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

[Whateverist]

I am not pointing to your 'lack of belief in their god". I have the same lack of belief. I am pointing to your attempt to throw out this bullshit like it is something else other than bullshit.

I hear some christians saying god used evolution. Your buddy JohnS may even say that. But you mite know that already.

I'm having a hard time understanding what you're saying. Where did I throw out what you took to be bullshit? There is so much suggested by what you say but nothing at all specific. I don't care to guess why you think it is important what some christians are saying about evolution. Nor will I guess at what innuendo you may have in mind regarding Searle. You're starting to bore and annoy me.

[bennyboy]

. . . under the computational model I;m offering you, qualia is a collection of very physical things, in the same way that what you see on your monitor right now has an actual place, a location on your hardware. It's not attached, not associated, it -is-.

I don't accept the semantic process of taking a word reserved specifically for the subjective, and redefining it in objective terms. You don't get to say, for example, "That vacuum cleaner knows when it hits a table, and responds by turning away," and saying the vacuum cleaner is experiencing qualia. 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.

But how could we know that was the case?

We could just ask it. After all, that's all we're going on with regards to ourselves anyway, isn't it? I'd say that we're already at that point with hardware, we simply don;t ascribe the same level of "whateverness" to the phenomena as expressed by relatively simple machines. There's nothing fundamentally different, to my mind, about our own. It's just an issue of scale and preference. You know I'm fond of describing all of the ways that plants exhibit behaviors we ascribe to "consciousness" in ourselves..but - for some reason, call mechanical and chemical interactions in them. But ultimately....why are we assuming that there is some division - in reality- between "seeming to" experience qualia and experiencing qualia? It -is- seeming, isn't it? There's not actually an elephant inside of your mind when you have the subjective experience of viewing an elephant, now is there?

Philosophical assumptions about qualia must be made due to our perceptual limitations. Either we must make an arbitrary line-in-the-sand where I accept that another entity is similar enough to myself that I'm willing to believe it has qualia as I do. . . or we must define qualia in terms that we CAN perceive: brain function, etc.

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."

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. At best, from your perspective, qualia is an additional property of the brain function-- but you've already strongly stated that you do not accept this.

Therefore, you do not have a working definition of qualia that I'm willing to accept as having linguistic meaning.

Conflating self-referential data processing (or any other kind of data processing) with qualia is essentially begging the question-- you are defining qualia in a special way, and your model subsequently seems to make sense.

I'm concluding that qualia doesn't appear to be any different, based upon observational data

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.

Given these 2 fundamental truths, any "observational data" you are talking about is meaningless. What are you hoping to observe which will shed any light, without first requiring philosophical assumptions which beg the question?

I'm attempting to explain the unknown by reference to the known. I've given repeated tips of the hat to the fact that, ultimately, it may be dead wrong, but I see no reason to make extraneous assumptions about something that doesn't seem to require them as of yet.

What's an "extraneous" assumption?

But this conflation is unsatisying philosophically.

Does the universe owe you philosophical satisfaction? I can think of a great many things that are "philosophically unsatisfying" -but so what?

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.

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. So you have to redefine all words that reference subjective experience in physicalist terms, and pretend that you're still talking about the same thing. The alternative is to completely give up all subjective-referential words and ACTUALLY study what can be observed-- the brain and the behaviors it outputs.

You keep repeating this, so I know that you aren't actually absorbing this data. Your experience -is- a "simple mechanism".

You keep repeating this tautology, and ignoring the obvious fact that it's incorrect. My brain function is a mechanism. My qualia are experiences.

You seem to have a thing against what you perceive to be simple, as in "it;s too simple, that can;t be qualia"...

I've said nothing of the sort. I'm saying that the subjective and the objective are not the same. Evidence? There are different words for them, and they are taken as opposites.

You can tapdance around it, but even if there's a 1:1 correlation between brain states/function and qualia, that does not mean that a brain state IS qualia, any more than an apple is redness.

We can (at least hypothetically) make machines to replicate human function, and with ANNs we can make them self-referential. But there's nothing about supposing such a system to actually experience qualia that will improve our observations or understanding of the system.

In fact, we (and by we I mean you, specifically, in this conversation) seem to be entirely hung up on what amounts to neural folklore, brain based phlogiston- the strange shit we thought up before we even had any idea what it was that we were considering. I'd say that getting people to at least consider that the "special sauce" hypothesis is bankrupt (thus explaining the utter lack of data in that regard) just might be(and I'm suggesting this largely because it already -has- been) useful.

You keep implying (and sometimes saying) that I don't "get it"-- that I'm stuck in an archaic (read: non physical monist) word view which doesn't allow me to accept sensible default positions-- like the idea that subjective experience is not different than objective mechanisms.

I get it. And I disagree with you. I know that qualia are real, and that the words I use to talk about brain function and the words I use to talk about experiences are necessarily different-- because the things themselves are different.

This isn't "special sauce." The existence of qualia is the only fundamental truth which cannot be denied. ALL other things, including a belief the existence of a physical universe, are derived from qualia.

