so you have no intention of actually answering my question?

People who are born are guaranteed to suffer but being born doesn't cause suffering. There's an important moral difference here and the analogy breaks down because of it. — Benkei

Nah. Sounds like bs to me. Will have to go back and read more closely. Anyways, about the whole charity/drowning thing. Care to answer why one is obligatory and another is optional? That's what I'm really interested in.

First, are you claiming that doing an act that doesn't 100% guarantee harm is okay? Because that's what it sounds like you're saying here:

the second are not caused by because it's not a sufficient condition without proximate causes — Benkei

and here:

The fact that all living things suffer at some point in time, is not a valid argument to conclude that living is a sufficient condition for suffering so this does not resolve the causal chain. — Benkei

In both you seem to be saying that since birth does not guarantee suffering, you cannot say that having children causes suffering, and therefore it is okay to have children.

If that is the case then the fact that the act (pulling the trigger) does not cause harm should be enough of a reason to say pulling the trigger is okay.

You seem to graps the concept of doing something because it's better without an obligation as well. So that explains the difference between a moral act and a moral obligation, doesn't it? — Benkei

I understand the difference. In an early reply I outlined this

I see helping others with problems you didn't cause the same way I see charity. Good but optional. — khaled

What I don't understand is what makes charity optional but saving people from drowning mandatory? Here you made it seem like saving people from drowning is also optional:

Right. So one is better but there's no obligation. Not that hard was it? — Benkei

But if that's not your intention I ask again: Why is donating to charity optional but saving people from drowning mandatory?

the second are not caused by because it's not a sufficient condition without proximate causes. — Benkei

If I'm understanding this correctly I think it's laughable. We can all agree that murdering people by shooting them is wrong correct? However when you shoot someone, that is not a sufficient condition to cause their deaths or even to harm them, as your gun might jam. So the way you put it makes it sound like "It is wrong to kill innocents, but pointing a gun at an innocent person and pulling the trigger is fine since pulling the trigger is not a sufficient condition for causing harm" :lol:

Right. So one is better but there's no obligation. Not that hard was it? — Benkei

That's not what I understood you were saying

I think not saving a person who's drowning would make you a bad person and therefore you should do it, not because you owe him but because it's the right thing to do. — Benkei

Is this "therefore you should do it" a moral obligation or a moral act? I thought you meant it as an obligation.

If you meant that it's better to save a drowning person than to not, then no one is disagreeing there, sorry for misunderstanding if that's the case.

Should you stuff your face with cake everyday because you can? Or is it better to refrain from doing so? Is there an obligation to refrain? — Benkei

No moral obligation either way. It is better for your health to refrain from doing so. No moral obligation.

There is no moral property to be found — Benkei

I didn't say "moral property". I said "morally relevant property". So for example: In one case you caused the harm and so you must alleviate it but in the other you didn't so it's not any of your business. Note this doesn't apply for charity vs drowning.

Because I think people should make an effort to search for answers themselves. — Benkei

I've found my answer. They're both optional. And I've given my reasoning behind it. I'm asking for yours. Because if you don't consider charity obligatory then I can see no reason to consider saving a drowning person obligatory. In both cases you didn't cause the harm. In both cases you could help alleviate it. But in one you must and in the other you don't have to. Why is that?

Because there's a difference between a moral act and a moral obligation. — Benkei

Why is charity a moral act but saving a drowning person is a moral obligation? You sound like you're just dodging the question by rephrasing the things I'm asking about over and over. What properties make charity optional but make saving a drowning person mandatory? I hold they're both optional because I cannot find such a morally relevant property.

It also lends itself to a moral philosophy which is fundamentally based around what you should not do, where positive moral duties are exceptions that arise if you have in some sense an outstanding debt. — Echarmion

I'd go further to say that there is no such thing as a "positive moral duty". If it's a duty then doing it is what is expected, it is not positive. If you have a duty not to harm others for instance, and so you do not harm others, you are not being virtuous, you're doing the bare minimum. To be virtuous you have to go out of your way and actually help someone with something, which I repeat you don't have to do.

