why do we enjoy poetry From the perspective of neuroscience?

[Belacqua]

I was trying to delineate the distinction between the unconscious processing of information and what we finally perceive consciously, using our ill-adapted language.  Can you see the distinction and why it is important to the discussion?  

OK, no problem with the unconscious part. The interpreting gets done without our being aware of it.

Qualia are abstractions, so of course they look different.  The mystery is not in why we experience qualia, since they happen to us.  Nor is the mystery in why they look different, since we already know the brain automatically processes information into abstractions to present to consciousness.  Again, knowing the brain science is important.

I don't think it's sufficient to say that because something happens to us, therefore it doesn't need further explanation. Nor do I think that calling qualia abstractions explains how those abstractions present themselves to us.

When you read a book, you stop paying attention to the words as words.  You don't see little black squiggles on white pages of paper beyond a point.  You engage with the abstractions they represent.  This is no doubt the same way the electro-chemical  events in our brains work.  They have assigned meanings, perhaps based on the unique ways they were coded into each of our brains, and we engage with the meanings, the abstractions.

OK, the words cause me to remember meanings or even to picture objects in my mind. I engage with the things prompted by the words, not necessarily the words themselves. So that's an analogy. But it doesn't explain how the electrochemical events of the brain analogize themselves into qualia. 

We may not know all the details, but they are likely technical anyway.  Nothing about this is difficult in principle as far as I can see.

It's not difficult if we are satisfied to say "It just happens." But the experience of smell or color presents itself to me in non-abstract ways. Qualia are among the few things we have concrete experience of. Far from being just technical details, the ontological jump from electrochemical events to felt experience is completely unexplained.

[The Grand Nudger]

It helps more than it may seem at first glance.  This is due to our being able to observe both that and how other physical systems present and handle abstractions.  Systems that we have the convenience of being able to take apart piece by piece and study at a level of intensity unavailable to us with regards to the brain for practical and ethical reasons, lol. Our cameras, for example, create bitmaps. This is how they wield abstraction to record their field of view. This record is translatable, and conferrable..to us, even. We can see what the camera saw..even if we can't see what the camera could on our own. So, we look for something like a bitmap analog - and finding that would help us to understand the experience of seeing the world. Why and how it presents itself to us in the manner that it does (there's no gaurantee that understanding this will answer any question -you- may have, ofc).

The "jump" from electrochemical events to felt experience is not completely unexplained. This is pointless sensationalism (and dated as all hell, on top of that). Above, I was discussing visual field processing, which isn't a black box. There are multiple explanations, each of which can be shown to be workable in principle and theory, and the trick now is to establish which (if any) apply to human visual field processing..or are more accurate themselves or in conjunction with others or portions of others.

[Belacqua]

It helps more than it may seem at first glance.  This is due to our being able to observe both that and how other physical systems present and handle abstractions.  Systems that we have the convenience of being able to take apart piece by piece and study at a level of intensity unavailable to us with regards to the brain for practical and ethical reasons, lol.  Our cameras, for example, create bitmaps.  This is how they wield abstraction to record their field of view.  This record is translatable, and conferrable..to us, even.  We can see what the camera saw..even if we can't see what the camera could on our own.  So, we look for something like a bitmap analog - and finding that would help us to understand the experience of seeing the world.  Why and how it presents itself to us in the manner that it does (there's no gaurantee that understanding this will answer any question -you- may have, ofc).

The "jump" from electrochemical events to felt experience is not completely unexplained.  This is pointless sensationalism (and dated as all hell, on top of that).  Above, I was discussing visual field processing, which isn't a black box.  There are multiple explanations, each of which can be shown to be workable in principle and theory, and the trick now is to establish which (if any) apply to human visual field processing..or are more accurate themselves or in conjunction with others or portions of others.

Digital cameras don't have selves, and don't experience qualia. So the analogy isn't helpful here.

It's possible that the comparison to computer bit mapping will help to clarify something. We should remember, though, that in the history of science brains and bodies have always been explained analogously according to whatever technology is new and cool at the time. Yet these comparisons are very limited and sometimes misleading. Brains don't work the way our computers do, for example.

[bennyboy]

Qualia are among the few things we have concrete experience of. Far from being just technical details, the ontological jump from electrochemical events to felt experience is completely unexplained.

I wouldn't say a "few things." I'd say that, by definition, qualia are the ONLY things we have any kind of experience of at all. It should be remembered that all of so-called objective science must necessarily be done exclusively through the agency of a subjective experiencer. Literally 100% of everything we believe we know is derived from qualia, and we have access to nothing but qualia by which to derive those ideas which we feel are consistent and coherent enough to be called "knowledge."

And that includes even the arrival at the confident belief in a material monism-- it was done completely through subjective means.

[Belacqua]

I wouldn't say a "few things."  I'd say that, by definition, qualia are the ONLY things we have any kind of experience of at all.  It should be remembered that all of so-called objective science must necessarily be done exclusively through the agency of a subjective experiencer.  Literally 100% of everything we believe we know is derived from qualia, and we have access to nothing but qualia by which to derive those ideas which we feel are consistent and coherent enough to be called "knowledge."

And that includes even the arrival at the confident belief in a material monism-- it  was done completely through subjective means.

You may well be right. I was being extra careful because small errors tend to get discussions like this one sidetracked. 

