Consciousness

[untermensche]

...It observers (sic)...

You can call consciousness the brain and claim the brain observes but that doesn't make it so.

I observe, not the brain.

The brain is that which allows me to observe.

 

[Speakpigeon]

OK? If one studies the organization of sensation, perception, and translation of those to articulated constructs of experience (what one is actually doing) one observing oneself as a conscious being is seeing red. It is not of consciousness, that is a construct set up in which to house what one articulates as having observed. One is not just observing 'color' one is observing the result of processing lots of data in what was sensed grouped to the point of being able to articulate an attribute of what was sensed and perceived, that attribute articulated is what you call qualia. Simplifying, if I set up an experiment where EM energy of about 650 nm is projected on the center of a white surface all else being dark. The observer without hesitation responds I see red. Actually he has seen the darkness, the white sheet before, during and after the EM was projected on the center of the surface. What you have been yammering about as qualia red is the result of the brain completing that complex perceptual activity with the set of of reporting one aspect , one attribute, of that complex. So what you call qualia is no more primitive than anything else, it is the output of the brain processing and instancing a report of red attribute from what has been seen. The process I went through to come to the first experiment represents my knowledge of what the brain does when it processes color. If there is a qualia it is of a red dot in the center of the white surface directly in front o him in the dark arena. Your construct is built on personal fluff. If I could choose to reject anything else from the situation and expect only the color red to be seen and processed b y the observer, even then, I would have to take into account where it is, how bright it is, and in what context it resides at the time I experience it. You wave all that away with the assertion it is a qualia. You are not saying anything.

It's not quite true that we talk past each other.

I'm a hundred percent rationalist person and I understand what you are talking about.

You on the other hand don't appear to understand what I and others are talking about.

Maybe you just pretend. It's in fact likely that you just want to deny the reality of qualia because you just don't know how to explain them in materialist terms. It's a small-minded reaction but it seems consistent with how you often treat people who disagree with you. Or possibly, you effectively don't understand the notion of qualia. It's not impossible but I'd say less likely. Maybe you're just not very bright. I've seen people in my life who would argue along ideological lines and it made them look invariably stupid. And this would be consistent with my experience of discussing pretty much anything on this forum.

I accept that qualia are probably not repeatable. However, this should be no obstacle. Presumably, and certainly if the materialist paradigm is correct, if one human being experiences qualia we should all experience qualia. It doesn't matter that they're not repeatable. What matters is that we probably all experience qualia and normally intelligent people should all recognise them for what they are, especially once it is explained to them. So although I accept that we probably can't do any science on qualia, you as individual human beings should be able to recognise for yourself that you do experience qualia. Instead, you just pretend it doesn't exist (or just ignore what I say and deliberately give a different meaning to the notion of qualia and subjective experience).

So, it seems quite likely that your attitude is deliberate. You just don't know how to explain qualia within the materialist paradigm and accepting qualia as real would be a major contradiction to your system of thought.

It's also probably a factor that many of you have been all their lives paid as scientists. Being a professional is in many ways like being in the priesthood or a member of a revolutionary party. You have emotional ties to the community and you're unlikely to consider lightly breaking ranks as a good idea.

Nearly all human beings are much less intelligent than is often suggested. Very few people ever offer any novel idea. Scientists, like most intellectuals since WWII, have been mass-produced and most work in teams. The links to the community of fellow scientists are very strong. This is what allow them to progress. Mostly it's crossing the t's and dotting the i's precisely because there are to few bright ideas being proposed. But you only need a bright idea once in a while and then you can run on it for a century. You learn the tricks of the trade, you apply what you've learn and you fail to find any new bright idea but you're still paid as a scientist because it's good enough for the system. So while we can only be impressed by the accumulated knowledge, there's really no reason to be impressed by most scientists. Those interviewed on radio or writing in the press don't seem to have understood much beyond their speciality. They are intellectual workers. They don't even have to be overly inquisitive by nature. They don't need to be bright. So it shouldn't come as a surprise to get the reaction we have here. But it doesn't make it any less annoying. They are truly like the bureaucrats of science. It's the minimal service. If they were in a McDonald they would be fired.

