Define God Thread

[Juma]

My mom makes a far better carrot cake, elevated magnitudes above than anyone else in any animal history. Therefore, she is not an animal to begin with.

Her carrot cake is magnitudes above any other brunette-haired animal of any other species in all of time, and therefore she is not an animal to begin with.

She makes a carrot cake far elevated over any other organism with the name "Mary" and therefore she is not an animal to begin with.

Hey...I think I am getting the hang of how this argument goes now...

Brian

Fallacy. It's not a distinction in 'magnitude'. It's a "0 and 1" distinction.

You have consciousness or you don't have it. Not just cognitive awareness. Consciousness, i.e. subjective experience. Can you prove for certain that other animals possess subjective experience? I don't think anybody can do that, for now at least, so we are all free to assume either way until such a time as somebody does.
EB

Eh. Conciousness depends on many functions each of which can be more or less developed.
I can certainly thibk there are levels of conciousness.

 

[Brian63]

Fallacy. It's not a distinction in 'magnitude'. It's a "0 and 1" distinction.

You have consciousness or you don't have it.

That is incorrect. It is a spectrum of consciousness that people have, not a binary and all-or-nothing state. You will have different degrees and levels of consciousness. A single person will experience a change in their level of consciousness throughout their lives, and even throughout the course of a single day. When someone first wakes up in the morning, or late at night when they finally go to bed, their body can be less conscious than it was in the middle of the afternoon when it was most awake and energized. Consciousness is the label we use for the bundle of experiences we have including things like perception, sensation, wakefulness, sentience, et al.

Can you prove for certain that other animals possess subjective experience?

No, but I cannot “prove for certain” that other animals do speak Japanese to each other either. That does not mean I should be “free to assume” that animals are actually out there speaking in Japanese to each other.

Being able to “prove for certain” that something is true is a luxury that we just do not have in most cases. We just have to instead rely on the best evidence we currently have available to us, and draw the most likely conclusion from that. If new evidence comes in which is consistent with it, we can consider it more likely that our conclusion actually is correct. If instead new evidence comes in which is Inconsistent with it, then we should be more open to the idea that our conclusion is wrong, and we should be willing to change that conclusion then.

I don't think anybody can do that, for now at least, so we are all free to assume either way until such a time as somebody does.

That phrasing of it is a little bit off as well. Nobody is saying that anybody is not “free to assume” something either. We are all “free to assume” anything we want in a more legal and political sense. We are “free to assume” that snakes talk, all we want. It just does not mean that it is reasonable or of valid logic to believe that snakes actually talk.

Speakpigeon, I am not sure if your post above had been an expression of your real beliefs, or if you wrote it up as more of a joke in a sarcastic manner. If you meant the latter, then I am sorry for misunderstanding, and mean no harm either way.

Thanks,

Brian

 

[DrZoidberg]

My mom makes a far better carrot cake, elevated magnitudes above than anyone else in any animal history. Therefore, she is not an animal to begin with.

Her carrot cake is magnitudes above any other brunette-haired animal of any other species in all of time, and therefore she is not an animal to begin with.

She makes a carrot cake far elevated over any other organism with the name "Mary" and therefore she is not an animal to begin with.

Hey...I think I am getting the hang of how this argument goes now...

Brian

Fallacy. It's not a distinction in 'magnitude'. It's a "0 and 1" distinction.

You have consciousness or you don't have it. Not just cognitive awareness. Consciousness, i.e. subjective experience. Can you prove for certain that other animals possess subjective experience? I don't think anybody can do that, for now at least, so we are all free to assume either way until such a time as somebody does.
EB

Can you prove for certain that they don't? Since we do, it's a pretty safe assumption that other animals do as well. I mean... the differences between all mammals are tiny. The similarities are huge. All animals on Earth are very similar. We have similar brain chemistry to the sea squirt. They've got all the same neurochemicals as we do. Who the fuck knows what goes on in their minds?

I'd say that arguing that other animals don't have consciousness is an extraordinary statement. Extraordinary beliefs demand extraordinary evidence.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Fallacy. It's not a distinction in 'magnitude'. It's a "0 and 1" distinction.

You have consciousness or you don't have it. Not just cognitive awareness. Consciousness, i.e. subjective experience. Can you prove for certain that other animals possess subjective experience? I don't think anybody can do that, for now at least, so we are all free to assume either way until such a time as somebody does.
EB

Eh. Conciousness depends on many functions each of which can be more or less developed.
I can certainly thibk there are levels of conciousness.

I can see what you mean but then we're not talking about the same thing. I would characterise what you're talking about as 'cognitive processes'. I would certainly agree that these cognitive processes may be more or less developed. But the question is about consciousness as subjective experience, not as cognitive processes. We may have subjective experience of cognitive processes but it's still unclear whether subjective experience comes necessarily with any cognitive process. We can believe either way. I don't think you know that other animals have subjective experience though they certainly have cognitive processes. You're free to believe so. You're free to believe otherwise.

Of course, it may be that all animals have subjective experience.

I like all animals more than most humans so it would be fine with me. I'm not even convinced that all human beings have subjective experience although I'm sure some do. Clearly, fromderinside doesn't have it for example. And a lot of people on this forum seem to lack it as well. It's a zombie infested website.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Fallacy. It's not a distinction in 'magnitude'. It's a "0 and 1" distinction.

You have consciousness or you don't have it.

That is incorrect. It is a spectrum of consciousness that people have, not a binary and all-or-nothing state. You will have different degrees and levels of consciousness. A single person will experience a change in their level of consciousness throughout their lives, and even throughout the course of a single day. When someone first wakes up in the morning, or late at night when they finally go to bed, their body can be less conscious than it was in the middle of the afternoon when it was most awake and energized. Consciousness is the label we use for the bundle of experiences we have including things like perception, sensation, wakefulness, sentience, et al.

I'm sure scientists, especially neurobiologists, use the term 'consciousness' as you want to suggest. Yet, it is also used, and has always been used, to refer to what some people nowadays prefer to call 'subjective experience'. So, yes, in one sense, consciousness is a bundle of what I call 'cognitive processes' and as such it could be said to have to some extent a 'magnitude'. However, in the other sense, that of subjective experience, it seems that you either have it or you don't. It doesn't really matter in fact whether that's true, it's what people mean by subjective experience that matters. It's also clear to me that I have subjective experience. I also have good empirical evidence that at least some other human beings have it too although I couldn't be sure. However, for now at least, it is possible for me to believe that animals don't have it at all, or even that they could not have it. Nobody is going to prove otherwise, again, at least for now. And on this ground alone, I'm at liberty to think of animals as fundamentally other than human beings. It can be a personal choice because I'm not compelled by any evidence either way.

