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

[shuttlt]

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

I think you are going wrong by focusing on what the details are of the experience of red. Proust and his madeleines, all of that memory, personal significance, emotion stuff is clearly explainable in the ordinary way. Qualia are, in so far as I understand them the internal, first person experience of being in the world and the qualities of that experience that aren't knowable without experiencing them oneself. In any case, that's what I mean.

 

[Darat]

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

It’s the origin of the concept.

 

[Darat]

How could you possibly do that?

Lots of hard work. I provided links earlier in the thread.

 

[shuttlt]

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

Have you considered the possibility that you might be a p-zombie, Darat?

 

[shuttlt]

It’s the origin of the concept.

I don't think that can be the case. You are telling me, that you could explain redness to a blind person and they would have an experience of redness that you could confirm was like your experience of redness? You must be a good explainer.

 

[MohamedTaqi]

Lots of hard work. I provided links earlier in the thread.

I am going to check it out, and see. Although I doubt that formal linguistic statements can give any account for qualitative experience.

Thanks, I got to go.

 

[Myriad]

I don't think that can be the case. You are telling me, that you could explain redness to a blind person and they would have an experience of redness that you could confirm was like your experience of redness? You must be a good explainer.

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.

 

[Myriad]

Have you considered the possibility that you might be a p-zombie, Darat?

Aphantasia.

 

[MohamedTaqi]

I just checked this link

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/201...omise-sharper-artificial-vision-blind-people#

This does, in no way, qualify as explaining red to blind people. You basically manipulate and modify their brains...etc. But not explaining to them what red looks like.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

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

How do you know they're red?

 

[acbytesla]

I am afraid my friend you do not seem to understand what "Metaphysics" is. Metaphysics is not the Metaphysical in layman terms. I will write the former in green, and the later in red.

I am personally an Atheist, I do not believe in Yahweh or Allah or any other metaphysical or supernatural entity .


- Whether the cosmos exists independent of our conscious experience (when we are not looking, i.e : materialism and dualism) , or whether it is only a construct of our conscious experience (i.e idealism). Or whether it is finite or infinite in space, Are all metaphysical questions in the branch of philosophy we call : Metaphysics.

When I ask : what are the constituents of this cup of coffee, this is physics , this is science.

When I ask questions that seem to not have an easy (or even possible) answer about the nature of things around me, this is metaphysics . A branch in philosophy.

And it has nothing to do whatsoever what lay people mean by metaphysical . The question " what is existence" is metaphysical in the philosophical sense. The question : whether magic is real? however, is not , magic is metaphysical in layman terms.

No. I understand what people "claim" is metaphysical. And every single one of those things are merely products of the brain. They are abstracts and nothing more.

 

[MRC_Hans]

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.

I'm sorry to say this, my friend, but you are talking through your hat. It seems you have attached some personal meaning to qualia. Probably not even the one that is mostly understood by the word. You have taken some bite of normal existence and decided to call it qualia. This is your choice, but it doesn't turn qualia onto something real.

What you are saying is that qualia is experience. Pardon me, but I simply prefer to call it that: Experience.

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

How do you know they're red?

Because we can see that they are alike, and we have learned to call that experience red (or whatever it is called in our native language).

Hans

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Oh the "Hard Problem of Consciousness" the only bigger made up, pointless, not really a problem problem than qualia.

There is no Hard Problem of Consciousness unless you want there to be one and if you want there to be one there's a reason.

There's no more mystery here then why you don't see "the act of ticking" anywhere in the pile of parts when you finish taking apart the grandfather clock.

You are not a thing. You are a process, indeed multiple processes. Existential crisis over.

Everyone who wants to believe in Woo continue to pretend the crisis is ongoing.

Thank you. The 'ticking' analogy is really effective, this is great communication.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

Because we can see that they are alike, and we have learned to call that experience red (or whatever it is called in our native language).

When you say that you see that they are alike do you mean that you note that they are both reflecting EM waves with a frequency of 700–635 nm, and then you consult a table of frequencies in the visible light spectrum and look and see that that particular wavelength corresponds to red?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Oh the "Hard Problem of Consciousness" the only bigger made up, pointless, not really a problem problem than qualia.

There is no Hard Problem of Consciousness unless you want there to be one and if you want there to be one there's a reason.

There's no more mystery here then why you don't see "the act of ticking" anywhere in the pile of parts when you finish taking apart the grandfather clock.

You are not a thing. You are a process, indeed multiple processes. Existential crisis over. Everyone who wants to believe in Woo continue to pretend the crisis is ongoing.

Joe, I think you're one of my all-time favorite posters here.

 

[MRC_Hans]

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.

This. Also it demonstrates that so-called qualia is simply the experience of sensory input. THE MERE FACT that lack of such sensory input keeps someone from experience the qualia in question shows this. If it was something else, why should a blind person even need to have red explained to them?

Hans

 

[shuttlt]

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.

Oh, that could probably work. It still feels like you are missing the point. I don't think anybody argues that external inputs and brain states aren't the immediate cause of qualia. I certainly don't.

In any case, say you induce the experience of "purpleness" in this blind person. How do you validate that the subjective experience of "purpleness" they have is the same as yours? That's more like what the problem is. The experiment being described doesn't sound like it is testing qualia.

 

[shuttlt]

Thank you. The 'ticking' analogy is really effective, this is great communication.

What is ticking? It is movement.... It's the transfer of energy... There is nothing in ticking that isn't just an elaboration of the properties of the parts of the clock. Same with a computer, it doesn't do anything that isn't a more complicated version of what it's parts can do.

Explain how subjective experience is really a type of movement, or energy transfer, or something.... I can see how the behaviourist "brain as a computer" parts are emergent properties in the same way as ticking is for a clock 100%.

The thing we talk about when we imagine what p-zombies lack is hard for me to imagine as a type of movement, or similar basic property. That feels more like claiming that mass might be an emergent property of some two dimensional game like Langton's Ant.

 

[d4m10n]

I'm sorry to say this, my friend, but you are talking through your hat. It seems you have attached some personal meaning to qualia.

Before shooting off a snarky reply, at least check the wiki.

Qualia^WP.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk