The study of atoms in the brain doesn't explain the redness of red;Materialism = FAKE

[Darat]

You can understand qualia if and only if you have it.

If you don't have qualia, then you cannot talk about it. You cannot deny it, because you do not know what you deny.

Because it is an intrinsically qualitative property. This is not like Gods or magic, this is a self-referential subject.

Then I must not have qualia. Yet according to me and other people I am conscious, so whatever your qualia may be they have nothing to do with consciousnesses.

 

[Darat]

When I am in a coma or deep sleep, compared to when I am awake.. These states feel different. The difference is what I call : the absence and presence of qualia.

Don't feel any difference to me - either I'm aware or I'm not.

And I suspect, using induction, that you feel redness too.

Nope, I see red objects.

Moreover, the very fact that humans invented the word "existence", proves that they mean something by the word.

We invented words like mermaid, just because we've got a word in English to describe something doesn't mean it exists - English is often crap at describing reality in any detail.

If we were zombies (without internal conscious experience), we would not talk about "existence", because there is no way we would feel it , or observe it.

Yet I do, but I don't have this "feeling".

Then you deny that any experience takes place .. Why do you ask me then of what exists? if you cannot experience existence?

Semantic twaddle - in other words word games rather than anything meaningful.

How can you prove that you "see" anything at all, if you don't experience this seeing?

Ask me what I can see in front of me.

What do you mean by " I see things "..

You mean , like a camera?

Nope, like a human being.

 

[MohamedTaqi]

Then I must not have qualia. Yet according to me and other people I am conscious, so whatever your qualia may be they have nothing to do with consciousnesses.

Qualia, my friend, is the different aspects of your conscious experience. Not having qualia MEANS not having consciousness. By definition : Qualia is what it is like to be conscious, to have subjective experience. And one Qualia is a Quale , like the Quale of red or blue, which are different in their qualitative aspect, that is : they are different experiences. A world without qualia is a world without conscious experience : like zombies.

 

[xjx388]

It seems to me that qualia is just a fancy way of saying: When I see red, I have internal experiences apart from the physical experience of actually seeing red. Red might make me angry or might make me remember some other pleasant memory. When I drink a cup of coffee, I have certain internal experiences that are quite apart from the raw taste of the coffee itself . . . etc

OK, but those "qualia" are simply a complicated process that is entirely dependent on my brain function and prior experience; IOW, dependent on how the atoms in my brain have been arranged because of things that have happened to me while drinking coffee/seeing red. It's all, in the end, chemical reactions in the brain creating these internal representations. Qualia, if they can be said to be anything at all, are simply these complex interactions of stimulus and response.

I can't explain how it all works, but I do know that there is no evidence that something outside of physical brain processes is interacting with the physical universe. When people have certain kinds of brain abnormalities, they lose the ability to have certain internal experiences. Brain death implies no internal experience at all. This indicates to me that qualia are nothing more than a philosophical idea with no basis in the actual physical world.

In short, atoms entirely explain the redness of red, the experience of red or whatever other description you would like to give.

 

[MohamedTaqi]

It seems to me that qualia is just a fancy way of saying: When I see red, I have internal experiences apart from the physical experience of actually seeing red. Red might make me angry or might make me remember some other pleasant memory. When I drink a cup of coffee, I have certain internal experiences that are quite apart from the raw taste of the coffee itself . . . etc

That is surely qualia, but it is not limited to that.

Even "how red looks like" is qualia. Qualia are the constituents of your conscious experience : the field of view, sounds, colors, tastes, are all qualia.

In other words, anything that is subjective, that has subjective quality, is qualia.

 

[MohamedTaqi]

OK, but those "qualia" are simply a complicated process that is entirely dependent on my brain function and prior experience; IOW, dependent on how the atoms in my brain have been arranged because of things that have happened to me while drinking coffee/seeing red. It's all, in the end, chemical reactions in the brain creating these internal representations. Qualia, if they can be said to be anything at all, are simply these complex interactions of stimulus and response.

Yes ... but they are an emergent phenomenon that cannot be (as yet) described in terms of the objective.

Maybe because the subjective is irreducible to the objective once it emerges from it (i.e holism) .. Or it is reducible to it, but this reductionism is highly complex, and we cannot do it, given our limited faculties.

