I think one thing that prompts a use of qualia is a desire to be able to work backwards as a explanatory precess, so to be able to take the fact that I can describe how my last sip of tea tasted and explain it. The first step qualists take is to say that because I can describe how my last sip of tea tasted (or carry out any other response) there must be some way my first sip of tea tasted. This is obviously false and we can move on from this simplistic view. — Isaac

Why not just work backwards from the fact that there is some way the first sip of tea tasted, as described or reported by a subject? It’s as though non-qualists want to pretend there are no pre-theoretic (or simply first-person) perceptions. But aren’t they precisely what is attempting to be explained?

Another way of saying it: sweetness as an aspect of a taste relation vs sweetness as an aspect of a taste object. The "instances" of perception as well as their properties become seen as extrinsic (articulated over an environmental+bodily context) and relational (between the agent and that context) rather than intrinsic (embedded within a a subjective experiential unit "in its consciousness") and unary (as a component part of such a unit). — fdrake

I wonder if there is really any difference.

Being a relation still involves a combination of, or an interaction between, a subject and an object(s). Object(s) are still filtered/perceived by the subject (or by the subject's brain/body) in a way unique to that brain/body, even if colour or sweetness are labelled as objective properties. If there were no subjective aspect, then you should expect to find that we all have the same subjective (objective?) experiences. However, many of Dennett's examples demonstrate that this is not the case. For example, the case of cerebral achromatopsia in which a subject reports that "everything looked black or grey". I have never had this type of experience before. If colour is an objective property then why does the subject report seeing (e.g.) "bright blue objects as black"?

My failing to recognise the purported distinction is not helped by the fact that Dennett himself seems to be attacking a particular characterisation of qualia, rather than all qualia, as @Kenosha Kid raised earlier. For example, Dennett states:

What, then, of ineffability? Why does it seem that our conscious experiences have ineffable properties? Because they do have practically ineffable properties. — Dennett

As opposed to what other ineffability?

The particular jagged edge of one piece [of the jello box] becomes a practically unique pattern-recognition device for its mate; it is an apparatus for detecting the shape propert M, where M is uniquely instantiated by its mate. It is of the essence of the trick that we cannot replace our dummy predicate "M" with a longer, more complex, but accurate and exhaustive description of the property, for if we could, we could use the description as a recipe or feasible algorithm for producing another instance of M or another M-detector. The only readily available way of saying what property M is is just to point to our M-detector and say that M is the shape property detected by this thing here.

And that is just what we do when we seem to ostend, with the mental finger of inner intention, a quale or qualia-complex in our experience. We refer to a property--a public property of uncharted boundaries--via reference to our personal and idiosyncratic capacity to respond to it. That idiosyncracy is the extent of our privacy. If I wonder whether your blue is my blue, your middle-C is my middle-C, I can coherently be wondering whether our discrimination profiles over a wide variation in conditions will be approximately the same. And they may not be; people experience the world quite differently. — Dennett

As opposed to what other privacy?

An excellent post, which I'm sure I'll still need to read a few more times. On first impressions:

A sense datum is then a kind of completed form of perception, an instance of what is perceived, which is then presented to consciousness. — fdrake

If this characterisation is incorrect, does it imply that we can't perceive orange juice to be sweet, or cauliflower to be creamy, at a particular time? If no "final product" of perception gets presented to consciousness (at a time, or at all conscious times), then how can we make any judgments about what we perceive?

Let me rephrase, there is a big difference between saying that a person has a sense datum/experiential entity with a given structure that only they have any access to of any sort (privacy) and saying that the same person has had a unique (idiosyncratic) experience. The former commits one to the existence of entities of a given sort with the property of privacy that stand in some relationship to experience, the latter only commits one to have been the perceiving agent in a perceptual event or perceptual relationship. — fdrake

With regard to the intuition pump of inverted spectra:

The original version of intuition pump #3: the inverted spectrum (Locke, 1690: II, xxxii, 15) is a speculation about two people: how do I know that you and I see the same subjective color when we look at something? Since we both learned color words by being shown public colored objects, our verbal behavior will match even if we experience entirely different subjective colors.

Assuming it is possible for two people to have different experiences of “subjective colour”, would this be a case (for each of them) of an “experiential entity with a given structure that only they have any access to of any sort (privacy)” or would it be a case of a “unique (idiosyncratic) experience”?

There's a big difference between calling an experience private and saying that only one person has been so effected! — fdrake

How could you know whether anyone else has been “so effected”?

One thing I had trouble with in the article was the inverted spectrum intuition pumps failed to enable an intersubjective comparison of qualia, yet this seemed to be an argument against, rather than for, privacy. If qualia are private it’s going to make intersubjective comparisons very difficult.

