...then they're not accessible. Only the beginning and the end of those pathways are accessible. — Isaac

Or at least, that's what the abstracted third-party account tells us, according to Dennett's setup. Doesn't change my first person experience.

But this doesn't show that such experience is 'necessarily' private. — Isaac

I should have added that science can't tell us that that bat necessarily has a sonar sensation, only whether it has recognizable neural structures (by comparison with ours).

It gets harder the farther from human you go. Ned Block goes into this in his The Harder Problem of Consciousness paper, using Commander Data as an example. Philosophers have imagined weirder scenarios, such as Chinese Brains and meteor showers that might instantiate analogous functions for conscious sensation.

If qualia are just the whole process from sources of sensation to response, then wine-tasting machine have it, so do p-zombies. — Isaac

Qualia are the resulting sensations that consciousness is made up of. But we only know that from first person experience. Solpsism is a difficult position to refute because of that.

So yeah, you could theoretically be a p-zombie, and the wine-tasting machine gives us no indication otherwise, so it probably is, unless one endorses panpsychism or functional qualia (Chalmers).

@Banno@Creative@Isaac@fdrake
Regarding privacy, one might say our mental activity is not radically private, in that an advanced enough science and technology could reveal the exact neural correlates for all mental activity, and from there infer exactly what is going on. It could even be piped into a monitor and speakers, or a VR device. Dennett mentions the Brainstorm machine.

And sure, I grant that much. The problem comes in with experiences we don't have the ability to experience. If bat physiology reveals that sonar creates a sensation in bats, but this is unlike any of our sensory modalities, then we can't know what that is. People born blind from birth, or who have suffered a neurological condition removing their ability to experience color, are presumably in this position with regard to vision. They understand many humans "see", but what that means to them isn't a colored in world, since they have no such experiences to compare to. They know the language of course, and learn how to use it, but they don't know the experience.

And that is what is radically private about consciousness that science cannot give us, without rewiring our nervous systems, or enhancing them.

3. But Dennett's third set of intuition pumps show that if we make neurological changes to path (a) - from object to qualia, or path (b) - from qualia to response, we cannot tell which change has been made. We cannot examine our 'qualia' independently to tell if they've been changed by a modification to path (a) or if instead we've simply been subject to a modification of path (b). — Isaac

I think a problem here is supposing that qualia is supposed to be able to tell us something about our neurology. But maybe the qualia is just the result of whatever neurological mechanisms are responsible, and it doesn't matter whether it's (a) or (b). You end up with the same qualia.

(3) How does that relate to the maxim "where consciousness is concerned, the existence of the appearance is the reality" (Searle) assertion you've been using your photos to intuition pump for (as I've read them anyway). — fdrake

Here is the crux of the matter, for me anyway. Dennett does not think the appearance of having sensations can be considered qualia in any meaningful sense. Therefore, it's a faulty intuition. Thus why elsewhere he thinks illusionsim is a good guess or starting point for dissolving the hard problem, or answering the hard question as he calls it. It's a magic trick in the brain, and the only thing left is for neuroscience to show how the trick is performed. Or something along those lines. I believe he's offered up several possibilities, but at any rate, there is nothing ineffable, intrinsic, private or direct to the appearance of seeing colors, etc.

And since that's the case, the appearance can entirely be understood from a third person perspective, when the science advances enough. What I take from this is the appearance of consciousness is not really an appearance. It only seems like it on reflection. Keith Frankish in his paper is careful to point out that the illusion itself must not lead to qualia.

It is a denial of phenomenalism.

(2) How do you think he argues for that position? — fdrake

A series of intuition pumps meant to walk the reader through disabusing them of the intuition that conscious experience has any sort of qualia-like properties (ineffable, intrinsic, private, direct). It should be noted here that Dennett is doing the intuition pumping. He has constructed the pumps to arrive at his conclusion.

Having finished rereading Quining Qualia, I'll answer the question one post at a time.

