...then they're not accessible. Only the beginning and the end of those pathways are accessible. — Isaac

Or at least, that's what the abstracted third-party account tells us, according to Dennett's setup. Doesn't change my first person experience.

I thought qualia were a property of perception, rather than a product of perception. If I perceive a blue door, the blue isn't something that follows from the perception, it's a part of it. — Luke

Yes. I should have written sensory input. Sorry - I've edited back, so thanks for that.

What sort of response do you mean? — Luke

Any reaction that indicates we've had some sensory input, could be internal (like drawing a memory back into the working cortices, or external like rejecting bitter coffee.

I should have added that science can't tell us that that bat necessarily has a sonar sensation, only whether it has recognizable neural structures (by comparison with ours). — Marchesk

This begs the question. Science only "can't" tell us that if you assume your conclusion that such sensations are private and intrinsic. If you don't, then science has merely failed to tell us that so far.

This begs the question. Science only "can't" tell us that if you assume your conclusion that such sensations are private and intrinsic. If you don't, then science has merely failed to tell us that so far. — Isaac

So why were you tempted to agree that science needed to modify our nervous system in order for us to know?

Or at least, that's what the abstracted third-party account tells us, according to Dennett's setup. — Marchesk

No, the intuition pumps 8-12 show that we cannot access these 'qualia'. If we could, then we'd be able to tell which pathway had bee tampered with. As we can't, we don't have access to them as a separate step. If they're not a separate step the wine-tasting machines have qualia.

So why were you tempted to agree that science needed to modify our nervous system in order for us to know? — Marchesk

I meant that if science could modify it such as to give us the wiring in response to sonar, that the bat would have developed over it's lifetime. I'm just saying that I don't think we could just be given sonar and assume we'd respond to it in the same way as a bat. We'd need the whole shebang to do that 'out of the box'.

Maybe so, and it's even worse as we get farther away from our biology, such as when Data tastes wine.

We have this from late in the article:

To put the matter vividly, the physical difference between someone's imagining a purple cow and imagining a green cow might be nothing more than the presence or absence of a particular zero or one in one of the brain's "registers". Such a brute physical presence is all that it would take to anchor the sorts of dispositional differences between imagining a purple cow and imagining a green cow that could then flow, causally, from that "intrinsic" fact. — Quining Qualia

This illustrates Dennett's denial most vividly. A difference in conscious experience could be nothing more than the equivalent of flipping a bit. And it is that which I just cannot agree with, whatever the status of the qualia properties.

What could it possibly mean to say that the difference between imagining a purple and green cow is a 1 or 0 (or the neural equivalent)? A 1 or 0 isn't purple or green. Neither for that matter or rgb values in a computer. They are just encoded for an output device that does produce the wavelengths of light we see as combinations of red, green and blue.

No, the intuition pumps 8-12 show that we cannot access these 'qualia'. If we could, then we'd be able to tell which pathway had bee tampered with. As we can't, we don't have access to them as a separate step. If they're not a separate step the wine-tasting machines have qualia. — Isaac

Intution pumps 8-12 look like we don't have direct access to previous qualia such that we can answer the question, Just the memory of them. And memories are fallible reconstructions. My memory qualia of tasting the coffee years ago might not be the same as it was when tasting it then. But that doesn't mean there is no qualia when tasting it now.

Dennett denies there is because it doesn't do any third-party verification for him. That's his loss.

Intution pumps 8-12 look like we don't have direct access to previous qualia — Marchesk

Note that the scientists who objectively and verifiably invert poor Chase’s taste buds in IP #8, the pill that changes Dennett’s experience of cauliflower in IP #11, and the inverted spectacles of IP #12 affirm the objective existence of qualia, since they imply that taste and visual qualia can be objectively manipulated by science. Likewise, IP #10 proves that tastes are genetically mediated and a product of our biology, which also lends them objectivity.