[The Grand Nudger]

Unless the vacuum cleaner does know that it hits the table, and responds by turning away. Which they can and do. It's experiencing data processing. I'm not telling you that you're a vacuum cleaner, or that your experience is the same as the vacuum cleaners in content, or depth, or clarity, or "meaning" - whatever it is that's important to you and differentiates one type of data processing from another- but that it very well could be the same -in mechanics. The vacuum cleaner knows, in the same manner that we appear to know things - that something has happened, and that it must respond. To you, with your eyes, and your headgear - you "see" a table...you have that experience. The machine may only percieve or register a warning trigger. They are the same thing, referring to the same thing. I wouldn't expect a sentient vacuum cleaner to experience the world as you do, would you? All these words like "seeing" and "experiencing" appear to be tied to our biology - something explicable, something observable, something - ultimately, quantifiable. The vacuum doesn't "see" with eyes and so we wouldn't expect that experience, we wouldn't expect that language or those concepts. Have I made it clear yet that I don;t think that you are a vacuum cleaner? I just don't think you're as different from a vacuum cleaner as you clearly -need- to be.

If you insist that something simply cannot be observed, and refuse to accept the method you've used to determine that -I- have qualia, then so be it. I don't see the need. I place emphasis on observational data because it is powerful, explanatory data - whereas you have a special lockbox from which you are attempting to draw some conclusion.

You know more than two things for sure, you have very physical, very observable reasons for your qualia being something that you experience- instead of something that I experience (and from there you might have a working explanation as to why a vacuum doesn't experience your qualia, or you a vacuums - if they had any). You're the one jacked into the machine - not me (whatever that machine is). I have my own vehicle, and I experience things in a manner consistent with what that vehicle -could- experience....given what we know about the vehicle. That fact is hardly groundbreaking - and is absolutely under the authority of what we can observe. You're off on a tangent here between the subjective and the objective...which is pointless, because both you and I accept that our experience is subjective. Apparently, that's really mysterious to you (you keep repeating it like it were a mantra.....are you trying to cast a spell on me?) - it is not so mysterious to me. Are we disagreeing here on why our qualia is subjective?

The concepts we use to describe the two are separate (brain function/experience) - that doesn't mean that the two things are separate in actuality. We had time and space long before we had space-time. It seems that I can;t even help yopu to wrap your head around the fact that qualia as you describe it is special sauce. It;s some "thing" not to do with the function of a brain...a function that is not a function. It's pointless duality, as has been expressed to you. Even if we were to lay it out, 1:1 as you have said, you've already determined that it's still "something else". What? What else, where else, how else? It's not like were approaching this from equally undefinable positions. I say here is a brain, here is what it does - and one of those things is qualia.

The existence of your qualia cannot be denied -by you. I could deny the existence of your qualia all day long, the same way that you have done for anything that doesn't fit your idea of what qualia -is-. I won't do that though bud, you can have your thoughts, I trust you. It's so refreshing when a conversation dials down to this level of un-productivity, and no, Benny...you still don't get it, though you clearly disagree with "it". Have we scraped the bottom of this well? I think that by the time we say "Cogito, ego sum ipsum" we're about done, eh?

Would that work? "I think, therefore I am not a computer".
(latin buffs, help me arrange that ...lol)

[bennyboy]

Unless the vacuum cleaner does know that it hits the table, and responds by turning away. Which they can and do. It's experiencing data processing.

That's right, it's data processing. Nothing more. It's not experiencing anything, so far as we know.

If you insist that something simply cannot be observed, and refuse to accept the method you've used to determine that -I- have qualia, then so be it. I don't see the need. I place emphasis on observational data because it is powerful, explanatory data - whereas you have a special lockbox from which you are attempting to draw some conclusion.

Fine. Tell me how you directly observe someone else's qualia. No? Tell me what scientific, non-arbitrary criteria you are using to establish that a given system actually experiences qualia? Still no? That's because other-qualia are unobservable. Your "data" isn't about what you say it's about. Religious people do the same thing-- they define behaviors and feelings in terms of religion, and then use their feelings as "observational data" that God exists. But they fail for the same reason that you do: they are using data they've collected about apples to prove the validity of their idea about oranges, denying all along that they had begged the question in order to validate the process.

The concepts we use to describe the two are separate (brain function/experience) - that doesn't mean that the two things are separate in actuality. We had time and space long before we had space-time. It seems that I can;t even help yopu to wrap your head around the fact that qualia as you describe it is special sauce.

Your condescension is misplaced. You act as though you have a source of wisdom that I need to be schooled in. I have a philosophical difference with you, founded in the fact that I don't accept as given the same kinds of philosophical assumptions that you do. Maybe I should respond in kind: "It seems that I can't even help you to wrap your ahead around the fact that things subjective cannot be meaningfully coined in objective terms."

It;s some "thing" not to do with the function of a brain...a function that is not a function. It's pointless duality, as has been expressed to you. Even if we were to lay it out, 1:1 as you have said, you've already determined that it's still "something else". What? What else, where else, how else? It's not like were approaching this from equally undefinable positions. I say here is a brain, here is what it does - and one of those things is qualia.