Can you prove for certain that other animals possess subjective experience?

No, but I cannot “prove for certain” that other animals do speak Japanese to each other either. That does not mean I should be “free to assume” that animals are actually out there speaking in Japanese to each other.

Well, I think it's a fact that we are free to assume animals speak Japanese whenever no human being is listening.

Being able to “prove for certain” that something is true is a luxury that we just do not have in most cases. We just have to instead rely on the best evidence we currently have available to us, and draw the most likely conclusion from that. If new evidence comes in which is consistent with it, we can consider it more likely that our conclusion actually is correct. If instead new evidence comes in which is Inconsistent with it, then we should be more open to the idea that our conclusion is wrong, and we should be willing to change that conclusion then.

And it's precisely because there's no evidence that any animal possess subjective experience while there is good evidence that many human beings do that a fundamental distinction between animals and human beings is rational, even though maybe it's wrong.

I don't think anybody can do that, for now at least, so we are all free to assume either way until such a time as somebody does.

That phrasing of it is a little bit off as well. Nobody is saying that anybody is not “free to assume” something either. We are all “free to assume” anything we want in a more legal and political sense. We are “free to assume” that snakes talk, all we want. It just does not mean that it is reasonable or of valid logic to believe that snakes actually talk.

So you will agree that it's not reasonable to believe that animals have subjective experience and therefore that until such a time as we have evidence to the contrary we should make a fundamental distinction between humans and animals.

Speakpigeon, I am not sure if your post above had been an expression of your real beliefs, or if you wrote it up as more of a joke in a sarcastic manner. If you meant the latter, then I am sorry for misunderstanding, and mean no harm either way.

Thanks,

Brian

My post wasn't about my beliefs but about yours. I'm here to see if I can put some sense into hardcore materialists. I want to see if rationality can be made to do some serious work. So far it doesn't look like it can. I'm not going to be surprised, though. It's been my experience since a very long time ago.

That being said, I'd be surprised if animals were any different from human beings as far as subjective experience is concerned. But it's definitely a possibility, just because we actually don't know either way.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Fallacy. It's not a distinction in 'magnitude'. It's a "0 and 1" distinction.

You have consciousness or you don't have it. Not just cognitive awareness. Consciousness, i.e. subjective experience. Can you prove for certain that other animals possess subjective experience? I don't think anybody can do that, for now at least, so we are all free to assume either way until such a time as somebody does.
EB

Can you prove for certain that they don't? Since we do, it's a pretty safe assumption that other animals do as well. I mean... the differences between all mammals are tiny. The similarities are huge. All animals on Earth are very similar. We have similar brain chemistry to the sea squirt. They've got all the same neurochemicals as we do. Who the fuck knows what goes on in their minds?

I'd say that arguing that other animals don't have consciousness is an extraordinary statement. Extraordinary beliefs demand extraordinary evidence.

Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. Extraordinary beliefs are just extraordinary beliefs. A fact of life.

I'm not claiming you should believe animals have no consciousness. I'm just saying you are free to believe either way because we don't have evidence.

Further, the biological similarities that exist may not carry over to subjective experience. If we knew that subjective experience is a property of material processes I would agree with your argument but that's precisely what we don't know for now.
EB

 

[Atheos]

My mom makes a far better carrot cake, elevated magnitudes above than anyone else in any animal history. Therefore, she is not an animal to begin with.

Her carrot cake is magnitudes above any other brunette-haired animal of any other species in all of time, and therefore she is not an animal to begin with.

She makes a carrot cake far elevated over any other organism with the name "Mary" and therefore she is not an animal to begin with.

Hey...I think I am getting the hang of how this argument goes now...

Brian

Fallacy. It's not a distinction in 'magnitude'. It's a "0 and 1" distinction.

You have consciousness or you don't have it. Not just cognitive awareness. Consciousness, i.e. subjective experience. Can you prove for certain that other animals possess subjective experience? I don't think anybody can do that, for now at least, so we are all free to assume either way until such a time as somebody does.
EB

And as soon as you can prove that humans possess subjective experience that is completely different from anything any other animal life on the planet experiences we'll be good to go. Until then you're just blowing smoke. As long as we're part of the food chain we're part of the animal kingdom. That's my opinion. Orter be your'n.

Also as long as we're appealing to distinctions in magnitude I might add that nearly all animal life displays some signs of intelligence (e.g., evaluation of data, determining best course of action, etc) and some display the ability to modify their environments and fabricate tools. Human intelligence is therefore not a "0" and "1" distinction in any sense of the word.

 

[no-one-particular]

Humans are capable of objective reasoning. Animals are not. Animals think subjectively.

It's not simply that we are better thinkers or have more knowledge.
Rather it is that we think in a fundamentally different way.

Carl Jung called the objective reasoning that humans do "directed thinking":

Almost every day we can see for ourselves, when falling asleep, how our fantasies get woven into our dreams, so that between day-dreaming and night-dreaming there is not much difference. We have therefore two kinds of thinking: directed thinking, and dreaming or fantasy-thinking. The former operates with speech elements for the purpose of communication, and is difficult and exhausting; the latter is effortless working as it were spontaneously, with the contents ready to hand, and guided by unconscious motives. Jung, CW 5, par 20; cited in Sharp, Jung Uncorked: Book One, p. 44

 

[bilby]

Humans are animals who have developed intelligence far greater than any other members of the animal kingdom. Claiming that somehow that removes us from the animal kingdom is logically a sharpshooter fallacy. Electric eels are able to generate 600 volts of electricity, far greater than any other animal. Does that remove the electric eel from the animal kingdom? Do the special capabilities of the Peacock Mantis Shrimp remove it from the animal kingdom as well? Does the Peregrine Falcon's superlative speed separate it from the animal kingdom?

Selecting a trait in this way and using it to sustain an argument is no different from drawing a series of concentric rings around a bullet hole and claiming to be a sharpshooter.

Yet this is what we do all the time. Our distinctions are mere conveniences. We could put an old shoe in the same category as animals if it suited our needs. We don't because we've identified convenient criteria, criteria we can all recognise easily enough, that allow us to make a distinction. It's a caretaking business. Tidiness at work. Your brain has long drawn rings around things well before you can articulate the word 'animal'. And we do put animals and an old shoe in the same category of material objects for example.

