. In short, he equivocates. He does the same thing with free will. — frank

Yes he does. Because he wants to have his cake and eat it to. So he can't bite the bullet and just eliminate free will or consciousness outright, as he considers those to be concepts worth salvaging, as long as he can redefine them to remove any of the problematic implications.

So he wants to say of course we're conscious of colors and sipping tea, but it's only in a functional, dispositional sense, not a phenomenological one. And he has endorsed illusionism elsewhere, calling consciousness a magic show in support of the position Keith Frankish has argued for.

Dennett thinks people endorse things like hardness or redness because they're doing the best they can to interpret neurological functioning, not because those things are properties of experience. He speculates that the illusion of phenomenal consciousness may arise from verbal streams. In short, he equivocates. He does the same thing with free will. — frank

What two types do you think Dennett is equivocating between? And can you provide a link to some of his work that demonstrates the equivocation?

What two types do you think Dennett is equivocating between? And can you provide a link to some of his work that demonstrates the equivocation? — fdrake

Dennett states in Quining Qualia that he grants the existence of consciousness, but then in Illusionism as the Obvious Default Theory of Consciousness, he defends the argument that consciousness is an illusion as a good starting place for dissolving the hard problem in favor of explaining the magic trick.

Everything real has properties, and since I don't deny the reality of conscious experience, I grant that conscious experience has properties. I grant moreover that each person's states of consciousness have properties in virtue of which those states have the experiential content that they do. — Quining Qulaia

In other words, you can’t be a satisfied, successful illusionist until you have provided the details of how the brain manages to create the illusion of phenomenality, and that is a daunting task largely in the future. — Illusionism as the Obvious Default Theory of Consciousness

Which just sounds like he wants to say we're conscious, but not really. Kind of like an anti-realist about dinosaur fossils. He's also expressed the ideas that consciousness might be a trick of language, a trick of the reporting mechanism, or just introspection giving us the wrong idea. But whatever it is, consciousness isn't what we think it is. Which sounds like eliminativist talk.

Anything but phenomenal. And if there's no actual subjectivity, then there's no actual consciousness as the word is used in these debates. Which means we don't actually have color, sound, pain sensations.

What two types do you think Dennett is equivocating between? And can you provide a link to some of his work that demonstrates the equivocation? — fdrake

See the critique section of this wiki article on heterophenomenology. Compare his description of it to that of colleagues who talked to him about it. The equivocation is his use of "conscious experience" when he means something like reports of conscious experience.

The core of this topic is philosophy of science. Essentially, Dennett wants to dictate metaphysics for scientific research. If scientists discover that we really don't see red and just think we do because of verbal streams, my mind will be blown, but I'll accept good research. Dennett wants to decide this without research.

Interesting. Still, that human sensibility is susceptible to hoodwinking, is hardly contestable. Seen one constructed illusion, seen ‘em all, right?

Seen one constructed illusion, seen ‘em all, right? — Mww

Right. The point being that the image you are seeing is at an obvious, demonstrable variance with objective reality, but that this variance doesn't go away no matter how often you are shown the image and convinced empirically of your illusion. The illusion is stubborn, it is replicable, and therefore I must conclude that our visual cortex can create an image that has some stubborn reality in it, I can recognise the optical illusion if I know it, but can't chose to not see it, and yet it is markedly different from the objective image sensed by our retina.

Ergo qualia sunt.

So.....qualia advocate, then? What part are they playing in these illusion scenarios, do you say?

The seeming part.

Exactly. Thanks for the green peg illusion and for outlining the argument. I think it's quite strong because it's empirical.

The seeming part. — Marchesk

Ok, but some illusions are actual seemings, re: the bulging part of the checkerboard, and some illusions do not seem so but must be illustrated as such, re: the shaded square and the shaded bar. What then of qualia?

That some seemings are readily apparent and others are pointed out just illustrates the dynamic nature of conscious awareness. The rabbit-duck can flip back and forth, which means it seems like there is a duck, and then it changes to a rabbit. It doesn’t mean there is no seeming.

Two diamonds both identifying as an intermediate grey in most contexts will indeed be seen as contrasting greys in the ingenious context. For obvious enough reasons of unconscious inference.