There's also the inconsistencies in your message. Over the years, I could see how you evolved in spite of yourselves and it's revelatory. So I tend to see the situation as a dogmatic denial, motivated by an inability to explain what is said to exist within the framework of the dogma. Human beings avoid contradictions, one of them like to say.
EB

 

[DBT]

I am not the one making claims like this, your most recent rehash of rubbish in Bilby's thread: ''I don't know about you but my body moves at my command. I "will" my arm to move and it does.'' - Untermesche.

It is a fact.

It is the fact of your experience. What you ignore is how your experience is being formed and generated, ie, by brain agency. If that fails, you have no abilities whatsoever, you cannot will your arm to move, you cannot act.

You are and you do whatever the brain happens to be shaping, forming and generating.

The question of course is: What is "will"?

Maybe you could offer your explanation on what it is?

 

[Speakpigeon]

Again I don't see any reason that the subject and the experience should have to be distinct from each other...

How could you have a detector of anything unless that which detects is distinct from what it detects?

If there is no distinction how is there detection?

<snip>

What you don't seem to understand is that the words you choose for expressing your views can also ensnare you into a stupid logical trap. Your post here is typical of that. Once you choose to use the word "detector" to talk about subjective experience then you're going to feel that there's necessarily a detector and what is detected, and that the two have to be distinct.

I use liberally the expression "subjective experience" and of course it suggests straightforwardly that there is a subject and that it is distinct from what is experienced. But I'm no ayatollah about vocabulary because I understand that what I express is premised on my initial choice of words and that is to some extent arbitrary and can sometime be unfortunate.

You on the other hand, you seem to think like a machine and machines are typically formal in principle. Symbols are all that exist for a machine. The reality supposedly described by words just fade away and disappear behind the words. And you typically call on logic to validate your point.That's what is called being "literal minded".

You are doing this all the time, one thread about infinity being a stark reminder of that. You forget that what matters are the ideas, not the words. The words are there to try to convey ideas. It's no use arguing from words and logic won't save you. You have to get to the ideas behind the words.

And you're definitely not going to convince anyone, ever, if you keep doing this.

But that's your choice.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

The brain -- the neurology, actually -- creates the quale of color.

That may be what you and I believe, but that's not something you actually know.

Why? Because it was useful to us.
How? Through processing signals from the eyes to a part of the brain.

But your red may not be my red and no one could ever know. I suspect that it is at least quite similar for us, both being human and all. I suspect a bat experiencing the world through echolocation does not see red through that experience. Perhaps its eyes can and do see the same red as us because they, too, are mammals.

So, what's the problem. I know what the experience of seeing red is. That same experience can be artificially generated with no red light in evidence by poking at the brain.
Someone with a cochlear implant reports that they experience sound differently than before.
I can no longer locate a sound in space. I am deaf in one ear. If I had a cochlear implant I might be able to again. I was able to locate the source of sound when I was 6. That quality of knowing the location of sound is no longer available to me. The neurology generates the knowledge of the location of sound -- a quale.

So now we agree. The neurology generates all first person experience as a result of neural activity. Part of the neurology activates another part of the neurology and the experience of the color red is the result. Is there a mystery here? If so, what is it?

Yes, there's a mystery, and it is that you seem to think you've explained anything here when in fact you're just repeating yourself again and again.

What we have is a correlation. There's a correlation between what the brain does and the qualia we experience.

But there is nothing new here because human beings have always known that there was a correlation between the material world and their qualia. Whether you're just watching a fire burn slowly in the hearth, contemplating dawn, listening to birds sing, hurting you pinky on a stone, whatever. People understand that or they don't, but it's always been there. There's nothing new in your argument.

All that science can do better today is to go inside the brain, presumably closer to qualia. But the principle of the correlation between the material and qualia remains strictly the same as ever.

The problem is that correlation in itself does not tell us what qualia are in physical terms. Qualia are not anything like sets of elementary particles, patches of electromagnetic fields, quantities of energy, of matter, or some properties of any of these things.

As far as we know, qualia are not material quantities. If they are, this has yet to be demonstrated. No amount of correlation will do that job.

Just tell me what sort of material or physical things qualia are or stop pretending you can explain qualia.
EB

 

[George S]

That may be what you and I believe, but that's not something you actually know.