But how is "What it is like to see red" distinct from "Seeing red"? — Banno

I think the former is typically epistemic: one knows (or doesn't know) what it is like, whereas the latter is (having) the experience. I would say that one gains the knowledge of what it is like by having the experience.

Mary's room might be a useful intuition pump for this discussion.. Mary has never seen red, but we ask whether she knows what it is like to see red. Dennett holds that Mary would know what it is like to see red without ever seeing red. His take is that one gains the experience, or the knowledge of what it is like, by virtue of having all of the other (third-person) colour knowledge. What red looks like is irrelevant and non-existent(!), it seems. Odd, then, that Mary would know what it is like.

Dennett also has a response to the "Mary the color scientist" thought experiment. He argues that Mary would not, in fact, learn something new if she stepped out of her black and white room to see the color red. Dennett asserts that if she already truly knew "everything about color", that knowledge would include a deep understanding of why and how human neurology causes us to sense the "quale" of color. Mary would therefore already know exactly what to expect of seeing red, before ever leaving the room. Dennett argues that the misleading aspect of the story is that Mary is supposed to not merely be knowledgeable about color but to actually know all the physical facts about it, which would be a knowledge so deep that it exceeds what can be imagined, and twists our intuitions. — Wikipedia

I should probably also add this:

There is a strong temptation, I have found, to respond to my claims in this paper more or less as follows: "But after all is said and done, there is still something I know in a special way: I know how it is with me right now." But if absolutely nothing follows from this presumed knowledge--nothing, for instance, that would shed any light on the different psychological claims that might be true of Chase or Sanborn--what is the point of asserting that one has it? — Dennett

Why do we need to get at truth here? How things seem to me is just that, irrespective of what any supposed truth of the matter may be. This is a requirement for illusions and the like to make any sense: if things did not seem to X to be a particular way--which is other than how they are/should be--then there could be no illusions or (e.g.) anomalies of colour perception.

the physiological facts will not in themselves shed any light on where in the stream of physiological process twixt tasting and telling to draw the line at which the putative qualia appear as properties of that phase of the process. — Dennett (intuition pump #8)

Why should qualia advocates be required to provide physiological, third-person explanations? That's the concern of those who expect there to be an eliminative account.

I think you're pretty off the mark here exegetically Kenosha Kid, — fdrake

I tend to agree with @Kenosha Kid's exegesis generally.

This is how I read the article (in part):

(1) Ineffable
Dennett does not specify which qualia property is being criticised by which intuition pump, so presumably they are all under attack by every pump. He quotes Wittgenstein as part of his attack on ineffability, it seems. However, I consider this a misreading. Wittgenstein was railing against the idea of private meaning/language, not private experience:

307. “Aren’t you nevertheless a behaviourist in disguise? Aren’t you nevertheless basically saying that everything except human behaviour is a fiction?” — If I speak of a fiction, then it is of a grammatical fiction. — Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

Dennett is not claiming that the word "qualia" has a private meaning, and Wittgenstein is not a behaviorist in disguise (as much as Dennett might wish him to be). It seems fairly clear that for Wittgenstein some things are ineffable:

78. Compare knowing and saying:

how many metres high Mont Blanc is —
how the word “game” is used —
how a clarinet sounds.

Someone who is surprised that one can know something and not be able to say it is perhaps thinking of a case like the first. Certainly not of one like the third. — Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

(2) Intrinsic
This seems to be Dennett's most forceful point of attack, which is well summarised in this section:

One dimly imagines taking such cases and stripping them down gradually to the essentials, leaving their common residuum, the way things look, sound, feel, taste, smell to various individuals at various times, independently of how those individuals are stimulated or non- perceptually affected, and independently of how they are subsequently disposed to behave or believe. The mistake is not in supposing that we can in practice ever or always perform this act of purification with certainty, but the more fundamental mistake of supposing that there is such a residual property to take seriously, however uncertain our actual attempts at isolation of instances might be. — Dennett

A vociferous attack on "raw feels". However, as I would respond to most of his attacks throughout the article, it does nothing to mitigate the opening definition of qualia as "how things seem to us", or more relevantly - in the first-person - as "how things seem to me". "[T]he way things look, sound, feel, taste, smell...at various times" will always be coloured by how I am "stimulated or perceptually affected", by how I am "subsequently disposed to behave or believe", and - probably among many other factors - by what judgments I make about those sense data. All of that is constitutive of "how things seem to me", or of how a particular taste, sound, sight, etc, seems to me at a particular time. In this sense it is possible that qualia might be considered as "intrinsic"; not in spite of the associated "stimulations", "perceptual affects", "dispositions" or judgments, but because of them.

That's at least a start of my reading.