Good point. I forget about that. There is something it's like which is being changed. Similar to your statement that illusions make a noticeable difference to us that we can empirically verify.

This is what David de Leon has to say in response to not being able to tell whether the quale of the coffee taste has changed (or surgically altered), or judgement about it has changed (or surgically altered):

The most obvious response to the thought experiment is, that although introspection can’t decide between the alternatives, there is still a fact of the matter: either a change in qualia has occurred, or the change is in some other aspect of the individual. There is still the experience of a particular quale, but since we might be misremembering the past (or our tastes might have changed), we just can’t be sure whether that quale is the same as, or different from, some other particular quale.

Dennett dismisses this kind of response as vacuous, on the grounds that he thinks nothing follows from it and that it is as “mysterious as papal infallibility.” But these accusations don’t warrant Dennett in misinterpreting the property under suspicion. Both of his thought experiments are geared towards showing that we can’t be infallible in our comparisons of non-simultaneous qualia, but is this what immediate apprehension in consciousness is supposed to mean? I think not. What the notion implies, is that we are aware of our qualia directly and non-inferentially; there is no room for an is/seems distinction. That is, one cannot “... be unaware of one’s ‘real’ qualitative state of consciousness during the time one is aware of some qualitative state.” This is simply not the sort of mistake we can make; which still leaves a whole range of other sorts of mistakes we can, and routinely do make. It is trivially true, for example, that we often misremember our experiences of qualia (even without nocturnal neurosurgery). — The Qualities of Qualia

This accords with my response. We know first hand of the qualia we're having now, even though we can be wrong about the qualia we did have. Dennett thinks thinks you have to be in the same epistemic position toward both for direct apprehension to work, but that's not necessary.

Thus telling a blind person that the colour red is experienced as unary, warm, positive, advancing etc, would still not do the trick. — Qualities of Qualia

You can't tell a blind person what it's like to see color, no matter the words you use. There is something inexpressible for sensory modalities.

Qualia are supposedly ineffable because no description by itself can yield knowledge of what it is like to have an experience. A description might tell you certain things about qualia, but it won’t give you them. The question is how this is supposed to be radically different from any other sort of description? All descriptions are in some sense incomplete, in some way less than the things being described. This is not at all surprising. After all, descriptions are something different from the thing being described. — Qualities of Qualia

Which is just saying that language has its limitations. The world is more than language, or whatever is dreamt up in Dennett's denial.

There is something it's like which is being changed. — Marchesk

Exactly. So the more thought experiments Dennett piles up to try and disqualify qualia, the more he affirms that qualia can be affected by genetics or by neurosurgery, the more he is proving that there are such things as qualitative differences in perception, and that they can be scientifically studied... :cool:

This accords with my response. We know first hand of the qualia we're having now, even though we can be wrong about the qualia we did have. — Marchesk

I think what he means is:

Imagine you're giving me a taste while I'm connected to an angiogram or whatever. You give me some yummy assam tea and see that blood flows to a certain area of my brain, so you're confident that I tasted the tea functionally speaking.

You ask me what I experienced and I say: "I rasted malty strong tea." Since that's what you think assam tastes like, you believe I must have experienced the tea as you have.

Dennett says hold up. There is room for doubt. Instead of discarding this doubt, focus on it.

In the face of that doubt, how would you defend your belief that there was qualia associared with my tasting?

Amazingly (I find), the upshot of this intuition pump for Dennett is "that no intersubjective comparison of qualia is possible, even with perfect technology". This only supports privacy! Otherwise, intersubjective comparison would be possible.
— Luke

Yep, that's right. This is what Dennett is trying to show here, but - crucially - this is only possible under the second model of experience. If we were to adopt the first model it would not be the case. Again, he's showing us how qualia (as conceived) must follow the second model (which he will later demolish) in order to have the properties we ascribe to them. — Isaac

Why is it only possible under the second model of experience (sensory input->qualia.....then....b)qualia->(via some judgement/assessment)->response)? Are you saying that an intersubjective comparison of qualia would be possible under the first model of experience (sensory input-> response)?

