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

[bennyboy]

If somehow we are able to directly interact with qualia (maybe via a kind of "mental field" produced electromagnetically or something), then I'll change my opinion.

Doesn't sound any more direct than interacting with qualia via chemicals or sound, or visual stimulation. All of which we're currently capable of doing. I suppose that there are two ways of reading that statement , but it would hold under either. I imagine that sort of thing though (a mental field) would take a very long time. We can't expect that we all "speak the same language", regardless of whether it's mechanical or "other".

It's true that we can interact with qualia, but not directly. If, for example, you could electronically create a large field, independent of the mechanism of neurons, and anyone standing it would have an "experience," I'd say that would be a very direct interaction. Or if you could record someone's "field," inject it into someone else's "field," and have complete agreement between them in describing the resultant experience.

We probably all agree that experience is unlikely to work this way, especially in our lifetimes, but that would be the kind of thing that would make qualia a candidate for a mechanical description, rather than a philosophical two-step.

As for the "same language," I would expect someone to say something like, "I felt I completely understood what was being said, but when they turned off the field, I realized I had no idea."