It is a tricky question because it assumes first that there is something it is like to be X. What is this something? I would argue it is X and we’d have to ask X the question to get any coherent answer.

saturated, unstructured color field — StreetlightX

It makes sense! We always come to an understanding instantaneously of what we experience (experience-of is always experience-as). Something with no patterns in probably calls higher-order sensory processing architecture without lower-order sensorimotor information constraining it much; yielding hallucinations and loss of the sense.

I'm reminded of an exercise of when you simulate a response variable and millions of predictor variables independently (no links), eventually the response variable is perfectly modelled by what is really noise, and occasionally you get a near perfect fit by coincidence. If we always have to 'fit' even when it's 'noise', the only sensible 'fits' would be extremely abstracted patterns of relationship from the noise (coinciding by chance rather than through genuine relation); probably leveraging memory and imagination more than sensory information. They're also probably going to be aleatory and episodic; since the sensory information's patternlessness would 'refute' any pattern imposed upon it through the high order sensory processing.

From brief Googling that's consistent with the first person reports of Ganzfeld subjects.

So, rather than doubting "what is it like" makes sense as a framing device because I'm being insufficiently attendant to first person phenomenology, I'm doubting that it makes as a framing device partly because how people talk about it just doesn't accurately describe how I experience the world. So I suspect that what people think of when they think of a quale is actually a rather structured concept; generalisations of experience, instances of memory, analogies; much different from the sort of stuff 'simply attending to your first person experience" is supposed to reveal. — fdrake

I didn't realize anyone looked at it this way. With Chalmers, the focus is heavily on what we don't know, the approaches that are out there, and the challenge it all poses to science. He uses "first person data" pretty frequently. It's a pretty quiet, cautious, analytical approach.

I agree that some people can suspend an ontological approach and some can't. I'm fairly anti-realist about ontology, so I forget that others feel pretty strong commitments.

I'm fairly anti-realist about ontology, so I forget that others feel pretty strong commitments. — frank

Having global suspicion about a domain is a pretty strong commitment! Chalmers himself gets a lot of mileage out of (what he sees as) conceptual consequences of his posits.

With Chalmers, the focus is heavily on what we don't know, the approaches that are out there, and the challenge it all poses to science. He uses "first person data" pretty frequently. It's a pretty quiet, cautious, analytical approach. — frank

And yet he ends up in a qualified panpsychism and argues that all (or a strong most) hitherto existing science has not dealt with the problem he's posing?

Edit: What I'm trying to highlight is that the framing of this stuff is very much not theory neutral.

a feeling of themselves as distinct from their sensory capabilities and self attending bodily processes — fdrake

Why would you be reading the idea that way?

Why would you be reading the idea that way? — Terrapin Station

Qualia aren't supposed to have hows, they're just there.

That we have experiences is (probably) theory neutral.
If you label those experiences "qualia" as an independent(?) act of judgement, that's probably also theory neutral, though I would be suspicious that anyone would do that without exposure to the literature on qualia.
If you talk about those experiences in terms of qualia, that's usually not theory neutral.

Philosophers often use the term ‘qualia’ (singular ‘quale’) to refer to the introspectively accessible, phenomenal (phenomena are introspectively accessibe? or do only introspectively accessible phenomena have qualia?) aspects of our mental (inner? is inner=mental?) lives. In this broad sense of the term, it is difficult to deny that there are qualia. Disagreement typically centers on which mental states have qualia, whether qualia are intrinsic qualities of their bearers, and how qualia relate to the physical world both inside and outside the head (head = mental? experiential = in the head?). — SEP

This already makes me suspicious - an ontology populated by "mental states" which may or not be "accessible" in a (specified way) by "introspection" (so I have to introspect to "access" qualia? I thought they were immediate parts of experience...). I'm sure that there are coherent ways of fleshing all this out; but yeah, it's something in need of fleshing out, rather than immediate (in the Cartesian sense) understanding suggested in the phrase.

So, guide me through the process you would use to attend to a quale?