Basically, if we cannot tell whether the causes of qualia, or the responses to qualia have been tampered with, we cannot access qualia independently - so what use are they? — Isaac

What use are they for what? Qualia are "the way things seem to us". Why do they need to have a use? Aren't you just expressing the hard problem with that question: why do we have qualia if they make no functional difference? If we don't have them, then it's an illusion of an illusion.

It's not so much the independent property of privacy that's been banished. The argument is more like - in order to have the four properties ascribed to qualia they must be conceived of like this, but when conceived of that way, we can neither access them, nor talk about them, nor do we have any neurological evidence for them, so what the point in theorising their existence? — Isaac

Can "the way things seem to us" be theoretical? Anyway, pumps 7-12 is where most of the "demolition" occurs?

In the face of that doubt, how would you defend your belief that there was qualia associared with my tasting? — frank

Let's see... In the unlikely hypothesis that I cared to know for sure how my tea tasted to you, I would try to figure out if you have any reason to lie, and what it could be. Politeness could be a reason for instance. I offered you some fancy, expensive tea, so you may want to reassure me that the tea was good even if it actually tasted like Jell-O to you... To rule out this rival hypothesis I would ask again, adding: "I am trying to study the taste of tea from a scientific viewpoint, hence the scanner, so please don't try and be polite or anything. Do tell me exactly how the tea tasted like, please, even if it tasted nothing." Then I will watch your body language while you respond, check the electroencephalogram and conclude one way or the other based on this additional data, if I can. I will decide whether or not to trust you.

I never said they did. You asked about whether they provided knowledge of out puts — Isaac

No I asked whether or not they provide knowledge of what happens in the PC as a program using them runs. And the answer is: they don’t.

has to be ruled out, otherwise the wine tasting machine and p-zombies have no different an experience to use — Isaac

Which would be fine from a panpsychist perspective but aside from that.

We cannot examine our 'qualia' independently to tell if they've been changed by a modification to path (a) or if instead we've simply been subject to a modification of path (b).

4. So if we can't access our qualia introspectively — Isaac

I fail to understand how: “We can’t tell how our Qualia went wrong if it goes wrong” leads to: “We don’t access our Qualia introspectively.

sensory input->qualia.....then....b)qualia->(via some judgement/assessment)->response — Isaac

Or it could be: Sensory input -> Response + Qualia

Qualia doesn’t need to be part of the process, it could be a secondary effect resulting from our brain processing. But even barring that too:

then why are we persisting with them? — Isaac

Because they are useful. Let me just translate this to algorithms real quick.

1- Proponents of algorithms need there to be a difference between a computer that is running a certain algorithm (technically it’s “running a program programmed with that algorithm” but I’ll use this as shorthand) and one that isn’t

Thus input -> output

Has to be ruled out

2- so in order to maintain the difference between computers running algorithms and ones that aren’t it must be

Input -> Algorithm -> output

3- However if a program doesn’t produce expected results we cannot tell if the problem is in wrong input or some mistake towards the end that changes the output.

4- so if the algorithm designer can’t tell what went wrong, and we cannot open up the computer to find the “algorithm” inside then what use is it theorizing about them?

Or to put it even more simply - algorithms are a theorised step in a input-output process which we cannot access independent of either input or output (again, not sure how “can’t tell what went wrong” translates to “can’t access at all” but those are your words not mine) and for which there is no other evidence - so why persist in using them?

Answer: Because they are still immensely useful.

“I see red” is a much shorter description than the description of everything my brain does at the moment of seeing red. Just as an algorithm is a much shorter description of what you can expect a computer to do than a description of which transistors do what.

You can't tell a blind person what it's like to see color, no matter the words you use. — Marchesk

Am I missing something or is it quite easy? E.g.

