Monist vs. Dualist Experiment?

[bennyboy]

Are you similarly "agnostic" about 9/11? Or about the moon-landing? What about healing through prayer?

When, among all the so-called "multiple possibilities", only one explanation has the evidence to back it up while the others are not even intelligible, then saying that not only you don't know, but you cannot know is intellectually dishonest. At the very least, you should accept that while you cannot know, others can.

First, please don't use the words "intellectually dishonest." They are overused, and assumed by all parties. Everyone in a debate thinks this at some point: "Either this guy is stupid, or he's deliberately refusing to accept my obviously-true idea." However, saying it isn't a very good debate tactic-- it's a much better way to have people lose interest in debating you.

Second, all the things you mentioned are directly observable. I don't have to make philosophical assumptions about other people's subjective awareness to know that planes crashed into buildings, or to figure out that people who pray are no better off than people who don't.

Finally, with regard to qualia, here's what I know:
I experience qualia.
I have a brain.
The brain functions in certain ways (self-referential thinking etc.)
When I'm not experiencing qualia, my brain isn't functioning in those ways (I'm assuming based on second-hand observations, here).

Given this, your idea that brain function is qualia is a reasonable theory to try. However, it's not exclusive. There are in fact several plausible ideas to consider:

1) ONLY gross functions are necessary for qualia (i.e. input->black box-> output is sufficient, and the specific mechanism doesn't matter so long as it involves both self-reference and environmental awareness). This is your idea, I think.
2) The gross functions AND the specific physiology of an organic brain are necessary for qualia (i.e. qualia can supervene on the function of neurons, but not on that of other structures)
3) Qualia are associated with all configurations of matter and energy, i.e. they are not supervenient on either specific physical configurations nor specific kinds of data processing-- but the FORMS we appreciate and take interest in require an interaction of a great number of these "qualia particles." This conforms well to physics, where individual particles are highly elusive to us, but the courser forms they take on (like billiard balls or stars) have a collective meaning to us.


And these are all just physical monist explanations. Add in solipsism, idealism, dualism, and other inescapable philosophical possibilities, and agnosticism is looking pretty good.

Are any of the mechanisms listed here unique to a biological medium?

Yes. Neurotransmitters and neurons are both limited to a biological medium.

But, let's get this straight - you don't know which of these mechanisms is required for qualia because you don't have an explanation for what qualia is. But that is something you claim that you not only don't know, but you cannot know.Which means you can never know which of these mechanisms is required for qualia and thus not know whether or not a machine is experiencing qualia.

So, given that the machine sees a red light and stops, on what basis do you assume that it doesn't experience?

As I explained, I start with my self, and extend the likelihood of qualia to other people, to other mammals, and to other animals, because we share not only some similar behaviors (like expression of emotion), but also the mechanism of the brain. On the most fundamental level, everything I accept to have qualia is at least living.

Now, if you made artificial DNA (maybe we will be able to model DNA in a computer one day and "print" it), and managed to produce something mechanically identical to a simple organism, then I'd really have to wonder if it experienced qulia. I think I'd probably give it the benefit of the doubt.

We've also talked about the possibility of a human brain / AI computer interface, which might actually shed some light on the issue. If my brain could access memories stored by someone else to an external medium (like a childhood memory), that would be very good evidence in support of your idea, I think.

And here we go with straw-manning. I AM talking about the subjective experience of an entity. When I say qualia. I mean the "subjective experience of an entity". When I say "qualia is a specific form of self-referential data-processing", I'm given an explanation about why and how an entity experiences subjectively. When I talk about behavior, I'm talking about actions consequent of the entity experiencing subjectivity. We've been through this before, so there should be no reason for you to "misunderstand".

You still haven't explained how you can test your hypothesis, rather than just assuming it. So far, there's only a false syllogism:
-Wherever there's qualia, certain kinds of data processing are found. Therefore, wherever those kinds of data processing are found, there's necessarily qualia.
-Wherever there's a dog, a tail can be found. Therefore wherever a tail can be found, there's necessarily a dog.