directly, no matter how stupid it sounds: why do you believe that you feel pain or that you experience blueness? — goremand

I know you're coming at it from a position other than stupid. I know you have something in mind.. But you’re not saying it. or I’m not understanding what you’re saying. But you know when you ask why I think I feel pain, eventually, you’re going to get the question that you got.

I don’t think I feel pain. I feel pain. If you think I don’t, I would like to hear your argument. If you think I am laying claim to the words, I would like to hear what you think a more accurate claim for them is. I feel fairly confident in my belief that you feel pain. I suspect you fell down as a child once or twice, skinned, your knees, and it hurt. At the moment, I’m not claiming or defining anything. I’m just looking for common grounds. Do we both feel pain? I do.

These things have not been answered by any theory of physical reductionism. If they had been, Christof Koch would be arguing the point, and would not have given Chalmers a case of wine. He admits that he does not have the answer. No, the fact that we have not gotten an answer from physicalism, neurology, etc., does not mean we never will. But it certainly doesn’t mean we will. So far, it’s all just speculation on everybody’s end.

I don't really understand how this is an answer. Why do you believe in "conscious experience", blueness, pain etc.? — goremand

You do not experience blueness or pain?

Why believe there is anything "unneccessary" to explain in the first place? — goremand

Because things work just fine without our subjective experience of them, and because the mechanisms that explain perception, memory, behavior, etc., don’t also explain our subjective experience of those things. if any physical process, or group of physical processes, suddenly demonstrated signs of consciousness, we would be fairly shocked. Balls on the pool table, bouncing around in the only way they can due to the initial conditions and the laws of physics. The grand gigantic number of things going on inside of a hurricane. The earth itself is a system made up of an incalculably high number of smaller systems. Every kind of energy is bouncing around, parts of more feedback loops than we can imagine. But we don’t suspect the earth is conscious. If we did, we would wonder how on earth it is happening. How do physical processes bring that about?

Why should we be less surprised or curious when purely physical systems bring about consciousness for us?

Blueness and pain are qualia. They are unnecessary subjective experience. and unexplained.
— Patterner

In my view, blueness and pain are actually just as caught up in the causal nexus as everything else. Pain is used to explain behavior. Aspirin is used to explain the cessations of pain. As I see it, there's only one network of concepts whose meanings are radically interdependent. — plaque flag

But we have made machines with visual sensors that take different actions when presented with different colors. If they don't see blue, then something extra is going on with us. If we give them sensors that detect physical damage, and program them to move the part that is being damaged, but they don't feel pain, then something extra is going on with us.

There is a way in which there is something it is like to be me that does not apply to our machine that distinguishes colors and reacts to them in different ways, and senses damage and moves away from whatever is inflicting it.

As far as I can tell you haven't yet answered my original question, about why you believe in qualia. — goremand

I did. We can explain things like perception, language, behavior, and memory in terms of things like neurons, circuits in the brain, feedback loops, and algorithms. Neurons, circuits in the brain, feedback loops, and algorithms explain it all without the need conscious experience, like blueness and pain. And they don’t explain blueness and pain. Blueness and pain are qualia. They are unnecessary subjective experience. and unexplained.

What do you mean? Why do I think I see blue? And taste sweetness?
— Patterner

If you take those to involve a qualitative element, then yes. Why believe that?

Like I told you I prefer functionalist definitions of taste and vision which do not involve qualia/phenomenal properties. — goremand

If my hand is in a flame, I feel pain, and I pull my hand away. If there is no qualitative element/subjective experience/whatever term someone wants to use, then that’s all determined by the physical events/processes. If that’s the case, two questions.