Having global suspicion about a domain is a pretty strong commitment! — fdrake

I don't have suspicion. I don't understand how projects like idealism and physicalism are supposed to be saying anything informative. The philosophy football game that accompanies those ideas is fruitful. I think it's likely that the fumes of that game are fueling this very discussion.

So let me ask you: when you say that it's inevitable that baggage is drawn into the discussion, what baggage are you dragging in? What theory?

And yet he ends up in a qualified panpsychism and — fdrake

Did he? Do you know in which writings he settles down into the view of panpsychism (as opposed to just considering it)?

..argues that all (or a strong most) hitherto existing science has not dealt with the problem he's posing? — fdrake

There's a fair amount of scientific speculation about how phenomenal consciousness works. Chalmers writes about those efforts. It's a science in its infancy.

So take that one part at a time.

One, we could say that qualia are either accessible or not. The standard idea of supporters is that they're accessible.

But we can't just say that they're accessible and leave it at that. Because my qualia are not accessible to you. So we have to qualify just how they're accessible. "Introspection" refers to observing one's own mental state. That's how they're accessible. By observation or awareness of one's own mental state. So they're introspectively accessible.

"Phenomenal" refers to appearance, and could be contrasted with "noumenal." When we're talking about qualia, we're talking about appearances to our own mind.

You could say that "mental" is "inner" (re your question about this). Our minds are not directly observable to other people.

"Inside the head"--that's referring to your mind, on the view that minds are brains in particular states.

Did he? Do you know in which writings he settles down into the view of panpsychism (as opposed to just considering it)? — frank

I don't think he's ever assented to it; or been totally convinced of it; but he has defended it as sensible. I think "worthy of consideration" is about as close to "I definitively believe this" as you get in analytic philosophy papers (hashtag snark).

So let me ask you: when you say that it's inevitable that baggage is drawn into the discussion, what baggage are you dragging in? What theory? — frank

A specific theory? Nah. Don't have one. The conceptual baggage I'm dragging into any discussion of first person experience (which I'm aware of and want to write up):

(1) Distrust of the usual mechanisms of introspection to yield knowledge; they're just part of it and don't suffice by themselves. I have higher requirements for conceptual constructions than I do of the thinking I need to do in the street or interpersonally.

(2) Suspicion about thinking of people (including myself) as individuals with intrinsic character of experience; I see us as much more diffuse. It doesn't even make too much sense to me for me to "have" a quale. Pre-theoretically I'll own the experience (that the experience is happening to me is often part of phenomenal character); but theoretically to me it looks a lot more like my body and environment are in a certain configuration with a certain history (of which only parts "have" phenomenal character, and of which only parts are "mine") rather than all of that being present "in me" and "accessible by" introspection (introspection is a practice we have to do, not something that happens all the time; it's a lot more cognitive effort than we usually put in in most things to introspect).

(3) The underlying intuition I have about (2) is that even something like my "body" or "soul" are distributed over bodily and socio-cultural processes, and I'm an "output" that can interact with the parameters of my situation and (some of my) self. I see my experiences as something like "questions" my body is asking itself and its environment (they talk back); self modelling built on top of pre-individual processes that emerge as phenomenal characters (and are conditioned by my history). But I would also like to say that my body and mind are something that can play parts as unities in other processes; giving someone a hug is something done as a whole body (and as a person), not something my limbic system does or the recipient's does.

Deleuze and Guattari's body without organs ontological metaphor is a good mission statement for my intuitions there.

(4) In terms of the "translation" of our bodily processes into phenomenal characters, I have no idea. Not all bodily processes are capable of them (our nerves have to be involved somehow, areas with little nervous connection don't seem to have distinctive feelings). Our mental states look to me to be high order interactions of bodily processes with an accompanying bodily process of self modelling (which looks to occur in the brain, as mirror neurons and high-order processing occur there, and we develop self consciousness after neural-cognitive development). How (phenomenal character) I experience seems intimately tied up with how other people have treated me developmentally; pre-self conscious anticipations and memories developing into self conscious ones (this ties into the self as a socio-cultural process, a self is a learned self constrained by individual level bodily variation). Edit: I'm pretty convinced that we see ourselves as "in our heads" just because our eyes are there, though.