Gustatory? Seriously? How are you going to talk about "the ways things seem to us" by introducing terms like "gustatory quale"? — Merkwurdichliebe

It’s the opening paragraph of the article - Dennett’s words, not mine. But go off.

I think the paper's a battle on all fronts; against qualia existence claims, against their typically ascribed first order properties (the creamy cauliflower taste quale), against their second order properties like ineffability (the ineffability of the creamy cauliflower taste quale). — fdrake

How does the first-order property (the creamy cauliflower taste) differ from the sense datum (taste)? You previously stated that the denial of qualia did not necessarily imply the denial of sense data.

How is this consistent with Dennett’s claimed acknowledgement that conscious experience has properties?

"Qualia" is an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us. As is so often the case with philosophical jargon, it is easier to give examples than to give a definition of the term. Look at a glass of milk at sunset; the way it looks to you--the particular, personal, subjective visual quality of the glass of milk is the quale of your visual experience at the moment. The way the milk tastes to you then is another, gustatory quale, and how it sounds to you as you swallow is an auditory quale; These various "properties of conscious experience" are prime examples of qualia.

In addition to simply being properties of conscious experience. — Isaac

What are the first order properties?

Here I was referencing Dennet's position that... The additional properties being... — Isaac

Where does he say that they are additional properties? In addition to what?

I would go further to say that conscious experience does not have usefully definable properties at all. — Isaac

And yet, you stated earlier:

One need not deny the existence of sense data properties to deny that calling them qualia is of any use, or to deny that they then exhibit any of the additional properties associated with qualia. — Isaac

Your position is that you don't need to deny sense data properties in order to deny qualia. But you deny sense data properties (without explaining the difference) anyway? Okay.

One need not deny the existence of sense data properties to deny that calling them qualia is of any use, or to deny that they then exhibit any of the additional properties associated with qualia. — Isaac

What distinction are you drawing between sense data properties and qualia? You say that there are "additional properties associated with qualia", so what are the (non-additional) properties that you appear to indicate are shared by both sense data and qualia?

Third option; which I take to be Dennett's (then we can get back to the thread).

(1) People feel stuff. (Dennett agrees)

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... — Dennett — fdrake

Firstly, apologies if I have derailed the thread in any way.

Secondly, if Dennett grants that conscious experience has properties, yet he is trying "to illustrate and render implausible" the notion of qualia, then it seems that Dennett considers qualia to be something different from the properties of conscious experience. However, he does not explain how qualia differ from the properties of conscious experience, and he offers no alternative to qualia in order to better describe the properties of conscious experience.

If we say that someone is an eliminativist about qualia, that will mean they believe that qualia do not exist. Qualia the theoretical concept. That does not have to mean that "People feel stuff" is false, it simply means that the kind of thing qualia tries to refer to does not exist in the manner it is theorised or intuited. — fdrake

Understood, but how are qualia distinct from the properties of conscious experience? If Dennett is happy to grant that conscious experience has properties, yet qualia are not those properties, then what are the properties of conscious experience? Or are they ineffable?

Sense data have the properties that perceptually appear to us. — SEP

At best, a sense datum has properties which are introspectively accessible and are part of one's subjective state. In other words, a sense datum has qualia (or is associated with qualia), rather than is qualia — fdrake

Just trying to make sense of your distinction, which seems valid (and appears to fit definition 2 of my own SEP quote on the different uses of "qualia" (above)). The qualia denier seems to have two options as a result: either deny there are any sense data, which seems very unlikely; or deny that sense data have properties, which is to deny a defining characteristic of sense data according to the SEP definition that you quoted.

Then why would a person claim to be a p-zombie? — frank

Who claims to be a p-zombie?

It appears that some people do deny it. People vary in their ability to hold mental images. People who lack the ability say they didn't realize that anybody can do it. Maybe it's like that. — frank

Yes, and some people are deaf or blind or lacking in some other sense(s). Maybe someone somewhere has been born without any senses or phenomenal experiences whatsoever, but that would have to be a rare exception.

If nothing is added, why bother? — Banno

For the interests of philosophical discussion, I suppose.

But perhaps we mean different things by it. From the SEP article on Qualia:

1. Uses of the Term ‘Qualia’

(1) Qualia as phenomenal character. Consider your visual experience as you stare at a bright turquoise color patch in a paint store. There is something it is like for you subjectively to undergo that experience. What it is like to undergo the experience is very different from what it is like for you to experience a dull brown color patch. This difference is a difference in what is often called ‘phenomenal character’. The phenomenal character of an experience is what it is like subjectively to undergo the experience. If you are told to focus your attention upon the phenomenal character of your experience, you will find that in doing so you are aware of certain qualities. These qualities — ones that are accessible to you when you introspect and that together make up the phenomenal character of the experience are sometimes called ‘qualia’. C.S. Peirce seems to have had something like this in mind when he introduced the term ‘quale’ into philosophy in 1866 (1866/1982, para 223).

