Does anything exist?

[Belz...]

Can you test the existence of qualia?

Sure. Care to guess what the answer is?

For example this.

That's a definitional problem. Once we've got consciousness pinned down properly, the problem will vanish. Most of it already has.

Just because we don't fully understand something is no reason to make **** up.

 

[Belz...]

Useless in an everyday sense because it is abstracted from what we do. Just as theoretical physics is.

Except that physics at least works with real things.

 

[suren]

Qualia don't exist. Problem solved.

How can you prove it? Also denying its existence raises some touchy moral issues.

 

[Belz...]

How can you prove it?

That's not the way it works, bub. You claim something exists, you prove it.

Also denying its existence raises some touchy moral issues.

No it doesn't. Even in a complete absence of consciousness, morality would exist.

 

[p0lka]

I had a dream last night in which I was having a discussion with my ex philosophy teacher. She said nothing exists and gave the name of a philosopher as a reference to that viewpoint. Unfortunately I cannot remember the name.
Does anyone know of a philosopher who held that view?

I said in the dream, I exist because I think therefore I am, and my mind is not capable of creating all that I perceive. But I do believe that Gods mind is capable of sustaining creation and the laws of physics that support everything we observe. However everything is an illusion, and it is not what it appears to be to our senses.

My mind is capable of creating all that I perceive, no need for god then?

 

[LarryS]

Sure. Care to guess what the answer is?



That's a definitional problem. Once we've got consciousness pinned down properly, the problem will vanish. Most of it already has.

Just because we don't fully understand something is no reason to make **** up.

Not sure if I know the proper definition of qualia - and how it would be tested. To suggest that qualia do not exist - Does that claim suggests that no experience is ineffible, all experience can be defined as sensory processing - processing of physical facts such as mass, frequency, spin, charge, etc.? ie, there are no qualities, only measureable quantities? IOW, if we have 2 identical nervous systems having the same identical sensory input - they would have to have the same experience.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Can you test the existence of qualia?

Slap yourself. Ask yourself if it hurt or not. If you can say it did, congrats, you just proved that something fitting the exact definition of qualia exists.

We're not talking something metaphysical there, nor about the correctness of morals, opinions, beliefs, whatever, nor anything particularly philosophical. If you can say you've ever consciously perceived something, be it a headache, an itch, or a taste (say, like "Pepsi is too sweet"), congrats, that's by definition qualia.

Qualia don't exist. Problem solved.

Err... Joe? I know some people seem to have a hard-on about attacking philosophy, but there's no need to go full-tilt <bleep>ing stupid about it.

Qualia is just a name for any experience/sensation/etc that you've ever perceived consciously. If you've ever stubbed your toe and were aware of that it just happened, congrats, that's by definition qualia. If you've ever thought it's a bright summer day, or it's hot or cold outside, or the leaves are turning yellow in autumn, that's qualia. It's not something metaphysical, it's just a funky name for something you experience every day.

Especially since earlier you were against solipsism, here YOU are the one unwittingly arguing for solipsism. Because if there are no external inputs (as in, from outside your conscious mind) that make their way all the way to your consciousness -- since THAT is what you just said by "qualia don't exist" -- then you've actually argued that it all just happens inside your head, and if there ever was such a thing as an actual reality, you've never experienced it. Hell, it's going even beyond most actual solipsism, since most solipsism still would allow for qualia coming from some subsconscious place, while flat out denying qualia denies even that kind of input.

Now you COULD say that we don't need philosophy to learn about how the mind works, since nowadays we do have neuroscience, which goes scientifically about it. But flat out denying even qualia is stupid, because it ALSO denies that there's anything for neuroscience to study there.

 

[suren]

Slap yourself. Ask yourself if it hurt or not. If you can say it did, congrats, you just proved that something fitting the exact definition of qualia exists.