Fundamentally, animals are animals to us. And to us there's a natural distinction between animals and us even if, again, it's clear there are obvious similarities and connections between us and all other animals. If you could prove consciousness is to be explained entirely as a material process then the distinction would become pointless. But for now at least, we'll have to wait.

To put it differently, naming is an empirical matter and as such it's not independent of the observer, no matter what you do.
EB

All of which is true, but it cuts both ways - the choices we make about how to categorize the world, directly influence how we think about the world, and so the decision as to whether or not 'humans' is a subset of 'animals', or whether 'humans' and 'animals' are distinct categories, has real consequences.

The definition of our enemies as 'sub-human' or 'no better than animals' allows us to be much more comfortable with abusing them; so insisting on a definition that leads to a desired attitude amongst our fellows is more than just a matter of whether a particular categorization is an accurate reflection of reality. Such categorizations are more a reflection of how we want the world to be, than they are an attempt to describe how the world actually is.

 

[Brian63]

Can you prove for certain that other animals possess subjective experience?

No, but I cannot “prove for certain” that other animals do speak Japanese to each other either. That does not mean I should be “free to assume” that animals are actually out there speaking in Japanese to each other.

Well, I think it's a fact that we are free to assume animals speak Japanese whenever no human being is listening.

I think you are misusing the phrase “free to assume” that you keep bringing up. Can you clarify what you mean with that specific phrase, please?

If you mean it in a sense of are you even physically capable to believe animals speak Japanese to each other, that is something that will be unique to each individual. We cannot say all humans are, or are not, capable of holding some particular belief. Every human will instead have their own experiences, memories, feelings, biases, wishes, etc. that they use to build a network or set of beliefs for themselves, and then they go on through life with those beliefs (sometimes changing some of them along the way).

If you are using “free to assume” in a more legal and political sense, like do you have the free speech Maybe you mean “free to assume” in the more legal and political sense, as in Bob should have the free speech right to believe that animals speak Japanese to each other. If that is how you mean it, fine. Nobody here has been saying that he should not have that right to believe whatever he does. This sense of the phrase “free to assume” is irrelevant for our discussion then.

What the more interesting and relevant context here is whether it is RATIONAL and LOGICAL to believe something. So again, a person is “free to assume” that animals speak in Japanese to each other sometimes when humans are not nearby. Maybe you mean “free to assume” as in that first context above, so that a person (say, “Bob”) is physically capable of believing that animals speak Japanese to each other. What Bob actually believes is not something any others of us can confirm or deny with certainty. That is something that is unique to Bob and only he would be able to tell whether he can sincerely believe that animals speak Japanese to each other (or maybe even he is unable to tell that?).

The relevant sense that you might mean “free to assume” is whether it makes logical and rational sense for Bob to believe that animals speak Japanese to each other. The answer to that would be no, that is not a rational belief to hold. We humans sometimes observe animals communicating with each other, and sometimes those animals know humans are nearby observing them, sometimes they are unaware of that. Either way, we have not observed any animals speaking Japanese to each other, or any other human-created language and not just Japanese (e.g. Spanish or Russian). Are we certain for sure with no doubt that they do not speak Japanese? No, we do not have the luxury of that level of certainty. Based on what we can observe though happening around us, it is reasonable for a person to conclude that they do not actually speak in the Japanese language to each other, and that they do communicate in other various other ways with each other.

Being able to “prove for certain” that something is true is a luxury that we just do not have in most cases. We just have to instead rely on the best evidence we currently have available to us, and draw the most likely conclusion from that. If new evidence comes in which is consistent with it, we can consider it more likely that our conclusion actually is correct. If instead new evidence comes in which is Inconsistent with it, then we should be more open to the idea that our conclusion is wrong, and we should be willing to change that conclusion then.

And it's precisely because there's no evidence that any animal possess subjective experience while there is good evidence that many human beings do that a fundamental distinction between animals and human beings is rational, even though maybe it's wrong.

The phrase “subjective experience” in the way you are using it is a bit unclear as well. Are you saying that the experience or physical event itself is objective, but saying that something beyond that is subjective and humans experience but animals do not? So if someone hits Sally, a human being, with a baseball bat in Sally’s leg, the actual swinging of the bat and damage to Sally’s leg is an objective event. If someone hits a dog in the leg with a baseball bat though, in what relevant way is that different? They are both objective events and we can observe the dog reacting to it with pain, and that is a subjective experience unique to it.

In the meantime, we do actually have very strong evidence that animals do have subjective experiences. We can observe them having moments of pleasure, pain, etc. We can observe that animals have certain personality types that influence their behaviors. So they are not just materialistic computers, for instance, which just process information with no feelings or emotions or attitudes or personalities of their own. They do actually do have their own subjective experiences as well.

My post wasn't about my beliefs but about yours. I'm here to see if I can put some sense into hardcore materialists. I want to see if rationality can be made to do some serious work. So far it doesn't look like it can. I'm not going to be surprised, though. It's been my experience since a very long time ago.

Good try though, and an A for effort to you. It sounds like you are really here for thoughtful, interesting, learning, and enlightening discussions, and not just to troll us. Much appreciated.

Brian

 

[Brian63]

Humans are capable of objective reasoning. Animals are not. Animals think subjectively.

There is a misunderstanding in that statement, stemming from not understanding what the tools are in reasoning.

For instance, you can take some argument like:

Premise 1: Larry is a human being with blue eyes.
Premise 2: All human beings with blue eyes are secretly homosexual.
Conclusion: Therefore, Larry is secretly homosexual.

If we want to determine whether Premise 1 above is (more likely to be) true or false, we can do that through the means of empiricism and observing Larry’s eyes to see. We use our 5 senses and the process of induction to draw the conclusion that he does or does not have blue eyes.

If we want to determine whether Premise 2 above is (more likely to be) true or false, we can do that in a similar way. We use our own 5 senses and make observations of the world around us to determine whether it is probably true or false.

We do not have the luxury of certainty in either of those cases though. Using tools of learning like empiricism, induction, and methodological naturalism (basically assuming the natural laws are in effect, and no natural laws are being violated by a supernatural being), we can determine that premise 2 is probably not true.

Supposing Premise 1 and 2 were both true though, then we can use the method of deduction to determine that the Conclusion (Larry is secretly homosexual) MUST be true. Deduction allows us to draw a conclusion that can have the same level of certainty that the premises do. It is induction, however, which helps us determine whether those premises are true to begin with.