There are more restricted uses of the term ‘qualia’, however.

(2) Qualia as properties of sense data. Consider a painting of a dalmatian. Viewers of the painting can apprehend not only its content (i.e., its representing a dalmatian) but also the colors, shapes, and spatial relations obtaining among the blobs of paint on the canvas. It has sometimes been supposed that being aware or conscious of a visual experience is like viewing an inner, non-physical picture or sense-datum. So, for example, on this conception, if I see a dalmatian, I am subject to a mental picture-like representation of a dalmatian (a sense-datum), introspection of which reveals to me both its content and its intrinsic, non-representational features (counterparts to the visual features of the blobs of paint on the canvas). These intrinsic, non-representational features have been taken by advocates of the sense-datum theory to be the sole determinants of what it is like for me to have the experience. In a second, more restricted sense of the term ‘qualia’, then, qualia are intrinsic, consciously accessible, non-representational features of sense-data and other non-physical phenomenal objects that are responsible for their phenomenal character. Historically, the term ‘qualia’ was first used in connection with the sense-datum theory by C.I. Lewis in 1929. As Lewis used the term, qualia were properties of sense-data themselves.

(3) Qualia as intrinsic non-representational properties. There is another established sense of the term ‘qualia’, which is similar to the one just given but which does not demand of qualia advocates that they endorse the sense-datum theory. However sensory experiences are ultimately analyzed — whether, for example, they are taken to involve relations to sensory objects or they are identified with neural events or they are held to be physically irreducible events — many philosophers suppose that they have intrinsic, consciously accessible features that are non-representational and that are solely responsible for their phenomenal character. These features, whatever their ultimate nature, physical or non-physical, are often dubbed ‘qualia’.

In the case of visual experiences, for example, it is frequently supposed that there is a range of visual qualia, where these are taken to be intrinsic features of visual experiences that (a) are accessible to introspection, (b) can vary without any variation in the representational contents of the experiences, (c) are mental counterparts to some directly visible properties of objects (e.g., color), and (d) are the sole determinants of the phenomenal character of the experiences. This usage of ‘qualia’ has become perhaps the most common one in recent years. Philosophers who hold or have held that there are qualia, in this sense of the term, include, for example, Nagel (1974), Peacocke (1983) and Block (1990).

(4) Qualia as intrinsic, nonphysical, ineffable properties. Some philosophers (e.g, Dennett 1987, 1991) use the term ‘qualia’ in a still more restricted way so that qualia are intrinsic properties of experiences that are also ineffable, nonphysical, and ‘given’ to their subjects incorrigibly (without the possibility of error). Philosophers who deny that there are qualia sometimes have in mind qualia as the term is used in this more restricted sense (or a similar one). It is also worth mentioning that sometimes the term ‘qualia’ is restricted to sensory experiences by definition, while on other occasions it is allowed that if thoughts and other such cognitive states have phenomenal character, then they also have qualia. Thus, announcements by philosophers who declare themselves opposed to qualia need to be treated with some caution. One can agree that there are no qualia in the last three senses I have explained, while still endorsing qualia in the standard first sense.

In the rest of this entry, we use the term ‘qualia’ in the very broad way I did at the beginning of the entry. So, we take it for granted that there are qualia. — SEP article

In my initialy reply, I was thinking of meaning (1), rather than Dennett's more restricted meaning (4). I consider myself a physicalist in the sense that I don't believe there is any other "substance" in the universe. My view/guess is that this issue is linguistic or perspectival, rather than substantial. However, I don't believe that the mind/body problem can be dismissed by pronouncing "there is no mind".

Adding unneeded entities also adds confusion, — Banno

Indeed.

But for my part I will maintain that nothing has been added by talking of the
first-person, qualitative aspect of the experience of eating cauliflower,
— Luke
that is not found in "how this cauliflower tastes to you, now".

SO I still find the notion of qualia oddly hollow. — Banno

Why do you expect anything to be "added"? AFAIK, "qualia" is just a term of art for any phenomenal experience, including taste. I don't believe it's meant to add anything, or refer to anything, over and above taste (or other phenomenal experience). Maybe it is troublesome for materialism/functionalism, but can it seriously be questioned whether we have taste and pain and other phenomenal first-person experiences?

Intuition pump #1: watching you eat cauliflower.
There is a way this cauliflower tastes to you right now. Well, no. the taste changes even as you eat it, even as the texture changes as you chew. — Banno

I find it odd that it's presented as "watching you eat cauliflower" (in the third person) and then going on to describe the taste and texture in the first-person. How do you know what the taste and texture of cauliflower is like, or that it changes, by watching someone else eat?