Seeing the colour of that surface is like hearing the timbre of that trumpet. Notice how timbre fills a region of the stimulus either uniformly or with a gradient specific to each of one or more directions, e.g. temporal and pitch-height? Colour is like that.

Again, this seems neutral with respect to the question whether we need to posit an internal as well as an external stimulus.

The proponents of qualia and quale are the ones who attempt to decouple, sever, and/or otherwise separate some aspects of consciousness from the ongoing process, — creativesoul

Yeah......”raw feels”....”seemings”.....are themselves modes of thought, in as much as a subject can neither ask himself nor tell himself about the “seeming” of a sensation, unless he already has something with which to juxtaposition to it. Any “seeming” implicates a presupposition that must be contained somewhere in the ongoing process, hence “seemings”, or the qualia meant to represent them, cannot be detached from the process in which the juxtapositioned elements are contained, in effect, making them superfluous.
(Incidentally, which is the primary reason “the friends of qualia” needs qualia to be empirically obtained, as opposed to the standing of “a theorist’s useful interpretive fiction”, in order to justify their reality, because epistemologically they are not necessarily so.)

On the other hand, if the predicates of such seemings are pure a priori considerations, in which the subject is not consciously involved, wherein the cognitive system is asking itself about the relativity of a “seeming”, which both speculative epistemology and methodological naturalism actually require, seemings are irrelevant with respect to conscious investigations of the general nature of the system in which they are contained.
(Incidentally, if this is the case, it is why Dennett then relies on the notion that qualia are altogether too ill-conceived to be “exactly” defined.)

“....Thus, the criterion for the possibility of a conception (not its object) is the definition of it...”
(CPR, B154)
——————

On another note, assuming you’re still here.........

The arena where qualia exert their influence, tacitly granting there are such things, is the domain of sensibility. In the ongoing process, sensibility extends only from the appearance of an external object (physiological perceiving apparatus has been affected by something) to the imagination of a particular phenomenon related to it (intuition), all of which operates without the consciousness of our cognitive system, but only the requisites of the physical system, re: particular ways and means of specialized data transmission to the corresponding specific regions of the brain. Hence, there is as yet no empirical knowledge, no conscious experience (as if there was any other kind).......and absolutely no language use. Whether or not any of the speculative stuff is actually the case, the assets of it do necessarily exist in their entirety, and they necessarily consist of integral correlations. Maybe not what you’ve always had in mind, but perhaps congruent to it.

but you claim qualia are private. SO what is the nature of this privacy? Can you make it clear? — Banno

With a chair you can walk up to it to confirm whether or not it’s actually a chair as opposed to a cardboard cutout for example. With Qualia, you have no way of confirming what anyone else is experiencing. You cannot confirm whether or not the sky seems to me as it seems to you. That’s is what it means for Qualia to be private.

He's asking you to doubt that I have qualia. That's the first step. The next step is to doubt that anybody does.

So just at the first step: can you accept that I might be a p-zombie?

So just at the first step: can you accept that I might be a p-zombie? — frank

No way. You're far too smart to be one.

No way. You're far too smart to be one. — Olivier5

Ha! I'm a moron. That's what most of the pumps are for, though: to make you say yes, I could be qualia-less.

I suspect the pumps (no less than 15 of them, mind you) and their increasing esoteric scenarios are there to confuse the reader, to make him lose the plot, not to inform him. It seems to be working on some.

Yeah, I'm working on an ordinary language rendering of the (consciousness)process. Seems to me that the models, such as those being discussed(particularly earlier) by Kenosha, Isaac, and fdrake, are the most promising methods/attempts to situate "qualia" beyond the ability of metacognition in their order of appearance, where metacognition requires common language use.

The judgment/assessment step is most certainly in dire need of unpacking, for there are several levels of complexity to conscious experience, all of which correspond to the cognitive capability of the candidate(which is limited to and facilitated by the physiological/biological 'machinery').

