Subjective and objective time

[PyramidHead]

They are not interconnected in any way, nor are they connected to a common output. They are just separated masses of brain tissue being fed impulses by separate machines.

But the machines are providing (before the accidental pause) all the signals that would have been naturally received by each part, so it's the equivalent, functionally, of being 'actually' interconnected. In fact, in informational as well as functional terms, they are still (before the pause) 'as good as' fully interconnected, just not the usual way.

And then they're not, when the accidental pause affects some of the inputs.

So, during that pause, how would you experience the passage of time if 1/4 of your brain was not receiving the necessary inputs to produce that experience?

 

[ruby sparks]

So, during that pause, how would you experience the passage of time if 1/4 of your brain was not receiving the necessary inputs to produce that experience?

I'm not sure, but assuming my system (brain) was still able to perceive the passage of time I'd say it was experiencing time passing.

As to the content of the experience during or over that time, I can't see why it would be the same experience as it would be with the extra 25% input.

I wouldn't experience it as 'different' (to what it would have been with the 100% input) because I couldn't do that comparison any more than I could tell the difference between what I'm experiencing now compared to if I had 125% of my current inputs. Iow, I can't compare because there's nothing to compare it to, not because there's no difference. As such, I would call either of them 'my experience', even though objectively, they would not have been the same.

ETA: or, to put it another way, if I was having your experiences, or any experiences, I'd still call them mine. Ditto for when, because I'd call them all 'now'.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Has anyone looked in the pudding. I understand it's there. Hey! Maybe it's important to what we attribute as functional or perhaps it might be better said if we specified to what functionalism is relative?

I'm no specialist but the idea of functionalism is pretty straightforward. Maybe I'm missing something but that would be true of just about anything.

Still, me, I just don't buy the idea that consciousness is just mental states defined in terms of inputs and outputs.

I would broadly agree with a much more limited view saying that the logic of mental states is a function of inputs and outputs. That's not even strictly entirely true, but that's broadly true, i.e. it's true in most normal or ordinary circumstances, which should be good enough at least as a starting point for a conversation.

By mental states, I mean broadly the contents of consciousness, as opposed to the subjective experience of those contents. What I think doesn't reduce to inputs and outputs is first subjective experience itself, and, second, the quality of the mental contents we experience, i.e. qualia. Clearly, there's nothing in inputs and outputs as we think of them that could explain qualia or subjective experience. No way.

Functionalism is probably good enough as a theoretical framework for doing proper psychology and that's already something.

It's just shit for the philosophy of consciousness.
EB

 

[steve_bank]

Subjective experience is based on your brain chemistry.

Objective time is ticks on a clock.


You are working in a factory that produces 500 widgets a day every day.

You are hung over and your wife ran off with another guy. The day seems to go on forever, but 500 widgets are produced regardless of how you feel....

 

[Speakpigeon]

Yes, exactly.

The thought experiment suggested here just doesn't work.

And there's no conceivable way to wire up a brain so that everything you experience subjectively would be strictly a function of the inputs fed by the machine to your brain.

You might do a bit better by doing away with the brain entirely but then we have no idea if subjective experience would still exist at all in this case.

Doesn't work.
EB

 

[steve_bank]

Yes, exactly.

The thought experiment suggested here just doesn't work.

And there's no conceivable way to wire up a brain so that everything you experience subjectively would be strictly a function of the inputs fed by the machine to your brain.

You might do a bit better by doing away with the brain entirely but then we have no idea if subjective experience would still exist at all in this case.

Doesn't work.
EB

In metaphysics there are no absolutes. Language as well.

All of what we are is a function of our brain. Subjective and objective are definitions that are arbitrary. Meaning is what we give the words. For me that is basic.So, you are right in that thyere is no experiment. Trying to do so as with trying to nail down a definition for consiousness is like a dog chasing its tail. I mean it, not trying to be funny.

What if I ask you to define pain and show what you experience as pain is the same for me? Can it be done experimentallY? I could stick a pin in your arm and say 'That is pain what you are feeling'. That then becomes a refernce point to discuss pain.

When you are in pain in the hospital you are asked to rate it from 0 to 10. The number you say becomes a subjective refernce point as you are given pain meds.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say.

Still, I can try...

Yes, exactly.

The thought experiment suggested here just doesn't work.