When a human is thinking, they are employing both the tools of induction and deduction. Relatedly, it is not the case that humans are thinking either subjectively or objectively. We are instead thinking both inductively and deductively, and the method of induction carries the property of subjectivity and deduction carries the property of objectivity. Animals appear to think the same way, but perhaps with less-developed means of induction and deduction that they rely on. If you kick a dog in the knee and injure it and cause it pain, the dog will likely try to heal that injury and ease its pain through various means, perhaps licking the knee, taking certain postures that are less painful for it, avoiding running around, etc. The dog has determined through induction and deductive reasoning that those responses benefit itself, and so will engage in them. They are still thinking with induction and deduction though. The induction part of the process of logic just has subjectivity as part of the process. So yeah, animals do think using induction, and induction has subjective experiences built into it, so animals have subjective experiences too.

Brian

 

[no-one-particular]

Premise: the sun will rise tomorrow

We can determine whether this is true by looking objectively at the laws of cause and effect.
But if we aren't objective then we may let our subjective feelings bias our conclusions.
If we aren't objective then we tend to see what we want to see.
Technically speaking we always see what we want to see but if you truly want to see what the facts say when they are allowed to speak for themselves then you will see that too.

Empirically observing the sun rise again and again day after day is not sufficient to know beyond a reasonable doubt that it will rise again tomorrow

 

[Brian63]

Premise: the sun will rise tomorrow

We can determine whether this is true by looking objectively at the laws of cause and effect.

Well, not quite. Anything that involves us “looking” at it is a unique experience to each of us, and that is the very property of being “subjective.”

There are different 2 ways that the word “objective” are commonly used, and unfortunately those different 2 ways are commonly mistaken for each other and equivocated on when used in more casual conversations.

The more scientific and philosophical meaning of “objective” refers to the idea that some property of the universe is true regardless of whether any sentient being realizes that it is true. It is true, independently of us or any other creature that exists in the universe. So the statement of “The Milky Way galaxy has more than 200 stars in it” is objectively true or false. It would be either true or false regardless of any kind of sentient being existing that is realizing its truth or its falsity. That is an objectively true or false statement.

Where subjectivity comes in is in our ability to even find out whether there are more than or less than 200 stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Maybe we humans just do not have the ability to discover either way how many stars are in the galaxy (likely the case for most of human history). Later on we did develop tools that would let us determine whether it was true or not (powerful telescopes, for instance). So we use the ideas of induction, methodological naturalism, and empiricism to determine that there are more than 200 stars in this galaxy. What other observations can we make about the universe around us and its laws? As one example, we could observe that galaxies with more than 5 stars in them do not instantly heal lung cancer in all the beings in those galaxies.

So we have those 2 premises established through our empirical observation:
Premise 1: There are more than 200 stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
Premise 2: Galaxies with more than 200 stars do not instantly heal lung cancer in all the beings in those galaxies.

Those 2 premises are observed to be true, based on the best available evidence and observations we have made up-to-date. What other conclusions can we then draw from those 2 premises being true?

That is where deduction comes in. We CAN conclude with the same level of confidence as the premises that the Milky Way galaxy specifically does not instantly heal lung cancer in all the beings in it. What we CANNOT infer from those premises with that same level of confidence is that “raindrops are actually witches who shrink themselves in size and try to break into people’s homes and other private property.” The premises have nothing to do with that particular conclusion. So deduction is a tool that we sentient beings use to determine what else we can conclude is true based on what other facts we have already determined are likely to be true (through induction). Induction is a subjective experience unique to each of us. Deduction is an objective tool used to infer other proposed facts about the universe based on what we already believe to be true about the universe.

That is one meaning of the term “objective.” Another very common meaning of that word is in more of a sense of whether a being has biases or not, and how they observe (induction) the world around them. So we can say Muslims are often biased toward their holy book being true and are biased against other possibilities. That is not saying that Muslims do not use observation to support the premises they believe to be true. We all use observation to support premises we believe to be true. Rather, in this other context when people would state “Muslims are biased” they are really saying the Muslim is more likely to make certain observations and not others. They are more likely to make the observation that “women are ethically inferior to men” than a secular person would. When a person has a bias towards a certain political, ethical, or scientific viewpoint, they still use empirical facts about nature to try and support their beliefs. Being biased refers to what we will even consider facts about nature in the first place. How open-minded or close-minded are you to what you will even consider to be a fact about the universe?

All sentient beings appear to use induction and deduction to learn more about the universe around them. Some of those beings make observations only after more rigorous and quality investigation than others, some of those beings make true observations about the world but then draw invalid conclusions from those observations. Animals seem to use induction and deduction as well though, and induction is a subjective experience unique to each of us, while deduction is an objective tool that applies to all of us. Animals do appear to have subjective experiences though, similar to how humans do.

Brian

 

[Speakpigeon]

Fallacy. It's not a distinction in 'magnitude'. It's a "0 and 1" distinction.

You have consciousness or you don't have it. Not just cognitive awareness. Consciousness, i.e. subjective experience. Can you prove for certain that other animals possess subjective experience? I don't think anybody can do that, for now at least, so we are all free to assume either way until such a time as somebody does.
EB

And as soon as you can prove that humans possess subjective experience that is completely different from anything any other animal life on the planet experiences we'll be good to go.

I couldn't even prove that any other human possess subjective experience and I often doubt it very much for some people. I'm sure I do, though. I assume many people possess it as well based on linguistic facts, which isn't much. Animals don't speak so assuming they possess subjective experience would have to be based on the similarity of our material bodies. Yet, I also don't know that the fact that we have subjective experience has anything to do with our material bodies, so the similarity between humans and animals isn't enough to assume animals have subjective experience. You're free to assume they do, though.

Until then you're just blowing smoke.

We all are. And you're sure free to blow all the smoke you want.

As long as we're part of the food chain we're part of the animal kingdom. That's my opinion. Orter be your'n.

So carnivorous plants are part of the animal kingdom?

I suspected as much but I needed an expert to say it.

Also as long as we're appealing to distinctions in magnitude I might add that nearly all animal life displays some signs of intelligence (e.g., evaluation of data, determining best course of action, etc) and some display the ability to modify their environments and fabricate tools. Human intelligence is therefore not a "0" and "1" distinction in any sense of the word.

Yes, I guess I can understand your point but I wasn't talking about intelligence, which I classify as a cognitive capability that can be investigated by scientists because it is objective. I was talking about subjective experience, and I don't know of any scientific investigation of subjective experience. And we're not going to have it any time soon because all scientists seem to be doing for now is just deny that there is such a thing as subjective experience. And you seem to be minded that way too so this conversation probably won't go very far I'm afraid.

