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

[bennyboy]

Unsupported assertion. You don't know they aren't the same thing. Having different terms for something doesn't imply any existential difference, no matter what you mean.

It doesn't matter. The fact is that both the subjective and objective exist in this universe, but that in a physical monism, the objective explains all possible behaviors, as well as all possible observations. The capacity of the universe for the subjective therefore is highly suspicious.

Sure it does. "Casablanca" is something which must be experienced to be understood.

Understood? What is that bullshit about? We're asking what a thing is, not what to understand a thing is.

Casablanca is a movie-viewing experience. You can decide for yourself whether you want to debate the semantics of thing-ness and whether qualia count. But whether you are willing to call experiences things or not, the fact is that Casablanca as an experience and Casablanca as a physical entity on film are not the same thing.

Irrelevant. I don't need to know "what it's like for you."

Sure you do. We're talking about qualia, and that's what qualia are-- what things are like to someone.

It is the appearance of experience which defines the experience. Any view of qualia which does not accept this is not a view of qualia at all.

Unsupported assertion.

No. Well-supported definition:

qualia is "an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us."

An apple is red, and it is wet. Are you saying that redness is wetness? The view of qualia which would be most compatible with your view is that qualia are a property of either matter or its functions. To say that qualia ARE the functions is to say that redness IS the apple.

No it's not. You're equating it to saying that is just a bizarre red herring.

Qualia are not the same as neuronal activity. One can be seen under a microscope by anyone who needs extra Neuropsych credits, and one is only experienced. Therefore, if qualia have any connection to matter, it is as a property. Qualia:brain as redness:apple.

No, there isn't a 1:1 correlation between birth and death at any particular time. You're equivocating. If there is a 1:1 correspondence between the two, in the absence of evidence of additional effects, it is irrational to believe without justification that there is some additional unspecified causal factor. Arguments from appearance don't count. Arguments from semantics don't count. Arguments from "ooh pretty" don't count. Arguments from incredulity don't count. Unsupported assertions don't count.

Okay so correlation is not causation-- unless you want it to be? That seems like special pleading to me.