I think not saving a person who's drowning would make you a bad person and therefore you should do it, not because you owe him but because it's the right thing to do. While it's laudable to give to charity or to help others through volunteer work and you'd be a better person for it, it doesn't follow that if you don't you'd be a bad person. — Benkei

I'm asking what the difference is. Why does not saving a drowning person make you a bad person while not donating to charity doesn't?

You would help them but don't think you should. — Benkei

Yes. This is different form "I think I shouldn't".

I still think that's a transactional interpretation of morality though. — Benkei

What do you mean "transactional"? The alternative would be either I must not help them (which we can agree is ridiculous) or I must help them. But if we look at other scenarios such as charity or volunteer work, we don't feel morally obligated to do those do we? Or are you saying charity and volunteering are also obligatory and if so, how much must one donate to who?

am not sure how to understand "owing someone" as a basis to accept a moral duty. I have moral duties because I want to be a type of person. They're self-imposed most of the time. — Benkei

For me a moral duty is more something like a "least common denominator". Something I think everyone should be doing at least. Which in my case is not harming people intentionally.

That's something I noticed in khaled's reasons not to help someone too. — Benkei

What were my reasons not to help someone? Could you specify those? I don't remember giving any.

I would save them assuming I can swim. I'm saying I don't have to. That I don't owe them anything.

I see helping others with problems you didn't cause the same way I see charity. Good but optional.

I should safe them. I doubt anyone would deny this moral duty. — Benkei

I would. If you didn't get them there you don't owe them saving. At least not as much as you owe them not getting them there.

Similarly, I might have to harm someone to protect either them or others from something worse. Harming a criminal in the act is perfectly fine. Jabbing a vaccine needle in a child is morally right. — Benkei

That's not "harm" as I use it. As I use it, it means that you will have a net negative effect. A vaccine does not have a net negative effect.

I'd say, it depends. Have you played The Last of Us? — Benkei

I didn't because my potato PC can't run it but I've watched playthroughs. Pleasantly surprised someone else plays videogames around here. I'd say Joel was right. Ellie didn't know she was about to die, she wasn't given a choice.

In your example, if the person decides not to have a child, this may have unintended consequences more harmful to existing people and to future children than if the person had decided to have the child. — leo

You can argue that your next child is going to cure cancer. But you can also argue that your next child is Hitler 2 electric boogaloo. So it makes no sense to me to argue in terms of the potential of the child in the first place.

And I would argue that even if you somehow knew that your next child would do something great (which is impossible) it is the right decision not to have them. That it would be right to have them would imply that the suffering of the child doesn’t matter, as long as he alleviates the suffering of others which I find is a disgusting idea. If I knew my next child would cure cancer but also that he’d suffer severely during his life I wouldn’t have them. In my view: You do not have a duty to help people, but you do have a duty not to harm them.

Clearly she'd had a conscious experience of drinking Maxwell House coffee from a red cup. It's private, in the sense that it happened... to her. It's ineffable... to and from her limited point of view. It's immediately or directly apprehensible to her. It's meaningful to her. She has no language. Clearly meaningful conscious experience is prior to language. That which is prior to language cannot be existentially dependent upon it. My cat's conscious experience of coffee drinking is prior to language. Some conscious experience of coffee drinking exists in it's entirety prior to language. That's pretheoretical.

The problem...

There's no red quale as a property of her experience. There's also no reason to deny the same limitations apply to human conscious experience of drinking Maxwell House coffee from a red cup prior to language acquisition. The cat drinks from a red cup without ever perceiving the red cup as such. That's because there has been no correlations drawn between the cup's color and something else. Some conscious experience involving red cups do not have the property/quale of red, despite the fact that a red cup is an irrevocable necessary elemental constituent thereof. — creativesoul

This seems to me to say that there are actually ineffable private directly apprehensible meaningful experiences. Just that they are not necessarily formed from "red" and "cup". From the cat's POV all that happened is it just drank something disgusting. This is not to say that it does not see the red cup, only that it didn't "categorize" it in her experience, didn't emphasize or notice it. Am I understanding this correctly?

the whole argument that life results in suffering and that this means that it would be better to have not been born at all is a bad argument — Jack Cummins

Critical misunderstanding. Antinatalism isn't about how life is bad all the time. Antinatalism is about how the risk of causing a bad life is justification to saying that having children is wrong.

