that we experience qualitative sensations inside our head, such as colours, or the timbre of a musical instrument (the “sound of trumpet”). — Olivier5
I'm certainly not confusing thoughts with neurological events. That would be a category error. And mentalists are people with telepathic capacity, which I don't believe in.confusing thoughts (neurological events) with pictures (or other symbols) and pictured objects. — bongo fury
I'm certainly not confusing thoughts with neurological events. — Olivier5
And mentalists are people with telepathic capacity, which I don't believe in. — Olivier5
Hence the "hard problem". And yet, mental events must be underwritten by physical events. There’s no information without some material support. Genes need DNA, a poem needs paper. — Olivier5
Thoughts are information, written down and processed by neurons.Ok, what are they for you? — bongo fury
Thoughts are information, written down and processed by neurons. — Olivier5
It's neurons encoding for this or that.. but then encoding itself has to be explained as for why it is mental states. The problem lies in positing a hidden dualism. Mental states exist, yes or no? If yes, whence mental states? We keep referencing another complexity of physical states. It's not like if you pile on more physical explanations, "poof" mental states appear. — schopenhauer1
A certain kind of complexity seems necessary for our consciousness; from neuroscience it seems to be a dynamic (causal-spatio-temporal) kind of organized complexity (rich differentiation and integration). It seems that an object needs to be complex in this way in order to be "conscious". — litewave
A single neuron is probably not conscious but a complex collection of neurons may be; but it's difficult to describe how because while we may be conscious of the quality of a collection of neurons we don't know the qualities of the neurons themselves and we don't know how the qualities of neurons compose the quality of a collection of neurons. The quality of the collection is not identical to the qualities of the constituent neurons because the collection is not identical to any of the constituent neurons; it is an object in its own right, with its own intrinsic/non-structural identity (quality). — litewave
It's difficult to imagine how the qualities of parts compose the quality of their collection (beyond perhaps some vague sense of "blending"), let alone if it is a highly complex collection and due to the significance of its dynamic nature the collection is not just a 3-dimensional spatial object but a 4-dimensional spatio-temporal object. — litewave
It seems like non-structural identity (quality) needs to be explained. What is this such that a collection of neurons would instantiate it? — schopenhauer1
Yes, so why would a collection of neurons be qualitative, first-person experience without simply positing a dualism somewhere in there already? — schopenhauer1
Maybe it is troublesome for materialism/functionalism, but can it seriously be questioned whether we have taste and pain and other phenomenal first-person experiences — Luke
A memory is also a qual? — Banno
You seem to be agreeing with me...? — Banno
we experience qualitative sensations inside our head — Olivier5
If nothing is added, why bother? — Banno
1. Uses of the Term ‘Qualia’
(1) Qualia as phenomenal character. Consider your visual experience as you stare at a bright turquoise color patch in a paint store. There is something it is like for you subjectively to undergo that experience. What it is like to undergo the experience is very different from what it is like for you to experience a dull brown color patch. This difference is a difference in what is often called ‘phenomenal character’. The phenomenal character of an experience is what it is like subjectively to undergo the experience. If you are told to focus your attention upon the phenomenal character of your experience, you will find that in doing so you are aware of certain qualities. These qualities — ones that are accessible to you when you introspect and that together make up the phenomenal character of the experience are sometimes called ‘qualia’. C.S. Peirce seems to have had something like this in mind when he introduced the term ‘quale’ into philosophy in 1866 (1866/1982, para 223).
There are more restricted uses of the term ‘qualia’, however.
(2) Qualia as properties of sense data. Consider a painting of a dalmatian. Viewers of the painting can apprehend not only its content (i.e., its representing a dalmatian) but also the colors, shapes, and spatial relations obtaining among the blobs of paint on the canvas. It has sometimes been supposed that being aware or conscious of a visual experience is like viewing an inner, non-physical picture or sense-datum. So, for example, on this conception, if I see a dalmatian, I am subject to a mental picture-like representation of a dalmatian (a sense-datum), introspection of which reveals to me both its content and its intrinsic, non-representational features (counterparts to the visual features of the blobs of paint on the canvas). These intrinsic, non-representational features have been taken by advocates of the sense-datum theory to be the sole determinants of what it is like for me to have the experience. In a second, more restricted sense of the term ‘qualia’, then, qualia are intrinsic, consciously accessible, non-representational features of sense-data and other non-physical phenomenal objects that are responsible for their phenomenal character. Historically, the term ‘qualia’ was first used in connection with the sense-datum theory by C.I. Lewis in 1929. As Lewis used the term, qualia were properties of sense-data themselves.
(3) Qualia as intrinsic non-representational properties. There is another established sense of the term ‘qualia’, which is similar to the one just given but which does not demand of qualia advocates that they endorse the sense-datum theory. However sensory experiences are ultimately analyzed — whether, for example, they are taken to involve relations to sensory objects or they are identified with neural events or they are held to be physically irreducible events — many philosophers suppose that they have intrinsic, consciously accessible features that are non-representational and that are solely responsible for their phenomenal character. These features, whatever their ultimate nature, physical or non-physical, are often dubbed ‘qualia’.
