Eliminating Qualia

[untermensche]

It would take a person with some understanding to agree with me.

I'm not convinced this idea of "qualia" actually describes something.

An experience is an experience.

It is not more.

 

[WAB]

"Red" is a random brain product that has become associated with a specific stimulus.

But that stimulus is only associated with the experience of "red". It had nothing to do with the creation of "red" in the first place.

Ok time for an interlude. A game. Ontology is tricky and we all need a break now and again.

So, can anyone spot Untermensche in this picture?

View attachment 15731

Dang peeps & they fonez n whotNOT! I can't see the image. When I click "reply with quote", all I see are numbers: 15731.

I can, however, by whipping out my pareidolia, TYVM, I can see either unequal pieces of paper torn apart, or an elephant or some other large mammal standing over a fire. Maybe a Rhino, since they are known to stamp out fires in the wilderness when we silly humans start them just so we can burn square pieces of sugar, and roast & blacken our wieners [not those wieners now dammit y'all know what weiners I mean...]

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

As I said. No definition. Pretending to know something...Device simply means "something that does something"...All phenomena are not the same thing...The heat is ALWAYS a completely different thing from the device that creates it...You don't seem to understand what the word "equivocating" means...Just a lot of sloppy understandings and poor usage of words.

A perfect critique of everything you've posted itt.

 

[untermensche]

You think heat and a heater are the same thing.

You could not be more lost.

 

[ruby sparks]

I'm going to sum up where I'm at, personally, as a result of participating in this thread, and reading around it since it started.

1. Qualia exist.
2. Qualia are basically, sensations. This is shorthand for 'conscious sensations'.
3. All of what we call consciousness, including self, belief, thoughts, reasoning, emotions, etc, consist, essentially, of sensations.
4. Sensations (aka qualia) and all the above, probably arise out of brain processes, specifically, they probably arise out of non-conscious brain processes.
5. Consciousness is thus, 'one of the things brains can do'.
6. In other words, we are talking about mechanisms. Those are the appropriate models, and reduction is key.
7. Consciousness has evolved. It is therefore amenable to evolutionary models.
8. We do not know how it happens, how consciousness arises (yet).
9. There is probably causation from what we call the mental to the physical. This carries within it the implication that qualia are causal in some way.
10. Science (applied philosophy) is probably going to add more to our knowledge going forward than theoretical philosophy, though the latter will still play a role.

- - - Updated - - -

On the back of that list, for which each item could be prefaced by 'in my opinion', I'm going to suggest an amateur hypothesis which some of the things said here have prompted me to be curious about. I haven't looked into it yet, though I hope to, and I don't mind being shot down in the meantime. The hypothesis is that qualia (in their complex combinations up to and including self-consciousness) reinforce memory.

I will offer a small illustration. Pain (qualia) involves consciousness. So, for example, because you feel pain when you touch the hot saucepan, a stronger memory (or memory pathway) is laid down than if you didn't feel any pain. Similarly, because it hurt when the dog bit you, you will remember it and not put your finger in its mouth next time. In this sense, pain is effectively an alarm bell, and a lesson, and in that sense, a potential aid to survival. As such, once it first gradually emerged, we might expect it to be selected for.

I am guessing that a similar argument could be made for other 'basic qualia' such as sight, colour and taste, and I am going to put my neck on the block and say that a case could be built up from there to cover more complex arrangements of sensations, including thoughts, beliefs and self.

The key therefore, I'm suggesting, is memory.

I'm hoping that this is a testable hypothesis and am now going to try to google something relevant. I'm well aware that my hypothesis might get shot down by the first neuroscientific paper I come across.

On second thoughts, I'm going to start a fresh thread.

 

[untermensche]

We already have the idea of sensation.

The notion of qualia doesn't add anything.

 

[ruby sparks]

We already have the idea of sensation.

The notion of qualia doesn't add anything.

I see it ('sensation') as approximately a common-parlance, less technical synonym.

I've started the new thread, in the metaphysics forum (hope that's the right place) so won't be engaging with anyone here about qualia and memory.

 

[untermensche]

If nothing is added to the idea of sensation then the word has no use beyond creating confusion.

We already have an incredibly robust vocabulary to describe our experiences.

A word that adds nothing can just go away.

 

[ruby sparks]

I'm happy that synonyms can sometimes be useful. I have often found it to be the case.

 

[ruby sparks]

Specifically, two synonyms either mean exactly the same thing, or they don't. I suspect the former is unlikely, for a variety of reasons, including that words, even the word qualia, can be taken to mean at least slightly different things to different users and lead to disagreement. Wiki, for example, says that the word qualia has, itself, 'many definitions'.

But, if on the other hand, they are not the same thing, or do not refer to the same thing, then examining how they differ might be illuminating.

In any case, I am going to use them pretty much interchangeably.

Or if one wants a distinction, how about "qualia are the qualitative character of sensations"?

Whatever. I'm not intending to get bogged down in that necessarily. I'm fairly happy with leaving out, "the qualitative character of" from the middle of that.

 

[Subsymbolic]

What do you think forced evolving brains to create the experiences they create?