In everyday life we never make decisions that may harm someone without their consent when a neutral alternative is available EVEN if we think those decisions would benefit them. I don't go around buying you things with your money (even if I am trying to help) without asking you, because there is an alternative where I simply don't. I don't go around changing people's internet companies (even if I am trying to help) without asking them, because there is an alternative where I simply don't. I'm not coming up with the best examples right now but you see the point.

What other situations in life is it the case that:
1- There are two options, one which can cause harm and one which doesn't take the risk.
2- Consent is unavailable.
3- We pick the option that can cause harm.

But you can't calculate that expected value. — leo

For either side. In the same way you can argue that my existing risks harming others severely I may argue that my death risks harming others severely.

it is possible that you do something apparently innocent, which eventually ends up causing enormous harm in the world. — leo

It is also possible that I stop this. And I cannot stop this if I'm dead.

It's possible that the act of killing yourself would cause less harm. But you can't put a probability on that either. — leo

Exactly. So I do my best.

So in the face of the unknown what do you do? You do your best. And that's how natalists see it too. They are faced with the unknown. But they do their best. — leo

But for natalists it is not unknown. They know for a fact that having a child will risk harming them. And they also know for a fact that that decision need not be made. It is not like the case where there are two alternatives both of which cannot be precisely calculated which you just cited, no. Here there are two cases:

1- Take an unjustified risk with someone else's life (risk of harm)
2- Don't. (no risk of harm)

Your very existence risks hurting people, yet you're taking that risk all the time — leo

Because I am part of this calculation too. The "expected value" of the harm I would cause unto others is much lower than the "expected value" of the harm I would cause myself by killing myself. So I continue to exist. You have to consider alternatives.

An antinatalist risks hurting a child he adopts. — leo

If he risks hurting them worse than the orphanage they're in would then he shouldn't be adopting, agreed. But that's why orphanages don't just give out kids to anybody. You have to consider alternatives.

And unlike in birth, in adoption a child consents to getting adopted (after 12).

It tends to make sweeping emotional appeals about suffering — Jack Cummins

Then it's a bad argument.

and choosing adoption in preference to procreation. — Jack Cummins

I just said that some antinatalists adopt. I don't mean to say that all antinatalists must adopt.

that any possible persons, who will suffer more than is outweighed by the good they will experience, outnumber people who will suffer less than is outweighed by the good they will experience. — Benkei

By whose standard? Where do we get this knowledge of whether the next child will be happy or unhappy?

Then for the anti-natalist to continue to have a point it must be the case that there are currently more unhappy persons than happy persons — Benkei

Not exactly. As you said:

And if they would be born into a situation of abject poverty, where the good does not outweigh their suffering or because of a biological defect that cannot be treated, we understand that "poverty" or that "defect" would cause unacceptable suffering and we should not have a child under those circumstances. — Benkei

And this applies even if literally 99% of the planet is happy. You cannot use a general statistic in a particular case. If 99% of the planet is more happy than unhappy that does not entail that there is a 99% chance the next child will be more happy than unhappy, you have to look at particulars, and that is impossible.

And even if you don't, that 1% chance poses a problem. What justifies you taking that 1% chance risk for someone else?

If living causes suffering we should be killing everything on the planet and murder would be a just act. — Benkei

Unless killing is a form of harm as well, which it is considered to be by most, antinatalist or not. Also you said:

If living entails suffering (e.g. philosophical pessimism) then living doesn't cause suffering — Benkei

But here you are arguing as if living causes suffering.

Saying such a world is better than this one is meaningless. — Benkei

Antinatalits aren't striving for a better world. They just don't want to risk hurting people. Which is why some adopt.

Actually it varies from an itch to a burning; and I don't care what the doctor does or does not imagine. An unimaginative doctor might be just as effective.

