Define Consiousness

[Filip Sandor]

I only retort dualism is illogical, and in fact nonsense. I do agree an objectve reality exists.

Hammegk,

You still didn't answer my question.

 

[Filip Sandor]

I'm sorry, I don't understand the question.

It sounds vaguely familiar, but I don't know Dennet's theory, what is the hall of mirrors you referred to??

 

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by Filip Sandor

I don't know Dennet's theory, what is the hall of mirrors??

I don't remember Dennett ever saying anything about a 'hall of mirrors'; that was just a methaphor I was using to describe the difficulties with Cartesian Dualism. As an alternative, Dennett proposes something he calls the 'Multiple Drafts' model. This does not lend itself well to brief summation, but some of the central ideas are: rather than a single, canonical narrative, there are, at any point in time, multiple drafts of narrative fragments at various stages of editing, these processes running in parallel; observations only have to be made once (they do not have to be 'sent' anywhere else to be rediscriminated by some master discriminator).

One phrase Dennett uses that I find especially appealing is: spatially and temporally distributed content-fixations. Try saying that three times real fast.

 

[BillHoyt]

Just how, exactly, are "qualia" to be falsified, davidsmith73? Please be specific and indicate, very specifically, how the concept of "qualia" is to be refuted.

davidsmith73,

Did you, perchance, miss this question?

 

[hammegk]

Hammegk,

You still didn't answer my question.

Which question that you asked of me have I not answered?

 

[Mr. E]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by BillHoyt
Just how, exactly, are "qualia" to be falsified, davidsmith73? Please be specific and indicate, very specifically, how the concept of "qualia" is to be refuted.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I suppose by evaluating the limit of consciousness as quale-content approaches zero, if I get what you reiterated through the fog of your complicated words.

ME

 

[Interesting Ian]

Doesn't this happen in some neurological disorders or damage? So someone may actually do something and not "know" they've done it even though they have the memory of it, or the strange why people who have undergone "split-brain" operations react. I don't have any great links handy but this one discusses some of the changes in a "split-brain" person's consciousness. http://php.indiana.edu/~pietsch/split-brain.html

Proof there is no self!

 

[Interesting Ian]

You've just identified one of the key knowledge areas that begins to expose the consciousness-as-nonmaterial claim errors: the facts simply do not support these metaphysical musings. From the simple fact of anaesthesia to the recorded studies of brain damage, to the recorded effects of various brain surgeries, it is absolutely clear that, as magical as it appears to be, consciousness is firmly rooted in organic function. Why so many continue to wander in a metaphysical fog about this is beyond me.

WOW! I hadn't even read your post Bill before my previous post! LOL

 

[Interesting Ian]

Just how, exactly, are "qualia" to be falsified, davidsmith73? Please be specific and indicate, very specifically, how the concept of "qualia" is to be refuted.

They can't be. That which exists cannot be shown not to exist.

 

[Mr. E]

And your experience of the quale is a meta-quale (a TIC term, BTW).
Wait...

What is a TIC term, here?

---------me-------------
Are there things that have natures completely independent of anything we could know about them?
------------------------

---------you------------
Yes, its called objective physical reality! We can never know the true nature of objective reality.
------------------------

---------me-------------
If so, is the nature of qualia exempt from this limitation (and if so, why)?
------------------------

---------you------------
Yes, I think qualia are certainly exempt from this limitation
------------------------

But qualia are subjective! I wouldn't have thought it possible to come up with anything even more bizarre than 'objectively subjective', but you appear to have done so by proposing its complement: a new category, the 'subjectively objective'. Nice work.

Are we having fun, or what?

I hope so! From another forum about a year ago:

"People can have subjective or objective orientations or both or neither. People can be subjectively objective, and they can be objectively subjective. If the objective encompasses the subjective, does the subjective encompass the objective too? "

http://forums.craigslist.org/?SQ=ob...ively+objective&act=RSR&searchAID=&forumID=71

I suggest pending an explanation of 'TIC', that there are not "meta-qualia". The experience is the quale; whiteness is a particular property of experience in general. There is no other independent experience of the experience which is the quale, except as empty word games and the like. There are only awareness and sensation coming together in the moment of consciousness to "produce" qualia whether real or imaginary.

Have at it!