Or because, the Cosmos itself is neither objective nor subjective. But it gives rise to the objective and subjective aspects of it (i.e neutral monism) .

 

[Darat]

Qualia, my friend, is the different aspects of your conscious experience. Not having qualia MEANS not having consciousness. By definition : Qualia is what it is like to be conscious, to have subjective experience. And one Qualia is a Quale , like the Quale of red or blue, which are different in their qualitative aspect, that is : they are different experiences. A world without qualia is a world without conscious experience : like zombies.

Your model of consciousnesses is very much out of date.

And as I said to you earlier:

For me you have to prove such a thing as “qualia” exist, I’ve always found it is defined as either begging the question or circular logic.

We now know for certain qualia don't exist, we know this because we now know we only have to describe "seeing" in sufficient detail to a blind person for them to see.

 

[abaddon]

The argument I always found convincing was that emergent properties are just more complicated versions of the properties of the things they emerge from.

This is wrong.

Take Langton's Ant. It will always build a highway regardless of initial conditions but there IS NO INSTRUCTION ANYWHERE FOR IT TO DO SO. Nor why it is always an identical highway.

 

[MohamedTaqi]

I can't explain how it all works, but I do know that there is no evidence that something outside of physical brain processes is interacting with the physical universe. When people have certain kinds of brain abnormalities, they lose the ability to have certain internal experiences. Brain death implies no internal experience at all. This indicates to me that qualia are nothing more than a philosophical idea with no basis in the actual physical world.

I agree, but that is only half of the story. My brain , and therefore qualitative experiences, are all subject to physical laws in the end. It is impossible to have something that is not contingent on physics.

BUT

Things are not that simple. Because there are systems in which the whole can influence the behaviour of the parts.

That is, billions of neurons are firing in my brain , my brain can then behave in such a way, that its behaviour constrains how the neurons will fire in the future.

It is like a loop , the neurons fire, I move my hand, I grab my coffee, I take a sip, this behaviour determines which neurons will fire in the future.

It is not only like neurons determine how the brain will act, it is also that the whole system determines how neurons will act. It is not only a feed forward system, there is a backpropagation .

And if Consciousness (i.e qualia) is also an emergent phenomenon of the collection of many neurons firing at once, this whole system also constrains how the neurons will fire in the future.

So , in a sense, it is possible that consciousness also influences the physical, because it is physical in that it is a process of several networks of neurons firing in harmoney.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

It seems to me that qualia is just a fancy way of saying: When I see red, I have internal experiences apart from the physical experience of actually seeing red. Red might make me angry or might make me remember some other pleasant memory. When I drink a cup of coffee, I have certain internal experiences that are quite apart from the raw taste of the coffee itself . . . etc

No, the qualia are the "experience of actually seeing red" and the "raw taste of the coffee itself" both taken in the subjective, phenomenal sense.

I can't explain how it all works, but I do know that there is no evidence that something outside of physical brain processes is interacting with the physical universe.

I think you mistyped something here. Maybe you meant to say "I do know that there is no evidence that something outside of physical processes is interacting with the physical universe"?

When people have certain kinds of brain abnormalities, they lose the ability to have certain internal experiences. Brain death implies no internal experience at all. This indicates to me that qualia are nothing more than a philosophical idea with no basis in the actual physical world.

Not sure what you're trying to say here. No brain = no qualia I think everyone would agree.

In short, atoms entirely explain the redness of red, the experience of red or whatever other description you would like to give.

The "redness of red" and the "experience of red" are both good shorthands for a specific quale. But saying "they're explained entirely by atoms" does not help much. The question is how? And where (if anywhere at all) does the redness of red appear? In the Cartesian Theater? Or is it real at all? Some people are color nihilists and argue that colors do not actually exist.

 

[shuttlt]

We now know for certain qualia don't exist, we know this because we now know we only have to describe "seeing" in sufficient detail to a blind person for them to see.

I don't follow how describing something to somebody and them having an internal experience based on your description disproves qualia.

 

[RedStapler]

The "redness of red" and the "experience of red" are both good shorthands for a specific quale. But saying "they're explained entirely by atoms" does not help much. The question is how? And where (if anywhere at all) does the redness of red appear? In the Cartesian Theater? Or is it real at all? Some people are color nihilists and argue that colors do not actually exist.