How come vibrating air causes a human to make a "sound" but a bat to make a "sight"?

It's the same stimulus.

Really?

Light is vibrating air? An the same stimulus as sound? It’s good to know your physics is better than your philosophy.

In a bat vibrating air creates a visual experience. It is turned into a "sight".

To navigate as quickly as a bat navigates you have to "see". And it navigates in the absence of light.

The vibrating air is not a sight or a sound.

It is a stimulus that causes an evolved brain to make an arbitrary evolved product. The product is just something that arose randomly since an external stimulus cannot direct an evolving nervous system to do things.

It takes an understanding of evolution and how change can possibly occur.

All change takes place from within the organism. The external world just gives the grade. Pass or Fail.

Many of these crazy ideas arise because of poor understandings of how the things the brain does arose. They all arose randomly. Nothing was planned. The external world did not rearrange the genes to it's liking.

The EM radiation did not say: "Now this is the experience of "red". The experience of "red" is just something that became randomly associated to the stimulus. It was not created by the stimulus.

Nothing the brain does was created. It all arose randomly.

So, all I take from this is that you absolutely failed to grasp Nagel's point too. No, the bat doesn't have to 'see' it has to do something that we simply can't imagine and certainly couldn't conceptualise.

Oh and the lottery paradox, but what's the point of explaining.

 

[Subsymbolic]

In that I concluded, I MUST have a mind.

The issue is not debatable.

Bollocks. I don't believe you have a mind. I think you are one of those p-zombies we hear so much about. You can behave like you are conscious, but your inability to recognise other minds gives you away.

So, unless you can prove, objectively, that you are not a zombie, I for one will assume that you are.

As I always say in this situation, 'The villainy you teach me I will execute—and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction'.

 

[untermensche]

In a bat vibrating air creates a visual experience. It is turned into a "sight".

To navigate as quickly as a bat navigates you have to "see". And it navigates in the absence of light.

The vibrating air is not a sight or a sound.

It is a stimulus that causes an evolved brain to make an arbitrary evolved product. The product is just something that arose randomly since an external stimulus cannot direct an evolving nervous system to do things.

It takes an understanding of evolution and how change can possibly occur.

All change takes place from within the organism. The external world just gives the grade. Pass or Fail.

Many of these crazy ideas arise because of poor understandings of how the things the brain does arose. They all arose randomly. Nothing was planned. The external world did not rearrange the genes to it's liking.

The EM radiation did not say: "Now this is the experience of "red". The experience of "red" is just something that became randomly associated to the stimulus. It was not created by the stimulus.

Nothing the brain does was created. It all arose randomly.

So, all I take from this is that you absolutely failed to grasp Nagel's point too. No, the bat doesn't have to 'see' it has to do something that we simply can't imagine and certainly couldn't conceptualise.

Oh and the lottery paradox, but what's the point of explaining.

A bat navigates quickly and accurately in the absence of light.

To do this it must be aware of it's surroundings.

That is called "seeing".

Vibrations of air are not "sound". They have nothing to do with "sound". "Sound" is an experience. Vibrating air is not.

And in a bat vibrating air creates a visual image.

 

[untermensche]

I'm happy that synonyms can sometimes be useful. I have often found it to be the case.

It is a worthless concept that is not needed for anything.

It does not explain one thing.

Yes for those who like to collect words it is another word.

 

[Subsymbolic]

In a bat vibrating air creates a visual experience. It is turned into a "sight".

To navigate as quickly as a bat navigates you have to "see". And it navigates in the absence of light.

The vibrating air is not a sight or a sound.

It is a stimulus that causes an evolved brain to make an arbitrary evolved product. The product is just something that arose randomly since an external stimulus cannot direct an evolving nervous system to do things.

It takes an understanding of evolution and how change can possibly occur.

All change takes place from within the organism. The external world just gives the grade. Pass or Fail.

Many of these crazy ideas arise because of poor understandings of how the things the brain does arose. They all arose randomly. Nothing was planned. The external world did not rearrange the genes to it's liking.

The EM radiation did not say: "Now this is the experience of "red". The experience of "red" is just something that became randomly associated to the stimulus. It was not created by the stimulus.

Nothing the brain does was created. It all arose randomly.

So, all I take from this is that you absolutely failed to grasp Nagel's point too. No, the bat doesn't have to 'see' it has to do something that we simply can't imagine and certainly couldn't conceptualise.

Oh and the lottery paradox, but what's the point of explaining.

A bat navigates quickly and accurately in the absence of light.

To do this it must be aware of it's surroundings.

That is called "seeing".

Vibrations of air are not "sound". They have nothing to do with "sound". "Sound" is an experience. Vibrating air is not.

And in a bat vibrating air creates a visual image.

Nope, as Nagel points out that's called echolocation. Here he is saying it in the seminal paper you clearly haven't read. Again.