Anyway, even if there is a particular taste and texture of cauliflower at time t, and a different taste and texture of cauliflower at time t', then Dennett (or Banno?) has already acknowledged the first-person, qualitative aspect of the experience of eating cauliflower, which they are apparently seeking to deny.

The only thing I think rocks have is whatever's left after that is accounted for, which gets called "phenomenal consciousness", but I think has nothing to do with consciousness in the ordinary sense of the word, and is something that is just a fundamental part of what it means for anything to exist: the capacity to receive input from other things, not just to act upon other things. — Pfhorrest

Maybe that's the only way you're able to make sense of it, or to make it fit with your worldview, but that's not what phenomenal consciousness means.

On my account, a rock with phenomenal consciousness is just an ordinary rock, and a rock without phenomenal consciousness would thereby cease to exist, or else be some kind of phantom rock that’s unresponsive to anything that’s done to it. — Pfhorrest

On your account, then, phenomenal consciousness is simply physical existence? So, p-zombies are functionally identical to humans except they lack...physical existence? That's a very broad take on phenomenal consciousness.

It seems to me like you just can't manage to separate the concepts of access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. Those things you list are all functional, access-consciousness things. And that is what I think consciousness in the ordinary sense of the word is all about.

Phenomenal consciousness is just some philosophical nitpicking that's completely beside all of that. — Pfhorrest

And you can't seem to separate the concepts of phenomenal consciousness and physical existence. Phenomenal consciousness is about what it is like to have a particular experience from a first-person perspective. There is no qualitative aspect of experience (or qualia) for a rock. Unless rocks are somehow conscious - in the normal sense of that word (which is not synonymous with bare existence) - then there is nothing it is like to be a rock. Rocks don't have any awareness of their experience or any first-person perspective, so there is no "what it is like" for a rock (e.g. from a rock's perspective). At least, rocks certainly don't exhibit any perspective or awareness that is typically associated with, and often defined as, consciousness.

In what sense does a philosophical zombie lack phenomenal consciousness even though it functionally has perception, memory, feelings, thoughts, dreams, etc? — Pfhorrest

Besides by definition, you mean? You tell me. You're the one claiming that the difference between having and lacking phenomenal consciousness is tiny and trivial. I consider the difference to be non-trivial.

The point is that the difference between a rock without phenomenal consciousness and a rock with phenomenal consciousness is tiny — Pfhorrest

Can you state what this difference is? You've told us that the difference is not "any perception, memory, feelings, thoughts, dreams, anything like that”, but this is exactly the type of thing that I would say that phenomenal consciousness is. So, what does a rock with phenomenal consciousness have that a rock without phenomenal consciousness doesn't?

On my account, the only way something could possibly lack phenomenal consciousness would be if it received no input at all -- in which case, not only could it not do all the mental things humans do, but it would effectively vanish from existence, no longer interacting via any of the physical forces. — Pfhorrest

Aren't you conflating phenomenal consciousness with physics more generally?

I think we already agree that humans and zombies are functionally equivalent but that zombies lack phenomenal consciousness...
— Luke

Not because such circumstances are actually possible, but rather simply because we can assert that they are. — creativesoul

Because that’s how philosophical zombies are defined.

Because in comparison to all of the functional differences between a human and a rock, that difference between a human and a zombie is tiny. — Pfhorrest

Yet this tiny, trivial difference leads you to believe that zombies cannot exist.

Take the concept of a rock without phenomenal consciousness. Now add the concept of phenomenal consciousness to it and you still have... a rock. Nothing really notable has changed: it doesn’t have any perception, memory, feelings, thoughts, dreams, anything like that. — Pfhorrest

Then in what sense have you “added” phenomenal consciousness to a rock? In what sense does it have phenomenal consciousness at all if it “doesn’t have any perception, memory, feelings, thoughts, dreams, anything like that”?

Now take that original rock without phenomenal consciousness concept, and make all of the many, many, many changes it would take to instead have a concept of a philosophical zombie: you have to build up the chemical processes needed to built the cellular processed needed to build the biological processes needed to build the neurological processes needed to convincingly “pretend” all of the perception, memory, feelings, thoughts, dreams, etc, of a human being.

Take the concept of the rock with phenomenal consciousness and make all those same many changes to it, and you now have the concept of a real human.

Take that real human and somehow make that functionality “just pretend“, and you’re back to a philosophy zombie. — Pfhorrest

I think we already agree that humans and zombies are functionally equivalent but that zombies lack phenomenal consciousness, so I’m not sure of your point here. Is it that there’s a large functional difference between rocks and humans? I don’t see how it’s relevant to phenomenal consciousness.