ME

 

[Atlas]

Just how, exactly, are "qualia" to be falsified, davidsmith73? Please be specific and indicate, very specifically, how the concept of "qualia" is to be refuted.

They can't be. That which exists cannot be shown not to exist.

First off, I admit that I had never heard the term qualia before joining this forum and know what I know about the concept only from readings here and wikipedia.

That said, it seems like an immaterial definition for a perceived exchange in the brain that is a mere theoretical construct or aspect of one.

I might postulate that all my good emotional feelings are the result of "blessing" and all my bad emotional feelings are from "curse". My experience is unchanged regardless of the theoretical construct I overlay. Qualia is a useful way to think about activities in the mind but there is no more proof of qualia than there is of God.

It is like the Ptolemaic geocentric appearence model, a very attractive, apparently true model. But Copernicus gave us a much truer model that is not as apparent to our pedestrian conscious apprehension. It needs several additional constructs educated into us before we realize our senses were fooling our understanding.

My point is that qualia are definitional aspects of a theory of mind that could easily be thrown over when a better model is advanced. There is no proof for qualia, only acceptence.

This wikipedia article gives a short definition and argument for and against qualia.

Qualia

Finally, Jackson argues that qualia are epiphenomenal: that is, that they are causally inefficacious with respect to the physical world. Jackson does not give a positive justification for this claim—rather, he seems to assert it simply because it defends qualia against the classic problem of dualism. Our natural assumption would be that qualia must be causally efficacious in the physical world—however, if qualia are to be non-physical properties (which they must be in order to constitute an argument against physicalism), it is almost impossible to imagine how they could have a causal effect on the physical world. By redefining qualia as epiphenomenal, Jackson is thus able to protect them from the demand of playing a causal role.

 

[Mr. E]

My point is that qualia are definitional aspects of a theory of mind that could easily be thrown over when a better model is advanced. There is no proof for qualia, only acceptence.

This wikipedia article gives a short definition and argument for and against qualia.

Qualia

Do qualia require proof or rather proper placement in any complete theory of consciousness? The notion that they are epiphenomal as I understand it is that they do "exist" but that the processes which take sense data and allow us to act effectively in the world function well enough without qualia. However, an experience without a property wouldn't be the same experience as one with that property. So if qualia are mere non-causal side effects of brain processes, what does that say about all experience? It seems to simply deny that conscious experience is relevant. Even if that were true, how does that figure into the topic of this thread?

ME

PS - the excerpt said, "it is almost impossible to imagine how they could have a causal effect on the physical world"

"almost impossible" warrants consideration as "possible".

 

[BillHoyt]

I suppose by evaluating the limit of consciousness as quale-content approaches zero, if I get what you reiterated through the fog of your complicated words.

ME

What I wrote was hardly complicated, mystery, although "falsification" might be a sophisticated concept. I'll break it down for you: how can we demonstrate qualia don't exist? It is that simple, and one of the golden keys to understanding science. "Qualia" seem, on the surface, to be a wonderful concept. I say that, when we dig deeper, we reveal the final dualist escape hatch, and nothing more. I say that because "qualia" are merely Descarte's myth wrapped in a new guise. They are defined as "private," purely private, and defined in such a way that when science can present incontrovertible evidence that it understands every other aspect of consiousness, can fully explain the voices in our heads, how we choose what we want for breakfast and which woman we'll approach at the pub and what we will (or won't) wear to bed, the dualists will still have "qualia" as the very thin reed to cling to as they hang over the cliff. They will gasp, "ah, but you can't measure how I experience it!"

And the game will be back on. We'll whip out electrodes and tell you exactly how you experience it. We'll have, perhaps, multi-dimensional graphics, showing the intensity of your pleasure or pain and following down all the association paths, providing the names and graphic descriptions of each and every similar painful or pleasure-ful experience your current experience is triggering. "But those are numbers, those aren't how I feel about it." So, then, we'll measure the various chemical components of feeling (about which we already know a great amount) and measure the activation potentials at all the receptor sites for those chemicals, and tell you. And then, you'll simply deny it.