That being said, I'd be happy to concede that it is plausible that other animals possess subjective experience, on top of their more obvious cognitive capabilities. But then again I'd be happy to concede as well that it is plausible that even a pebble on a beach possess subjective experience. Because you see, while we share many characteristics with other animals, we also share many characteristics with all material things.

We're not going to decide right now which way it goes but I try to keep fit to be still around when we get to know that.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

All of which is true, but it cuts both ways - the choices we make about how to categorize the world, directly influence how we think about the world, and so the decision as to whether or not 'humans' is a subset of 'animals', or whether 'humans' and 'animals' are distinct categories, has real consequences.

The definition of our enemies as 'sub-human' or 'no better than animals' allows us to be much more comfortable with abusing them; so insisting on a definition that leads to a desired attitude amongst our fellows is more than just a matter of whether a particular categorization is an accurate reflection of reality. Such categorizations are more a reflection of how we want the world to be, than they are an attempt to describe how the world actually is.

Sounds like something I cannot disagree with.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Can you prove for certain that other animals possess subjective experience?

No, but I cannot “prove for certain” that other animals do speak Japanese to each other either. That does not mean I should be “free to assume” that animals are actually out there speaking in Japanese to each other.

Well, I think it's a fact that we are free to assume animals speak Japanese whenever no human being is listening.

I think you are misusing the phrase “free to assume” that you keep bringing up. Can you clarify what you mean with that specific phrase, please?

If you mean it in a sense of are you even physically capable to believe animals speak Japanese to each other, that is something that will be unique to each individual. We cannot say all humans are, or are not, capable of holding some particular belief. Every human will instead have their own experiences, memories, feelings, biases, wishes, etc. that they use to build a network or set of beliefs for themselves, and then they go on through life with those beliefs (sometimes changing some of them along the way).

If you are using “free to assume” in a more legal and political sense, like do you have the free speech Maybe you mean “free to assume” in the more legal and political sense, as in Bob should have the free speech right to believe that animals speak Japanese to each other. If that is how you mean it, fine. Nobody here has been saying that he should not have that right to believe whatever he does. This sense of the phrase “free to assume” is irrelevant for our discussion then.

I would have thought saying it's a fact that we are free to assume animals speak Japanese would be enough. Of course it's not a political statement although inevitably it carries some of that too since I don't see how people who disagree with me would stop anyone from believing animals speak Japanese. I'm not saying anybody does. I'm saying people are actually free to believe that if they are so minded. In other words, there are no compelling reasons to refrain from believing that. Plus, given what people say, I'm nearly certain that at least a few people right now actually believe animals speak Japanese.

Or maybe it's the Japanese who speak Animalese.

What the more interesting and relevant context here is whether it is RATIONAL and LOGICAL to believe something. So again, a person is “free to assume” that animals speak in Japanese to each other sometimes when humans are not nearby. Maybe you mean “free to assume” as in that first context above, so that a person (say, “Bob”) is physically capable of believing that animals speak Japanese to each other. What Bob actually believes is not something any others of us can confirm or deny with certainty. That is something that is unique to Bob and only he would be able to tell whether he can sincerely believe that animals speak Japanese to each other (or maybe even he is unable to tell that?).

The relevant sense that you might mean “free to assume” is whether it makes logical and rational sense for Bob to believe that animals speak Japanese to each other. The answer to that would be no, that is not a rational belief to hold. We humans sometimes observe animals communicating with each other, and sometimes those animals know humans are nearby observing them, sometimes they are unaware of that. Either way, we have not observed any animals speaking Japanese to each other, or any other human-created language and not just Japanese (e.g. Spanish or Russian). Are we certain for sure with no doubt that they do not speak Japanese? No, we do not have the luxury of that level of certainty. Based on what we can observe though happening around us, it is reasonable for a person to conclude that they do not actually speak in the Japanese language to each other, and that they do communicate in other various other ways with each other.

You would need to have had the same experience of the world as the people who believe animals speak Japanese to understand why they believe that.

Presumably, we believe things based on our perception of the world and the impression we somehow form about those perceptions. Rationality starts there. You need to have some perception motivating your beliefs. Then you will infer things from these perceptions and these impressions. You may have false perceptions or false impressions, so the conclusion may be wrong, but if you're logical and you start from perceptions and impression then I would say you are one hundred percent rational.

The phrase “subjective experience” in the way you are using it is a bit unclear as well. Are you saying that the experience or physical event itself is objective, but saying that something beyond that is subjective and humans experience but animals do not? So if someone hits Sally, a human being, with a baseball bat in Sally’s leg, the actual swinging of the bat and damage to Sally’s leg is an objective event. If someone hits a dog in the leg with a baseball bat though, in what relevant way is that different? They are both objective events and we can observe the dog reacting to it with pain, and that is a subjective experience unique to it.

Like many people, I use the expression 'subjective experience' to refer to the quality of consciousness as seen from the subject's perspective. If I am in pain, you may be able to guess that I am but you won't feel the pain I feel. You may also be mistaken as to whether I am in pain. Experiencing pain is entirely in the quality of pain itself. If something hasn't the quality of pain, then it just isn't pain, even if science said it's pain. You know pain only when you experience pain, which is only subjectively. And while you are free to assume other people and animals probably feel pain, you're not going to experience the pain experienced by somebody else or by animals. So it's a very narrow sense of subjective experience. I take it that if you do possess subjective experience you're going to understand what I mean. Many people seem to understand and there's been a public debate about it since a long time now. But there are some people on this forum who seem to not possess it at all. They're described in the literature as consciousness 'zombies'. They look like ordinary people in every way but they just don't have subjective experience.

It's also interesting to note that the materialist interpretation of pain is that you will display a behaviour indicative of being in pain just because a set of various reactions is objectively taking place within your nervous system, set of reactions taken to be the state of 'being in pain', and definitely NOT because you would have the subjective experience of pain in the sense I just explained, although subjectively, the latter is definitely the impression people will say they have, i.e. we all behave to make sure we don't get to experience pain because of the quality of experiencing pain.

In the meantime, we do actually have very strong evidence that animals do have subjective experiences. We can observe them having moments of pleasure, pain, etc. We can observe that animals have certain personality types that influence their behaviors. So they are not just materialistic computers, for instance, which just process information with no feelings or emotions or attitudes or personalities of their own. They do actually do have their own subjective experiences as well.

You are free to believe that but you don't actually experience subjectively what they would experience, precisely because it's supposed to be their subjective experience. So you can't say you know that they do. All you have is circumstantial evidence, not direct evidence.
EB

 

[Brian63]

I think you are misusing the phrase “free to assume” that you keep bringing up. Can you clarify what you mean with that specific phrase, please?