How is this supposed to bear on the controversy whether there is a mental picture?

Is a zombie, with no mental picture, not expected to distinguish the greys, by the same unconscious reasoning?

You see what seems to be colors making up images. That it seems there are colored images is the what it’s like for humans to see. Dennett may be right in quining the traditional property combination of qualia, but the seeming remains.

That’s a really good point. It’s not just arguing for a certain intuition.

First a duck, then a rabbit are each seemings in themselves, yes. Easily understood. Shaded bars are not illusory seemings, insofar as I do actually intuit a shaded bar from a given appearance, and as such, some qualia (phenomenal representation) pertains to it, and will so pertain until I am shown the illusion, which suffices as a qualitatively different appearance, with different pertinent qualia (phenomenal representation), facilitating a different experience.

Nutshell?

Let's call it the Marchesk-Olivier argument for the existence of qualia. :-)

The key point is that the illusion doesn't go away, it is stable and replicable, not just a fleeting moment of illusion: a stubborn one. Optical illusions are also universal: everybody seems to see the same illusion. This means we have some reason to assume that you see more of less what I see, that your qualia is my qualia, because even when their are 'wrong', they seem to coincide.

What is your conclusion? Sure, there is a difference between what you see and how things are.

And if that is the case, then there is a way that things are that is distinct from how they appear.

That is, realism.

But what is the relevance of this to qualia?

Qualia are defined as the way things appear to us. If things are distinct from how they appear, stubbornly so, then there is some demonstrable stability and reality to "the way things appear to us".

Which just sounds like he wants to say we're conscious, but not really. Kind of like an anti-realist about dinosaur fossils. He's also expressed the ideas that consciousness might be a trick of language, a trick of the reporting mechanism, or just introspection giving us the wrong idea. But whatever it is, consciousness isn't what we think it is. Which sounds like eliminativist talk. — Marchesk

That "not really", presumably the additional part is phenomenal consciousness. If nothing less than phenomenal consciousness will do for that objection, it's begging the question. As that's actually the assertion of a disputed point.

Which sounds like eliminativist talk

Eliminativist with regards to what? Dennett's clearly an eliminativist towards qualia, I think he's an eliminativist towards phenomenal consciousness as usually construed, but I don't think he's an eliminativist towards minds. I think the claim is that the mind is a narrative built with representational approximations which are equivalent to neural-bodily functions in some way. As an overall statement of Dennett's position, I've found two quotes from "Illusionism As the Obvious Default Theory of Consciousness":

Dennett: Today we — most of us —are comfortable with systems of unconscious representations that influence, specify content, orient, direct memory retrieval, etc. That is as good as gospel in cognitive science. These are representations in us that contribute to our cognitive talents without being for us. (In this regard they are no different from the representations of blood sugar level or vitamin deficiency that modulate our digestive systems without engaging cerebral cortex at all.) But at some point, as Frankish puts it, we must describe:

Frankish: the sensory states that are the basis for the illusion. On most accounts, I will assume, these will be representational states, probably modality specific analogue representations encoding features of the stimulus, such as position in an abstract quality space, egocentric location, and intensity. (p. 19)

Dennett: Filling in these details will require answering a host of questions that Frankish raises:

Frankish: Is introspection sensitive only to the content of sensory states, or are we also aware of properties of their neural vehicles? Do the reactions and associations evoked by our sensory states also contribute to the illusion of phenomenality?… Are sensory states continually monitored or merely available to monitoring? Is the introspectability of sensory states a matter of internal access and influence rather than internal monitoring? (p. 19, my italics)

Dennett: I submit that, when we take on the task of answering the Hard Question, specifying the uses to which the so-called representations are put, and explaining how these are implemented neurally, some of the clear alternatives imagined or presupposed by these questions will subtly merge into continua of sorts; it will prove not to be the case that content (however defined) is sharply distinguishable from other properties, in particular from the properties that modulate the ‘reactions and associations evoked’.

