RE: Mindfulness or Mindlessness?
September 2, 2021 at 10:36 am
(This post was last modified: September 2, 2021 at 11:16 am by vulcanlogician.)
I get that it is a faculty of our organism to distinguish certain phenomena. The reason I brought color into the argument was to show the irreducibility of qualia.
Using machines or something, we can measure the dimensions of a mushroom in the wild. We can determine that the mushroom is x centimeters high/wide etc. And this measurement, even though it is done by a machine, will more-or-less line up with the average person's perceptions of it. So, in the case of dimensions there is a 1:1 reducibility with the perceived phenomena and reality.
Not so with color. With color, there is a 1:1 reducibility between 700 nm wavelengths of light and what we see as red. That is not a complete 1:1 reduction. Our minds "add" something to our perceptive experience that DOES NOT EXIST in the real world-- a "red" quality to all wavelengths of light within certain parameters. It has help from the eye. It has help from the brain (the entire rest of the process may take place in the brain). But remember, there is no color outside of our conscious experience. That means there cannot be a 1:1 reducibility between the perceived world and the natural world as far as redness goes. (The only correlation is that some non-red things --wavelengths of light-- get represented as red.)
To be fair to the functionalists, they actually don't want to ignore the mind completely. Functionalism arose to combat theories of mind (like behaviorism) who seemed to altogether deny the mind's existence. Functionalism wanted to "add a few thin layers of mind back in," so to speak. Functionalists want to say that qualia are a function of the organism's perceptive faculties. After all, there's no sense in an organism having a pain response system, unless it hurts.
There is a reason I think functionalism is a solid theory. Since I have direct apprehension of consciousness, I reject those theories that try to dismiss it as an illusion. Functionalism doesn't quite do this. In fact, where I'm at as far as the metaphysics goes is between functionalism and [some better theory]. So I kind of "default" to functionalism, but find it dissatisfying. Of course, I would like a more comprehensive explanation of mind's existence. (Wouldn't we all.)
Pain may be the better example for qualia. There is no "pain" out there in the world (outside of our experience of it).
Using machines or something, we can measure the dimensions of a mushroom in the wild. We can determine that the mushroom is x centimeters high/wide etc. And this measurement, even though it is done by a machine, will more-or-less line up with the average person's perceptions of it. So, in the case of dimensions there is a 1:1 reducibility with the perceived phenomena and reality.
Not so with color. With color, there is a 1:1 reducibility between 700 nm wavelengths of light and what we see as red. That is not a complete 1:1 reduction. Our minds "add" something to our perceptive experience that DOES NOT EXIST in the real world-- a "red" quality to all wavelengths of light within certain parameters. It has help from the eye. It has help from the brain (the entire rest of the process may take place in the brain). But remember, there is no color outside of our conscious experience. That means there cannot be a 1:1 reducibility between the perceived world and the natural world as far as redness goes. (The only correlation is that some non-red things --wavelengths of light-- get represented as red.)
To be fair to the functionalists, they actually don't want to ignore the mind completely. Functionalism arose to combat theories of mind (like behaviorism) who seemed to altogether deny the mind's existence. Functionalism wanted to "add a few thin layers of mind back in," so to speak. Functionalists want to say that qualia are a function of the organism's perceptive faculties. After all, there's no sense in an organism having a pain response system, unless it hurts.
There is a reason I think functionalism is a solid theory. Since I have direct apprehension of consciousness, I reject those theories that try to dismiss it as an illusion. Functionalism doesn't quite do this. In fact, where I'm at as far as the metaphysics goes is between functionalism and [some better theory]. So I kind of "default" to functionalism, but find it dissatisfying. Of course, I would like a more comprehensive explanation of mind's existence. (Wouldn't we all.)
Pain may be the better example for qualia. There is no "pain" out there in the world (outside of our experience of it).