We're not talking something metaphysical there, nor about the correctness of morals, opinions, beliefs, whatever, nor anything particularly philosophical. If you can say you've ever consciously perceived something, be it a headache, an itch, or a taste (say, like "Pepsi is too sweet"), congrats, that's by definition qualia.

Sure, but the problem is that you can prove this only for yourself. You can't show other people that you have qualia. My point is that this is not similar to scientific observations where the meat and potato are the objective facts. Qualia is subjective.


That's why in philosophy there is a clear distinction between external objective and internal subjective. Science can only study the first, it's silent about the second.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Uh, no. We have whole sciences like sociology and anthropology who have no problem studying stuff that's subjective to other people.

 

[suren]

That's not the way it works, bub. You claim something exists, you prove it.

I didn't claim it exists but didn't deny either. I didn't claim to be able to prove or disprove this.

No it doesn't. Even in a complete absence of consciousness, morality would exist.

But denying this will make it difficult to answer to the question 'why we should be moral'. Also do you think we should be equally moral or not to artificial intelligence that perfectly mimicks human behaviour?

 

[suren]

Uh, no. We have whole sciences like sociology and anthropology who have no problem studying stuff that's subjective to other people.

Science only studies human behaviour which is still objective. You can study someone's or even some animal's brain with EEG, MRI and even predict the behaviour with 100% accuracy, but you will never know how it feels to be someone else especially if it's an animal of other specie. Can you know what is like to be a dog or cat?

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Science only studies human behaviour which is still objective. You can study someone's or even some animal's brain with EEG, MRI and even predict the behaviour with 100% accuracy, but you will never know how it feels to be someone else especially if it's an animal of other specie. Can you know what is like to be a dog or cat?

That's

1. moving the goalposts from the original question of whether qualia exist.

You don't need to know all members of a set X in order to know that it's not empty (i.e., that X exists.) You only need to know that ONE exists. Derailing into essentially "yeah, but you don't know the exact differences between it and other members of set X" (which is what you do above) when the question is whether X exists or not, is... failing elementary syllogistic logic. Epically.

2. not even just that, but it's a ridiculously nonsense way to go about challenging existence. Because you have to presuppose qualia -- e.g., precisely by assuming that something feeling feels differently for a dog or a cat -- in order to challenge the existence of qualia.

So it's not even begging the question -- as in, need to (implicitly) assume X in order to claim that X is true -- but the more nonsense version where you (implicitly) assume X in order to claim not-X. Good philosopy it ain't

3. failing Occam epically. Because in order to assume that somehow only I have qualia, while everyone else doesn't, I'd have to introduce a lot more explanations than if I assume that everyone else has similar circuitry.

Including explanations as to how they can answer a question from me like "are you cold?" if they don't have qualia, since then they also

a. wouldn't know what cold even feels like, and

b. if they don't actually have qualia, i.e., perceive any experiences at a conscious level, then my question wouldn't also register with them at all, and

c. would have no reason to do stuff like comply with your demands if you inflict pain, if they didn't actually experience it, and

d. would pretty much be members of an 8 billion strong conspiracy -- including everyone from babies to senile old geezers in nursing homes -- to pretend they have qualia when they answer such questions, for no obvious reason. Yeah, it gets to be a CT too.​

Even if you were to invent some convoluted explanation that accounts for all the above, the far simpler explanation for the available data is just that everyone else has subjective sensations just like you do.

 

[Sideroxylon]

Strong scientism seems to be part of the forum’s ontological landscape.

 

[IanS]

For example this.

You are citing "consciousness" as an example of something that philosophy can explain but which is inherently beyond the reach of any science to explain??? Really???

That's probably the very worst possible example you could have thought of to support what you are claiming!

Science has now gone a long way into explaining all sorts of aspects of what we call "consciousness", and explaining how and why we have that experience. Philosophy, afaik, has no genuine explanation (except to repeat the science).

But we've been over this so many times in these forums that if you really do not know what scientific studies have been done on consciousness, and really do not know what has been discovered and explained, then it's wasting everyones time and good will to explain it all over again here for the 100th time.