1. If qualitative element/subjective experience doesn’t do anything, and everything works without it, why does it exist?

2. We can study and list all of the physical events/processes taking place in the brain and body. Maybe not literally, but in theory. And for any given cc of matter I suppose? Anyway, all of those things are the steps/building blocks of, in this example, taking my hand away from the fire. How are those physical events/processes also the steps/building blocks of the subjective experience of feeling pain and pulling my hand away from the flame? How do all of the physical events build these two different things? I would go further, and say three different things. They bring about the physical reaction of pulling my hand away from the thing damaging it, my subjective experience of it, and my awareness of it. After all, my subjective experience of the burning is not the same as my conversations about it in the future. I’m still aware of this burning from days gone by, even though I’m not currently experiencing it.

I don’t understand the difference between “you have the experience of falling freely” and “you can experience falling freely.”

I would like to make things simple for you and just boil this down to a question: why do you believe in qualia? — goremand

What do you mean? Why do I think I see blue? And taste sweetness?

I don't want to speak for Ludwig V but personally I am perfectly comfortable in my skeptical position, I can doubt "plainly" without invoking any tricks of the mind. — goremand

Not sure I am following you. Are you saying Ludwig V is a Jedi?

Well, you've identified/described three experiences quite clearly. You used a sentence, which consists of a subject, a verb and an object. So it looks as if an experience is a relationship, or (especially in the case of seeing, an activity). There are three different kinds of object, a colour, a substance and a sensation. What more do you want me to say? — Ludwig V

I don’t know. You said, “ I'm not clear what category of existence is attributed to them.” I wondered if you had any particular leanings. I don’t know all the options. I don’t know how much agreement there is on what the choices are. I’m looking it up, and it seems as complicated as most things.

I'm not sure about total colour blindness, or about what colour-blind people believe. If they don't know that colour-blindness exists, they likely believe that everybody sees the same way they do. But I'm not denying that there's such a thing as subjective experience - that's true by definition. The question is whether a subjective experience is an object in its own right. That's why I prefer to stick to the verb "experience" rather than its associated grammatical form, the noun "experience". — Ludwig V

I suspect color blind people are aware that the majority of people see in ways they do not.

If you think that our knowledge of our own minds is just like our knowledge of tables and chairs, you will think that subjective experiences are a premiss for an argument, that they are true or false. If our "knowledge" of our own minds isn't like our knowledge of tables and chairs, then the problem disappears. I should confess that this is not a simple either/or. — Ludwig V

I see. Sure, that makes sense. At the moment, the only solid stance I’ll take about subjective experiences is that they exist.

If a machine did do the same, it would be conscious and consequently not a machine. But they don't, so they're not. That's a bit unfair, but condenses another complicate topic about what the difference is and how one might create a conscious. — Ludwig V

Not sure what you mean. We have machines that perceive different frequencies of the visible spectrum, and perform different actions in response to different frequencies.

Are you saying a machine that was given consciousness would no longer be a machine?

I agree with that. But I don't think it is helpful to jump to conclusions, which Nagel does. — Ludwig V

Which conclusion do you mean? I try to read him, but can’t usually get far.

I can't give a straight answer to that, because the question presupposes that qualia exist, which I'm not sure about, especially since I'm not clear what category of existence is attributed to them. It seems to me very unlikely, if and insofar as they exist, that they can possibly be physical objects. But the term was invented in order to justify the philosophical theory known as dualism, which I do not accept. — Ludwig V

What do you think the things dualists invented the term for actually are? I mean, you see blue, and taste sugar, and feel pain. What category of existence do you attribute to them?

"In Nagel’s words, there is something that it is like to be a bat. " https://iep.utm.edu/qualia/

Philosophy is a strange business. I'm about to complain that an ordinary expression that I understand as well as anyone else is incomprehensible. But seriously, what, exactly does "something it is like to be a bat" mean? Nagel makes another empty gesture when he says he means the subjective experience of a bat, which he believes cannot be described. So he knows that there is no answer to the question what it is like to be a bat. He provokes you to try to answer and prevents you from answering at the same time. That's the point of the question. The only sensible option is to refuse his trap and refuse to answer the question. — Ludwig V