You still think of the meaning of talk of pain in terms of pain having a referent. This is why you can't make sense of your opponents. — Banno

Not necessarily. I said what the purpose of the statement was, ignore referents. It's why we say "It feels like someone stabbed my leg" instead of "Ouch". Even though both would work at informing the doctor we're in pain. The former give the doctor more to work with, IE: it specifies a certain pain as opposed to just the blanket statement that you are in pain.

That we cannot say everything does not imply that we cannot say anything. — Banno

When did I say that a urbach-wiethe disease patient cannot say anything about fear? They can say under what conditions people tend to be afraid for example. But they cannot say much more than that.

All of it. That is to say you obviously won't say you're angry if you don't have the concept "anger". You'll still feel angry though.

How do you know you feel angry? — Isaac

Nonsensical question. By definition, when it seems to you that you are angry you are, in fact, angry. There is no point at which you can think you're angry but you're actually not angry or vice versa. Because the way things seem to us ("I am angry" for example) is, in fact, the way things seem to us (the experience)

You know you want to punch something, you know your heart is racing, you know you're inclined to growl, your speech has got louder, you're thinking less rationally... — Isaac

This is only apparent after the fact. Note: I am not saying that these things do not cause or at least correlate with anger, I am saying that in the moment you're angry you're not examining your heart or your voice.

what is it you're committing to the existence of? — Isaac

Qualia.

Either way, we consider his knowledge of physiology to trump our gut feeling about the cause. — Isaac

Again:

"I'm in pain, I feel like there's something stabbing inside my thigh and it's shooting down my leg" — Isaac

"What's actually happening is that you have some tissue damage in your back" — Isaac

are not in any way contradictory statements. The former is an attempt to allow the doctor to imagine the pain you're having. Damaged tissue in the back feels like stabbing in the thigh. The latter is an explanation of fact.

That is not denying the end result. It's explaining how it came to be. — Isaac

Now you're getting it.

That's an explanation. It doesn't deny anything except your arbitry armchair guesswork as to how your mind works (which I'm not going to apologise for denying). — Isaac

It doesn't even deny that. An explanation of how the brain works (what you just gave) does not contradict an explanation of how the mind works (what I talk about). As in, again: Saying "I am angry" is not to imply "There is a neural correlate of anger". Phenomenology does not imply neurology. I've been saying this since we first started talking.

You're doing it again.

So neuroscience says there is not an identifiable neural correlate for anger - we've looked really hard and can't find one. You've two choices 1) insist that because it feels like there must be one to you then that's the case and neuroscience just isn't trying hard enough, or 2) accept that something feeling like it's the case is not necessarily proof that it is, in fact, the case and work out how those feelings might have come about.

As I said to Khaled, if you're of the former persuasion, there's no point in us talking (there's no point in talking to anyone). If you're just going to assume that the way things seem to you to be is the way they actually are regardless of any evidence to the contrary, then there's no point in seeking other views is there? — Isaac

You're taking talk of phenomenology as implying neurological theory. How about:

3- Recognize that despite there not being a neural correlate for anger, you still feel angry when punched.

This is not to say that there is a neurological correlate that has not yet been found (though you keep insisting it is for no reason) this is to say that the connection between neurology and phenomenology is not well understood. You clearly feel angry when punched, despite there being no neural correlate for it.

It is, in fact, the case that I feel angry when I feel angry (don't know why I have to say this). This is a very different statement from "Since I experience anger as this distinct thing then there must be a neural correlate for anger". I never once made a statement to that effect about any emotion. So you either didn't understand me or you're misrepresenting.

Khaled's picture of what is going on prevents him form seeing the obvious falsehood. We have a person who says things such as "being scared is the experience you have on a horror ride" and "I am unable to feel scared because I have urbach-wiethe disease", but Khaled is obligated by his mistaken picture of mind to say that this person does not know of what they speak. — Banno

I got into this with Isaac as well. What does it mean to "know of what you speak"? If it is purely being able to use the word, then yes even if you can't feel fear you know what fear is since you are able to use the word. But I don't think that's a reasonable model for understanding. Talking to a vietnam veteran about the horrors of war when you've never fought yourself you'll likely be met with "You don't know what you're talking about". It is in that colloquial sense that I mean that the person who can't experience fear doesn't know what fear is, I don't mean to say they can't formulate sentences with the word.