Why? Because it was useful to us.
How? Through processing signals from the eyes to a part of the brain.

But your red may not be my red and no one could ever know. I suspect that it is at least quite similar for us, both being human and all. I suspect a bat experiencing the world through echolocation does not see red through that experience. Perhaps its eyes can and do see the same red as us because they, too, are mammals.

So, what's the problem. I know what the experience of seeing red is. That same experience can be artificially generated with no red light in evidence by poking at the brain.
Someone with a cochlear implant reports that they experience sound differently than before.
I can no longer locate a sound in space. I am deaf in one ear. If I had a cochlear implant I might be able to again. I was able to locate the source of sound when I was 6. That quality of knowing the location of sound is no longer available to me. The neurology generates the knowledge of the location of sound -- a quale.

So now we agree. The neurology generates all first person experience as a result of neural activity. Part of the neurology activates another part of the neurology and the experience of the color red is the result. Is there a mystery here? If so, what is it?

Yes, there's a mystery, and it is that you seem to think you've explained anything here when in fact you're just repeating yourself again and again.

What we have is a correlation. There's a correlation between what the brain does and the qualia we experience.

But there is nothing new here because human beings have always known that there was a correlation between the material world and their qualia. Whether you're just watching a fire burn slowly in the hearth, contemplating dawn, listening to birds sing, hurting you pinky on a stone, whatever. People understand that or they don't, but it's always been there. There's nothing new in your argument.

All that science can do better today is to go inside the brain, presumably closer to qualia. But the principle of the correlation between the material and qualia remains strictly the same as ever.

The problem is that correlation in itself does not tell us what qualia are in physical terms. Qualia are not anything like sets of elementary particles, patches of electromagnetic fields, quantities of energy, of matter, or some properties of any of these things.

As far as we know, qualia are not material quantities. If they are, this has yet to be demonstrated. No amount of correlation will do that job.

Just tell me what sort of material or physical things qualia are or stop pretending you can explain qualia.
EB

Qualia are the neurology's reaction to certain stimuli. It is only a word. A word used to describe experience. The experience of the senses. Is experience material? It, too, is a word used to describe what it is like to be a self-aware human. What is it to be like a conscious human? I know because I am currently conscious and attempting to communicate with words.

Are ideas material? Are plans material? Are decisions material? Are dreams material? Is pi material? Is mathematics material? Is pain material? Are myths material? Are stories material? Is fear material? Is love material? Is having a point of view material?

Are ideas real? Are plans real? Are decisions real? Are dreams real? Is pi real? Is mathematics real? Is pain real? Are myths real? Are stories real? Is fear real? Is love real? Is having a point of view real?

Still I can explain that the brain generates qualia. There is not only a correlation between what the brain does and qualia, but experiments which stimulate the brain directly force that brain to generate qualia.
Qualia are like ideas, immaterial and real. They are images generated by the brain.

The book The Mind's I would be a good read for you. So might Lakoff's Philosophy in the Flesh.

Can you describe to me what you think qualia are?
Can you describe to me what you think thought is?

What is the mystery?

 

[untermensche]

It is a fact.

It is the fact of your experience. What you ignore is how your experience is being formed and generated, ie, by brain agency. If that fails, you have no abilities whatsoever, you cannot will your arm to move, you cannot act.

What I ignore are your absurd claims that you have the slightest idea how experience is formed and generated.

You don't.

Experience requires both that which can experience and the things it can experience. You don't have the slightest idea how the brain creates either. You don't even understand their necessity.

You look at brain activity you don't understand in the least and make claims you understand it.

You don't.

 

[untermensche]

How could you have a detector of anything unless that which detects is distinct from what it detects?

If there is no distinction how is there detection?

<snip>

What you don't seem to understand is that the words you choose for expressing your views can also ensnare you into a stupid logical trap.

It is a logical necessity, not a trap.

How about trying to answer the questions.

You're trying to sell me an absurdity. That there can be experience but only be object and no subject.

I'm not buying your nonsense here.

 

[Speakpigeon]

That may be what you and I believe, but that's not something you actually know.


Yes, there's a mystery, and it is that you seem to think you've explained anything here when in fact you're just repeating yourself again and again.

