Looking for an answer to the questions posed... that's all.

...but such a description, however complete, will leave out the subjective essence of the experience – how it is from the point of view of its subject — without which it would not be a conscious experience at all....

...What noun does the pronoun "it" replace in the last part above, particularly the last two instances of it's use? What does the pronoun refer to? What singular entity does that pronoun pick out to the exclusion of all else? — creativesoul

The physical sciences can describe organisms like ourselves as parts of the objective spatio-temporal order – our structure and behavior in space and time – but they cannot describe the subjective experiences of such organisms or how the world appears to their different particular points of view. There can be a purely physical description of the neurophysiological processes that give rise to an experience, and also of the physical behavior that is typically associated with it, but such a description, however complete, will leave out the subjective essence of the experience – how it is from the point of view of its subject — without which it would not be a conscious experience at all.

A prima facie example of a problem created by language use. The above basically says that...

The subjective essence of conscious experience equals and/or amounts to "how 'it' is" from the point of view of conscious experience's subject.

:brow:

Conscious experience is not the sort of thing that has the uniqueness of individual points of view as it's subject unless it is a conscious experience of talking in such terms.

Furthermore...

What noun does the pronoun "it" replace in the last part above, particularly the last two instances of it's use? What does the pronoun refer to? What singular entity does that pronoun pick out to the exclusion of all else?

I submit for your esteemed consideration, we cannot use reason to acquire knowledge of consciousness, because reason invented it.

In order for that to be true, invention must not be a conscious experience and/or process.

The same intrinsic circularity is patently inevitable.

Nature of the beast. — Mww

Yep. That's where a major disagreement between you and I seems to be. We've discussed that at length in past, but as it pertains to conscious experience, could you explain how we cannot use reason to acquire knowledge of our own conscious experience?

Why, or how is it fait accompli?

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. — khaled

Sigh...

...the way you use "experiences" is nearly identical to the way people use "qualia". — khaled

If you believe that, then you clearly do not understand much of what I've said, and until I have reason to believe that you do, there's no reason for me to continue our discussion, for it seems to have been a waste of time. Hopefully some other reader gets something out of it. Best, of course, if you do...

Respectfully, be well.

:smile:

What problem?

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

Yeah, but as Luke in this thread (and Chalmers elsewhere) have pointed out, it doesn't explain why any physical system would be conscious. — Marchesk

Chalmers' "what it's like" rendering is an untenable and rather ill-informed approach. I've argued that at length on this very forum. There is no such singular thing as "what it's like" to be human.

Our conscious experience(being human) is an ongoing process that is directly and indirectly influenced by, and consisting of, all sorts of different things all the time. It is an autonomous process, one of which we have little to no control over, to very large degree. That said, each and every moment of our lives counts as "what it's like to be human", and this alone poses a huge problem, obviously enough I would hope, for anyone who aims at defining "what it's like to be human", for being human is not like any single excised duration within our lives. It's exactly like all of them, but they are each respectively different. Thus, the notion is incoherent at best. It's untenable. Our conscious experience consists of all moments during our lives, and each and every duration is unlike the rest for each and every one consists of some elements that the others do not. Being human is all of them.

Moreover, to labor the point by introducing changes in our thought and belief systems, because the way we think about what's happening changes over time(along with changes in our belief system) and the way we think about things affects/effects conscious experience, even our experiences involving the same sorts of things changes over time as well, despite the recurrence of some of the elements.

Drinking Maxwell House at time t1 is a much different experience than drinking Maxwell House at time t20,000 if along the way one gradually begins to enjoy the experience less and less unbeknownst to themselves at first. This will certainly happen as a result of the taster drinking 100% Kona coffee freshly ground and prepared with a French press at some time during their lives, and then continuing to drink Kona coffee more and more afterwards. We can replace Kona coffee and the preparation process with any other, and the point holds.

All of this places the notion of "what it's like to be a human" under rightful suspicion regarding it's ability to even provide an outline for our conscious experience, for what coffee tasting is like at time t1 is not what coffee tasting is like at time t20,000, even without the introduction of Kona coffee. The very same issues arise with any and all conscious experiences of 'X' at different times. Variables fundamentally change the experience.

Our understanding of physics would not predict this if we weren't already conscious. — Marchesk

This seems irrelevant to me, although I'd be happy to entertain an argument for how it is.

Some folk hereabouts seem to think that we cannot acquire knowledge of our own conscious experience, simply because we must use it as a means for doing so. They've adopted this fait accompli attitude about the subject. There's a similar vein of thought pervading philosophy of language and 'getting beneath language'. I've found that that's not an insurmountable problem at all, actually, in either respect. The method of approach matters most in such metacognitive endeavors, and that method must include adequate minimal(universal) standards and criterions which must be determined first and satisfied accordingly throughout the endeavor.

Unfortunately, attention spans are required, and seem to be lacking...

It's really no different(roughly speaking) than acquiring knowledge about anything that exists(existed) in it's entirety prior to our awareness and/or subsequent accounting practices of it. Conscious experience is one such thing.