This game will never end. It hasn't for the many decades it has been on. Gilbert Ryle first callled dualists on this game in 1949, in The Concept of Mind. There he summarized the dualist retreat to that point. Before physiology knew about how nerves and the electro-chemistry of emotion worked, the dualists claimed we could never understand sensations, perceptions, feeling, thinking, memory or consciousness. Now we clearly have a good handle on nerve operations and the higher-order phenomena of vision, taste, smell and tactile feel. As that became clear, the dualists retreated to claiming we could never understand feeling, thinking, memory or consciousness. Several decades passed, and our understanding that emotions are chemical in nature and that neurons are the basis of thinking and memory has forced a retreat to the claim that we'll never understand consciousness, this time accompanied by much hooting and hollering about "qualia."

So the key, here, is to know how to scrutinize "qualia," because, quite clearly, inroads on consciousness have already been made. (One need only look closely at the shifting definition of consciousness among the dualists to see this. Decades ago, the term included awareness of one's surroundings. As vision, taste, smell and tactile feel all became understood, the term consciousness became circumscribed to things more resembling the cartesian shadow-theatre. Heaven forfend that the dualists should concede progress already made in understanding consciousness. Far better that they disguise a No True Scotsman maneuver and keep up the basic category mistake, as Ryle termed it.)

So, then, mystery, since davidsmith73 has yet to tackle this question, I put it to you: how are we ever to falsify "qualia?" What test or tests can we, in principle, conduct that will either support or refute the notion of "qualia?" The corollary question, if you can offer no such tests, is: why should we entertain the notion at all?

 

[Interesting Ian]

how can we demonstrate qualia don't exist? It is that simple, and one of the golden keys to understanding science. "Qualia" seem, on the surface, to be a wonderful concept. I say that, when we dig deeper, we reveal the final dualist escape hatch, and nothing more. I say that because "qualia" are merely Descarte's myth wrapped in a new guise.

If we take something say like the raw experience of redness, or the smell of eggs and bacon, or the taste of coffee, it is clear, is it not, that they all incontrovertibly exist? We experience them in the most direct sense possible.

So the question "how can we demonstrate qualia don't exist" is simply without meaning. This is because they do definitely exist. This being so they cannot be falsified; but clearly this fact doesn't mean that they don't exist!

You're getting confused with science. Science deals with the patterns in our perceptual experiences, not the experiences themselves. We have theories explaining the patterns in our perceptual experiences. The argument is that if such a theory cannot be falsified then this means that the theory is compatible with all possible states of the world. In other words, no matter what we discover about the world, it will fail to disprove the theory. But this then means that the theory is vacuous.

But qualia are not a theory. Rather their existence is a stone-cold fact.

 

[Q-Source]

I will argue that it doesn't exist. It is a rubric under which many other things are attributed.

Hello David,

So far, I have just read the first page, sorry if someone else already asked you the following:
If you think that consciousness does not exist, then explain what is the difference between a p-zombie and you?

Do you think that robots will be able to duplicate everything humans do, think and feel?.

Q

 

[Atlas]

If we take something say like the raw experience of redness, or the smell of eggs and bacon, or the taste of coffee, it is clear, is it not, that they all incontrovertibly exist? We experience them in the most direct sense possible.

Ian, What I don't understand is how this kind of theory leads to a denial of the physical world. Let's say that bacon and eggs is one of your favorite pleasurable experiences. Let's also say you were convinced that there is no physical world.

Now let's say that ninja surgeons slipped into your room while you were sleeping and snipped your olfactory nerve. you remained asleep, so stealthy and and martial artist snippy were they.

What keeps you from enjoying the qualia derived from the physical world scent.

OK, I'm coming at this from many angles at once in my mind. To me the denial of the physical realm implies the denial of evolution. That in fact we are the floating consciousnesses and nothing more. If everything is unreal why do individuals have the same "provable" 5 sense derived qualia and not much more. Even if some people have woo powers, how does that inform our existence in terms of life and death and the experiences in between that also switch off in our unconscious states. What possible value is there in the denial of physical existence. What do the qualia refer to if not physical existence.

I've never quite grasped the essence of truth that makes subjective idealism superior. How does it explain the dinosaurs and prehistory without a physical universe. I think of thought as the light of mind, a weird fact demonstrating the matter is constantly doing strange things, but no more wonderful than the coalescing hydrogen that sparked the first light of the universe. That too was surely unexpectedly wonderful if the universe exists, that is.