(5) Tentatively I think questions about "why is this physical state conscious?" should be translated into "how is this physical state conscious?"; and there I think I broadly agree with Chalmers - at least his intention of providing a vocabulary for linking phenomenal states with physical ones - but I'm suspicious of "the explanatory gap" in general and the metaphysical consequences arising from it. To me it seems like a similar question to "why does money turn into food?". Of course, it doesn't literally, but we turn money into food through purchasing things. I think our bodies turn bodily processes into phenomenal states through (partial) self modelling (though not necessarily algorithmically!); and that self modelling is in part a social process (embedded in social practices).

That all seems way more complex than would be warranted by not understanding what you quoted from SEP. :razz:

That all seems way more complex than would be warranted by not understanding what you quoted from SEP. :razz: — Terrapin Station

Are you sure? It seems simple to me, I think you're sitting on stuff just as crazy, you just don't problematise it. And that's a problem.

"Introspection" refers to observing one's own mental state. That's how they're accessible — Terrapin Station

Introspection's a lot different from awareness. And are they accessible in the same way? Are sex quales like food quales? If you say "qualia come from self awareness", that's consistent with lots of radically different accounts, and there being many different (partially overlapping) forms of self awareness. Moreover, "observing one's own mental state" is not something we do all the time; we're simply not attending to our own thoughts and experiences in our usual mode of functioning, they impress upon us when we're doing stuff in a context (and the context includes our current state of mind). If you start presenting things like this, you can gloss over the details; but every opportunity to gloss over the details is an opportunity to frame things as obvious.

When they're not, they're really really not.

But we can't just say that they're accessible and leave it at that. — Terrapin Station

What is accessible by what? Accessibility is a 2 place relation, what kind of thing goes on "one side" of the relation and what kind of thing goes on "the other"? X accesses Y, what does that mean in the context of a quale? Is the "access" to the quale introspective, or is it self aware?

"Phenomenal" refers to appearance, and could be contrasted with "noumenal." When we're talking about qualia, we're talking about appearances to our own mind. — Terrapin Station

I had no idea we needed to inherit the intellectual tradition of Kant in order to process our own experiences.

You could say that "mental" is "inner" (re your question about this). Our minds are not directly observable to other people. — Terrapin Station

And now you have a whole epistemology of direct vs indirect access to give.

"Inside the head"--that's referring to your mind, on the view that minds are brains in particular states. — Terrapin Station

And now you're a physicalist.

Seriously Terrapin, what you think is just common sense and shared by everyone is batshit theory-ladened. And then you snark at me for being aware of (some of) my own bat-shit theory ladenedness?

Edit: I'm pretty convinced that we see ourselves as "in our heads" just because our eyes are there, though. — fdrake

I think about this from time to time (sometimes when I'm looking in the mirror). I don't have the issues you do about selfhood, though. Look back at SLX's post about how qualia can't be independent items. The same is true of the self.

I think I broadly agree with Chalmers - at least his intention of providing a vocabulary for linking phenomenal states with physical ones — fdrake

It may be that a satisfactory theory of consciousness will develop in the context of neutral monism. Who knows?

I don't have the issues you do about selfhood, though. — frank

Eh, reducing questions about what a self is to what our intuitions tell us it is? That's not my jam.

It may be that a satisfactory theory of consciousness will develop in the context of neutral monism. Who knows? — frank

I shrug. Don't like substance ontologies (except Spinoza's).

Eh, reducing questions about what a self is to what our intuitions tell us it is? That's not my jam. — fdrake

Did you look back at SLX's post as I suggested?

I shrug. Don't like substance ontologies (except Spinoza's). — fdrake

Not sure what that has to do with anything.

Yes.

Not sure what that has to do with anything. — frank

Monism's usually understood as a substance ontology. There's only 'one type of thing', and neutral monism says that the 'one type of thing' is both mental and physical or either (as modes which possibly interact). Right?