In the case of visual experiences, for example, it is frequently supposed that there is a range of visual qualia, where these are taken to be intrinsic features of visual experiences that (a) are accessible to introspection, (b) can vary without any variation in the representational contents of the experiences, (c) are mental counterparts to some directly visible properties of objects (e.g., color), and (d) are the sole determinants of the phenomenal character of the experiences. This usage of ‘qualia’ has become perhaps the most common one in recent years. Philosophers who hold or have held that there are qualia, in this sense of the term, include, for example, Nagel (1974), Peacocke (1983) and Block (1990).
(4) Qualia as intrinsic, nonphysical, ineffable properties. Some philosophers (e.g, Dennett 1987, 1991) use the term ‘qualia’ in a still more restricted way so that qualia are intrinsic properties of experiences that are also ineffable, nonphysical, and ‘given’ to their subjects incorrigibly (without the possibility of error). Philosophers who deny that there are qualia sometimes have in mind qualia as the term is used in this more restricted sense (or a similar one). It is also worth mentioning that sometimes the term ‘qualia’ is restricted to sensory experiences by definition, while on other occasions it is allowed that if thoughts and other such cognitive states have phenomenal character, then they also have qualia. Thus, announcements by philosophers who declare themselves opposed to qualia need to be treated with some caution. One can agree that there are no qualia in the last three senses I have explained, while still endorsing qualia in the standard first sense.
In the rest of this entry, we use the term ‘qualia’ in the very broad way I did at the beginning of the entry. So, we take it for granted that there are qualia. — SEP article
Adding unneeded entities also adds confusion, — Banno
It appears that some people do deny it. People vary in their ability to hold mental images. People who lack the ability say they didn't realize that anybody can do it. Maybe it's like that. — frank
My view is that reality is constituted by qualities and relations between them. — litewave
A large part of my objection to qualia is that they have fallen into being no more than neologised sense-data — Banno
You have no sensations? No sense of colour, the food you eat tastes nothing, and music doesn't exist for you? yours must be a rather sad life.we experience qualitative sensations inside our head
— Olivier5
...but I would not accept that wording. There's a slide going on here that I would avoid. It starts with the taste of milk and ends in nonsense such as disembodied sense-data... — Banno
What IS matter?What ARE mental states? — schopenhauer1
Of course! Also humor, dreams, ideas and music. You don't have those?Symbols? Sentences? Images? — bongo fury
Personally I believe that these questions must have some simple biological answer. Living organisms self-reproduce. Animals have a piloting system that helps them chose where to go. They try to protect themselves from hazards. Our immune system constantly fight against other organisms who try to squat inside our body. I conclude that there are many biological foundations for the sense of self, that such a sense is necessary for self preservation, self affirmation and self reproduction, which are characteristics of life.is this not a case of Cartesian Theater yet again? Whence the first person aspect from information itself? What makes information experiential or have a subjective "what it feels like" aspect? — schopenhauer1
Thoughts are information, written down and processed by neurons.
— Olivier5
Interesting. Symbols? Sentences? Images? — bongo fury
Of course! Also humor, dreams, ideas and music. You don't have those? — Olivier5
People vary in their ability to hold mental images. — frank
Can you explain what it means to be constituted by qualities? Is that like a sort of pansychism? — schopenhauer1
]On the most common conception, sense data (singular: “sense datum”) have three defining characteristics:
i) Sense data are the kind of thing we are directly aware of in perception,
ii) Sense data are dependent on the mind, and
iii) Sense data have the properties that perceptually appear to us. — SEP
Feelings and experiences vary widely. For example, I run my fingers over sandpaper, smell a skunk, feel a sharp pain in my finger, seem to see bright purple, become extremely angry. In each of these cases, I am the subject of a mental state with a very distinctive subjective character. There is something it is like for me to undergo each state, some phenomenology that it has. Philosophers often use the term ‘qualia’ (singular ‘quale’) to refer to the introspectively accessible, phenomenal aspects of our 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. The status of qualia is hotly debated in philosophy largely because it is central to a proper understanding of the nature of consciousness. Qualia are at the very heart of the mind-body problem. — SEP
Cant you say that for anything, including your brain states?? Observed brains and their neurons change.There is a way this cauliflower tastes to you right now. Well, no. the taste changes even as you eat it, even as the texture changes as you chew. — Banno
How do neural activity explain the quality of taste? Sound like we taking about Suffern things altogether. Why would there be a report of taste if neural activity explained it all?Intuition pump #2: the wine-tasting machine.
As a tool for convincing those who disagree, this strikes me as singularly useless. Dennett will say there is nothing missing form the machine description; advocates of qualia will say that there is...
Except that they cannot say what it is that is missing; qualia are after all ineffable. But this never stops their advocates from talking about them... — Banno
But what are images, if not information? What are symbols if not information vehicles? What exactly is 'pre-philosophical' about images or symbols?I was ready to be schooled in information theory, or some such. But you revert to a pre-philosophical declaration of wonder. — bongo fury
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