And there's no conceivable way to wire up a brain so that everything you experience subjectively would be strictly a function of the inputs fed by the machine to your brain.

You might do a bit better by doing away with the brain entirely but then we have no idea if subjective experience would still exist at all in this case.

Doesn't work.
EB

In metaphysics there are no absolutes. Language as well.

I really don't know what you're trying to say.

Metaphysics
1. (Philosophy) The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality

Nature
1. the fundamental qualities of a person or thing; identity or essential character

According to how I understand these two definitions, any metaphysical statement would deal with absolute truths. A metaphysical statement can be wrong of course, but that's true of any statement people make, so there's nothing specific here about metaphysics.

Or are you just stating the obvious that one could be wrong when making any metaphysical statement?

All of what we are is a function of our brain.

That's definitely a metaphysical statement.

I take it you mean "all of what we are" as subjective beings "is a function of our brain".

That may or may not be true. I certainly don't know. I don't think you know either. I don't think anybody knows. And wouldn't us knowing all depends on our brains?

As far as I understand what people mean by "brain", I don't think it's true that all of what we are as subjective beings is a function of our brain.

In particular, I fail to see how the qualitative aspect of subjective experience is accounted for even by the science of the brain.

Subjective and objective are definitions that are arbitrary.

???

So what? All definitions are arbitrary. The definition of a quark is arbitrary.

Meaning is what we give the words.

Sure. Big deal.

For me that is basic.

Good. So, what are you going to do about it? Stop using words?

So, you are right in that thyere is no experiment.

???

Don't know what you mean.

Trying to do so as with trying to nail down a definition for consiousness is like a dog chasing its tail. I mean it, not trying to be funny.

If what we are, as subjective beings, is a function of our brain, then we don't have a say in whatever definition we come up with. We don't even have a say in whether or not we want to give a definition to consciousness. In whether we do or don't do this conversation. And then, what?

What if I ask you to define pain and show what you experience as pain is the same for me? Can it be done experimentallY? I could stick a pin in your arm and say 'That is pain what you are feeling'. That then becomes a refernce point to discuss pain.

When you are in pain in the hospital you are asked to rate it from 0 to 10. The number you say becomes a subjective refernce point as you are given pain meds.

Personally, I'm convinced that there are two sides of things. What I call "objective", one I call "subjective". I would assume that's pretty easy to understand, but I'll explain nonetheless. Something subjective is whatever you experience subjectively. You won't need any definition here. You know how it feels when you feel it. Nobody is going to tell you any different. And obviously, there's no way to compare how we feel subjectively. For all we know, our respective subjective experiences might well be entirely different from each other. I think it wouldn't even matter in terms of how we behave since I assume that how we behave is a function of our brain, not of our subjective experience, although I might be wrong about that.

Then there is what I call the "objective" side of things. To me, something becomes objective once different people agree that it's something real. So, the objective side of things is always relative to a group of people, whereas the subjective side is relative to each individual person.

So, according to this, everything that's objective is also first subjective for each person in the group of people who agree on it, even though their subjective experience of it may well be completely different.

In the case of the pain felt by the patient, it's entirely subjective. What is objective in this case, are things like the dosage of the pain killer, things the patient and the doctor can get to agree on.



Anyway, I would have tried, but I still really don't know what you're trying to say.

As I said, the subjective side is relative to each individual, the objective side is relative to a particular group of people. This also means that from their points of view, it's absolute. The pain I feel is absolutely the pain as I feel it and you're not going to tell me any different. And if we agree on something so that it's now objective, then presumably it's to agree it's absolute.

I can't do any better than that.
EB

 

[steve_bank]

SP because of the difficulties with subjective perceptions humans have long used simile, analogy, metaphor, and allegory to communicate. A picture is worth 1000 words. Aesop's Fables.

You seem to be unable tofollow simple metaphor and anaology.

Your perenial question is subjective vs objective.

If I go to work and say outloud 'Man, today my ass is dragging' everyone will know what I mean. While 8 hours is still 8 hours on the clock, the day can go on forever. If you don't see that as an answer to your qyestion then you have a cognitive problem or are just being difficult ore lacking experience in the real world.

 

[Speakpigeon]

SP because of the difficulties with subjective perceptions humans have long used simile, analogy, metaphor, and allegory to communicate. A picture is worth 1000 words. Aesop's Fables.