What we have is a correlation. There's a correlation between what the brain does and the qualia we experience.

But there is nothing new here because human beings have always known that there was a correlation between the material world and their qualia. Whether you're just watching a fire burn slowly in the hearth, contemplating dawn, listening to birds sing, hurting you pinky on a stone, whatever. People understand that or they don't, but it's always been there. There's nothing new in your argument.

All that science can do better today is to go inside the brain, presumably closer to qualia. But the principle of the correlation between the material and qualia remains strictly the same as ever.

The problem is that correlation in itself does not tell us what qualia are in physical terms. Qualia are not anything like sets of elementary particles, patches of electromagnetic fields, quantities of energy, of matter, or some properties of any of these things.

As far as we know, qualia are not material quantities. If they are, this has yet to be demonstrated. No amount of correlation will do that job.

Just tell me what sort of material or physical things qualia are or stop pretending you can explain qualia.
EB

Qualia are the neurology's reaction to certain stimuli. It is only a word. A word used to describe experience. The experience of the senses. Is experience material? It, too, is a word used to describe what it is like to be a self-aware human. What is it to be like a conscious human? I know because I am currently conscious and attempting to communicate with words.

Are ideas material? Are plans material? Are decisions material? Are dreams material? Is pi material? Is mathematics material? Is pain material? Are myths material? Are stories material? Is fear material? Is love material? Is having a point of view material?

Are ideas real? Are plans real? Are decisions real? Are dreams real? Is pi real? Is mathematics real? Is pain real? Are myths real? Are stories real? Is fear real? Is love real? Is having a point of view real?

Still I can explain that the brain generates qualia. There is not only a correlation between what the brain does and qualia, but experiments which stimulate the brain directly force that brain to generate qualia.
Qualia are like ideas, immaterial and real. They are images generated by the brain.

The book The Mind's I would be a good read for you. So might Lakoff's Philosophy in the Flesh.

Can you describe to me what you think qualia are?
Can you describe to me what you think thought is?

What is the mystery?

Just tell me what sort of material or physical things qualia are or stop pretending you can explain qualia.
EB

- - - Updated - - -

What you don't seem to understand is that the words you choose for expressing your views can also ensnare you into a stupid logical trap.

It is a logical necessity, not a trap.

How about trying to answer the questions.

You're trying to sell me an absurdity. That there can be experience but only be object and no subject.

I'm not buying your nonsense here.

You're welcome.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

Its not that we talk past each other, its that you talk past me intentionally. You last post proves it. Its a mixture of claiming stupidity in those who don't believe in qualia, me in this case, and a general attribution of rationales for why scientists are stupid in your view.

You are consistent. There is no evidence for your view and you readily seem to be admitting that by avoiding to discuss it.

If you want to start with what is in our mind then you are stuck with the question of how it got there. You shamelessly don't even try to justify that necessary requirement underlying your position, you just repeat the enchanting melodious qualia chorus.
Otherwise thank you for your input. It will be considered with the intent and rigor of it's productrion.

As for you untermenche, the brain does the work based on it's evolved design, through evolve receptors, evolved ascending and intereacting descending pathways, evolved intermediate structures which focus on this or that aspect of what is incoming and being prepared for getting a usable representation of situations and preparing for relevant action with respect to what needs be attended (it may also pass some of its information on to an arbiter function tied to visual and articulation machines for communication and and more detailed processing). The "I" is a partialy informed witness to social things.

The "I" to which you refer is some sort of post analyzed information meant primarily for summarizing possible and ongoing actions and being used to communicate with those possibly communicating about you.

As we know form other studies the man in the machine is blind, dumb, and ill witted, no acceptable witness to anything.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Its not that we talk past each other, its that you talk past me intentionally. You last post proves it. Its a mixture of claiming stupidity in those who don't believe in qualia, me in this case, and a general attribution of rationales for why scientists are stupid in your view.

You are consistent. There is no evidence for your view and you readily seem to be admitting that by avoiding to discuss it.

If you want to start with what is in our mind then you are stuck with the question of how it got there. You shamelessly don't even try to justify that necessary requirement underlying your position, you just repeat the enchanting melodious qualia chorus.
Otherwise thank you for your input. It will be considered with the intent and rigor of it's productrion.

