Monist vs. Dualist Experiment?

[bennyboy]

Your intellectual dishonesty isn't about being stupid or disagreeing with me - its about the inconsistent application of your own ideas about knowledge. Because you can't directly observe the subjective experience of another person, you claim that the existence of qualia and the nature of its existence in others is unknown and unknowable and yet, where other not-directly-observable phenomena are concerned, you regard them as both knowable and known. So, I don't care if the words "intellectually dishonest" are overused or if you don't like it, if I see it happening, I'll call you on it.

There's an important difference. I've actually seen planes and buildings and explosions. My agnosticism about 9/11 is only about whether or not the video I watch is a real recording (as opposed to a complex conspiracy). My agnosticism about qualia is INTRINSIC to the way I gain knowledge, not something happenstance to my geographic location at the time of (supposed?) events.

No, they're not. Not unless you were in New-York on 9/11 or on the moon at landing or with the person who prays. You are making the philosophical assumption that material evidence is a valid method for gaining knowledge about those things and you are rejecting the the same philosophical assumption when it comes to other people's subjective awareness.

No I'm not. I said I'm willing to extend that assumption to other people because of their physiological and behavioral similarities to me, and also to mammals, and to other animals, and to single-celled organisms. Extending this assumption is a process based on social instinct and philosophical pragmatism.

These two possibilities are not alternative to my explanation. In both cases qualia is brain function, just in latter case, that function becomes inherent to physiology. Further, here is where the evidence train stops. The evidence we currently have for subjective experiences, supports one of these two possibilities.

It also supports the third, since you'd still need a specific arrangement of "atomic qualia," which are associated with matter, to have ideas and physical experiences.

That's not plausible at all. Quale are mental phenomena, i.e. they require a mind in order to exist and mind does not exist in all configurations of matter and energy.

What if you take all qualia and remove them from the mind? Is there still something there, or nothing but the sound of one hand clapping?

What say you? Is there a difference between mind and qualia, or is "qualia" just a word for the mental state at a given time?

And evolution is just the scientific explanation. Add in Biblical creationism, Vedic creationism and Raelianism and suddenly, agnosticism is looking pretty good.

Both position have the same failing - only one of the so called "philosophical possibilities" have any evidence for it.

The philosophical positions I mentioned are all logical positions based on reconciling the subject/object relationship that people experience. They are all simple positions about the relationship between the mind of a person and the things he perceives.

The other things you have added aren't simple positions: they're rich mythologies full of cultural influence

As for evidence: the "evidence" you are talking about is already founded on philosophical questions, so ragging on philosophical positions is hypocritical-- intellectually dishonest, so to speak. Don't believe me? What scientific evidence can you provide to prove that qualia exist? None. You conflate the meaning of an unobservable thing with an observable thing, label the observations (which are all based on your philosophical assumption) "evidence," and call it a point well made. Except no matter how confident you are, the fact is that you can't see my mind, or experience any of my experiences.

You mean their function cannot be replicated using non-organic media?

Every firing of every neuron is a function. You are assuming that qualia live in the course functions of entire systems. But for all we know, it is those microscopic functions that determine actual experience.

This is where your assumptions about "knowledge" get in the way. Here, where you should have concluded reasonable knowledge, instead, you end up on an assumption.

What you call reasonable knowledge IS an assumption.

Your argument:
P1: I have direct access to my own experience but not to anyone else's.
C1: Therefore, I can only know that I am capable of experiencing qualia, but not anyone else.
P2: Others have similar physiological structure to mine, display similar behavior, similar emotions and so on.
C2: Given C1, I cannot know that they experience, but given P2, I can assume they do.

The problem here is C1. An examination of your own psyche should reveal to you that a lot of your behaviors - specifically, developing desires and acting on them - require your subjective experience. These can, therefore, be regarded as evidence for the existence of qualia and if others display similar behavior then their being capable of subjective experience is not an assumption but a conclusion based on evidence.

First of all, you have described the process I described-- generalizing self-knowledge to an extension of the assumption of qualia in others.

The only difference is what I call a pragmatic assumption, you call evidence. In this context, I believe my term is more appropriate. Using a property of a thing to establish other instances of that thing is still a false syllogism.
-Grape juice is purple. Therefore if I see a purple liquid, it must be grape juice.
-Dogs have tails. Therefore, if I see a tail, it is great evidence that there's a dog around somewhere.