A nervous system wouldn't fundamentally be different than a computer with input devices, in that regard. — Marchesk

This breaches another topic, but perhaps it's worth touching upon...

On my view, nervous systems aren't fundamentally conscious. They are most certainly fundamentally different than computers. I would not even go as far as to say that a human being is fundamentally conscious, at least not from the moment of conception through the first completely autonomous correlation drawn between different things.

This skirts around the issue of where to 'draw the line', so to speak, which again harks back to the aforementioned criteria.

Why do we see colors and feel pain when no other physical system does this, far as we can tell? What would it take for a robot to do so? Did Noonien Soong sliip a qualia chip into Data's positronic brain? — Marchesk

Animals do. They are physical systems, in part at least, just like we are.

What would it take for a robot to see colors and feel pain? Probably biological machinery capable of doing so. At least, that's my guess.

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? — khaled

What problem?

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

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.

Throws the same thing at khaled...

The same experience is not caused by the same brain... Thus, the variation cancels out. 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. But so what? No one is asking for a complete explanation of the red apple being one component of many in the conscious experience of seeing a red apple(or being hit in the arse with it).

The connection between this "internal" experience and the "external" world is consequently mysterious.
— Andrew M

Loosely speaking, 'the connection' is the experience, on my view.

It consists of both internal and external, physical and non physical, subjective and objective. The problem I seem to see is that both sides miss this. Experience is neither objective, nor subjective; neither internal nor external; neither physical nor non physical...

It is both.
— creativesoul

Or neither — Andrew M

Yes. Erring on the side of neither dispenses with the inherently inadequate dichotomies altogether.

I think the divisions themselves, as understood in their Cartesian sense, are misleading and unnecessary. They don't arise in normal communication — Andrew M

However, I'm hesitant if all experience has internal and external components, physical and non physical components; something to be connected and a creature capable of making connections, where the connections are the neither part but that which is being connected is one or the other(or both in the case of metacognitive endeavors).

So, while the subjective/objective dichotomy can be thrown out simply by granting subjectivism in it's entirety, I'm wondering about whether or not the internal/external and physical/non physical dichotomies can be equally dispensed with.

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... — khaled

Non sequitur. That doesn't follow from anything I've said here. What are you talking about? I've not said anything at all about caring 'why' the components of conscious experience exist. I'm talking about how it happens. There's a significant bit of irony here, given that you're misattributing meaning to my words, and the attribution of meaning is itself the emergence of conscious experience... it's the how part.

Your belief is not required here, so you do not have to think so. You're perfectly within your rights to think otherwise.

"Phenomenology" is the name of a certain philosophical school of thought. That school of thought had/has as it's target something that existed in it's entirety prior to our reports of it:human conscious experience.

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.

...spooky emergentism. — Marchesk

Why do you say that emergentism is 'spooky'?

Do you expect conscious experience to just pop into existence ex nihilo style? Does it still seem magical to you? It's not the least bit mysterious, magical, or spooky to me.

The connection between this "internal" experience and the "external" world is consequently mysterious. — Andrew M

Loosely speaking, 'the connection' is the experience, on my view.

It consists of both internal and external, physical and non physical, subjective and objective. The problem I seem to see is that both sides miss this. Experience is neither objective, nor subjective; neither internal nor external; neither physical nor non physical...

It is both.

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. — khaled

You implied that it was necessary(for some reason unbeknownst to me) that my position explain phenomenology. I mean, I certainly can, but a better explanation of conscious experience does not require explaining a different explanation of conscious experience. Weird thing is that I believe I've given you more than enough to piece together as an explanation of phenomenology as well as conscious experience...

Phenomenology is a philosophical position that aims to explain conscious experience. It is an explanation. I find it overcomplicated. There's no need to use the framework to explain anything. Everything about conscious experience can be better explained without using a phenomenological framework. This has been done throughout this thread by those arguing against "qualia".

By the way, you're committing an equivocation fallacy with the word qualia. That's a nice way to say that your position has led to incoherency and/or self-contradiction. Banno has also noted the continual changes in your position.

Ockham's razor applies.
— creativesoul

I don't think it does. How do you explain the phenomenology otherwise? — khaled

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

...the concept of experience... — frank

What's that?

Wonder if ducks and rabbits have such a thing? Seems to me that they do not. And yet, they most certainly have conscious experiences.

Neittz also suggested that the natural environment may not have sufficient hues of colours to harness the full potentials of tetrachromatic vision. He said that people with four cones may be helped to develop full tetrachromatic vision if they regularly visit a lab where they are exposed to vision experiences that will help then develop the cognitive skills to identify a richer variety of hues.

Is there a mantis shrimp being consulted?

It's experience, Janus. It's not complicated. — frank

The understatement of the century.

I want to instead ask, what's the problem with introducing that layer anyways, even if we don't need to... — khaled

Ockham's razor applies.

knowledge of the biological machinery doesn’t allow us to know how the cup appears to people — khaled

That's not true either. It tells us much about the autonomous involuntary aspects of all conscious experience of red cups, including whether or not the color matters to the creature.