But then again, an 8 year old (or a parrot) can formulate sentences about integral calculus if you teach them. But I'm pretty sure we can agree they don't know what they're talking about.

Sigh... This is going nowhere, we're going around in circles. I think I'll just read the threads for now.

What is preventing someone with urbach-wiethe disease (passing over the complications in simply correlating the condition with a lack of ability to feel fear) from saying "being scared is the experience you have on a horror ride" — Isaac

Nothing prevents them from saying it. But they haven't had said experience. Therefore they do not know what they're talking about.

If being scared is the experience you have on a horror ride, then someone correctly identifying it as such has understood what fear is, haven't they? I don't see the contradiction. — Isaac

The contradiction is you saying that fear is a public concept and not an experience and at the same time that fear is an experience.

You can be unable to report on working memory and still have experiences.
— khaled

How could you possibly know that? — Isaac

I don't know but I assume. In the same way I don't know that you're conscious but I assume you are. It's just that this assumption is so basic we say we "know" others are consicous and that some animals are conscious, etc. For instance, if Helen Keller never learned to communicate with people, I would still assume she was conscious.

That's what being scared is, not what it's like. — Isaac

So being scared is the experience you have on a horror ride? You're contradicting yourself:

First you insist that if someone who has never experienced fear before (someone with urbach-wiethe disease even) uses the word "afraid" then they know what fear is. Now you say that fear is fundamentally an experience.

It's not the mental state, it's the inability to report on working memory, which you'd just said was what 'experiences' are. Rocks don't have a working memory. — Isaac

Not exactly. I never said experience is the ability to report on working memory. You can be unable to report on working memory and still have experiences. When I say "reach for the word red to describe..." I don't mean literally saying the word "red". I still see red things without remarking "this is red" each time. I just need to have the mental category "red" to be able to see red things, not necessarily be able to report them.

What I said was sufficient conditions for consciousness, not necessary ones. I don't know necessary conditions.

This assumes consciousness is very tightly bound the the type of substrate. I'm not even sure I'd go that far. — Isaac

But it's not an unreasonable assumption. We know consciousness is produced under these particular conditions. There is no evidence to deviate from these conditions by attributing consciousness to anything else without first making a "consciousness-o-meter" to test our hypothesis.

If I ask "what was being scared like?", I expect you to shake your head and walk away, what could I possibly mean by that? — Isaac

I wouldn't. I would say "It's what you feel when you go on a horror ride" and ask you to try it. If you don't feel anything maybe there is something wrong with your brain.

There's a fundamental disconnect between the external world (if you believe in such a thing) and your experiences which makes talk of the experience of red - where 'red' is considered to be something in the external world) fundamentally wrong. — Isaac

When did I consider "red" to be something in the external world? Our very first discussion on this thread was agreeing how that wasn't the case. Heck this:

There's a fundamental disconnect between the external world (if you believe in such a thing) and your experiences — Isaac

Sounds like something I would say.

Because if conscious experience is just reaching for some word (or other response) from some internal mental state, then rocks can't do it and we've given an entirely complete physical account of it. — Isaac

How do you know rocks don't have a mental state? We have mapped certain mental states to certain brainstates. That gives us sufficient conditions for this or that experience. That doesn't explain what the necessary conditions are. Disclaimer: I am not claiming rocks have mental states.

What part of the definition of conscious requires that is takes place in a network similar to humans? — Isaac

It's just that we only know that a human's neural network produces consciousness. And an AI is fundamentally different in that it doesn't have neurons. They are not similar enough to conclude both are consciuos.

That requires that when you say it seems like X you're right - ie it could not be the alternatives Y and Z. — Isaac

That is true by the definition of "experience" that I am using. If you are asking about the experience in the moment, that is, by definition, exactly what it seems and therefore I am right about it. When asking about what it seemed like I give that I am not infallable there.