I have said that the essence of the belief that bats have experience is that there is something that it is like to be a bat. Now we know that most bats (the microchiroptera, to be precise) perceive the external world primarily by sonar, or echolocation, detecting the reflections, from objects within range, of their own rapid, subtly modulated, high-frequency shrieks. Their brains are designed to correlate the outgoing impulses with the subsequent echoes, and the information thus acquired enables bats to make precise discriminations of distance, size, shape, motion, and texture comparable to those we make by vision. But bat sonar, though clearly a form of perception, is not similar in its operation to any sense that we possess, and there is no reason to suppose that it is subjectively like anything we can experience or imagine. This appears to create difficulties for the notion of what it is like to be a bat. We must consider whether any method will permit us to extrapolate to the inner life of the bat from our own case, and if not, what alternative methods there may be for understanding the notion.

How like a zombie to not be able to conceptualise the difference between vision and echolocation, or recognise the unknowability of the latter.

 

[untermensche]

In that I concluded, I MUST have a mind.

The issue is not debatable.

Bollocks. I don't believe you have a mind.

That is great.

I have no doubt I do.

And any honest person who experienced what I experience would have no doubt either.

There can be no experience without something to have the experience.

 

[untermensche]

A bat navigates quickly and accurately in the absence of light.

To do this it must be aware of it's surroundings.

That is called "seeing".

Vibrations of air are not "sound". They have nothing to do with "sound". "Sound" is an experience. Vibrating air is not.

And in a bat vibrating air creates a visual image.

Nope, as Nagel points out that's called echolocation. Here he is saying it in the seminal paper you clearly haven't read. Again.

I have said that the essence of the belief that bats have experience is that there is something that it is like to be a bat. Now we know that most bats (the microchiroptera, to be precise) perceive the external world primarily by sonar, or echolocation, detecting the reflections, from objects within range, of their own rapid, subtly modulated, high-frequency shrieks. Their brains are designed to correlate the outgoing impulses with the subsequent echoes, and the information thus acquired enables bats to make precise discriminations of distance, size, shape, motion, and texture comparable to those we make by vision. But bat sonar, though clearly a form of perception, is not similar in its operation to any sense that we possess, and there is no reason to suppose that it is subjectively like anything we can experience or imagine. This appears to create difficulties for the notion of what it is like to be a bat. We must consider whether any method will permit us to extrapolate to the inner life of the bat from our own case, and if not, what alternative methods there may be for understanding the notion.

How like a zombie to not be able to conceptualise the difference between vision and echolocation, or recognise the unknowability of the latter.

You have no arguments.

Name dropping is not an argument.

Posting expositions from other people is not an argument.

If you can't explain what you are talking about you have no argument.

And you have no arguments.

Bats navigate quickly and accurately using sound.

That is not possible unless the sound somehow gives you information about your surroundings.

That is called vision. A different kind of vision than we have with our eyes, but a kind of vision none-the-less.

It is not called hearing.

And even if I accept the notion of the person you quoted that actually has ideas then we see vibrating air does one thing in a human and another in a bat. It is not a signal to create a sound.

You have a complete ignorance of evolution if you think an external stimulation can cause a brain to make a specific thing.

There is no connection between vibrating air and sound.

One has absolutely nothing to do with the other.

Sound is just an arbitrary product of the brain experienced by a mind that has a contingent evolutionary association with an external stimulation.

 

[Subsymbolic]

In that I concluded, I MUST have a mind.

The issue is not debatable.

Bollocks. I don't believe you have a mind.

That is great.

I have no doubt I do.

And any honest person who experienced what I experience would have no doubt either.

There can be no experience without something to have the experience.

Well that's exactly what a zombie would say. I note that there's not even an attempt to offer any objective evidence that you have a mind.

 

[untermensche]

That is great.

I have no doubt I do.

And any honest person who experienced what I experience would have no doubt either.

There can be no experience without something to have the experience.

Well that's exactly what a zombie would say. I note that there's not even an attempt to offer any objective evidence that you have a mind.

As I said I have to be dealing with somebody honest.

I have to be dealing with somebody who honestly says they experience many things.

 

[Subsymbolic]

Nope, as Nagel points out that's called echolocation. Here he is saying it in the seminal paper you clearly haven't read. Again.



How like a zombie to not be able to conceptualise the difference between vision and echolocation, or recognise the unknowability of the latter.

You have no arguments.

Name dropping is not an argument.

Posting expositions from other people is not an argument.

If you can't explain what you are talking about you have no argument.

And you have no arguments.

Bats navigate quickly and accurately using sound.

That is not possible unless the sound somehow gives you information about your surroundings.

That is called vision. A different kind of vision than we have with our eyes, but a kind of vision none-the-less.

It is not called hearing.

And even if I accept the notion of the person you quoted that actually has ideas then we see vibrating air does one thing in a human and another in a bat. It is not a signal to create a sound.

You have a complete ignorance of evolution if you think an external stimulation can cause a brain to make a specific thing.

There is no connection between vibrating air and sound.

One has absolutely nothing to do with the other.

Sound is just an arbitrary product of the brain experienced by a mind that has a contingent evolutionary association with an external stimulation.

Only a zombie would confuse quoting with name dropping. As for the random redefinition of words, that's just classic zombie.

I note there's still no objective evidence that you have a mind. I'm still waiting.