Sigh...."I see this person running but you damn materialists can't explain the actual running to me"

 

[MohamedTaqi]

We now know for certain qualia don't exist, we know this because we now know we only have to describe "seeing" in sufficient detail to a blind person for them to see.

How could you possibly do that?

 

[shuttlt]

I agree, but that is only half of the story. My brain , and therefore qualitative experiences, are all subject to physical laws in the end. It is impossible to have something that is not contingent on physics.

BUT

Things are not that simple. Because there are systems in which the whole can influence the behaviour of the parts.

That is, billions of neurons are firing in my brain , my brain can then behave in such a way, that its behaviour constrains how the neurons will fire in the future.

It is like a loop , the neurons fire, I move my hand, I grab my coffee, I take a sip, this behaviour determines which neurons will fire in the future.

It is not only like neurons determine how the brain will act, it is also that the whole system determines how neurons will act. It is not only a feed forward system, there is a backpropagation .

And if Consciousness (i.e qualia) is also an emergent phenomenon of the collection of many neurons firing at once, this whole system also constrains how the neurons will fire in the future.

So , in a sense, it is possible that consciousness also influences the physical, because it is physical in that it is a process of several networks of neurons firing in harmoney.

Arguing qualia and free will at the same time is setting our sights pretty high when half your audience doesn't accept qualia exist.

 

[MohamedTaqi]

Arguing qualia and free will at the same time is setting our sights pretty high when half your audience doesn't accept qualia exist.

But I am not talking about free will .. in fact, I don't believe free will exists (true free will, not the fake compatibilist version).

I am just showing that causality highly complex systems, that give rise to emergent properties (like consciousness) can be both ways : from parts to the whole, and from the whole to its parts.

Consciousness is not a part, it is a sense, a whole. And I think that it may influence the parts.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

Sigh...."I see this person running but you damn materialists can't explain the actual running to me"

I have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[shuttlt]

This is wrong.

Take Langton's Ant. It will always build a highway regardless of initial conditions but there IS NO INSTRUCTION ANYWHERE FOR IT TO DO SO. Nor why it is always an identical highway.

Could mass, or a third dimension arise as an emergent property of colouring in black squares in a two dimensional grid? If not why not? All these "emergent properties" are just more complicated versions of the properties of their constituent parts. If there is a basic property missing from the parts, you can't have something involving that property "emerge".

It just doesn't seem to me that the qualia are obviously completely reducible to "just a complicated version of the known properties of atoms". Maybe they are?

Anyway, these conversations are pointless

 

[MohamedTaqi]

All these "emergent properties" are just more complicated versions of the properties of their constituent parts. If there is a basic property missing from the parts, you can't have something involving that property "emerge".

No, wetness is an emergent property of congregations of many water molecules. But any one water molecule cannot be descibed as wet. A brain has conscious experience, a neuron probably does not.

 

[Myriad]

How could you possibly do that?

The description is provided not in words, but in the form of electrical impulses representing a two-dimensional mapping of shades and brightness, created by a camera and computer.

Actually, even if that technology didn't exist, there's still a parallel valid argument against qualia. Arguments for the necessity of qualia hinge on claims like the impossibility of describing sight or some detail thereof (such as the redness of red) to a blind person. But without impulses from our eyes, we would all be blind people. So it's clear that it's the merely physical sensory apparatus (in this case lenses, irises, retinas, optic nerves), not anything in the brain or mind or spirit, that makes the difference between experiencing or not experiencing the redness of red.

All the arguments based on "you can't describe what it's like to ____ to a ____ person" merely demonstrate the insufficiency of linguistic descriptions for some purposes.

 

[Darat]

No, the qualia are the "experience of actually seeing red" and the "raw taste of the coffee itself" both taken in the subjective, phenomenal sense.



I think you mistyped something here. Maybe you meant to say "I do know that there is no evidence that something outside of physical processes is interacting with the physical universe"?




Not sure what you're trying to say here. No brain = no qualia I think everyone would agree.



The "redness of red" and the "experience of red" are both good shorthands for a specific quale. But saying "they're explained entirely by atoms" does not help much. The question is how? And where (if anywhere at all) does the redness of red appear? In the Cartesian Theater? Or is it real at all? Some people are color nihilists and argue that colors do not actually exist.

I have no “redness of red” or “experience of red”, I see red objects.