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

[Angrboda]

At the end of the day, all that matters is whether you have a logical argument for why qualia cannot be brain processes and nothing more than brain processes. So far what you've given me is "well they seem different" and "we mean different things when we refer to them." Neither is a logical argument for why qualia cannot be brain processes and nothing more than brain processes. Do you have such an argument or not?

I've never said they "seem" different. You said that.

The reason that qualia cannot be brain processes I've said often enough, and had ignored often enough, to merit an end to the discussion. Qualia is the "what it's like" to experience things, and cannot be viewed objectively or directly interacted with; brain function can be subjected to fMRIs, EEGs, and direct physical manipulation using electrodes. Since you cannot use the same means to observe both qualia and brain function, they cannot be said to be the same thing.

And as noted multiple times, if qualia are nothing more than brain processes, then observing those brain processes is observing one aspect of qualia. If they are the same thing, observing one is observing the other. They are simply two sides of the same coin. The observational limits don't of necessity make the two distinct. There are many things we can't observe (e.g. evolutionary history), but if we can make sound inferences based in naturalistic assumptions, we treat them as having been observed. You can't observe the blood flow in the human brain. Yet with an fMRI, we can detect markers that are mechanically tied to blood flow. To say that, when we observe the display on an fMRI of blood flow that we aren't observing the blood flow in the brain and therefore the blood flow in the brain is "something different" would be perverse.

At best, one must be a property of the other, or they must be properties of a third system which serves as parent to both. The best you can do is to correlate reports of qualia with brain function, and then treat them as equivalent-- which is what you do.

You seem to treat the current limitations on observation as sacrosanct limits which cannot be superceded. This makes most of your arguments appear to be rooted in an argument from ignorance, that because we can't observe the relationship between qualia and brain processes today, then we will never be able to observe the relationship between the two. I confess we don't know enough today to determine the contents of qualia from brain processes, but to imply that we never will be able to do so is something you simply do not know. ("the best you can do") This makes for fallacious inferences about what must be. I suspect, though do not know, that once we understand both processes sufficiently well, inferring the contents of consciousness from brain processes will be as straight forward as inferring the combustion of gas inside a car engine from the mechanical details of the car engine. I don't expect us to have this level of detail for a long time, as the brain is complex, and our current tools of investigation crude. However, you seem to imply that this level of understanding is unachievable, and I wonder from where you get such confidence.

Note that in none of this have I claimed that anything, including qualia, is independent of the natural universe. I'm saying that since the capacity for the subjective is intrinsic to the universe, and since it has no bearing at all on our understanding of any physical mechanism, a purely physical model is an insufficient description of reality.

The way you phrase things makes matters even more difficult. Being a property of one or the other? What does that have to do with whether or not they are two sides of the same thing or not; properties aren't ontological distinctions. I share whateverist's concern about your expression here. By intrinsic do you mean that the mechanical properties of the universe are sufficient to explain qualia, or are you implying something more? Regardless, it's an odd way to phrase things.

It also suggests that it does not owe its existence to the necessary conditions of the physical world

The intended implication is that since qualia are part of the natural world, there's no "special sauce." And since qualia are incidental to our mechanical understanding of the natural world, that mechanical understanding is insufficient in a very important way.

Again I wonder what you mean. Where do you get the idea that qualia are incidental to our mechanical understanding of the world? If qualia are a necessary consequence of classical mechanics level operation of the brain, that seems hardly incidental. Regardless, if qualia is a straight forward result of classically mechanical processes, then in what way is a mechanical understanding insufficient? If by mechanical understanding you mean our current mechanical understanding is insufficient, then it appears that you've fallen back on an argument from ignorance once again.

I suppose you had hoped to clarify your position with these latest responses, yet for me they've done as much to add to the confusion about your stance on the matter as they have done to clarify it.