I don’t think that’s what Nagel is up to. Yes, he chose something we cannot imagine. But that’s the point. (I realize you’ve likely known of Nagel and this paper far longer than I have. I’m not trying to explain it to you. I’m just stating my understanding of it, to see how close we are to being on the same page.) I think he could have done it by addressing people who are entirely color blind. But it would have been strange to make his point only to the relatively small number of such people who read his paper. Totally color blind people surely believe those of us who see in color have subjective experience. (As we believe bats do.) But they cannot experience color. (As we cannot experience how a bat experiences the world through echolocation.) And I would not expect any amount of studying and understanding the physical processes to give them the experience of color. (Or us echolocation.) Yet, we experience colors.

And bats experience echolocation. They aren’t just flying machines we made that navigate via echolocation. There is something it is like for a bat to be a bat, because a bat has subjective experiences. As opposed to a rock. There is nothing it is like for a rock to be a rock, because a rock does not have subjective experiences.

Certainly. I was suggsting that if we can't expect to give a complete description of something as simple as a computer (or a rock) on a desk, we can't expect to give a complete description of an autonomous system like a car or a brain. — Ludwig V

True. But the principle still applies. If we see a hugely complex set of events, whereby photons hit retina, which causes a signal to go up the optic nerve, on and on, we come to understand how we perceive different frequencies of the spectrum, associate different frequencies with different things, and perform different actions at different times. We’ve created machines that do the same. But we do not expect those physical events in our machines that bring about these end results to also bring about the subjective experiences of seeing colors and of having awareness of it all. Although the medium is different, I don’t see why we would expect the events within us to perform this double duty.

"these (sc. qualia) are taken to be intrinsic features of visual experiences that ... are accessible to introspection, ...." https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/

Introspection is a very strange concept. It is supposed to be readily available to anybody, because it is an essential feature of human consciousness and yet there is endless disagreement about what it amounts to. Yet here, it is presented as if it were completely unproblematic. — Ludwig V

I sure don’t think it’s unproblematic. But yes, we can all be introspective. I think the endless disagreement is what comes of trying to learn about something that cannot be studied with the scientific methods that we are so used to and which has been so successful in other areas.

There is one argument, for example, that introspection is not knowledge, which I think is not exactly right, but is an important part of the concept. If that's right, the entire debate is deflated. — Ludwig V

I don’t know that argument, or how it deflates the debate. Actually, not sure exactly what debate you mean.

"It rests on the idea that someone who has complete physical knowledge about another conscious being might yet lack knowledge about how it feels to have the experiences of that being." https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-knowledge/

That doesn't mean that there is some magical thing that the subject of an experience knows that no-one else can know. It just means that knowing is not the same as experiencing. — Ludwig V

I don’t think anything “magical” is going on, either. I think something we don’t understand is going on. That thing being experiencing various things through our consciousness. In many situations, experiencing gives us something that we cannot get through any other method. Something is added by experience.

There is a thesis that I think has at least an important part of the truth here. It is sometimes called the transparency thesis. "According to this thesis, experience is ... transparent in the sense that we “see” right through it to the object of that experience, analogously to the way that we see through a pane of glass to whatever is on the other side of it. Gilbert Harman introduced such considerations into the contemporary debate about qualia in a now-famous passage: “When Eloise sees a tree before her, the colors she experiences are all experienced as features of the tree and its surroundings. None of them are experienced as intrinsic features of her experience. Nor does she experience any features of anything as intrinsic features of her experiences.” (Harman 1990, 667) As Harman went on to argue, the same is true for all of us: When we look at a tree and then introspect our visual experience, all we can find to attend to are features of the presented tree. Our experience is thus transparent; when we attend to it, we can do so only by attending to what the experience represents. " https://iep.utm.edu/qualia/

That makes sense to me and doesn't need any reference to qualia. It may not be quite complete, but it settles a wide range of cases. — Ludwig V

Thank you. I’ve never heard of this. I’ll have to see if I can wrap my head around it.