Monist vs. Dualist Experiment?

[genkaus]

I'm not suggesting anything except that I don't know exactly what qualia are.

If that was all you were suggesting, then there would be no need for a discussion. But as the rest of your post shows, that is not all you are suggesting.

I'm suggesting that I can't observe them, or even know them to exist, outside my own subjective experience.

Can't know - as opposed to don't know. And as I've said before, consistent application of this agnosticism means you can't know whether the 9/11 is real.

I'm suggesting that if qualia is only part of brain function, then brain function is physically sufficient to explain all behaviors, making it scientifically irrelevant whether someone actually has qualia or just seems to.

Wrong. If qualia is a part of brain function, then knowing the differnce between someone who has qualia and someone who simply seems to is the same as knowing the difference between someone who has that particular function and someone who has some other function which resembles certain properties of having qualia. And that knowledge is scientifically relevant.

"Show me the evidence" fails as a response to agnosticism. The evidence that we are agnostic is that we are agnostic. If you think we are NOT agnostic about what qualia are and what causes them, then show me some, and show what made them. But you can't. And that's the point.

We as in people like you or we as in humanity is general?

I have no problem accepting the fact that you are agnostic in regards to everything related to qualia. Don't take my pointing out your inconsistent application as your agnosticism as disbelief in your agnostic state. After all, all that is required for agnosticism is to remain ignorant of the evidence.

As for humanity in general, most of them don't claim to be agnostic. Different groups give different explanations regarding what qualia are and what causes them. One group in particular - made of scientists - is actually showing their work.

As for the alternatives you listed: those are the things you'd have to rule out to have a meaningful scientific experiment on the nature of qualia. If you want to show qualia are only a property of function, then you have to show that something lacking that function lacks qualia (which you can't) or that all qualia must be associated with that function (which you can't). You've defined and assumed, then asserted. What you haven't done is shown how you can prove your assertions represent the reality of what qualia are and how they are caused to exist.

Actually, you were the one who listed those alternatives - and in order for me to rule them out, they have to be ruled in first. Which means, for me to consider them, you have to establish them as valid and sensible possibilities. When discussing gravity, it is not up to me to disprove the hypothesis that it is caused by His Noodliness by pushing us down with his Noodly appendages, unless you prove it to be a sensible possibility in the first place.

In order to develop a meaningful scientific experiment into the nature of qualia, I first have to operationalize the definition - meaning identify a testable, concrete meaning behind the nebulous notion - come up with a hypothesis pursuant to it and set up the experimental parameters. Disproving all the hare-brained alternatives is not required.

Ironically, you've used the same process that I have to get started: "I know I have qualia, I know I have a brain, so what can I infer?" I've inferred that since others SEEM to be physically similar to me, and SEEM to act as though they have qualia, I should assume that they do, as this lets me get on with my meaningful life. You've formed the same process as a "scientific" hypothesis: "What evidence should I look for to establish qualia? I can only see behavior, so let's use that. Yep, that guy behaves as though he has qualia-- so there's evidence supporting my hypothesis."

You're ignoring the third fact that we also know - that my behavior is a result of qualia. I'm not using behavior as evidence because I can see it, I'm using it because I know it to be a consequence of qualia. That's the difference between your assumption and my knowledge.

The only difference is that I don't accept your evidence as proper evidence, or your hypothesis as scientifically meaningful. It introduces an unecessary property to a process (input/processing/output) which is already sufficient to explain behavior.

Given the definition of qualia as a specific process - there is no new or unnecessary property being introduced. It is already a part of the process.

---

That is what awareness is - a system that monitors the mental activity itself. And this is the advantage it was selected for.

Prove it.

Prove a tautology?

---

I will concede that survival is more appropriate. That substitution does not undermine the argument. How does improved energy efficiency give a physical system phenomenal qualities?

No - phenomenal qualities improve energy efficiency. That is why they are selected for. And that undermines your argument.

This premise addresses the problem of over-determination that plagues your philosophy of mind. If phenomenal properties are reducible to physical events then they are not causally relevant. You have just given a name to a large set of related events. If mental properties occur simultaneously with physical processes then qualia are just along for the ride doing nothing. They neither steer nor propel. If qualia actually do something it is over and above what the physical processes are doing just fine by themselves.

If qualia is a name given to large set of related events, then there is neither any over-determination nor causal irrelevance. Since qualia is reducible to physical events, it is not "along for the ride" - it is the ride.

By itself no. In the context of the argument it is valid. Evolutionary pressures do not explain how our capacity for rational knowledge came to be. As such there is no materialist explanation for why they should exist at all. The physical universe can do everything it already does without any subjective awareness of any kind.

Ignoring the fact that evolutionary pressures do explain how our capacity for rational knowledge came to be and that there is a good materialist explanation for why they exist - even if there wasn't such an explanation, your rejection would still be invalid.

There isn't any need for subjective awareness is not an argument against its existence.