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

[Angrboda]

The fact is that at least I definitely have subjective experience, and the word qualia refers to that fact, and any attempt to make it mean something else is a brute force method of begging the question.

You think you have subjective experience, with all these qualifiers about its independence that you've added, but you don't know that you have qualia as you envision it. It could be an illusion.

We already have words for brain function, and qualia is specially reserved to distinguish between mechanisms and experiences. As for your conflation of the two, it's wrong on a semantic level: redness as my brain processes it is a network of neurotransmitters, blood flow, etc. Redness as I experience it is. . . that reddish reddy color that I'm experiencing. These are clearly not the same, in the same way that the combination of a projector, a screen, and various pigments on a celluloid film are not "Casablanca."

Claiming that we have two words for the separate aspects therefore they are different is a semantic non sequitur. We have two terms for aspirin and salicylic acid; that doesn't make the two different. What is at issue here is whether or not brain processes and the experience of redness are not in fact the same thing viewed from different perspectives. Thus your declaring they are different by fiat is another non sequitur; you don't know that they are in fact different, and at the end of the day, Casablanca is in fact just blotches on celluloid. You're arguing that because they appear different from different perspectives that they therefore are different; that doesn't wash.

But why not? You see how you've already determined that qualia is "just different" - so it's not surprising to see that you reach such a conclusion no matter what angle you look at the problem.

I can observe your brain function (at least in theory), but I cannot observe your qualia. Therefore, they are in fact different.

This doesn't follow. If your qualia are in fact your brain processes then I can in fact observe your qualia. That they appear different from the different perspectives does not make them therefore different. You keep making this same logical error.

You place too much emphasis on observational data. In the case of qualia, I already know for sure two things: 1) I experience qualia; 2) I cannot experience anyone else's qualia, nor they mine.

Again, the same error. That they can appear to another in different terms does not in itself confirm that they are different. It would dissolve the distinction if they were in fact the same thing. If they are the same thing, then I can too observe your qualia. That it 'appears' different doesn't make it different.

The universe is not attempting to conflate things which are unlike by definition-- that's you. I know what it's like to experience things, and I know (to a degree) about the brain chemistry involved in perception. They are different at both a semantic level and an observational level.

And again the same error. Differences in appearance do not automatically imply ontological differences.

As a physical monist, you are confronted with the fact that the most important aspect of human existence-- the subjective experience-- is completely outside the objective (read: shared) observational domain.

And again. It's currently beyond our ability to identify the two as being one, but that doesn't necessarily imply the two are different.

even if there's a 1:1 correlation between brain states/function and qualia, that does not mean that a brain state IS qualia

Yes, as a matter of fact, that's exactly what it means.

This isn't "special sauce." The existence of qualia is the only fundamental truth which cannot be denied.

Bullshit. Any subjective experience can be denied. You're arguing for a specific ontological character for qualia that can be denied. That you cannot see how is no argument.