So when you talked about phenomenal states being linked to physical states, how should I understand that? What do you mean by "physical states"?

Why do you accept MP's thoughts about the dependent character of qualia, but balk at applying the same insight to the self?

What do you mean by "physical states"? — frank

Brain and/or bodily states.

Why do you accept MP's thoughts about the dependent character of qualia, but balk at applying the same insight to the self? — frank

I had no idea I balked at it!

Brain and/or bodily states. — fdrake

I thought you were on board with the "extended mind" angle.

I thought you were on board with the "extended mind" angle. — frank

Yes. That doesn't mean I think rocks are capable of producing their own phenomenal states?

Introspection's a lot different from awareness. — fdrake

No, you're reading that into it. A common definition of "introspection" is "the examination or observation of one's own mental and emotional processes." Observation can obtain via simple awareness.

Introspection can be more than that. But it isn't necessarily. In the context of qualia, we're simply talking about properties from a subjective perspective, as you experience them. Awareness is sufficient for that.

What is accessible by what? — fdrake

The properties in question. Accessible by individuals.

I had no idea we needed to inherit the intellectual tradition of Kant in order to process our own experiences. — fdrake

You don't. But it's something you should be familiar with when trying to read and understand a philosophy encyclopedia.

I'm not being snarky about anything in the post in question. You said that you didn't understand the passage you quoted. I'm trying to help you understand it. You can't expect an entry in a philosophy encyclopedia to be divorced of any theoretical commitments or background. It would be impossible to write an article for an encyclopedia that way.

The properties in question. Accessible by individuals. — Terrapin Station

You experience properties? Weird. Do phenomenal states consist of properties? What does that look like? How do you access them? A whole individual accesses a quale which is somehow a part of their phenomenal state through a posited process of "self awareness" which coincidentally links properties to individuals?

This looks to me like a stipulated characterisation of experience, rather than an experience (the internality/externality dichotomy cuts both ways). It seems just as plausible to me that self awareness is part of everything we could recollect as an experience, and that stipulated properties within those experiences are actually conceptual (not affective/sensory) understandings derived from them. Rather than a quale being the experience (or quales composing experience, depending on how they're individuated), it's a representation of the experience, filtered through our interpretations into words like "property" or "redness" or "red". Too pedantic a distinction? I don't think it is, it's really important to try and track how the experience of the walls in my room "counts as" an experience of white(ness), say, and whether that "counting as" is a retrospective act of conception/synthesis over experiences or "just" an instance of "self awareness".

Since we're self aware, we bring interpretive baggage (theory-ladened ness) to everything we think and perceive; so I'm suspicious of the (stipulated) neutrality of qualia at al.

What makes you so sure you experience properties? Does the thing you're calling a "property" there work like a concept or a percept? Is it both?

You said that you didn't understand the passage you quoted. I'm trying to help you understand it. You can't expect an entry in a philosophy encyclopedia to be divorced of any theoretical commitments or background. It would be impossible to write an article for an encyclopedia that way. — Terrapin Station

Aye. I don't expect an encyclopaedia article on qualia which goes through the positions to be completely theory neutral. What I do expect is that a stipulative definition of something which is supposed to characterise our experiences to be mostly theory neutral (ideally it only contains inherent thought biases and tricky to eliminate ideological biases). But the ways it is conveyed (and the way you're conveying it) always have some conceptual baggage. For previously stated reasons, it isn't surprising that the conceptual baggage is there, but I want to call a spade a spade.

Everything interesting about 'what it is like to experience X' happens outside, beyond this question.

Merleau-Ponty has some beautiful passages trying to get at this: — StreetlightX

That is very much like the point I'm trying to make to distance myself from what Jackson thinks he's proved. The first-person experience of phenomenal consciousness, the so-called hard problem of consciousness, is really a complete trivialism; yet still not something to be denied. Like how, to a naturalist like me, calling something "natural" is a completely trivial descriptor that adds nothing of note; but at the same time, that doesn't mean we say that the thing is not natural. Just that it being natural doesn't really mean much. And there being a first-person experience of phenomenal consciousness doesn't really mean much. It's functionalist access consciousness that's important and differentiates things meaningfully from each other, and that can be studied in the third person because a thing's function is also observable in the thing's behavior, not just in its experience. But there is still that first person experience. There's just nothing more interesting to say about it.