I'm saying people are actually free to believe that if they are so minded. In other words, there are no compelling reasons to refrain from believing that.

It is the misuse of the term “free to believe” where the problem is here, and saying “free to believe” does not really help clarify the position you hold anymore than saying “free to assume” or “tpuvjfhr to gobbleygook” does. In your second sentence above though, that helps out more. So you say “there are no compelling reasons to refrain from believing that.” That is clearer, but just incorrect in terms of its accuracy. We do actually have compelling reasons to believe that animals do not speak in Japanese with each other. A significant one is that we have have made a huge number of observations of living animals communicating with each other throughout human history, and never in any of those have we seen them speaking in Japanese with each other. We have observed them communicating with each other in various other ways though, such as through the noises they make or by the physical actions they undertake. So it is likely that they are also behaving those other ways with each other even when we humans are not watching them. Another important reason is that the Japanese language is a human-modified language, where we can observe some human beings communicating with each other in that language and having the language change and develop over time, in both written and verbal forms. We have not seen the language change at all in response to animals speaking to each other in Japanese though, like we can with humans.

So do we have 100% proof with all certainty and beyond any possible doubt that animals are not speaking Japanese with each other? No, we do not have that level of luxury. We do, however, have reasonable evidence to still infer that conclusion based on the empirical facts we do have.

If I am in pain, you may be able to guess that I am but you won't feel the pain I feel. You may also be mistaken as to whether I am in pain. Experiencing pain is entirely in the quality of pain itself. If something hasn't the quality of pain, then it just isn't pain, even if science said it's pain.

Well, science does not say “it is pain” in any kind of definitive sense that you seem to be using in your example there. It is not pain because science declares it to be so. Rather, science is a tool of making observations of the world and drawing conclusions from them. So a neurologist who specializes in the treatment of pain disorders may look at you when you are having outward symptoms commonly associated with certain pains such as involuntary muscle movements, verbal shouts of “owwwwww!!,” body retractions to intense heat or cold or injections, reflexive movements, positions that your body takes on a regular basis to minimize the pain (I have a relative who has had severe back problems and pain and was almost always bent over to minimize them, but then just had surgery and she is feeling great and stands in an upright posture again). Maybe in neuroscience they have even developed other more diagnostic tests that indicate whether a person is experiencing pain at a particular moment, that I do not know myself. So again, the person experiencing the pain is the only one to do so, but others of us still have some limited ability to draw informed and rational opinions on whether another person is, or is not, experiencing pain at a particular moment. We are not just "free to assume" or "free to believe" they are experiencing pain, but it is also actually RATIONAL AND REASONABLE to believe they are experiencing pain.

Those are 2 commonly used meanings of the term “subjective” and they are frequently misunderstood for each other. You are using it more in a sense of the person having “first hand” experience of a pain and others having more of an empirical observation of someone experiencing pain. There is subjectivity in either sense, but others just have a more “first hand” means of inferring that they are experiencing pain, while others are more limited to drawing external empirical observations and then conclusions from those external empirical observations.

All you have is circumstantial evidence, not direct evidence.

Evidence cannot be anything other than “circumstantial” anyway since our collection of it depends on whatever circumstances are present at that time and allow for us, or limit us, to make empirical observations. When a person experiences pain, or pleasure, they really have a “first hand” sensation on their body, while others of us do not have that same sensation, but we can still make observations of that person and reasonably conclude that they are experiencing pain or pleasure themselves. That is all nature lets us do though. Empiricism and methodological naturalism are tools that we use to draw as much reliable observation as we can, and then we use logic to draw conclusions from those reliable observations. Doing that has been extremely helpful and successful in advancing human’s technology over the past several centuries.

With science being so successful, it is more likely that the assumptions that science is making in the process are true than any of the alternative possibilities. It is more likely that there is not a supernatural being interfering with and breaking the laws of nature on an occasional basis (miracles, etc.), than it is that there is such a being.

Brian

 

[Speakpigeon]

I'm saying people are actually free to believe that if they are so minded. In other words, there are no compelling reasons to refrain from believing that.

It is the misuse of the term “free to believe” where the problem is here, and saying “free to believe” does not really help clarify the position you hold anymore than saying “free to assume” or “tpuvjfhr to gobbleygook” does. In your second sentence above though, that helps out more. So you say “there are no compelling reasons to refrain from believing that.” That is clearer, but just incorrect in terms of its accuracy. We do actually have compelling reasons to believe that animals do not speak in Japanese with each other. A significant one is that we have have made a huge number of observations of living animals communicating with each other throughout human history, and never in any of those have we seen them speaking in Japanese with each other. We have observed them communicating with each other in various other ways though, such as through the noises they make or by the physical actions they undertake. So it is likely that they are also behaving those other ways with each other even when we humans are not watching them. Another important reason is that the Japanese language is a human-modified language, where we can observe some human beings communicating with each other in that language and having the language change and develop over time, in both written and verbal forms. We have not seen the language change at all in response to animals speaking to each other in Japanese though, like we can with humans.

So do we have 100% proof with all certainty and beyond any possible doubt that animals are not speaking Japanese with each other? No, we do not have that level of luxury. We do, however, have reasonable evidence to still infer that conclusion based on the empirical facts we do have.

My point is that if you don't have, somehow, direct evidence that animals don't speak Japanese when you're not listening then it's perfectly rational for you to believe that they are speaking Japanese. In other words, if you don't actually know something that contradicting a certain idea then it's rational to believe this idea is true.

I see rationality as a capability that each individual has or doesn't have. Individuals don't have the luxury to wait for science to decide what was actually the rational thing to do. We're all more or less similarly equipped with our own portable survival toolkit of abilities. We use it as best we can given the circumstances we're in. Being rational doesn't mean being right, or even being mostly or most often right. Being rational is just being trusting of our perceptions and trusting of our sense of logic to boldly go where others may have never ventured. Most people don't have the luxury to spend their lives studying scientific theories and facts and yet they still have to make the best of an imperfect world and that's what they are trying to do.

You instead think of rationality as basically the scientific outlook and nothing else. The more scientific you are the more rational you are. This makes rationality a collective capability. In your perspective, individuals couldn't possibly be rational. Only social grouping organised in little scientific communities could. Holding this view is I think typical of the sort of corporate mindset which has been fostered upon us by social norms and corporate lobbies, including that of scientists and such.