I'm pleased there's something at least we can agree on! Good job, Steve!

You seem to be unable tofollow simple metaphor and anaology.

I seem to have perfectly got all the metaphors I've met in person throughout my life. Try me.

Your perenial question is subjective vs objective.

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean here. Subjective v. objective isn't even a question for me. It's a concept I apply and, it seems to me, to great effect. Prove otherwise if you care.

If I go to work and say outloud 'Man, today my ass is dragging' everyone will know what I mean. While 8 hours is still 8 hours on the clock, the day can go on forever. If you don't see that as an answer to your qyestion then you have a cognitive problem or are just being difficult ore lacking experience in the real world.

Oh, whoa, that is "heavy", man.


Again, I don't have any question about subjectivity and objectivity.

You made a number of rather vague comments on a post of mine. I gave you a detailed response and yet you now seem unwilling to engage on that. Fair enough. I guess that tells me I won't need to try again with you.

Still, if you're not prepared to argue your points or explain yourself then, please, abstain to make them in the first place.
EB

 

[steve_bank]

Subjectuve time and space

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfWEdkR4q50I am wondering if EB thinks rge rate of change if physical reality changes with his perception of time.

Simple questiom.

Two people are at work. One is feeling down and tired. He watches the clock thinking of the end of the workday and the ckock seems to drag fiorever.

Another person is up and energetic feels like the day is going too fast.

Regardless of how each of them feel, does the external world rate of change, or time, change? A yes or no answer.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Subjectuve time and space

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfWEdkR4q50I am wondering if EB thinks rge rate of change if physical reality changes with his perception of time.

Simple questiom.

Two people are at work. One is feeling down and tired. He watches the clock thinking of the end of the workday and the ckock seems to drag fiorever.

Another person is up and energetic feels like the day is going too fast.

Regardless of how each of them feel, does the external world rate of change, or time, change? A yes or no answer.

Look here:

Again, I don't have any question about subjectivity and objectivity.

You made a number of rather vague comments on a post of mine. I gave you a detailed response and yet you now seem unwilling to engage on that. Fair enough. I guess that tells me I won't need to try again with you.

Still, if you're not prepared to argue your points or explain yourself then, please, abstain to make them in the first place.
EB

Still applies, I guess.
EB

 

[aupmanyav]

This should give us compelling reason to doubt that there is anything absolute or reality-reflective in the way we subjectively experience time as constantly flowing.

There is no question of a doubt. What we experience is subjective, but that does not negate the absolute reality. There are two possibilities. 1. Matter or Energy which created it is eternal or 2. The energy arose from 'Absolute Nothing' (Creatio Ex-nihilo, Zero-Energy universe, Many universe hypothesis.

The 'absolute reality' is not known. Give it another 100 years.

 

[Speakpigeon]

What we experience is subjective, but that does not negate the absolute reality. There are two possibilities. 1. Matter or Energy which created it is eternal or 2. The energy arose from 'Absolute Nothing' (Creatio Ex-nihilo, Zero-Energy universe, Many universe hypothesis.

Just to nitpick when I just feel like it, I need to say there's yet another bunch of possibilities, which is creation from something but not within time. We obviously can't think of that one too well but I don't know of any rationale for time being some kind of necessary being. I already suggested another such possibility, creation within a different time than our own, if we assume at least another time dimension than our own, in which case our time could be finite and yet our universe created from something else, and so not ex-nihilo at all.

We could also imagine our universe existing in one unique time loop, itself uncreated and not existing in time. Our universe would just repeat itself within this time loop.

Still, you could argue all these things are just variations within your "ex-nihilo" alternative or within the "eternal" one.

Welcome back, by the way!

And, 100 years seems very, very optimistic to me. Still, who knows.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

Thanks for our post to me a while back.

What is quale that makes them different from inputs and outputs at some level? In my view they aren't different. The human survives in a world she can sense and in which she can evolve driven by those and other worldly forces. Human nervous systems are collections of significant changes in structure and function across billions of years. It would be so simple to say she reorganized according to those changes.

But we know the mechanisms of evolution are random and deterministic in nature. Humans are of many minds all the time, many consciousnesses all the time, and therefor of many options for being aware in any given instant. We may come to understand nature well enough to presume to construct likely models, but, I fear we'd need multitudes of them to account for our behavior.