The issue is rather simple. I say qualia exist for real and that I know them as such and that they are the only things I know. You don't have to read long books, or even long articles on the subject. Qualia are just the quality of the impressions you have as a conscious subject: all sensations, all ideas, all memories, thoughts, perceptions etc. as long as you only retain the qualitative aspect of them, leaving aside whatever you may believe these impressions may be impressions of. So defined, I really don't see how anyone could claim that they don't exist. It's just a stupid position to have. But you're welcome to defend it.

Still, I only see two avenues for you to criticise my position.

First, you could say that qualia just do not exist at all. Second, you could try to explain how qualia are epiphenomena, i.e. they are somehow mere appearances, somehow produced by the brain, illusions.


First possibility, you could say that qualia do not exist at all. So what? What does it matter what you think and what you want to say in that respect. Does it somehow change the fact that I know my qualia? Obviously not. And it does not matter either that other people cannot experience my qualia. They can experience their own, and some posters on this forum routinely report exactly that. In fact, anybody can decide for themselves whether they experience qualia or not. What you and I can say in this respect will not affect the fact of the matter, so to speak. What any scientist could say will not affect the fact of the matter. This of course leaves me with a secondary problem which is that I would like to understand how it's at all possible that you yourself don't experience qualia. I have already provided an analysis of the various possibilities and indeed the prominent one is that you are not so bright that you understand the notion of qualia and therefore don't understand that what you in fact experience are just qualia. But I couldn't possibly know that so I will have to live without the satisfaction of solving this one puzzle.

Second possibility, you could try to explain how qualia are epiphenomenal. That'd be a bad move. The notion of epiphenomenon is basically used by people who don't understand what they are talking about. It's the magic wand to stop seeing the problem. The word qualia means something that doesn't lend itself to being reduced to an epiphenomenon. Quale means quality. A quality either exists as such or it does not, and if it does not then no amount of epiphenomenon will somehow magically produce that quality. Now, people experience qualia. They're not faking it. They are not lying. They are not delusional. When I have a painful sensation you're not going to convince me that it's somehow a delusion. When I see something blue, you're not going to convince me that the quality of that blue is entirely imaginary. In fact, it is entirely imaginary. There's no blue outside my mind. Blue is all somehow inside my mind. It is imaginary because it's something in my imagination, my ability to represent things to myself. So even as it is imaginary, it is nonetheless perfectly real. To say that it is an illusion would produce the same result. Delusions happen but they are invariably accompanied by their own associated qualia. It's also somewhat pathetic not to understand by yourself that it's absurd to claim that the quality of an impression does not exist. We probably all experience the qualities of our impression so you're not going to convince many people.



There is of course still another possibility, which is that you could try to explain what qualia really are. For you, this would require being able to articulate a physical or material explanation of qualia. So, you could just tell me what sort of material or physical things qualia are. Are they energy? Are they matter? Are they elementary particles? Are they an electromagnetic field? Or are they a property of these things, like an electric charge or a spin? Something else material or physical? Strings? Superstrings? Dark matter? Dark energy? Gravitational waves? A black hole? What?

However, since you are quite incapable of producing such an explanation, what remains for you is just to deny that qualia exist at all and that's what you are doing even though it's an absurd position to hold.


As to my own position and any justification I need to produce the answer is already given: none whatsoever. I readily admit I can't share my qualia. I can't send them by mail or take a picture. However, I have the magic logic that since we all experience our own qualia, I only need people to understand what I'm talking about and to make up their own mind about their own qualia, not about mine.

As to the question of how qualia got into my mind, I also readily admit I don't know. I don't have this pretense to have any comprehensive paradigm similar to materialism. Yet, no worry, all I need to do is point out that materialism fails because you cannot explain qualia in physical or material terms. It's not just you. It's all the scientists in the world. It's all the materialists in the world. They're quite a few you know. They're all stuck on this question. I don't know how to explain qualia in physical terms but I don't feel concerned by this noble quest. Do it if you can and tell me when you are done.