Anyway, I understand your point but I disagree with the assumptions behind it. I think I have explained my perspective in sufficient details for you to understand as well so please don't come back pretending I'm using fuzzy terminology.

Your view leads to systematically regard people who disagree with some scientific claim as irrational. Well, I for one disagree with the scientific claim that consciousness is likely to be fully explained in terms of neurons, synapses, neurochemicals and brain structures. So, according to your view, I have to be irrational. Yet, as I see it, I'm not and I'm satisfied that I have looked at the issue in more details and depth than most people, so I think this makes my position perfectly rational. And so I think you're wrong as to rationality itself.
EB

 

[Brian63]

My point is that if you don't have, somehow, direct evidence that animals don't speak Japanese when you're not listening then it's perfectly rational for you to believe that they are speaking Japanese. In other words, if you don't actually know something that contradicting a certain idea then it's rational to believe this idea is true.

That is incorrect though. You can still have EVIDENCE that the idea is *NOT* actually true, even if you do not have PROOF that it is not (such as if it contradicted itself). We can have evidence AGAINST THE IDEA that clouds in the sky are actually magical witches which pour water onto the ground below them (aka “rain”). We can make observations about what clouds are, about how they form, how they dissipate, under what other circumstances they do drop raindrops below them and in what circumstances they do not do that, etc. By making those observations about what raindrops are and what clouds are, it is not only rational and reasonable to conclude that they are non-magical phenomena, it is also irrational and unreasonable to conclude that they are. So no, you do not need to know with certainty some statement to be false, for it to be irrational to hold the belief. You can still hold strong evidence that the statement is false, without holding absolute proof that it is.

I see rationality as a capability that each individual has or doesn't have. Individuals don't have the luxury to wait for science to decide what was actually the rational thing to do. We're all more or less similarly equipped with our own portable survival toolkit of abilities. We use it as best we can given the circumstances we're in. Being rational doesn't mean being right, or even being mostly or most often right. Being rational is just being trusting of our perceptions and trusting of our sense of logic to boldly go where others may have never ventured. Most people don't have the luxury to spend their lives studying scientific theories and facts and yet they still have to make the best of an imperfect world and that's what they are trying to do.

We are [mostly] agreed on those points there.

You instead think of rationality as basically the scientific outlook and nothing else.

Eh, no. Science is just a more thorough, more knowledgeable, more productive, and less biased expression of the tool of rationality. Scientists have things such as academic journals, professional meetings, peer review, etc. to help make more accurate observations and deductions about the world around us. For most of us in our daily lives, we do not spend time doing that because it is not necessary much of the time, and a lot of people have various other interests and priorities to take care of. To decide whether or not I should take the garbage can out to the end of the driveway at a certain time, I make my own observations and deductions such as what day it is, how much or little garbage there is in the can, what time it currently is, what time the garbage truck arrives, etc. That level of rigor in the logical thinking works fine for that particular decision. I did not submit my thought processes to more rigorous scientific testing just because I did not need to.

If I wanted to make decisions about how to most reliably send a human being to the planet Neptune, I would need to be a lot more thorough in my observations, and what conclusions I can draw from those observations, submit those thoughts to others who have likewise done thorough research into the matter, and see what conclusions we can draw from each other’s thoughts.

So we all (try to) use the tools of logic, induction, and deduction in all of our lives to make choices and form opinions, but in some circumstances we are more rigorous than others in applying those tools.

Your view leads to systematically regard people who disagree with some scientific claim as irrational.

To be more precise, “people” themselves are not rational or irrational. People, rocks, trees, ants, buildings, et al. are a collection of certain materials organized in a certain fashion. It is actually *arguments* which those people hold which are rational or irrational. As a shorthand expression though, we often more casually say that certain people are rational or irrational, and that works fine in most everyday contexts and conversations. In this discussion though, for the purpose of clarity, we should try to remember the distinction between people (or even other animals) --- and the statements those people make, the beliefs they hold, the arguments they make to support those statements and beliefs, etc.

On some issue like what causes earthquakes, you can have a person named “Jane” who does a thorough amount of data collecting, observing of nature in various circumstances, exclusion of “selection bias” and other kinds of biases, submission of her ideas to peer review where others with vast background experience and knowledge can also review her methods and evaluate them. If they largely come into agreement that her observations were reliable and her deductions do not have logical fallacies, then we can consider that strong evidence that Jane was right. We would still be open to the idea that she is wrong, and be willing to change our minds based on new observations or if someone were to later find a flaw in the deductive reasoning. Besides, she may not be 100% correct on all of her positions, but even if she was still mostly correct, that would still be useful and helpful to us humans as we go through life.

Then you may have someone like “Elizabeth” who flips a coin to decide what beliefs she will hold on the matter of what causes earthquakes. She does not do the same rigorous data collecting, exclusions of biases, submission of her ideas for peer review, etc.

It would be irrational and unreasonable for any person (including both Jane and Elizabeth) to think that Elizabeth’s methods are just as reliable, and her conclusions to be just as accurate descriptions of reality, as Jane’s are. Flipping a coin is probably not going to give us accurate information about nature’s properties around us. People are not just “free to assume” or “free to believe” that Jane’s methods of formal scientific review are more reliable than Elizabeth's coin-flipping, but it is also RATIONAL AND REASONABLE to assume and believe that they are, even though we do not have absolute proof with certainty that they are.

Well, I for one disagree with the scientific claim that consciousness is likely to be fully explained in terms of neurons, synapses, neurochemicals and brain structures. So, according to your view, I have to be irrational.

That view would be irrational if other people have looked at it in more depth than you have, and have largely come to the opposite conclusion. Again though, it is viewpoints, beliefs, opinions, statements, etc. that people hold and people make which are either rational or irrational. Humans hold a collection of rational and irrational beliefs. No person is 100% rational or 100% irrational all of the time on every choice they make or belief they hold. Some people are just more rational or irrational in general than others though. We call people rational or irrational just as a shorthand expression, in more informal discussions.

Yet, as I see it, I'm not and I'm satisfied that I have looked at the issue in more details and depth than most people, so I think this makes my position perfectly rational.

“Most people” have not looked at the issue of what causes consciousness though, including doing research on neurons, synapses, neurochemicals, and brain structures. So it is kind of an irrelevant point that you have looked at it in more detail and depth than “most people,” when "most people" have done little to no formal studying of it at all. The more significant point is comparing your view to the people who actually have done research into the matter, have done formal testing and data gathering, who do engage in discussions with peers of theirs who have done similar research, etc. If they largely believe that your position is erroneous, we are not only “free to assume” and “free to believe" that they are more likely to be right on this issue than you would be, but it is also RATIONAL AND REASONABLE to conclude that they are more likely to be right.

