Mindfulness or Mindlessness?

[vulcanlogician]

Descartes laid out the mind-body problem for us. His solution to it, substance dualism, is lacking. But he asked the right questions, at least. Functionalism, if anything, is an answer to those questions. Substance dualism relies on folk intuitions. But the mind-body problem itself may not. I mean, there is a mystery there, isn't there? And we can't explore that mystery without covering the territory first travelled by Descartes.

Qualia doesn't demand an explanation. Conscious experience demands an explanation. Qualia is simply something we march out in front of those who say there is a 1:1 reduction between conscious states and brain states.

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Are beliefs a thing? Well, in a metaphysical sense, they are. I have a belief that my car is parked in my driveway. The cause of this belief is the firing of neurons in my brain. But what the belief says (its truth-value, etc.) is not determined by looking at my neurons. The belief has a metaphysical structure, and you determine the truth value of it by looking at the structure of the belief, and comparing it to the physical world (ie. by looking at my driveway) to see if it's true. For this reason I want to say beliefs (and by proxy, memories) are on different ontological ground than qualia. "Caused by brain states" is the only common denominator.

What is there to conscious experience besides qualia?  Qualia is the what of intentionality.  It's qualia all the way down.  If qualia needs no explanation, then conscious experience needs none.

I'm very skeptical of people who talk about various "whats" of consciousness.  To me it's like hearing a noise and concluding there is a bear in the brush.  Assuming the bear brings a truckload of properties that may not belong to the noise.  Assuming that whats like qualia and experience are existent is assuming a lot about them.  As noted in the dream analogy, these may be just our brain telling us we have a what.  This, as noted, leads to the Cartesian theater, which is almost certainly wrong.  So some of the properties you're inheriting by assuming a whatness about qualia or experience are most certainly wrong.  Take memories for example.  If we assume a whatness to them, then we bring in a property of persistence and exteriorality, neither of which are supported by the science.  Memory is a process, not a thing.  So I think the evidence leans in favor of considering consciousness and experience as a process rather than a what.  I'm reminded of Searle's Chinese Room; a skeptic might look in vain for where the meaning lies by assuming it is a what that exists in or out of the room.  My favored response is the systems response, but in terms of consciousness, that's basically functionalism, which you seem unhappy with.  I have to wonder if you found square circles in a dream whether you'd be looking to explain their whatness in the dream similarly.

ETAS:  I think what you are referring to as beliefs are more properly termed propositions.  Beliefs are the feeling associated with propositions.  That feeling isn't metaphysical.

It isn't "qualia all the way down." There are quantitative conscious experiences that have a 1:1 reduction. Those don't pose the same kind of problems qualia do.

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Searle's Chinese room is an argument against functionalism. And I agree with Searle's criticisms.

In moving to discussion of intentionality Searle seeks to develop the broader implications of his argument. It aims to refute the functionalist approach to understanding minds, that is, the approach that holds that mental states are defined by their causal roles, not by the stuff (neurons, transistors) that plays those roles. The argument counts especially against that form of functionalism known as the Computational Theory of Mind that treats minds as information processing systems

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/

You think I'm saying there's a bear in the bushes. I'm not. I'm saying, "there's a sound coming from the bushes." And your response is, "Well, there's no reason to assume it's a bear, so you're wrong."


There IS a sound from the bushes. Functionalism is insufficient. That's the sound coming from the bushes. I'm not bear hunting here. I'm critiquing theories. In no way do I win this argument by discovering a bear.