Seriously - if you are very fond of academic philosophy and if you think that's a good way of understanding what is likely to be true vs what is likely to be untrue in this world, then you should do yourself a favour (if you actually care about what is true) and enrol in some serious core science courses, leading eventually to a PhD and then your own research ... it's really only at that stage that you, or most people, properly appreciate what science is really about, what it really is, and just what a staggering amount it has achieved where the previous claimed "ways of knowing" (ie philosophy and religion) have for thousands of years failed almost 100% on everything they have ever said or claimed. Seriously – if you do care about discovering what's true about the world, then get more deeply into real core science (eg physics, theoretical/mathematical physics, chemistry, biology, maths).

 

[suren]

You are citing "consciousness" as an example of something that philosophy can explain but which is inherently beyond the reach of any science to explain??? Really???

That's probably the very worst possible example you could have thought of to support what you are claiming!

Science has now gone a long way into explaining all sorts of aspects of what we call "consciousness", and explaining how and why we have that experience. Philosophy, afaik, has no genuine explanation (except to repeat the science).

But we've been over this so many times in these forums that if you really do not know what scientific studies have been done on consciousness, and really do not know what has been discovered and explained, then it's wasting everyones time and good will to explain it all over again here for the 100th time.


Seriously - if you are very fond of academic philosophy and if you think that's a good way of understanding what is likely to be true vs what is likely to be untrue in this world, then you should do yourself a favour (if you actually care about what is true) and enrol in some serious core science courses, leading eventually to a PhD and then your own research ... it's really only at that stage that you, or most people, properly appreciate what science is really about, what it really is, and just what a staggering amount it has achieved where the previous claimed "ways of knowing" (ie philosophy and religion) have for thousands of years failed almost 100% on everything they have ever said or claimed. Seriously – if you do care about discovering what's true about the world, then get more deeply into real core science (eg physics, theoretical/mathematical physics, chemistry, biology, maths).

I didn't claim that philosophy and religion have all the answers but people have questions that are problematic to to answer with science. Sure, many philosophical ideas and religions have flaws, but they still have their own place and right for the existence as long as we have no answers to all fundamental questions. Again, I have interests in problems such as the problem of consciousnesses but it doesn't mean that I'll believe in some esoteric or religious BS, I'll only consider things that are compatible with the current science. I don't deny neuroscience or think that it cannot explain some phenomena, be it religious experiences, love, moral, etc.

 

[IanS]

Reading the thread, is it pretty much assumed here that there is no difference between philosophy and metaphysics? The latter was a subset of the former in the school I went to. Philosophy was described as working out the right way of thinking about things, and included formal logic and reasoning. It wasn't all navel-gazing by a long shot.

Well that much is fine (ie the highlighted). But in that case it sounds more like it should have been called "science-Light" lol! That is - the course was explaining to you, how to think logically, sceptically, and constructively about whatever you encountered ... it was (for example) not teaching you the details of any particular branch of science, so you would not have any of that as your guide/example, but hopefully it was at least teaching you how to think about how & why we think we "know" things, ie how we should think about what we believe is true vs untrue.

You could have got that instead if you had taken the route that most science students take, where at the lower/first levels they study 3 or more branches of science (eg chemistry, physics and biology), then then at a more advanced stage they choose one of those areas to study for a degree, eg say chemistry ... and from there they may go on to to do a PhD (and then maybe further still). But the point I am making there is to say that when you do that in science, you automatically learn how determine what is likely to be true vs. untrue, and you automatically learn to avoid things like Confirmation Bias, you automatically learn how to be as objective and impartial as possible, and as open minded as possible, because if you don't do that then you will get all the answers wrong and you will fail all the exams and fail to produce any publishable research etc. You are not actually taught directly about that in science ... there are no lessons in how to be logical, consistent, objective, sceptical etc.,... instead you just learn it automatically by brute force of the subject - you cannot succeed in science unless you are properly objective and impartial.