I thought you might have, you know, read some actual research before just randomly deciding how the cognitive development of language works — Isaac

You wanted me to provide you with research about the cognitive development of language? That's now how I read your question at all. If that's the case you probably already know the answer considering you work in the field. When someone asks "How do I learn a programming language" I would think they're not asking for research about cognitive development of language but rather some practical advice such as "Buy this book" or "Do these practise problems". I thought your question was in a similar vein, so I told you how I learn new words.

We're both guessing how it felt from evidence - mine neurological (statistical likelihoods), your is inferential (traces of working memory re-firing of neurons). Neither have good access, neither have private access. — Isaac

I think that "neurological guessing of how it felt" makes no sense. You can guess general aspects, like for example that I was afraid at time t1 (and even that is difficult) but you can't guess what fear feels like from a first person view. This "what fear feels like" is qualia.

Yes I can, if I've got good evidence that that's what's happening. Why would I not? — Isaac

The bit you can't make is:

Actually, you made a more accurate measurement which was then changed to — khaled

Because that makes no sense. There was no "more accurate measurement" which the ruler ruined. All we have is the 5cm +- 0.1 measurement. In the same way there was no "more accurate experience" which was then morphed by built in inaccuracies, we just have this one experience of what's going on right now.

p-zombies are impossible — Isaac

Agreed.

panpsychism is wrong, and physicalism is fine — Isaac

Don't see how either of those follow.

If it is then AI is definitely conscious because it can reach fr the word 'red' in response to some state of it's neural network. — Isaac

That doesn't follow exactly. An AI's "neural network" is hardly similar to a human's as far as I know. But besides that, I do think that conscious AI is eventually possible.

How about 4: I'm conscious, I don't know about the desktop

If I was a good enough story-teller, I could tell you something that effected your physiology - your 'blood would run cold' or maybe you would become angry and your adrenaline would kick in. That is 'mind over matter' on a very small scale, but the principle applies in all kinds of ways. — Wayfarer

But you couldn't tell that story without vibrations in the air hitting his eardrums which go on to have the effect you perscribe. I think it's always "mind along with matter" never "mind over matter". And especially not "just matter", if the word "matter" is to mean anything.

Neurology is a discipline that tells us much about how conscious experience happens. — creativesoul

We're asking why.

Newtonian mechanics doesn't care about why its components exist, it is a study of how they interact. Same with phenomenology

Name these components of which all conscious experience consists. — creativesoul

I haven't read phenomenology books. Couldn't tell ya.

It tells us nothing except that each and every experience is unique, and that no report regardless of first or third person perspective can be complete. — creativesoul

So you have ineffable private experiences. As I said a while ago, the way you use "experiences" is nearly identical to the way people use "qualia".

What evidence do you have that that's what you did? You learnt to use 'red' at, what, two, three? Are you suggesting you have a clear memory of the method you used? — Isaac

Be reasonable. What use is it asking the question if the reply was going to be: Actually, you don't remember. I just generalized to how I learn new words that have an associated experience. For instance, in my language there was no word for "malencholy". What I said here is how I came to learn the word and the experience associated with it, at a much later age.

You didn't say 'the world seems like something'. You said ''...seems like X". I'm saying, for example, that the evidence from cognitive science suggests that it cannot have seemed like X. It must have seemed like Y, or Z. You're simply reporting, post hoc, that it seemed like X because of your cultural models which encourage you to talk about experiences in this way. — Isaac

Basic algebra tells you that X can take on any value including Y or Z. Point is that it seemed like something. I later call it "red" or "pain" or whatever.

I'm trying to argue that they are not as you, seconds later, think they were. — Isaac

Agreed.

They don't work the same way, the inaccuracies are built in to the mechanism, it happens instantly, as a result of hippocampus function, not long term as a result of action potential changes. — Isaac

As far as I can tell, the working memory and sensory memory are the source of experiences. As in if they stopped funcitoning, you wouldn't have any experiences at all. What you're saying here is that I had the experience Y first which was then altered to a different experience X due to built in inaccuracies. That doesn't make sense, what is this experience Y? All I ever see is the experience X. There is no "more accurate" experience Y that preceded it.