A philosophical zombie has sense organs and can use them in all the ways a real human can, they just don't “really experience” using them. — Pfhorrest

The only way I can make sense of this is if you think that our phenomenal consciousness has no causal influence, or that it is an unnecessary appendage to human function. In that case, why do you believe that zombies cannot exist?

A rock doesn’t have a brain to be active, so it can’t experience what it’s like to have that kind of brain activity. But it can experience what it’s like to be a rock, which is... not much. — Pfhorrest

Not much or nothing? It makes all the difference between having and not having phenomenal consciousness.

It's that actually experiencing the things that we do that makes a humans different from a zombie. — Pfhorrest

Right, so why do you consider “actually experiencing the things that we do” to be trivial?

I don't think rocks can see, or taste, or smell, or anything like that, because they don't actually do the things that humans do when we see, taste, smell, etc. But I think a rock has the same capacity to experience what it does that humans have — Pfhorrest

We might say that humans have the capacity to perceive and experience the world because we have - among other things - sensory organs. What gives rocks “the same capacity to experience what it does”?

A rock just doesn't really do much, so there isn't really much there to experience. Its experience is as trivial as its behavior, but just as its behavior is technically there, just in a super pedantic sense, so too is its experience. — Pfhorrest

I’m not sure whether you’re just conflating a rock’s (outward) behaviour with its experience here, but I doubt that you are talking about a rock’s perceptions, or that ‘inner’ perspective which distinguishes humans from zombies. If you think a rock has this, then please explain why.

In that case, I fail to understand why you consider it trivial. Having a perspective on the world via sight, sound and touch; being able to taste strawberries and smell perfumes. These things are far from trivial to me.

What reason do you have to assume that rocks might have this same kind of first-person experience? And how might a zombie conceivably function without them?

The trivial thing that zombies still lack, after all of their functionality that gives every appearance of them being conscious to a 3rd person observer has already been accounted for. — Pfhorrest

What is this “trivial thing”? It is an absence of inner experience. You even refer to it as a “lack” of something. How can you ascribe this as some sort of positive quality to everything? The first-person experience which you define as being synonymous with phenomenal experience is the thing humans have that zombies do not have, by definition. You seem to be trying to ascribe this lack of phenomenal consciousness to everything and calling it panpsychism. This is the antithesis of panpsychism.

Which requires that they have brains and sense organs that function just the same as ours, and so can “see”, “hear”, etc, in every functional way — a zombie could explain over the phone a scene it is witnessing, for example. The only thing lacking is whether they “really experience” all of those fully functional senses. That is the trivial difference that I ascribe to everything. — Pfhorrest

Zombies have no inner experience or phenomenal consciousness, by definition. What is it you think you are ascribing to everything? The absence of phenomenal consciousness?

Phenomenal conscious is not about minds in the usual sense, it’s about whatever it is that zombies indistinguishable from humans in the third person could supposedly lack. A zombie world have a mind in the ordinary sense: it would say it has a mind and report on its contents just like you do.

That difference between behaving in every way like a human and actually having the same experience as a human is just having a first-person perspective correlating with its behavior. I think that’s such a trivial thing to ask for that it can even be ascribed to rocks, so it’s not actually conceivable that something otherwise indistinguishable from a human would somehow lack it. — Pfhorrest

That's not how I understand it. Zombies lack our first-person experience of the world in the non-trivial sense: they lack the sense experiences normal humans have of sight, sound, taste, etc, but they outwardly act the same as humans. It seems that you want to diminish these experiences to almost nothingness in order to accomodate zombies and rocks being able to have them. You don't need to do that. Simply say that zombies can't be without sense experiences (in the non-trivial sense) because it's incoherent that a zombie could outwardly act the same while having no sense experiences. This will save you ascribing your diluted notion of first-person experience to rocks.

Or else we are zombies ourselves (which eliminativists would say), but yes basically. — Pfhorrest

Why can't phenomenal consciousness emerge weakly?

I only say it's incoherent because I hold that you can't have something without a first-person perspective, and the first-person perspective of anything matches its third-person-observable function, so any "zombie" that's functionally identical to a human must have the same experience as a human and so not actually be a zombie. — Pfhorrest

Yes, which I consider to be a better response than resorting to the extreme position of panpsychism.

I did clarify in the OP that my view is specifically pan-proto-experientialism, and not the old-fashioned kind of panpsychism. It's pan"psych"ism about phenomenal "consciousness", which I hold is just the prototypical capacity for experience, not fully fledged actual mind/psyche/consciousness in the usual sense. — Pfhorrest

I don't see what this has to do with phenomenal consciousness or minds in the usual sense, so it seems irrelevant to philosophy of mind.