(1) What do you think Dennett's position is in Quining Qualia? — fdrake

That conscious experience is the dispositional, relational and functional properties of the biological systems responsible for conscious experience, and nothing additional. This part is key:

Which idea of qualia am I trying to extirpate? Everything real has properties, and since I don't deny the reality of conscious experience, I grant that conscious experience has properties. I grant moreover that each person's states of consciousness have properties in virtue of which those states have the experiential content that they do. That is to say, whenever someone experiences something as being one way rather than another, this is true in virtue of some property of something happening in them at the time, but these properties are so unlike the properties traditionally imputed to consciousness that it would be grossly misleading to call any of them the long-sought qualia. Qualia are supposed to be special properties, in some hard-to-define way. My claim--which can only come into focus as we proceed--is that conscious experience has no properties that are special in any of the ways qualia have been supposed to be special. — Qunining Qualia

And this part right after:

The standard reaction to this claim is the complacent acknowledgment that while some people may indeed have succumbed to one confusion or fanaticism or another, one's own appeal to a modest, innocent notion of properties of subjective experience is surely safe. It is just that presumption of innocence I want to overthrow. — Qunining Qualia

Which includes my attempt to avoid any sort of strong statement about qualia properties which might be subject to quining, although I did defend privacy.

So what is being left out in my view after accounting for dispositional, relational and functional properties, that science can discover? The sensation itself of colors, sounds, feels, etc.

Yes.

The proponents of qualia and quale are the ones who attempt to decouple, sever, and/or otherwise separate some aspects of consciousness from the ongoing process, which is what experience amounts to. — creativesoul

Au contraire, it is the qualophobes who discard experence for the functional, dispisotional properties of the process.

Which properties of your private experience are existentially independent from language use? Which ones exist in their entirety prior to your report of them? What do they consist of? — creativesoul

The various color, sound, taste sensations, but those are words used in language, so naturally you will complain that I'm using language.

Just want to point to out again that about a third of elgible voters didn’t vote, so Trump really has a little less than a third of the country’s support among elgible voters.

Must be.

I don’t care whether we use qualia, I just don’t agree with Dennett’s quining the phenomenonal in total, such that the seeming isn’t really. But sure, for sake of this discussion I’ll say the seeming is qualia.

[ Dennett also thinks being a collection mindless robots forming a meme machine does no real harm to free will, consciousness or intentionality.

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Yes.

We can call the appearance that if you prefer it to qualia. It doesn’t remove the what it’s like or seems to each of us. I will answer your three questions from earlier soon.

I guess, for perception anyway. What’s important is the appearance, not my muddled attempt to answer you.

I might be equivocating on Locke here, but the primary ones are taken to be related to the objective ones. We see a shape extended in three dimensions via the color shadings. The exact physics of the world is a bit different, but there is an object with mass in 3 spatial dimensions that reflects light of a certain wavelength.

Well actually it would be better to say the entire experience is qualia, in that’s how a keyboard appears, but certain properties such as shape or reflectivity are inferred from the experience. And those are taken to be primary, objective properties. But to answer directly, it would be the color, feel and even smell of the keyboard from which we construct an object in perception. Or the result of that construction, however the neural mechanisms work.

You want me to remove all the properties of language and then report my experiences to you? They aren’t linguistic. The language is just a reference.

SO what is the nature of this privacy? Can you make it clear? — Banno

Something that can’t be communicated, apparently. Insert Luke’s comment on showing here.

chesk
Thoughts that might be spoken, but haven't been; — Banno

Thoughts I hear in my head. Or see in my imagination. Or remember with whatever sensory modality.

But how to make sense of that? — Banno

Since we’re both human, we have similar enough experiences in which to build language upon. But do note the limits of communicating our experiences to one another.

SO were is this getting us? How are qualia distinct from chairs? — Banno

Qualia are the secondary qualities of perception. They’re not properties of chairs.

