Monist vs. Dualist Experiment?

[bennyboy]

If your agnosticism about qualia was intrinsic to the way you gained knowledge then you would be similarly agnostic about 9/11 or the moon landing.

No it wouldn't. The way I gain knowledge is to look at things. If I look at video of 9/11, I gain knowledge about it. I cannot look at the qualia in others. I can ONLY assume it.

Something that you accept, by the way, when you say that "My agnosticism about 9/11 is only about whether or not the video I watch is a real recording". If that is truly the case, then you have to accept that you are agnostic about 9/11 and the oon landing as well - so ultimately, there is no difference.

First of all, as a self-declared agnostic, this position doesn't bother me at all-- on some level, I'm agnostic about everything, and any positive assertion about the nature of things requires a philosophical assumption. If you want to make that argument, welcome aboard.

However, not all kinds of agnosticism are predicated on the same assumptions. When I accept your assertion that I'm agnostic about 9/11, it's because you can challenge whether the physical universe is real, or whether ALL news and video I've seen about it is fabricated.

This is not the case with qualia. I'm agnostic about the qualia of others because I know what my own qualia are like, and I am unable to find out if others have anything like them.

And you are similarly just extending the assumption that the videos and photos you see of the events you cannot directly observe are real. Which means, the same way you cannot know whether others are capable of qualia, you similarly cannot know whether those events actually occurred - only extend a pragmatic assumption that they did. That would be an intellectually honest position for you - "I don't know if the towers were brought does by terrorists, I'm just assuming they were."

Let's get even more honest. I can't go beyond even solipsism with gnostic confidence, and I've argued so. However, earlier in this thread I declared that if we were going to talk about duality, I intended to accept the reality of the physical universe as given. That includes the brain, brain function as monitored in fMRI machines and EEGs, and physical behavior.

So the framed question as I see it is whether reality is a physical monism, a mind/physical dualism, or some kind of plurality. And IF the mind is a physical property which supervenes on physical structures or functions, then it's also about how we'd determine which systems are coincidental and which are necessary.

You need a specific arrangement of "atomic qualia" to have ideas and physical experiences? That's the first I'm hearing of it. Any evidence to support this?

The BOP evidence claim fails to obvious speculation. I'm not asserting anything with this idea, except this: EVEN IF qualia is a property that is emergent on the physical, we cannot know on what material level it emerges without a question-begging definition.

It could be that small collections of particles can generate primitive "qualia." It could be that any system complex enough to be self-referential and also to interact with its environment can have qualia. It could be that only higher species, like birds and mammals, can generate qualia, because its a property of the specific physiology of the brain. And, ultimately, it could be that only I experience qualia. And it could be that it is a specific pattern of ENERGY, not matter, which causes qualia, so that (for example) a cogs-and-axles "brain" couldn't have qualia no matter how complex it became.

Wrong - there is still something left. Qualia specifically refers to subjective experience, i.e. awareness of the inner working of the mind itself. The awareness of external events is not a part of it and exists independently of qualia.

If there's no content, then what's the experience? Sounds like Buddhist nirvana or something.

Qualia is an understanding of what experiences are LIKE. So all the subjective feelings, sensations, ideas, etc. associated with, say, watching a pretty girl would be qualia.

What does pineapple taste like? You can identify the chemical composition of pineapple without really "getting" what it is like to actually eat a piece of it. That's what qualia is.

Now, if you want to argue that dream qualia can have the same qualities as qualia about real things, then we are going somewhere interesting, but I don't see the relationship to this thread.

Both statements say the same thing - qualia are determined by neural functions. So, all we have to do is identify the specific functions and replicate them in a non-biological medium.

Oh, is that all? And here I thought we'd have to do something difficult. How would YOU go about simulating trillions of neurotransmitter packets as they are released and absorbed?

That so called "difference" is the difference between knowledge and agnosticism. And no, your "term" is not more appropriate.

If the only occurrence of purple was with a grape juice then concluding grape juice when you see purple would be a reasonable conclusion.

If the only occurrence of tails was with dogs, then using the tail as evidence for dogs is valid.

What if you could ONLY see the purple, but never the juice? Would you find it reasonable to infer that there was a tasty liquid behind it? What if you could ONLY see the wagging tail, but never the dog? Would you find it reasonable to infer a cuddly puppy?

The fact is that the only behavior/qualia relationship you have ever been able fully to observe is your own. Do you really consider a sample size of one sufficient to generalize to a confident assertion of "knowledge" about the nature of everything entity around you?

I don't think that's very scientific. I think it's philosophical.