Other philosophers talk about "mind" in that other sense though, the sense I think is trivial and not the usual sense, and they seem to find plenty of traction with lay people. — Pfhorrest

Is this the same sense of "mind" you are talking about when you say that a rock has a first-person perspective? Which philosophers talk about "mind" in this other sense?

No, I claim that strong emergence is like magic, and so impossible.

So phenomenal consciousness (like anything else) cannot strongly emerge.

But if it emerges at all, it must emerge strongly, by the way it is defined (as something that no combination of the ordinary behavior of physical stuff can equate to, and therefore not something that can weakly emerge from ordinary physical stuff that completely lacks anything like it).

Therefore it must not emerge at all.

So either it does not exist at all (and we ourselves are zombies), or else it is omnipresent.

We are not zombies, so it must be omnipresent. — Pfhorrest

The only two options for phenomenal consciousness are either strong emergence (i.e. magic/supernatural, so impossible) or else panpsychism? Surely there's another option.

They talk about the concept of philosophical zombies who behave in every way like a human, so there's nothing behavioral, no test we can do from the third person, to tell if they are zombies. They say these things that certainly act in every way like they have minds could conceivable lack "minds", in the sense of lacking a first-person perspective: though from the outside they seem exactly like humans, from the inside nothing seems like anything because there is no seeming-from-the-inside to them.

And I just say that there's a seeming-from-the-inside (a first person perspective) to anything, and that's completely trivial and nothing special at all for most things, because most things don't have any complicated sensory apparatuses and interpretive intelligence and reflexive awareness and control, and those are the things that make our first-person perspective interesting the way it is. — Pfhorrest

I don't follow your leap in reasoning from your first paragraph to your second. Wouldn't a better response be - as you say elsewhere - that the idea of p-zombies is simply incoherent?

Why take the extreme position that everything must have a first-person perspective? I view this as diminishing the usual meaning of the word "mind" to the point that it evaporates entirely. You are no longer talking about the "mind" at that point (in the non-trivial sense), because not everything has one, unless you are a panpsychist. Correct me if I misunderstand you, but I think your position is not that everything has a mind - according to the usual meaning of the word "mind". And therefore, you also aren't using the word "panpsychism" in its typical sense, which I understand to mean that everything does have a mind - according to the usual meaning of the word "mind".

What I don't get (and I think this is Luke's question as well). Is why you're concerned about a metaphysical construct emerging out of nowhere. It has no implications for physicalism at all. — Isaac

Yes, I agree about the (lack of) implications for physicalism.

The issue of weak vs strong is precisely the issue, so we can't leave it aside. Well, strong vs weak, and access vs phenomenal consciousness.

I think access consciousness does emerge, weakly. And the specific content of our phenomenal consciousness emerges, weakly, along with it.

The mere having of any phenomenal consciousness at all is the kind of thing that, by the way it's defined, could only emerge strongly. And strong emergence is like magic, so a no go. — Pfhorrest

I still don’t understand why you prefer panpsychism to emergentism.

Also, you claim that phenomenal consciousness can "only emerge strongly" and is "like magic", so is impossible. Yet, you also define phenomenal consciousness as having a first-person perspective. Having a first-person perspective is impossible?

everything has a first-person perspective — Pfhorrest

I think you are defining “first-person perspective” in such a way that it has nothing to do with minds.

And between magic happening, us being zombies, or everything “having a mind” in some trivial way that has no bearing on their function in the real world, the last seems least absurd. — Pfhorrest

Why do you prefer panpsychism to emergentism (leaving aside the issue of weak vs strong)?

It’s been so long since I read any philosophy of mind that I’d actually forgotten p-zombies were intended as an argument against physicalism.

Anyway, I’d almost lost sight of my original reason for wanting to post here, which was to ask you: what reason is there to attribute minds or experience to things, such as rocks, that show absolutely no signs of having minds or experience?

If it could happen without “magic”, that would mean it was something that could be built up from non-conscious processes, and so would not be whatever the supposed difference is between a philosophical zombie and a real person. — Pfhorrest

Edit: Yes, I see.

Take whatever the supposed difference is between a real human and a philosophical zombie. On my account, everything has that. Because the alternative is either that nothing has that, and we're all zombies; or that some magic happens such that that only we have that, and other things don't. — Pfhorrest

Isn’t the third alternative that only we (or things like us) have that, but without some magic happening?

ideas don't exist if nobody ever thinks of them.
— Luke

I have repeatedly asked you to provide justification for that unsubstantiated claim, and you have repeatedly repeated it without giving any justification whatsoever. — Tristan L

Simply look up the word "idea" in the dictionary. But perhaps you think that what we call ideas aren't ideas at all.