 

[BillHoyt]

Ian, What I don't understand is how this kind of theory leads to a denial of the physical world. Let's say that bacon and eggs is one of your favorite pleasurable experiences. Let's also say you were convinced that there is no physical world.

Now let's say that ninja surgeons slipped into your room while you were sleeping and snipped your olfactory nerve. you remained asleep, so stealthy and and martial artist snippy were they.

What keeps you from enjoying the qualia derived from the physical world scent.

OK, I'm coming at this from many angles at once in my mind. To me the denial of the physical realm implies the denial of evolution. That in fact we are the floating consciousnesses and nothing more. If everything is unreal why do individuals have the same "provable" 5 sense derived qualia and not much more. Even if some people have woo powers, how does that inform our existence in terms of life and death and the experiences in between that also switch off in our unconscious states. What possible value is there in the denial of physical existence. What do the qualia refer to if not physical existence.

I've never quite grasped the essence of truth that makes subjective idealism superior. How does it explain the dinosaurs and prehistory without a physical universe. I think of thought as the light of mind, a weird fact demonstrating the matter is constantly doing strange things, but no more wonderful than the coalescing hydrogen that sparked the first light of the universe. That too was surely unexpectedly wonderful if the universe exists, that is.

You have to notice the words here to catch the feints going on. "Raw experience" is a prime example of the category mistake Ryle identified back in the 40s. It is a delightful abstraction that permits Ian (and others) to dodge the issue. Ryle pins the mistake on Descartes:

"When Galileo showed that his methods of scientific discovery were competent to provide a mechanical theory which should cover every occupant of space, Descarte found in himself two conflicting motives. As a man of scientific genius he could not but endorse the claims of mechanics, yet as a religious and moral man he could not accept, as Hobbes accepted, the discouraging rider to those claims, namely that human nature differs only in degree of complexity from clockwork...

He and subsequent philosophers naturally but erroneously availed themselves of the following escape-route. Since mental-conduct words are not to be construed as signifying the occurrence of mechanical processes, they must be construed as signifying the occurrence of non-mechanical processes..."

The logic failure is obvious here. The "category mistake" is a definitional problem. It is misuse of language and entrapment in these mistaken definitions. Basically, Ian and others have it bass-ackwards. The "raw experiences" are qualia that are defined to be abstract and personal. It permits no evidence to contradict it. It is pat and patently closed to further inquiry, as Ian concedes with "You're getting confused with science. Science deals with the patterns in our perceptual experiences, not the experiences themselves,"and "So the question "how can we demonstrate qualia don't exist" is simply without meaning. This is because they do definitely exist. This being so they cannot be falsified; but clearly this fact doesn't mean that they don't exist!"

The pretzel nature of the logic escapes the steel-trap-closedness of Ian's mind. So, I encourage our various Cartesians here to address, not dodge, the question: "how are we ever to falsify 'qualia'?"

 

[Interesting Ian]

Ian, What I don't understand is how this kind of theory leads to a denial of the physical world.

Please Atlas, let's stick to one thing at a time. That question takes us way off the topic. Little things need to be achieved before we can tackle the bigger issues. If a lot of people such as Bill and others even deny the existence of the smell of eggs and bacon, and the smell of coffee, it will be somewhat premature to take about whether subjective idealism is correct!

 

[Interesting Ian]

The logic failure is obvious here. The "category mistake" is a definitional problem. It is misuse of language and entrapment in these mistaken definitions. Basically, Ian and others have it bass-ackwards. The "raw experiences" are qualia that are defined to be abstract and personal. It permits no evidence to contradict it.

I agree that this is my position. It would be absurd to suggest that my experience of the smell of eggs and bacon doesn't really exist after some empirical fact about the world is discovered. Qualia are incorrigible.

The pretzel nature of the logic escapes the steel-trap-closedness of Ian's mind.

The logic is fine thank you. Nothing about the world we might discover in the future will now alter the truth of the statement that I am am now experiencing a certain characteristic taste of coffee (well, in a sec anyway when I start drinking it!) .

 

[Filip Sandor]

Which question that you asked of me have I not answered?

Hammegk, this is what you said in a previous post:

Here is the linchpin that destroys dualism as a logical choice. The question is "What *is* the monism?". Body or spirit? Non-life or life? Not-Conscious or Conscious? Material vs ~Material.

I don't know which answer to your question obliterates dualism as a logical alternative to monism.