IOW – what you have described as a useful part of your philosophy course, is fine … but you would have also got all of that automatically & inevitably if you had studied core science … and of course in that case (with core sciences) you would also have learned an absolutely vast amount about the universe around us and learned how we “know” what we think we “know” about all of that … whereas you would have got none (or almost none) of that specific scientific knowledge from your philosophy course. And that is a huge omission in your understanding of what is likely to be true, and what we think we “know” about everything & anything in the universe around us … you get all of that from following the science, not from indulging in philosophy.

 

[Belz...]

Not sure if I know the proper definition of qualia - and how it would be tested. To suggest that qualia do not exist - Does that claim suggests that no experience is ineffible, all experience can be defined as sensory processing - processing of physical facts such as mass, frequency, spin, charge, etc.? ie, there are no qualities, only measureable quantities? IOW, if we have 2 identical nervous systems having the same identical sensory input - they would have to have the same experience.

Yes.

There is literally no reason to believe otherwise.

 

[Belz...]

Sure, but the problem is that you can prove this only for yourself.

No. We have instruments that can detect this.

I didn't claim it exists but didn't deny either. I didn't claim to be able to prove or disprove this.

Then we can safely ignore the issue.

But denying this will make it difficult to answer to the question 'why we should be moral'.

No it doesn't. Why would you think it does?

Morality is not a spiritual matter. It's an inevitable result of being a social species. Wolves have morals too; behaviours that are or aren't acceptable, things they seek or avoid. It's just a lot more complex in humans.

There's no philosophical reason why you should or shouldn't be moral, beyond that things that are important to you and others are threatened by behaviours that don't match the collective values.

Also do you think we should be equally moral or not to [create] artificial intelligence that perfectly mimicks human behaviour?

I think morality has nothing to do with it. I'm not sure it would be a good idea, and how we treat said AI would be a question of morality.

 

[IanS]

I didn't claim that philosophy and religion have all the answers but people have questions that are problematic to to answer with science.

The question was whether philosophy (or religion) could genuinely answer (ie correct answers) questions where science was inherently unable to find any answers.

Which questions are "problematic" for science to answer, but where philosophy does provide a credible answer?

Sure, many philosophical ideas and religions have flaws, but they still have their own place and right for the existence as long as we have no answers to all fundamental questions.

Are you saying that it's good to have answers from philosophy and/or religion, even if those answers are almost certainly wrong (often very seriously wrong)? How is that preferable to the answers we get from science? Or preferable to the answers that any of us can work out for ourselves using a scientific approach?

Do you think there are certain questions which we can have about the nature of the universe, which you would describe as "fundemental", which we cannot possibly ever answer through science? What questions do you think those might be?

Again, I have interests in problems such as the problem of consciousnesses but it doesn't mean that I'll believe in some esoteric or religious BS, I'll only consider things that are compatible with the current science. I don't deny neuroscience or think that it cannot explain some phenomena, be it religious experiences, love, moral, etc.

Good!

 

[suren]

The question was whether philosophy (or religion) could genuinely answer (ie correct answers) questions where science was inherently unable to find any answers.

Which questions are "problematic" for science to answer, but where philosophy does provide a credible answer?






Are you saying that it's good to have answers from philosophy and/or religion, even if those answers are almost certainly wrong (often very seriously wrong)? How is that preferable to the answers we get from science? Or preferable to the answers that any of us can work out for ourselves using a scientific approach?

Do you think there are certain questions which we can have about the nature of the universe, which you would describe as "fundemental", which we cannot possibly ever answer through science? What questions do you think those might be?





Good!

No, philosophy and religion cannot answer to fundamental questions, however they can ask questions that science does not or will unlikely have the answers.

For example: 'Why is there something instead of nothing?'. Do you seriously think that some quantum fluctuation or something like that is the satisfying answer, considering that it's obviously something?

Such questions aren't stupid questions. Philosophy is actually nice when it's without dogma.