It's certainly true that all our knowledge that comes from "outside" comes in through qualia. And a lot of people believe “Nothing is found in the intellect which was not first found in the senses.” On the other hand our means of structuring or interpreting may be prior to qualia. I'm thinking of Kantian categories. But I'm not confident of making assertions about this.

[The Grand Nudger]

It helps more than it may seem at first glance.  This is due to our being able to observe both that and how other physical systems present and handle abstractions.  Systems that we have the convenience of being able to take apart piece by piece and study at a level of intensity unavailable to us with regards to the brain for practical and ethical reasons, lol.  Our cameras, for example, create bitmaps.  This is how they wield abstraction to record their field of view.  This record is translatable, and conferrable..to us, even.  We can see what the camera saw..even if we can't see what the camera could on our own.  So, we look for something like a bitmap analog - and finding that would help us to understand the experience of seeing the world.  Why and how it presents itself to us in the manner that it does (there's no gaurantee that understanding this will answer any question -you- may have, ofc).

The "jump" from electrochemical events to felt experience is not completely unexplained.  This is pointless sensationalism (and dated as all hell, on top of that).  Above, I was discussing visual field processing, which isn't a black box.  There are multiple explanations, each of which can be shown to be workable in principle and theory, and the trick now is to establish which (if any) apply to human visual field processing..or are more accurate themselves or in conjunction with others or portions of others.

Digital cameras don't have selves, and don't experience qualia. So the analogy isn't helpful here.

That you fail to see why something is helpful does not make it less so.  Visual field processing has been instrumental to contemporary hypothesis of mind.  

It's possible that the comparison to computer bit mapping will help to clarify something. We should remember, though, that in the history of science brains and bodies have always been explained analogously according to whatever technology is new and cool at the time. Yet these comparisons are very limited and sometimes misleading. Brains don't work the way our computers do, for example.

The computer analogy is a way of explaining something by reference to another similar known thing.  Not the notion that they are the same thing. A ford is alot like a chevy, but a ford is not a chevy. Understaning some things about fords will help you understand some things about chevys, even though understanding -everything- about a ford may still leave you unable to comprehend some things about a chevy. Some ford things may even mislead you when it comes to chevy things...but you'll learn -something- from all of that no matter how it pans out.

We now understand, for example..that whatever processing is done is distributed, unlike our pc's, which have central units. We learned that while checking to see if there were a central unit.
(and it would have been far more philosophically convenient if there were, lol.. )

This is basic shit, Bel. Perhaps it would be more productive if you laid out what problems you have with any of the current theories of mind, or current hypotheses of the same...rather than make blanket claims about black boxes, mysteries..and what is or isn't helpful to researchers?

[bennyboy]

Ford <--> Chevy = Qualia <--> Semiconductor Function is not a good syllogism.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's your syllogism, so I guess that's your problem? As I just explained to Bel's canned objection... the computer analogy is used to describe how some other thing does x - not to suggest that the things doing x are the same. They need only share whatever meaningful similarity is being researched. In the case of computational theories..it's computation, not the function of a semiconducter. No one expects to find an intel logo buried in our heads.

We're essentially asking ourselves whether or not mother nature uses some of the same tricks to achieve her effects as we do when we exploit her to achieve our own. So, for example..when you ask "lets say we build convincing androids" the immediate question is how we would do that, and whether those same things can also account for "the real deal"...and where we might find examples of just such a thing.

[Belacqua]

It's your syllogism, so I guess that's your problem?  As I just explained to Bel's canned objection... the computer analogy is used to describe how some other thing does x - not to suggest that the things doing x are the same.  They need only share whatever meaningful similarity is being researched.  In the case of computational theories..it's computation, not the function of a semiconducter.

We're essentially asking ourselves whether or not mother nature uses some of the same tricks to achieve her effects as we do when we exploit her to achieve our own. So, for example..when you ask "lets say we build convincing androids" the immediate question is how we would do that, and whether those same things can also account for "the real deal".

As far as I can tell, you and Thoreauvian believe that increased knowledge of brain activity is likely to explain why electrochemical events in the brain present themselves to the self as qualia. 

Other people believe that even if we could make a complete map of brain activity, showing all electrochemical events in every cell and their interaction, this would only tell us about the activity of electrochemical events, and wouldn't show why they present themselves to the self as qualia.

[The Grand Nudger]

As far as I can tell, you and Thoreauvian believe that increased knowledge of brain activity is likely to explain why electrochemical events in the brain present themselves to the self as qualia. 

That's the general supposition of the incremental expansion of knowledge, yeah..sure.  

Other people believe that even if we could make a complete map of brain activity, showing all electrochemical events in every cell and their interaction, this would only tell us about the activity of electrochemical events, and wouldn't show why they present themselves to the self as qualia.

And I'm sure that those same people would tell you that having a complete tech schem of your pc wouldn't explain how it worked, or having a circuit map and readings doesn't explain electricity.

Some People™ believe strange things.  

Here's an outside possibility, though, that I amuse myself with.  Suppose we did have a complete map of brain activity - but every brains activity was wholly unique to the individual?  That the common observations thusfar are only superficial.  That we would have to learn a new language for every individual brain - much like the user did.  This would be a harder issue to crack than any of the misguided problems bandied about by reference to myths and superstitions regarding mind these past few centuries. Adding further wrinkles, what if this language changed over the users lifetime..so that readings made today would not be informative a decade from now.

I like this one, because what we expect is actually somewhere between a unique custom job, as above...and a factory standard.