Dennett's denial of phenomenal consciousness looks ultimately to stem from trying to undermine the distinction between phenomenal properties (whatever it is) and functional, behavioural, intentional and reactive properties of the body. But then there's the question of why he thinks it's an illusion:

The red stripe you seem to see is not the cause or source of your convictions but the intentional object of your convictions. In normal perception and belief, the intentional objects of our beliefs are none other than the distal causes of them. I believe I am holding a blue coffee mug, and am caused to believe in the existence of that mug by the mug itself. The whole point of perception and belief fixation is to accomplish this tight coalescence of causes and intentional objects. But sometimes things go awry. Suppose a gang of hoaxers manage to convince you, by a series of close encounters, that there is a space alien named Zom who visits you briefly, speaks to you on the phone, etc. The causes of your various Zom experiences can be as varied as can be, so that nothing at all in the world deserves to be identified as Zom, the intentional object of your beliefs. What are intentional objects ‘made of’? They’re not made of anything. When their causes don’t coalesce with them, they are fictions of a sort, or illusions.

The position seems to be: perception is a representational relationship embodied by the workings of... our body and brain. The representational relationship ties intentional objects with distal causes when it's working well - indeed, tying intentional objects to their distal causes is a success criterion for normal instances of perception. But what are the "intentional objects" themselves made of? Nothing at all, says Dennett. Just like we don't think imaginary objects are substantial.

So it looks like - denying that phenomenal consciousness exists turns on undermining a distinction between what is phenomenal and what isn't (without collapsing it to one side). Then in answer to the question of what is the nature of experience - it's kinda like being an unreliable narrator of your own autobiography, no "you" outside the text, so in that sense it's an illusion.

...and...?

OK, there is some stability to the way things appear to us.

That can be said, tested, verified, and all without invoking qualia.

From what you have said previously, I would have supposed that you would join me in rejecting a notion that has a place only in philosophical discussions. Qualia are such a notion.

Now I haven't read all that has been written here, so I'm not too sure if you have taken a position. Care to elaborate, just for me?

I did read the Wiki article, and I looked at the paper abstract it cited. Between what and what do you think Dennett is equivocating?

did read the Wiki article, and I looked at the paper abstract it cited. Between what and what do you think Dennett is equivocating? — fdrake

Conscious experience and 3rd person data about conscious experience.

Conscious experience and 3rd person data about conscious experience. — frank

And why do you think he is equivocating between those things? Do you think Dennett thinks conscious experience is 3rd person data? Or that 3rd person data is conscious experience? Or that there's no difference between the two for him?

He insists on externalism. Remember Wittgenstein? and Quine?

He thinks that 3rd person data is all there is. Yes, there's a little nuance to that, but that's essentially it.

What is externalism in this context?

What is externalism in this context? — fdrake

There's mental content externalism, and other siblings like knowledge externalism.

The wisdom in it is that a lot of mental content is related to communication, and it's clear that meaning is, in large part, bound to social interaction. If you take that kernel and expand, you end up hollowing out all the stuff folk psychology labels as internal: intention, referencing, thinking, and for Dennett, even feeling.

The book I'm presently reading refers to this as "the shadow of Descartes."

Dennett may be right in quining the traditional property combination of qualia — Marchesk

Keep that in mind...

Literally?

OK, there is some stability to the way things appear to us.

That can be said, tested, verified, and all without invoking qualia. — Banno

Well when:

Qualia are defined as the way things appear to us — Olivier5

Then no. You cannot confirm stability in said qualia without referring to it. That would be like saying “We can all agree that this table is 2 meters wide without referring to the concept of meters”. Unless you don’t mean the same thing as Olivier when you say “Qualia”

It IS possible to say “this table has had the same width for x time” which technically doesn’t refer to the concept of meters directly. But even then without the ability to measure meters you wouldn’t be able to confirm that. In a visual illusion, not only can we agree of its persistence but we can also “describe” how it seems like to us (a bulge in the board) which is an example of us specifically talking of qualia. And this talk does have some meaning. If I tell someone “this is a visual illusion in which you will see a bulge in a checkerboard” that sentence will be testable for them. Similar to how specifying that a table will be 2 meters wide is testable.

In a visual illusion, not only can we agree of its persistence but we can also “describe” how it seems like to us (a bulge in the board) which is an example of us specifically talking of qualia. — khaled

The board looks like it is bulging, but it isn't. Nothing is added to the description by putting it in terms of qualia; hence, the term is of no use.

How do you say "The board looks like it is bulging" in terms of qualia?