What else? It's qualia. There's a word for it. It's been described. It is the subjective experience of ideas and perception. And it's not a pointless duality-- it's an expression of reality as I know it: there are things which are observed, and the experience of the observer. That's the foundation of all human experience, including the experience of doing science, or of debating about philosophy.

Understand that for all your confidence in physical monism, it is exclusively through mind that you have interfaced with the universe. Maybe the experiences you've had that cause you to infer a physical monism point at reality, and maybe they don't. But the reality of the experiences themselves is the only thing which can be known absolutely to be true.

The existence of your qualia cannot be denied -by you. I could deny the existence of your qualia all day long, the same way that you have done for anything that doesn't fit your idea of what qualia -is-. I won't do that though bud, you can have your thoughts, I trust you. It's so refreshing when a conversation dials down to this level of un-productivity, and no, Benny...you still don't get it, though you clearly disagree with "it". Have we scraped the bottom of this well? I think that by the time we say "Cogito, ego sum ipsum" we're about done, eh?

Yes, I think for the maintenance of amity, we should stop now. I don't mind the debate, but I do mind the tone, and I think there's really no philosophical ground left to cover (or at least that we are likely to cover).

[Neo-Scholastic]

Bennyboy, I very impressed with how well you are revealing the stupidity of the physicalist position.

[The Grand Nudger]

The physicalist position is irrelevant to any computational theory of mind - it doesn't have to hold for that sort of model to be accurate, or have explanatory power. We're not trying to explain "everything" just this one thing. Whether there's just 1 kind of "stuff" or 10 - and whatever that other "stuff" may be made of, we don't seem to require any more "stuff" than what we see to explain something like qualia. It's within the remit of both what we observe and predictions based upon those observations. If there is special sauce somewhere, it needn't be here. If theres special sauce here, it would appear to be extraneous. Not offering any modification to the observational data. The same is true for gravity, and it has the same sorts of issue as our current models of the mind have-for largely the same reasons.

[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.

[Whateverist]

Well said, Rasetsu.

[bennyboy]

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.

I don't need to envision qualia. I just have them.

As for "qualifiers about its independence" that I've added-- please link just one.

Claiming that we have two words for the separate aspects therefore they are different is a semantic non sequitur.

You can say that, but the fact is that what people are talking about when they say, "Oooooh, a pretty rainbow!" is not the same thing they're talking about when they say, "The fMRI shows increased blood flow in regions X, Y, and Z."

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.

--edit--
It is the existence of "different perspectives" that I was originally using to address the OP. Specifically, the existence of ANY perspective is not really compatible with pure physical mechanism.
___


Sure it does. "Casablanca" is something which must be experienced to be understood. No chemical analysis of the celluloid will ever allow anyone to understand or appreciate the experiential value of the movie.

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.

Can you observe my qualia? No. You can watch my brain and convince yourself that since obviously qualia must be brain function, you are watching my qualia. But no matter how much you tell yourself that, you do not know what it's like for me to experience the drinking of some hot chocolate, or the viewing of a sunset.

You have oft repeated the claim that if qualia are my brain processes, then you cannot observe my qualia. GIVEN THIS, it follows that qualia are not my brain processes, since you cannot observe them.

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.

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. It doesn't really matter if all the content of qualia supervenes on brain function-- the point is that given system "X," only the system itself can know what it's experiencing. Remember the OP? I'm saying that intrinsic to the universe is this fact-- that it has a special capacity for some things to experience subjectively what no other system can experience objectively.

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.

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.

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.

No. Correlation doesn't work that way. There's a 1:1 correlation between birth and death. However, only a hippie could claim that "birth is death."

[Angrboda]

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.

I don't need to envision qualia. I just have them.

And then you envision what your having them means.

Claiming that we have two words for the separate aspects therefore they are different is a semantic non sequitur.

You can say that, but the fact is that what people are talking about when they say, "Oooooh, a pretty rainbow!" is not the same thing they're talking about when they say, "The fMRI shows increased blood flow in regions X, Y, and Z."

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. When I look at myself in the mirror, everything is reversed. It looks totally unlike what people see when they look directly at me. And inside a camera, the reversal is again different. They're still all looking at the same person. Differences in appearance don't mean jack shit.

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.

--edit--
It is the existence of "different perspectives" that I was originally using to address the OP. Specifically, the existence of ANY perspective is not really compatible with pure physical mechanism.
___

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.

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.

Can you observe my qualia? No. You can watch my brain and convince yourself that since obviously qualia must be brain function, you are watching my qualia. But no matter how much you tell yourself that, you do not know what it's like for me to experience the drinking of some hot chocolate, or the viewing of a sunset.

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

You have oft repeated the claim that if qualia are my brain processes, then you cannot observe my qualia. GIVEN THIS, it follows that qualia are not my brain processes, since you cannot observe them.

No I haven't. And even if I had, this would not follow. Appearance is not ontology, no matter how loudly you protest.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

No. Correlation doesn't work that way. There's a 1:1 correlation between birth and death. However, only a hippie could claim that "birth is death."

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.