If beauty doesn't require God, why should morality? (Bite me Dr. Craig.)

[bennyboy]

Are you assuming that there's a factual difference between "truly sentient" and "philosophical zombie"?

Of course there is. One has a rich experience of what things are like, and the other does not.

I think that the position being offered for your consideration, is that experience doesn't "have an exact biochemical correlate"I-mine

- but that it is that biochemical process. That there's no special sauce. Qualia doesn't have a relationship -to- biochemistry, qualia -is- biochemistry.

Ahhhh. . . so you know what qualia is, and that it is biochemistry. This is good news-- pray tell, what are the exact physical criteria by which I can establish that a physical system is subjectively experiencing its environment, rather than only seeming to? As for correlates-- of course there's a correlate. My experience is "redness." The biochemical correlate is the release of neurotransmitters in regions of the brain. Saying that "redness" IS a biochemistry is goofy. Redness is that reddish reddy color I see when I look at a red apple. It's an experience, not a brain state.

Your question, from my POV, could be rephrased as "why is a universe which we conceive to be essentially a mechanical one (with a bit of trickery at the finest resolutions) supportive of mechanical processes". B-mine.

You can conflate diametrically opposed ideas if you want to, but it doesn't solve the fundamental problem of qualia: that they are not included in, or explained by, any good mechanical or physical theory of reality. You can guage my response to things, but you can't really know what red looks like when I experience it, or exactly what it's like to be me tasting a pineapple-- EVEN IF you can monitor my brain activitiy.