Whilst I don't suggest you hold the following position it needs saying. It is sheer conceit to presume we are organised as an integrated conscious being in the same what we are organized as a physical being since the general outline of our physical being evolves much more slowly than does instantiations of our neural and chemical being.

How else could we have come to gestural language in the last million years or so and then to spoken language after recent changes in our jaw and larynx? We are many directed beings depending on whims of events now of collections of biases previous and those whims have no need to be coherent.

Our philosophical thinking can no more be useful than can our current behavior when what is coming isn't yet present. No. We are certainly collections of analyzers near term and long term, of chemical commands then and now coupled with demands for attentions from this and that now and then. Turning them into something coherent as if it were designed is not to be, but, while it is surely to be approximated in many different forms from this or that or those adaptations.

So maybe approximations, but certainly not quale, or any consistent representation in consciousness. No we need go elsewhere to find models for mind than in philosophy where we can only use what we think which is dependent on how our systems evolved which our current representation has no understanding.

So we have to find information in objective time that can be seen consistently in subjective time to understand our subjective nature.

Any other path seems completely useless.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Thanks for our post to me a while back.

I'm not sure I understand much of what you say here but I can try to respond.

What is quale that makes them different from inputs and outputs at some level? In my view they aren't different.

I could only agree that maybe they aren't different. To repeat myself, "Clearly, there's nothing in inputs and outputs as we think of them that could explain qualia".

We experience qualia in a certain way and we certainly don't experience inputs and outputs, as we think of them, in the same way at all, if we experience them at all. I would assume qualia to be somehow indicative of inputs and output, but possibly only to a very limited and specific extent, basically in what I would call the logic of our qualia. There seems to be a certain regularity about them which suggests they are subjected to some kind of rule or law, and one obvious and very plausible explanation would be to say that this is indeed where they would reflect inputs and outputs. And I feel I'm being a bit fussy here since it seems so straightforward and obvious it should go without saying.

However, despite this plausible connection between qualia and inputs/outputs, it should be just as clear to all of us, that qualia don't reduce to inputs and outputs, certainly not as far as we know. This should be clear to all of us unless, that is, you're all very, very different from me and from people who came up with the term "quale" to begin with. So, just as a reminder of what these people meant and of the fact that it's not just me having fancy ideas or that "qualia" isn't just a fancy word with no referent, just look at what Wiki says about it:

Quale
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

In philosophy and certain models of psychology, qualia (singular form: quale) are defined to be individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term qualia derives from the Latin neuter plural form (qualia) of the Latin adjective quālis meaning "of what sort" or "of what kind" in a specific instance like "what it is like to taste a specific orange, this particular orange now". Examples of qualia include the perceived sensation of pain of a headache, the taste of wine, as well as the redness of an evening sky. As qualitative characters of sensation, qualia stand in contrast to "propositional attitudes", where the focus is on beliefs about experience rather than what it is directly like to be experiencing.

So, I fail to see how qualia could be readily reduced to inputs and outputs. It might well be possible to do it, but what we would have to do first is to change the way we think of inputs and outputs. Qualia are not the kind of things we can do anything about. They're a given. All the rest can be discussed and changed, including QM and General Relativity if need be.

And it's not just me apparently who think qualia are a reality:

Philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett once suggested that qualia was "an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us".

So, basically, you do qualia just I do unless all of this is a trick played on me by some mischievous god.

And, me, I'm not optimistic about the prospect of anyone ever coming up with some sort of rational explanation about the relation between qualia and the physical world that's supposed to be out there.

The human survives in a world she can sense and in which she can evolve driven by those and other worldly forces. Human nervous systems are collections of significant changes in structure and function across billions of years. It would be so simple to say she reorganized according to those changes.

But we know the mechanisms of evolution are random and deterministic in nature. Humans are of many minds all the time, many consciousnesses all the time, and therefor of many options for being aware in any given instant. We may come to understand nature well enough to presume to construct likely models, but, I fear we'd need multitudes of them to account for our behavior.

Whilst I don't suggest you hold the following position it needs saying. It is sheer conceit to presume we are organised as an integrated conscious being in the same what we are organized as a physical being since the general outline of our physical being evolves much more slowly than does instantiations of our neural and chemical being.