I do not actually entirely agree with Dennett here. I do agree that qualia/quale are misconceptions of the basic fundamental elements of conscious experience. However, I'm trying to keep my engagement about Dennett's paper, or at least on some aspect of his points, as much as possible.

The p-zombie aspect is a reductio. Seems some miss that point. If a p-zombie counts, then there's a problem with the criterion.

That conscious experience is the dispositional, relational and functional properties of the biological systems responsible for conscious experience, and nothing additional. — Marchesk

That seems to be Dennett's position regarding mental content to me too. Up to some wrangling on that "responsibility" relationship anyway!

So what is being left out in my view after accounting for dispositional, relational and functional properties, that science can discover? The sensation itself of colors, sounds, feels, etc. — Marchesk

Also @Luke because I'm trying to channel an "And then what?" argument.

So the question regarding "the sensation itself" I have is: what makes a sensation be more than relational, dispositional and functional properties?

I take it you'll agree that sensations are relational, dispositional and functional to some degree. Or have those as a component. Let's take as an example putting my hand on something too hot and reflexively withdrawing it. The sensation of heat derives from a relationship between my skin and the hot thing (relational), the reflex (a behaviour) of withdrawing my hand is coincident with treating the hot object as a threat to withdraw from (dispositional), and detecting sufficient heat serves as a cause of the reflex of withdrawal to end the threat that I have (functional).

It seems to me if I removed the relational component from the experience, I'd no longer be talking about the same thing at all. If I removed the behavioural component of it, I'd have had a different experience - my hand possibly would not have withdrawn in the reflex. If I removed the dispositional component, I'd no longer have unconsciously appraised the gathering sensation of heat as a threat. Furthermore, I removed that dispositional component, it seems to me I'd be removing the components of my experience that coincide with its character as a threat triggering a reflex - the stress, the panic, the pain, the unpleasantness - and removing those things also removes a substantial component of "what it was like" for me. If I remove the composite of these things and their functional relationships, I'm no longer talking about the experience at all - or I would have both done and felt nothing and burned off my finger.

So it seems if there are phenomenal properties in that experience, they cannot be independent of relational, functional, behavioural, and dispositional properties, as if I changed all of those I'd change "what it was like" for me and even the scenario I was considering in the first place. Given that, why should someone commit themselves to an independent "phenomenal" type associated with the experiences, when the elements of the phenomenal type ("what is it likes") vary with changes in the type they are supposed to be independent of?

Conversely, if "what is it like"s (elements of the phenomenal type) are posited to be dependent upon but separate from relational, behavioural dispositional and functional properties of my experiences, how could a strict distinction between the phenomenal and the composite type of the aforementioned other properties make any sense at all?

suspect the pumps (no less than 15 of them, mind you) and their increasing esoteric scenarios are there to confuse the reader, to make him lose the plot, not to inform him. It seems to be working on some. — Olivier5

Science fiction abounds with characters who either are p-zombies or could be. I think most would agree p-zombies are logically possible.

The next step is to allow it to be possible that you yourself are. So let's play this out and see if I can persuade you, not that you definitely are, but that you could be. Ok?

why should someone commit themselves to an independent "phenomenal" type associated with the experiences, when the elements of the phenomenal type ("what is it likes") vary with changes in the type they are supposed to be independent of? — fdrake

Because people who don't like cauliflower try to avoid eating cauliflower independently of the circumstances.

Because an optical illusion cannot be reasoned away, it will crop up again and again, independently of the circumstances.

Because you can recognise the timbre of a musical instrument, the scent of a rose, the color of a dress in spite of them being always a little bit different than the last time.

Because you can recognise the taste of some food that you haven't had for decades, e.g. Proust's madeleines.

Because dogs can follows trails, and find corpses even under water.

Because the same applies to words: their meaning varies from one sentence to the next, and yet we still use them and we still recognise their meaning somewhat.