Yes, if a fact about x actually exists (which it does), or if a false or undetermined proposition about x actually exists (which it also does), then x actually exists. I don’t see where the problem lies. I can perfectly maintain a distinction between info and propo. Can you?

By your logic, if my broken leg possibly exists, then my broken leg actually exists
— Luke

No; “Luke’s broken leg” in not a technically right noun-phrase. On the other hand, “that Luke’s leg is broken” is a right name-phrase, and it refers to the proposition that Luke’s leg is broken. This proposition actually exists, though it is false. Its negation, the proposition that Luke’s leg isn’t broken, also exists, but is true. Aren’t you mixing truth up with actual existence again? — Tristan L

All of the above implies that my broken leg actually exists. My leg isn't broken! I don't have a broken leg that could exist anywhere.

What we call “existence on Earth” isn’t existence at all; — Tristan L

"What we call existence isn't existence at all"? If you don't see a problem with this, then there's not much left to say.

Is your leg the same as the proposition that it exists? — Tristan L

No. Is a unicorn? Or a dinosaur?

I hold that actual existence belongs into both the world of the abstract and the realm of the concrete, whereas merely possible existence only belongs in the latter. — Tristan L

Merely possible existence is concrete and not abstract? I would say it's the opposite. What is abstract then?

But the fact about the physical realm expressed by “E = mc2” has always existed, regardless of whether anyone would ever think of it. — Tristan L

Unlike facts, ideas don't exist if nobody ever thinks of them.

I'm not disputing that facts about x exists. I'm disputing your assertion that facts about x exists implies that x exists.
— Luke

How can you dispute such a fundamental and obvious fact? Since the fact exists, and the connection between the fact and a thing which the fact is concerned with exists by the very wist of the fact, the thing must also exist. — Tristan L

Can you still not see the difference between a proposition and a belonging info-piece? For every person, the proposition that that person breaks a leg always exists. However, not for every person does the corresponding proposition ever become true (and in such a case, it becomes false when the person dies). — Tristan L

Except you are arguing that if facts about x (or if the possibility of x) actually exists, then x actually exists. Therefore, how can you maintain any distinction between propositions and info-pieces, or between possible existence and actual existence? By your logic, if my broken leg possibly exists, then my broken leg actually exists, and if unicorns possibly exist, then unicorns actually exist. If the possibile existence of x implies the actual existence of x, then whatever possibly exists actually exists.

Given your affirmation that the possible existence of unicorns implies the actual existence of unicorns, then how can you also maintain that "no unicorns have yet (as of 2020) evolved on Earth" and "That’s what we mean when we say that unicorns don’t exist on Earth"? If unicorns don't exist on Earth, then they don't actually exist, right? And if they don't actually exist, then you can't affirm (without contradiction) that their actual existence is implied by their possible existence.

Please tell me, if unicorns don't exist on Earth, then what type of existence do they lack if it is not actual existence? Alternatively (or additionally), what do you mean by "the actual existence of unicorns" if not that unicorns exist on Earth?

I think the better presentation of the argument comes just after the piece you quoted - that we have eyes, and therefore we cannot see. — Banno

Yes, I agree. A presentation of the argument from the article which is even more relevant to free will might be:

We cannot know ethical truths (if there are any) except through the urgings of our back-of-brain plumbing, therefore, we cannot know ethical truths at all.

Simply replace "cannot know ethical truths" with "cannot have the ability to choose".

A few issues to iron out, though. The tree, in the sight example, and the reality described by our conceptual scheme in the second example, are in a sense external, outside of and hence distinct from the seeing and the thinking. Are our desires external, in a suitably analogous way? — Banno

I didn't think that the issue with Stove's Gem was externality, but perhaps I've misunderstood the argument. The analogy I had in mind was something more along these lines (again from the article):

But why does she believe that it is cognitively limiting? Why, for no other reason in the world, except this one: that it is ours. Everyone really understands, too, that this is the only reason. But since this reason is also generally accepted as a sufficient one, no other is felt to be needed.

And just as "all there is to them as arguments is: our conceptual schemes are our conceptual schemes, so, we cannot get out of them (to know things as they are in themselves)", so too, our will and our ability to choose is ours, so we cannot get out of it (to choose "in itself", or to be able to choose our ability to choose, i.e., the choice from nowhere).

There was a fellow who said that free will and desire are incompatible. Further, that freedom is - means - freedom to do one's duty under direction of reason. But he was Prussian. — tim wood

I assume you mean Kant. I'm surprised that he would say that free will and desire are incompatible. In what sense incompatible? Do you have a reference?