If I am measuring something and it turns out to be 5cm you cannot make the claim "Actually, you made a more accurate measurement which was then changed to 5cm +- 0.1cm due to the built in inaccuracy of the ruler".

Conscious experience is invoked in AI, physicalism, the limits of knowledge... — Isaac

Can't AI also have a certain experience then reach for the word "red" to describe it?

At no point do I have a 'feeling of a colour' which I then select the name for from some internal pantone chart. — Isaac

But you said that you experience something, then reach for the word "red" to describe it. I am asking how we can compare these "somethings".

If instead you want to say "the experience I just had is called 'redness'", then I don't know how you'd ever come to learn the word. — Isaac

This. As to how I learned, I looked at all the situations where people said "red" and found out the common factor in my experience, that is "redness".

The way things seem to you (as such a fact is available to form part of any philosophical investigation) is not an unarguable fact. — Isaac

I didn't claim they are. This is the second time now. I claimed I am experiencing things. That is an unarguable fact.

when trying to report this last step (qualia) we give inaccurate reports. I think everyone here already knew that. — khaled

then no-one can claim to be having an experience of redness with any more authority than I can claim you're not. You are no more accurate a reporter of the way an event actually felt than I am. — Isaac

You exaggerate greatly. The reason we agreed that qualia are not accurately reported is because our memory is fallable. So if someone says "20 years ago, I remember we went to the taco shop down the street, it had a blue sign" and his friend that was there with him said "actually it was a red sign" then yes, neither really has the authority here. But as we decrease the time frame the inaccuracies decrease as well. So no, I am a way more accurate reporter of the way an event seemed to me as opposed to you, who has no idea. Inaccuracies are not the end of the world, as you said yourself.

I really can't see why people are finding it so hard to tell the difference between "we don't have experiences" and "we don't have experiences of colours". — Isaac

Because you claim at the same time that we have experiences which "we later reach for the word 'red' to describe". People say "we have experiences of colours" as a shorthand for that.

'Experience' is no less slippery a term unless pinned down. Equivocation is the weapon of choice for most woo-merchants. — Isaac

Yet you and all fellow Quiners seem to love it.

Agreed, to a certain level of accuracy. — Isaac

So if, hypothetically, we could take a screen shot of what I'm seeing and show it to you, how big of a difference do you think can exist? Can you imagine a situation where you remark: "Why is the sky red?"

I said hypothetically. I read the intuition pumps, I know it is impossible.

And, as we've just established, you telling me you do has no validity because we've all just agreed that you cannot give an accurate account of you experiences. — Isaac

We didn't. You agreed with yourself. You seem to like exaggerating. Again, an inaccuracy is not the end of the world. If someone measures something as 5cm then you can't say "That's not valid at all because there is always a measurement error"

We were talking about experiences - whole events. You don't experience red. — Isaac

When looking at a red apple I experience something that I later reach for the word "red" to describe. You also experience something that you reach for the word "red" to describe. How big of a difference can there be in these "somethings"? Can we compare these "somethings"?

What new information is being learned? — Isaac

Which group each belongs to for one. How they're related. And other stuff.

Claiming to have "an experience of redness" puts 'redness' as the cause of your experience. — Isaac

Incorrect. I do not know where you get that impression.

Now contract the timescale. Even in the milliseconds between the conscious awareness of some state and the formation of a report of that state (especially a linguistic one), that report has already become inaccurate. — Isaac

Cool. Has nothing to say about whether or not we have experiences (as usual).

Even if we put it later it's problematic. We could get around the first problem by positing hidden state> model>qualia (of model). Here we run into the problem I outline to Khaled above (the timescale issue). — Isaac

The timescale issue amounts to "Things are not how you remember them to be or exactly how you describe them to be". This is not an issue of the model. The model is fine, all you have said is that when trying to report this last step (qualia) we give inaccurate reports. I think everyone here already knew that.

Experiences are caused by brains. — Isaac

We at least agree on something. Now, about these "experiences", can you imagine a robot that acts identically to a human but doesn't have these "experiences" (note I am not saying it is possible to construct such a thing, I'm just asking if you can imagine it). That would be a p-zombie. I don't think p-zombies are possible because I think consciousness is a product of function.