So I think this deals nicely with all your points, over to you now.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

Its not that we talk past each other, its that you talk past me intentionally. You last post proves it. Its a mixture of claiming stupidity in those who don't believe in qualia, me in this case, and a general attribution of rationales for why scientists are stupid in your view.

You are consistent. There is no evidence for your view and you readily seem to be admitting that by avoiding to discuss it.

If you want to start with what is in our mind then you are stuck with the question of how it got there. You shamelessly don't even try to justify that necessary requirement underlying your position, you just repeat the enchanting melodious qualia chorus.
Otherwise thank you for your input. It will be considered with the intent and rigor of it's productrion.

The issue is rather simple. I say qualia exist for real and that I know them as such and that they are the only things I know. You don't have to read long books, or even long articles on the subject. Qualia are just the quality of the impressions you have as a conscious subject: all sensations, all ideas, all memories, thoughts, perceptions etc. as long as you only retain the qualitative aspect of them, leaving aside whatever you may believe these impressions may be impressions of. So defined, I really don't see how anyone could claim that they don't exist. It's just a stupid position to have. But you're welcome to defend it.

Still, I only see two avenues for you to criticise my position.

First, you could say that qualia just do not exist at all. Second, you could try to explain how qualia are epiphenomena, i.e. they are somehow mere appearances, somehow produced by the brain, illusions.


First possibility, you could say that qualia do not exist at all. So what? What does it matter what you think and what you want to say in that respect. Does it somehow change the fact that I know my qualia? Obviously not. And it does not matter either that other people cannot experience my qualia. They can experience their own, and some posters on this forum routinely report exactly that. In fact, anybody can decide for themselves whether they experience qualia or not. What you and I can say in this respect will not affect the fact of the matter, so to speak. What any scientist could say will not affect the fact of the matter. This of course leaves me with a secondary problem which is that I would like to understand how it's at all possible that you yourself don't experience qualia. I have already provided an analysis of the various possibilities and indeed the prominent one is that you are not so bright that you understand the notion of qualia and therefore don't understand that what you in fact experience are just qualia. But I couldn't possibly know that so I will have to live without the satisfaction of solving this one puzzle.

Second possibility, you could try to explain how qualia are epiphenomenal. That'd be a bad move. The notion of epiphenomenon is basically used by people who don't understand what they are talking about. It's the magic wand to stop seeing the problem. The word qualia means something that doesn't lend itself to being reduced to an epiphenomenon. Quale means quality. A quality either exists as such or it does not, and if it does not then no amount of epiphenomenon will somehow magically produce that quality. Now, people experience qualia. They're not faking it. They are not lying. They are not delusional. When I have a painful sensation you're not going to convince me that it's somehow a delusion. When I see something blue, you're not going to convince me that the quality of that blue is entirely imaginary. In fact, it is entirely imaginary. There's no blue outside my mind. Blue is all somehow inside my mind. It is imaginary because it's something in my imagination, my ability to represent things to myself. So even as it is imaginary, it is nonetheless perfectly real. To say that it is an illusion would produce the same result. Delusions happen but they are invariably accompanied by their own associated qualia. It's also somewhat pathetic not to understand by yourself that it's absurd to claim that the quality of an impression does not exist. We probably all experience the qualities of our impression so you're not going to convince many people.



There is of course still another possibility, which is that you could try to explain what qualia really are. For you, this would require being able to articulate a physical or material explanation of qualia. So, you could just tell me what sort of material or physical things qualia are. Are they energy? Are they matter? Are they elementary particles? Are they an electromagnetic field? Or are they a property of these things, like an electric charge or a spin? Something else material or physical? Strings? Superstrings? Dark matter? Dark energy? Gravitational waves? A black hole? What?

However, since you are quite incapable of producing such an explanation, what remains for you is just to deny that qualia exist at all and that's what you are doing even though it's an absurd position to hold.


As to my own position and any justification I need to produce the answer is already given: none whatsoever. I readily admit I can't share my qualia. I can't send them by mail or take a picture. However, I have the magic logic that since we all experience our own qualia, I only need people to understand what I'm talking about and to make up their own mind about their own qualia, not about mine.