You experience properties? Weird. Do phenomenal states consist of properties? — fdrake

There isn't anything that is absent properties. So yes you experience properties, and yes, your phenomenal states have properties . . . and that's all that qualia are--those qualities or qualitative properties of phenomenal states.

It seems just as plausible to me that self awareness is part of everything we could recollect as an experience — fdrake

How could there be something you "could recollect" as an experience that wouldn't have properties?

Look back at SLX's post about how qualia can't be independent items. The same is true of the self. — frank

The point is less that 'qualia can't be independent items', than 'stop thinking in terms of qualia entirely'.

There isn't anything that is absent properties — Terrapin Station

"This is a way Terrapin thinks about properties"

So yes you experience properties, — Terrapin Station

"Therefore we experience the way Terrapin thinks we do"

How could there be something you "could recollect" as an experience that wouldn't have properties? — Terrapin Station

What state of mind do you have to be in to notice properties (as you think of them) in what you're recollecting or experiencing?

By observation or awareness of one's own mental state. So they're introspectively accessible. — Terrapin Station

Another thing that bugged me; observation or awareness of one's own mental state. If I'm observing a quale, the observation of that quale is part of my mental state, surely (in some sense anyway; my walls are not in my mind). So we have this criterion where "qualia only accompany self aware experiences"; or maybe "a quale only accompanies experiences that are aware of the quale"; but why would "an experience which is aware of a quale" be a typical experience?

When I look at the walls, they're white, they're textured; I guess they're also yellow due to the light, but when I look at them for a bit they seem kinda pink or purple. If I force the wall to be in my peripheral vision, turning my head, and focus my attention on the wall, I'm not really seeing it as white in the same way; the larger topographical features of the skirting board and the undulations of the wooden brace that skirts my room are by far the most notable features. The whiteness off the wall diminishes in felt intensity towards the edge of my field of view (presumably because the limits of my visual field are less sensitive).

When I was describing the experience of the wall, I was reaching for words that seemed appropriate during the cognitive act, "white" came to mind first. When I actually focussed on the suitability of "white" in describing the walls; it's not quite right, they're illuminated, little patches of shadow form revealing the raised parts of the wallpaper patterns... There's so much more detail there.

If I wanted to pull apart that experience (which was extended in time... not "instantaneous" if such a thing is even possible) in terms of felt properties, I'd be doing some intellectual (and writing) exercise. I'd focus my attention on certain parts of the walls, and certain distinctive property types that seem to apply ;topography, colour; and I'd used these properties to indicate the general features of my experience for public consumption.

But notice, I've had to pull apart my experience with a certain conceptual grammar; topography, colour. When I started describing things in terms of colour, the walls provided the same visual impression to me (well, not quite the same, the increased attention on writing dulled the intensity of things in my visual field outside of the screen), but my intellectual attention shifted, and I was processing memories with language; reflecting; at the same time as looking at the walls; experiencing.

This "pulling apart of experience with a certain conceptual grammar" is a cognitive act; intellectual post-processing of experience; for the purposes of describing it. It shifts attention to generalities which can be communicated, rather than singularities which are experienced. Where did the conceptual grammar come from? Does the wall have "topography quales" and "colour quales"? I don't think I see either in isolation, the partition of the wall into topography quales and colour quales is something I do using my sensory information with some interpretive heuristic... I really just see this wall.

"This is a way Terrapin thinks about properties" — fdrake

It's an ontological fact. If something obtains in some way, it has some characteristics, some qualities, some ways that it is, etc.

It's an ontological fact. If something obtains in some way, it has some characteristics, some qualities, some ways that it is, etc. — Terrapin Station

Tell me the story of how these properties inhere in a quale?