I think all Dennett wanted to do was shift the burden of proof (which is usually supposed to be on him). — frank

And teach/learn from past mistakes...

What I should have said was...

What qualia?

Or to put it another way, even if we dispense with the notion of qualia, consciousness still poses a problem for physicalism, becuase those colors and pains are simply absent from any biological, chemical or physical explanation of the mechanisms behind conscious experience (as best we understand them). — Marchesk

Those colors and pains are absent from ALL explanations.

I haven't seen a good explanation for what consciousness is... — Marchesk

The ability to attribute meaning.

I'll get to your recent comments, but my replies require a bit of paving, so...

...conscious experience of seeing red cups requires the capability of seeing red cups, and that all the evidence suggests that biological machinery plays an irrevocable role in helping to provide that capability.
— creativesoul

Do you agree? — creativesoul

Yes — khaled

What you said doesn’t contradict what I said. — khaled

But it does, for it contradicts this...

We don’t know the connection the biological machinery has to the experience...

The connection is one of existential dependency and elemental constituency. Without biological machinery there is no conscious experience of seeing red cups; however differently they may appear to each individual.

Not interested.
— creativesoul

Ok. I take it you didn't really have a point to make there. — frank

Well, that's one way to take it.

Not interested.

Are you implying the need for omniscience?

:worry:

What does that have to do with our knowing that conscious experience of seeing red cups requires red cups and a creature capable of seeing red cups, and that that capability itself requires biological machinery?

It has to do with the claim that we do not know what connection biological machinery has to conscious experience of seeing red cups. We most certainly do know that biological machinery plays an irrevocable role, wouldn't you say?

I'll get to your recent comments, but my replies require a bit of paving, so...

...conscious experience of seeing red cups requires the capability of seeing red cups, and that all the evidence suggests that biological machinery plays an irrevocable role in helping to provide that capability. — creativesoul

Do you agree?

phenomenonological — Isaac

I found the extra "non" a bit amusing...

Why invoke "qualia" here? What does it add that "footage" lacks?
— creativesoul

Qualia IS the footage. — khaled

So what is the camera?

If you want me to like you, try to improve, occupy the post of intellectual and spiritual dignity given to you by God, do not despise what is superior to you and you will not be despised either”. This is a missing element in American culture. — Rafaella Leon

To quite the contrary, it's an overwhelmingly popular element in American culture to judge(devalue) another based upon one's own religious beliefs. Problems readily occur when the judge discriminates based upon their own religious belief, particularly in cases where they wield some sort of power over the others' lives and/or livelihoods, or when the judge is otherwise supposed to be providing some good or service to them...

It's not missing at all. Rather, it's resulted in deeply embedded discrimination practices.

An explanation of the underlying biological machinery doesn’t help here. Because we don’t know what connection the biological machinery has to the experience. — khaled

I know that the conscious experience of seeing red cups requires the capability of seeing red cups, and that all the evidence suggests that biological machinery plays an irrevocable role in helping to provide that capability.

What has convinced you to believe otherwise?

Do you agree that all conscious experience of seeing red cups includes red cups?

He's explained to me how people see things like 3 times now. — khaled

To his credit.

And every time I ask what that has to do with anything. How does an explanation of how the camera works imply that the footage on said camera (qualia, metaphorically) doesn't exist?

Why invoke "qualia" here? What does it add that "footage" lacks?

How so?

Creative's doing a fine job of keeping the candle of wisdom alight. — Banno

Thanks, but from my vantage point it seems like some language use just whirls people so far away from red cups that the language itself is no longer connected to anything aside from itself and it's user.

He's explaining how the 'camera' works 'inside all of our heads'(the biological machinery - 'private' - aspect of experience)
— creativesoul

And I still don't see what that has to do with anything. — khaled

It has everything to do with the privacy aspect of conscious experience that we've been touching upon.

Earlier, with me, you invoked the idea that because we cannot take a screen shot of what another is seeing during an experience of seeing red cups, that we cannot know what they experience when doing so. We've agreed since, I think, that despite that, we can still - at the very least - know that they're seeing red cups, however red cups appear to the individual. Hence, variation in biological machinery does not impede our ability to know some things about another's experience. If we can know some things about another's experience, then it is not private.

Our personal and idiosyncratic capacity to respond to red cups is the extent of the privacy aspect of seeing red cups. That capacity includes the individual's own biological machinery as well as their skill with common language use. We've spoken about the language aspect(the use of which is a part of some conscious experience of red cups), Isaac is a good resource for the biological machinery aspect.

Now you're saying instead that (a bitter) taste is "associating the concept with it". What is "it"? — Luke

The involuntary biological response.

A parrot doesn't understand what a shark is because he learns to use it in one sentence such as "Sharks swim in the sea". And if your definition of "understanding" means that that parrot knows what a shark is I think it's ridiculous, even while recognizing that that parrot did in fact use the word correctly. — khaled

Making the same sound as "shark" is not equivalent to correct use of the term. Parrots may make the sound, but correct word use requires a bit more.