As to the question of how qualia got into my mind, I also readily admit I don't know. I don't have this pretense to have any comprehensive paradigm similar to materialism. Yet, no worry, all I need to do is point out that materialism fails because you cannot explain qualia in physical or material terms. It's not just you. It's all the scientists in the world. It's all the materialists in the world. They're quite a few you know. They're all stuck on this question. I don't know how to explain qualia in physical terms but I don't feel concerned by this noble quest. Do it if you can and tell me when you are done.

So I think this deals nicely with all your points, over to you now.
EB

Oh, you mean attribute. Color is an attribute of vase, something imparted by light reflecting off of it that you perceive to which you assign a name when you speak of it as a quality of the image you are trying to explain to us.

In other words qualia don't exist, they were defined before we understood how the material world is encoded and used by our nervous system, they used as placeholders for what they hoped to understand when they knew more.

You apparently haven't noticed we are replacing them with operationally defined terms based on what the brain does rather than interposing some conceptual structure. That conceptual structure is now understood as being completely different from what these poor ignorant souls who didn't understand could produce.

We're done here.

 

[untermensche]

As for you untermenche, the brain does the work based on it's evolved design, through evolve receptors, evolved ascending and intereacting descending pathways, evolved intermediate structures which focus on this or that aspect of what is incoming and being prepared for getting a usable representation of situations and preparing for relevant action with respect to what needs be attended (it may also pass some of its information on to an arbiter function tied to visual and articulation machines for communication and and more detailed processing). The "I" is a partialy informed witness to social things.

All you have said is the brain does it somehow.

You haven't explained anything or refuted a word I said.

You have your religion.

I have no problem if you want to hold onto it.

But don't expect me to convert with this nothingness.

If there is no "I", no subject distinct from the things it can experience and therefore able to be aware of them, there is no experience.

As we know form other studies the man in the machine is blind, dumb, and ill witted, no acceptable witness to anything.

No study has ever looked at "that which can experience" except for subjective reporting.

Science does not have a clue what "that which can experience" is. In terms of brain physiology.

 

[untermensche]

....I say qualia exist for real and that I know them as such and that they are the only things I know...

"Real" is a redundancy here.

If they exist of course they meet the criteria for the honorific "real".

You know you experience the qualities of blue.

You know your experience is "real".

Therefore "you" that which experiences them is "real" too.

I can experience thoughts, therefore I exist.

 

[fromderinside]

The human is that which can experience silly one. You want me to paste what is known on an imaginary structure ancients used to explain what they were and did.

Instead I'll provide you a few operational definitions of what you call the qualia of red. It is a report from a person who has had a  sensation derived from  material  transduction of  energy by  receptors into Mechanical energy. and  Chemical energy passed through  systems of  collation,  organization,  interpretation (model theory), and  storage (memory)  processes in the brain into a cohesive relationship between to what the individual is exposed and to which the individual responds.

No its not a three word catch phase. Its also not based on a complete fiction. However each and every aspect of what is described in that complex sentence can be constructed, operated, and used to produce repeatable results demonstrating the exact same thing one who has no understanding expects when she blabs that she experienced red, or redness. In other words the one who uses the operations provided can generate redness every time they try and others can witness it and actually reproduce it themselves. Nothing remains private in my little operations shop.

 

[untermensche]

The human is that which can experience silly one.

You can call consciousness "the human" but you haven't explained anything or changed anything.

Humans have a consciousness.

They are not a consciousness.

 

[fromderinside]

R U in HS yet? If not try providing something that isn't already known.

Since I claim, with some justification, there is no consciousness, there is only a machine operating as it is designed, I guess we're both right.

 

[fromderinside]

Amazing. Manta Rays experience. Where have you been. I guess you missed the Crick lecture report in 1990.

 

[untermensche]

R U in HS yet? If not try providing something that isn't already known.

Since I claim, with some justification, there is no consciousness, there is only a machine operating as it is designed, I guess we're both right.

You have NO justification to use your consciousness to amusingly claim you do not have one.

Your inability to find it is in no way evidence of it's absence.

But I shouldn't say this.

Speaking logically is pre-HS after all.

 

[untermensche]

Amazing. Manta Rays experience. Where have you been. I guess you missed the Crick lecture in 1998.

Gosh darn it I missed it.

Shame nobody around that could explain one part of it.