How else could we have come to gestural language in the last million years or so and then to spoken language after recent changes in our jaw and larynx? We are many directed beings depending on whims of events now of collections of biases previous and those whims have no need to be coherent.

Our philosophical thinking can no more be useful than can our current behavior when what is coming isn't yet present. No. We are certainly collections of analyzers near term and long term, of chemical commands then and now coupled with demands for attentions from this and that now and then. Turning them into something coherent as if it were designed is not to be, but, while it is surely to be approximated in many different forms from this or that or those adaptations.

All this applies only to what I would call the objective contents of our minds. That is to say, whatever we can objectively determine that is going on inside our brains that we assume is essential to what's going on inside our minds. See Libet and al. and, broadly, all scientists working on the brain and on the mind. I say, let them work out their magic and see what interesting things they will come up with. They have a job and it's not mine. They do it and good luck.

So maybe approximations, but certainly not quale, or any consistent representation in consciousness. No we need go elsewhere to find models for mind than in philosophy where we can only use what we think which is dependent on how our systems evolved which our current representation has no understanding.

So we have to find information in objective time that can be seen consistently in subjective time to understand our subjective nature.

Any other path seems completely useless.

Yep, that may well be true. In fact, I think usefulness is a notion that only really applies to our relation to the physical world (if we just ignore any religious views here for a moment). I don't see that there is anything about qualia that we should feel needs urgently to be elucidated. I might well be wrong, but I see the question of qualia much as I see the question of reality itself. It's by definition a given and no amount of even very, very clever investigation will ever possibly solve the problem.

And to push a bit at my Descartes here, I only know of what it is to exist because of the qualia that make up my thinking.

You can always mull about that if you don't have anything better to do in life.


So, you say, what could therefore be the usefulness of ever discussing qualia?!

Oh, well, one thing at a time, right? It's not even my job to explain all this.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

I could only agree that maybe they aren't different. To repeat myself, "Clearly, there's nothing in inputs and outputs as we think of them that could explain qualia".

We experience qualia in a certain way and we certainly don't experience inputs and outputs, as we think of them, in the same way at all, if we experience them at all. I would assume qualia to be somehow indicative of inputs and output, but possibly only to a very limited and specific extent, basically in what I would call the logic of our qualia. There seems to be a certain regularity about them which suggests they are subjected to some kind of rule or law, and one obvious and very plausible explanation would be to say that this is indeed where they would reflect inputs and outputs. And I feel I'm being a bit fussy here since it seems so straightforward and obvious it should go without saying.

However, despite this plausible connection between qualia and inputs/outputs, it should be just as clear to all of us, that qualia don't reduce to inputs and outputs, certainly not as far as we know. This should be clear to all of us unless, that is, you're all very, very different from me and from people who came up with the term "quale" to begin with. So, just as a reminder of what these people meant and of the fact that it's not just me having fancy ideas or that "qualia" isn't just a fancy word with no referent, just look at what Wiki says about it:

Quale
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

In philosophy and certain models of psychology, qualia (singular form: quale) are defined to be individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term qualia derives from the Latin neuter plural form (qualia) of the Latin adjective quālis meaning "of what sort" or "of what kind" in a specific instance like "what it is like to taste a specific orange, this particular orange now". Examples of qualia include the perceived sensation of pain of a headache, the taste of wine, as well as the redness of an evening sky. As qualitative characters of sensation, qualia stand in contrast to "propositional attitudes", where the focus is on beliefs about experience rather than what it is directly like to be experiencing.

So, I fail to see how qualia could be readily reduced to inputs and outputs. It might well be possible to do it, but what we would have to do first is to change the way we think of inputs and outputs. Qualia are not the kind of things we can do anything about. They're a given. All the rest can be discussed and changed, including QM and General Relativity if need be.

And it's not just me apparently who think qualia are a reality:

Philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett once suggested that qualia was "an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us".

So, basically, you do qualia just I do unless all of this is a trick played on me by some mischievous god.

And, me, I'm not optimistic about the prospect of anyone ever coming up with some sort of rational explanation about the relation between qualia and the physical world that's supposed to be out there.

The human survives in a world she can sense and in which she can evolve driven by those and other worldly forces. Human nervous systems are collections of significant changes in structure and function across billions of years. It would be so simple to say she reorganized according to those changes.