I do not think that Dennett is denying that some thoughts are private, in the sense of being unspoken — creativesoul

One wonders what Dennett means by unspoken thoughts. Surely not “inner dialog”?

As much as I do for the external world. And yes, you don’t know that I see the same thing without verification of some sort.

I’m self-reporting to you. I don’t require a self-report of my own experiences. But I do need it for others. Thus the privacy of experience.

Now if you have no experiences of your own, I can understand why you would confuse self-reports and language with experience. But I suspect you do, and like Dennnett, have convinced yourself that it’s a trick of your brain.

Not to me it isn’t. Maybe you’re a p-zombie?

The appearance or the seeming. It appears that I see color, feel pain, etc. it’s those sensations.

It’s private in the sense that only I know I’m having the experience, in virtue of having the experience, without telling others or they inferring it from my behavior. I could be staring at the image while thinking of something else. Something I admit to occasionally doing on work Zoom calls, which I’m only found out when asked a question about what I was supposed to be paying attention to.

Actually, you’re right. Dennett does deny all four properties in total.

My claim--which can only come into focus as we proceed--is that conscious experience has no properties that are special in any of the ways qualia have been supposed to be special. — Quining Qualia

Dennett's aim(I'm guessing) was to use a physicalist framework to effectively explain all that quale and qualia are claimed to be the only explanations for, and in doing so show that there is nothing ineffable, intrinsic, private, or directly apprehensible about the properties of conscious experience. — creativesoul

That's a bit strong. I believe Dennett's argument is that the concept is incoherent because it cannot support all four properties given his intuition pumps showing otherwise.

But saying that therefore nothing to all four about conscious experience is going too far in this paper. Take privacy, how can some conscious experiences not be private to the individual? We don't and can't always know what someone else is thinking or feeling, therefor some of their experience is private.

I do need to go back and reread the paper to respond to fdrake's questions. So I may follow up on this after doing so.

That's odd, I thought the ones you called out, including myself, were doing that.

dunno. Perhaps they saw Trump accurately as a purely transactional actor, and concluded that he would deliver on his end of the bargain, which he did with the Supreme Court. They did a deal with the devil? — Hippyhead

Could be, for some anyway. Depends on what level you're playing the political game at. But I do know some conservatives who deeply believe in him to this day.

Are we supposed to just agree with Dennett, or are we supposed to limit our discussion to just this particular paper, and not the ongoing wider discussion, of which Dennett has contributed?

And if we're limiting our discussion to Quining Qulia, does that preclude any responses to it from professional philosophers? It's hard for me to just focus on one paper, given the richness of the wider discussion, and given that Dennnett has his share of unconvinced detractors. It's not like the consciousness debate ended with this paper.

Trump is something else altogether. Trump isn't really a Republican at all. He has no convictions other than his own personal self interest. Evidence.... — Hippyhead

That's the thing that gets me. What made conservatives so convinced Trump is one of them? Most of all, what made religious conservatives think that? They espouse having these political and religious conservative principles, unlike their left-leaning foes according to them, but what about Trump is principled, other than his self-interest?

He ran as a Republican because he saw an opportunity at the time given the lack of appeal for all the other Republican candidates as people were growing more disillusioned with establishment politicians. Thus all the rhetoric about "draining the swamp". But it was all doing what Donnie does best, grifting. He's a bullshit artist.

Autocrats see things simply. — Banno

I see you've never read about Leto II Atreides.

Literally?

Troublesome to say the least. The people believe Trump. — creativesoul

Yes, I know a few people like that. They don't think Trump is a liar. It's the other side. A key to understanding this is that at least for the religious conservatives, they have an entirely different worldview which encompasses American politics. And then quite a few more also are heavily influenced by Fox News and AM radio, which is heavy on the propaganda. The Democrats are always cooking up some left-wing conspiracy according to those sources. Even though they'll admit Biden is moderate, he's being controlled by the progressive wing, or he's going to step down soon after winning.