Monist vs. Dualist Experiment?

[genkaus]

I've seen planes and explosions in real life, as things objectively observable to be existent outside myself (assuming at least physicalism, which we are). I've never seen a mind, as a thing objectively existent outside myself.

Why is "outside yourself" suddenly a criteria now for something being objectively existent and observable? If it isn't, then you have see a mind, as a thing objectively existent within yourself.

Since qualia cannot, in a physical monism, be MORE than brain function, then they are not required to explain any physical behavior: the brain function is sufficient.

That's just ridiculous. In physical monism, qualia are brain function and brain function is required and sufficient to explain physical behavior, but, somehow, qualia are not required to explain it? The very fact that all of brain functions are required for explaining the behavior automatically makes qualia a part of that explanation.

In order to establish a qualia-> behavior relationship, you have to know for sure that there ARE qualia actually there. But the problem is, if you determine that only by looking at behavior, then you're introducing a vicious circle. It's the same as: "I know God is real because the Bible says so, and I know the Bible is true because God says so."

Except, I do know that qualia are actually there - from my own experience - as do you. Its not a vicious circle because we are starting with the brute fact of subjective experience. "I know qualia is real because I experience it, I know my own behavior to be the consequence of subjective experience and when I see the same behavior in others, I conclude the existence of qualia in them as well". The religious parallel would be: "I know god is real because I've directly experienced him and his authorship of the bible and its veracity are the consequence of him being real and thus I can use other statements in the bible as evidence for other facts". Ofcourse, this argument fails because direct experience of god is not a brute fact and veracity of the bible is not a consequence of it.

Yes, but my internal representation of the idea/symbol "plane" is of an object apparently exterior to the self. My internal represeentaion of the idea/symbol "mind" or now "qualia" is of something obviously interior to the self.

What difference does being interior or exterior to the self make?

So the philosophical question is this: is something SEEMING by its behavior to have qualia a good enough match to that symbol?

On a pragmatic sense, you and I both agree that yes, it is. On a philosophical sense, you see a monism as simpler and singly sufficient, therefore better, than a dualism. But that's where I draw my line-- I don't consider Occam's Razor a sufficient proof of an idea.

Its not just that monism is simpler and singly sufficient, through the discussion, we've also found dualism to be insufficient and we've found evidence that takes the position beyond the Razor. But once again, consistent application of this level of agnosticism should make you equally agnostic about other things, such as 9/11. There, your options are that either the events actually happened or that its a conspiracy and the evidence has been manufactured to deceive you. Here, you are willing to use Occam's Razor as sufficient proof for the former and not the latter. Unless, ofcourse, your agnosticism and "pragmatic assumption" is the same in both cases.

MY qualia are a brute fact, for me. Ideas about who/what, might have or not have them is a matter of observation mated to arbitrary philosophical assumptions. The reason you and I arrive at different conclusions is that we like working under different assumptions, and no more than that.

Maybe that's the problem - you haven't validated your philosophical assumptions, which is what makes them arbitrary.

Not in robots or computers, it's not.

You have evidence to support that?

That's fine. But how complex a system do you need to have the most primitive "qualia" that deserves that name? Do you need a fully functioning being with the ability to symbolize experiences and reference them to memories? Or do you just need a system capable of phsyical homeostasis? Or or any kind of recursive or self-referential function? Or of any form of energy being transmuted to another and processed?

Not sure, how do you measure complexity? No. More than that. Of some kind. What does that even mean?

In the human being, ALL those things are true. In a machine, some of them are true, but not others. How are we to separate the human-ness from the definition of qualia, and arrive at an understanding of exactly what level of processing would be required for OTHER entities to actually experience their environment, rather than being responding machines minus qualia? We can't know, because if you ask a neuron what it's feeling, or hook a single neuron up to an EEG, you can obtain no meaningful data.

Except, no one is suggesting hooking up a neuron to an EEG to determine the existence of qualia. We've already established that within physical monism, qualia is brain function - FUNCTION, not a property of neurons - which mean, correctly identifying the processes involved in that function and replicating them is required to determine at what level of processing entities become capable of experience.