But we know the mechanisms of evolution are random and deterministic in nature. Humans are of many minds all the time, many consciousnesses all the time, and therefor of many options for being aware in any given instant. We may come to understand nature well enough to presume to construct likely models, but, I fear we'd need multitudes of them to account for our behavior.

Whilst I don't suggest you hold the following position it needs saying. It is sheer conceit to presume we are organised as an integrated conscious being in the same what we are organized as a physical being since the general outline of our physical being evolves much more slowly than does instantiations of our neural and chemical being.

How else could we have come to gestural language in the last million years or so and then to spoken language after recent changes in our jaw and larynx? We are many directed beings depending on whims of events now of collections of biases previous and those whims have no need to be coherent.

Our philosophical thinking can no more be useful than can our current behavior when what is coming isn't yet present. No. We are certainly collections of analyzers near term and long term, of chemical commands then and now coupled with demands for attentions from this and that now and then. Turning them into something coherent as if it were designed is not to be, but, while it is surely to be approximated in many different forms from this or that or those adaptations.

All this applies only to what I would call the objective contents of our minds. That is to say, whatever we can objectively determine that is going on inside our brains that we assume is essential to what's going on inside our minds. See Libet and al. and, broadly, all scientists working on the brain and on the mind. I say, let them work out their magic and see what interesting things they will come up with. They have a job and it's not mine. They do it and good luck.

So maybe approximations, but certainly not quale, or any consistent representation in consciousness. No we need go elsewhere to find models for mind than in philosophy where we can only use what we think which is dependent on how our systems evolved which our current representation has no understanding.

So we have to find information in objective time that can be seen consistently in subjective time to understand our subjective nature.

Any other path seems completely useless.

Yep, that may well be true. In fact, I think usefulness is a notion that only really applies to our relation to the physical world (if we just ignore any religious views here for a moment). I don't see that there is anything about qualia that we should feel needs urgently to be elucidated. I might well be wrong, but I see the question of qualia much as I see the question of reality itself. It's by definition a given and no amount of even very, very clever investigation will ever possibly solve the problem.

And to push a bit at my Descartes here, I only know of what it is to exist because of the qualia that make up my thinking.

You can always mull about that if you don't have anything better to do in life.


So, you say, what could therefore be the usefulness of ever discussing qualia?!

Oh, well, one thing at a time, right? It's not even my job to explain all this.
EB

I was going to respond in parts. However I need not. Your presentation is just standard justification of a mind term 'quale'. Not a bad one either. However, as a sensory psychologist - no I'm not trying to trump with authority, I'm just signalling a perspective - my view is sort of a connectivist functionalism on the topic. Sensing, mostly, is composed of evolved receptors linked through signal coherent pathways to processors thence to articulating devises which would be expected to provide validating responses to what is sensed. That is high wavelength input results in some sort of 'blue' response output.

But, and this last thought is important here, since we are evolved through random processes there will be connections among other aspects of sensing that 'color' our color response. This leads to unique representations processed and spoken by individuals and to the same individuals at different times. Seen this way it looks obvious to me that quale are nothing more than sense-response tokens.

As I pointed out and I believe you did also we are unique individuals and respond uniquely moment to moment. So trying hunt auale not only requires a shotgun approach it really adds nothing to our understanding of the nature of sense or sense expression. So yes, one thing at a time. Dismiss quale and concentrate on understanding subjective impressions and thought without new , and in my view, useless construct intervening. We already know that such leads some to dualism which is a huge waste of talent in a briar patch.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Sorry, I really tried to go into physics as a young man but in the end had to give up! The tragedy of my life, really. Such a loss.

So, yes, scientists probably would do well just ignoring talk of qualia, or at least not wasting too much of their precious time on it. Which, by and large, is I think what they're doing.

Now, I would still hope a few would pay attention because, you never know, it might prove useful in the end. As I see it, qualia are the only kind of things we know for sure that they exist (save for the Cartesian "I"). So, we can't possibly just ignore them. That would be plain idiotic. Like looking at the shadow of God and failing to see God Himself. Given the amount of talent wasted on stupid things in this Trumpian world, I think having a few geniuses really looking into qualia would be to make sure we stay on the safe side. You never know, it might even lead us, even force us, to find a better theory of the physical world. And we haven't made much progress on the fundamentals since the inception of QM and General Relativity. So...

So, things couldn't possibly be better!
EB