Again, no-one's denying that we have something we could call experiences. — Isaac

Well you seemed to be denying for the longest time. What with "You don't see colors" and all. This whole time I've just been trying to get you to openly say this.

what they are experiences of — Isaac

I'm not sure what this question means.

how private they are — Isaac

We know experiences are caused by brains. But we do not know that the same experiences are caused by everyone's brains. As in I don't know if when I look at a red apple and you look at a red apple we both have the same expereince. I know we both call it "red" and it has largely the same relationship in our brains. As in mostly everything I call red you also call red or orange or something around there (assuming neither is colorblind). That does not give evidence that we are experiencing the same thing. Neurology can only study the relationship between brainstates and behavior, not brainstates and mental states.

the degree to which they're in flux — Isaac

I don't think anyone disagrees with experiences being in constant flux. Quiner or not.

To claim that phenomenology is the 'study' of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view, rather than merely the report of them you'd need to be able to learn something new from it. But if you can't possibly be wrong about what the structures of consciousness are from this perspective (they are exactly how they seem to you to be), then how is it a 'study' and not a mere 'report'? — Isaac

How shall we study conscious experience? We reflect on various types of experiences just as we experience them. That is to say, we proceed from the first-person point of view. However, we do not normally characterize an experience at the time we are performing it. In many cases we do not have that capability: a state of intense anger or fear, for example, consumes all of one’s psychic focus at the time. Rather, we acquire a background of having lived through a given type of experience, and we look to our familiarity with that type of experience: hearing a song, seeing a sunset, thinking about love, intending to jump a hurdle. The practice of phenomenology assumes such familiarity with the type of experiences to be characterized. Importantly, also, it is types of experience that phenomenology pursues, rather than a particular fleeting experience—unless its type is what interests us.

-Standard Encyclopedia of philosophy

Phenomenology is a philosophical position that aims to explain conscious experience. It is an explanation. — creativesoul

I don't think so. "Phenomenology is the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view" -the standard encyclopedia of philosophy. Saying that phenomenology is an attempt at explaining consciousness is like saying that newtonian mechanics is an attempt at explaining why "forces" and "energy" exist. Newtonian mechanics doesn't care about why its components exist, it is a study of how they interact. Same with phenomenology.

I mean, I certainly can — creativesoul

You said before that you disagree with Dennett and that the neurology does not explain why we have a conscious experience. So are you proposing that you have a solution to that problem? If so what is it?

By the way, you're committing an equivocation fallacy with the word qualia. — creativesoul

What distinct meanings of the word am I being ambiguous about?

Conscious experience of red cups is what was in need of explanation... not an explanation of an explanation. — creativesoul

What? Idk what you're trying to say here.

Ah, so you're another one for whom 'why?' apparently means something completely different with regards to consciousness than it does in every other field of inquiry. — Isaac

No it's the same old why. Just this time it's harder to answer. Because we cannot gather data about something private.

What use is just saying that the way things seem to you right now is completely impervious to any evidence to the contrary? — Isaac

That's not what I'm saying. I said that things seem to me a way. That is a fact. You keep saying things like "there is no phenomenological layer" or "you do not see red" but those are false. I do, in fact, have an experience. There is, in fact, a phenomenological layer. Me knowing how my brain works does not remove the phenomenological layer.

None of which demonstrates that it does so directly (ie, that you are experiencing the stimuli and not your culturally-embedded response to the stimuli). — Isaac

What does it even mean to "experience the culturally-embedded response to the stimuli" or to "experience the stimuli". That just sounds like word salad.

I know when the stimuli is removed, the experience is removed. I also know that when my brain is messed up in this particular way, the experience is removed. I therefore conclude that the brain processing of stimuli is causing the experience. Where is the issue with this line of logic?

Yes. That the brain creates models to predict the outcome of the body's interaction with hidden states of the exterior environment. That these models are heavily socially mediated (factors like language and culture). — Isaac

Ok so my experience is largely shaped by my language and culture. First off, no one is disagreeing (at least I'm not). Secondly, how does this undermine the claim that there is a phenomenological layer? It doesn't.