Mindfulness or Mindlessness?

[vulcanlogician]

I think you are indeed saying there's a bear.  You've separated qualia from the process as an atomistic component.

I haven't said it's atomistic. There may very well be a 1:1 ontological reduction between physical states and mental states. But we don't know how it reduces. Although more wisened people may chastise me for it, I say that means there's a mystery. At least, it's mysterious to me.

On the one hand, you have ideas like Searle's. Searle thinks it's a natural property of c-fibers to produce a conscious state when electricity moves through them. (Biological Naturalism: Science hasn't worked out the particulars, of course, but they might yet do that.) This doesn't necessarily mean that anything that possesses the ability to transmit pain information (sensory information that informs behaviors) will produce conscious states. Searle thinks "it has to be neuron-shaped"--or, less erroneously stated, something about the physicality of neurons produces conscious states. That's what Searle thinks.

Contrast this with the functionalist view. To the functionalist, nothing about the form or natural properties of neurons has to do with conscious states. The transmission of pain information is what is responsible for pain states. End of story. I think functionalism is dissatisfying. If there's a bear-- that's the bear.

What do qualia have to do with this? Qualia are not explicable by information alone. Like the color red, it represents a wavelength of light between x and y... but why does it need to look red? It doesn't. You can express the information of "red" without red as we perceive it. That makes red as we perceive it superfluous in a 1:1 reduction of things.

Now, if Searle is right, there wouldn't need to be a 1:1 reduction, because "redness" may be some artifact of neural structure or something. So biological naturalism can explain qualia. Functionalism can't. That's the question. That's the bear. Which theory is more accurate? I don't know. Why do you think functionalism is true compared to biological naturalism, Angrboda?