Brian

 

[Speakpigeon]

My point is that if you don't have, somehow, direct evidence that animals don't speak Japanese when you're not listening then it's perfectly rational for you to believe that they are speaking Japanese. In other words, if you don't actually know something that contradicting a certain idea then it's rational to believe this idea is true.

That is incorrect though. You can still have EVIDENCE that the idea is *NOT* actually true, even if you do not have PROOF that it is not (such as if it contradicted itself). We can have evidence AGAINST THE IDEA that clouds in the sky are actually magical witches which pour water onto the ground below them (aka “rain”). We can make observations about what clouds are, about how they form, how they dissipate, under what other circumstances they do drop raindrops below them and in what circumstances they do not do that, etc. By making those observations about what raindrops are and what clouds are, it is not only rational and reasonable to conclude that they are non-magical phenomena, it is also irrational and unreasonable to conclude that they are. So no, you do not need to know with certainty some statement to be false, for it to be irrational to hold the belief. You can still hold strong evidence that the statement is false, without holding absolute proof that it is.

I think you're missing the point since your example is significantly different from the one where animals speak Japanese. To makes the two examples sufficiently similar we can indeed assume we have a model, the usual model, to explain why rain is falling. Specifically, the model will say that if such and such conditions obtain, rain just falls. Then believing that animals speak Japanese when not being listened to would be similar to somebody believing that in those cases where rain is falling but they don't have direct evidence that the conditions associated with the model obtain, then they will assume that rain falls because of a witch.

So, I'm sure you will say that this is irrational and yet I will maintain it is rational. So, I conclude that we disagree on what it means to be rational. So, please don't repeat yourself. If you want to argue anything more your argument should show that your use of 'rational' is in line with usage and mine isn't.

You instead think of rationality as basically the scientific outlook and nothing else.

Eh, no. Science is just a more thorough, more knowledgeable, more productive, and less biased expression of the tool of rationality. Scientists have things such as academic journals, professional meetings, peer review, etc. to help make more accurate observations and deductions about the world around us. For most of us in our daily lives, we do not spend time doing that because it is not necessary much of the time, and a lot of people have various other interests and priorities to take care of. To decide whether or not I should take the garbage can out to the end of the driveway at a certain time, I make my own observations and deductions such as what day it is, how much or little garbage there is in the can, what time it currently is, what time the garbage truck arrives, etc. That level of rigor in the logical thinking works fine for that particular decision. I did not submit my thought processes to more rigorous scientific testing just because I did not need to.

If I wanted to make decisions about how to most reliably send a human being to the planet Neptune, I would need to be a lot more thorough in my observations, and what conclusions I can draw from those observations, submit those thoughts to others who have likewise done thorough research into the matter, and see what conclusions we can draw from each other’s thoughts.

So we all (try to) use the tools of logic, induction, and deduction in all of our lives to make choices and form opinions, but in some circumstances we are more rigorous than others in applying those tools.

Yes, in your example, deciding to put out the garbage tin is really a scientific process on a reduced scale. Your garbage example shows you think that it is irrational to believe something for which you don't have direct evidence, namely that one put out the bin because of past observations justifying a model of garbage collection and of the present observation that the relevant conditions obtain today, which is the direct evidence you really think is necessary. Plus, this process is validated by being universally accepted as adequate.

In the case of rain falling, you would predict that rain is going to fall if you had direct evidence that the conditions of your model obtain now, which can only be ascertained by measurement of the relevant parameters in the atmosphere, i.e. direct evidence.

So you're in fact saying that it is rational to expect rain falling if you have a model based on past observations as well as direct evidence that the model conditions obtain now. And then you have to think it's rational that believe in your model to begin with even though your model isn't justified by current observations but by past ones. So, obviously, predictions made on such a model can turn out to be wrong. It's fine though because you'll tweak the model to accommodate the new observations. Which is exactly what science does, again and again.

So, I repeat, your model for rationality is the scientific outlook. In the case of the garbage tin, you implicitly grant near-scientific status to the ordinary citizen about to decide when to put out the garbage tin because in reality the decision process is public, well known, uncontroversial. You think we all know it works.

Yet, as I see it, I'm not and I'm satisfied that I have looked at the issue in more details and depth than most people, so I think this makes my position perfectly rational.

The more significant point is comparing your view to the people who actually have done research into the matter, have done formal testing and data gathering, who do engage in discussions with peers of theirs who have done similar research, etc. If they largely believe that your position is erroneous, we are not only “free to assume” and “free to believe" that they are more likely to be right on this issue than you would be, but it is also RATIONAL AND REASONABLE to conclude that they are more likely to be right.

Oh, I accept that the position of scientists is rational but that doesn't make mine irrational. We start with different considerations. They limit theirs to objective cognitive capabilities such as memorisation, linguistic performance, perception tasks, etc. and choose to dismiss qualia and subjective experience as non-existent because they don't know how to get objective evidence of them. Their position is only rational though because their objective is to do their job and be socially valued as scientists and since they don't know how to explain qualia and subjective experience in scientific terms the rational thing is to deny that they exit at all. They couldn't do that if qualia and subjective experience were straightforward concepts. I think it's easy to misunderstand what those mean. This is evidenced by the fact that it took humanity quite a long time to start articulating these ideas in a coherent way, broadly at the start of the twentieth century. And then scientists have theorised a view that the existence of whatever cannot register on any known measuring device can be flatly denied. I take it as a rational attitude but an intellectually dishonest position, unless they just happen to have no subjective experience or qualia personally, which would be very, very surprising but maybe not totally impossible.

That was how I compare my views with that of scientists. The bottom line is that I understand what I mean by 'qualia' and 'subjective experience' and I don't see how the scientific model of how the brain works could ever explain anything in that respect. And I am the expert as far as what the qualia and subjective experience I have so all I can do is assume that these people either don't have them or are intellectually dishonest, though still in a perfectly rational way. Again, I see my position in this respect as perfectly rational. I cannot deny the direct evidence of my private experience and I can assume that animals speak Japanese, i.e. that maybe scientists don't have that experience, however unlikely it seems to be. According to your view, I guess you would have to say either that I am delusional or that scientists do experience the same thing but are dishonest intellectually. So, obviously, you will go for me being delusional since it's a scientifically established fact that people can be delusional but it won't be a scientifically established fact that scientists can be intellectually dishonest.
EB