If the nature of conscious experience is not amenable to philosophical discussion, then so be it. — Luke

So the only way to talk about conscious experience is via qualia? Can't you see how this approach has closed off the conversation?

Can you taste your coffee and find it too strong, with not enough sugar or milk? — Olivier5

Sure; again, what has this to do with ineffable as-it-seems-to me's? That the coffee is not sugared is not ineffable, not Albert.

Note the pernicious diversion of the conversation brought about by the introduction of qualia; how it renders otherwise intelligent and articulate folk incapable of discussing consciousness without them.

I'm especially surprised that Oliver takes them seriously, given his express discontent with philosophical patter.

predict the phenomenal consciousness of a bee..."

I hope you miswrote. What could that possibly mean? I gather it's different to predicting what the bee will do next? Are you suggesting that we might be able to predict hat the bee would enjoy a bit of Borage flower?

Try to make some sense. It will help the thread considerably. — Banno

I think the majority of philosophers representing philosophy of mind know exactly what it means.

But you don't. :chin:

Ad populum.

From the PhilPapers Surveys
Perceptual experience: disjunctivism, qualia theory, representationalism, or sense-datum theory?

Other 393 / 931 (42.2%)
Accept or lean toward: representationalism 293 / 931 (31.5%)
Accept or lean toward: qualia theory 114 / 931 (12.2%)
Accept or lean toward: disjunctivism 102 / 931 (11.0%)
Accept or lean toward: sense-datum theory 29 / 931 (3.1%)

So, no, you are quite wrong. Even restricting the data by philosophers who specialise in cognitive science increases the number who accept qualia only by one percent.

Qualia are a pop philosophy phenomena.

(...add that last post to the list that suggests not paying attention to Frank in the future...)

"3. Conceptual and Non-Conceptual Representation
It is a traditional assumption among realists about mental representations that representational states come in two basic varieties (cf. Boghossian 1995). There are those, such as thoughts, that are composed of concepts and have no phenomenal (“what-it’s-like”) features (“qualia”), and those, such as sensations, which have phenomenal features but no conceptual constituents. (Nonconceptual content is usually defined as a kind of content that states of a creature lacking concepts might nonetheless have.[1])"

...add that last post to the list that suggests not paying attention to Frank in the future...) — Banno

Wow.

So, here it is:

Quining Qualia

Let's take a closer look.

"My goal is subversive. I am out to overthrow an idea that, in one form or another, is "obvious" to most people--to scientists, philosophers, lay people. My quarry is frustratingly elusive; no sooner does it retreat in the face of one argument than "it" reappears, apparently innocent of all charges, in a new guise." — Banno

My challenge to Dennett and the qualia-deniers on this thread, answer me this:

Location is subjective. I'm standing here and you're standing there. That's a genuinely hard problem for science to explain. Nonetheless location qualia is undeniable and anyone who does deny it must be a zombie. But zombies still shuffle around, and use language claiming to do so. So the onus is on materialists to explain how that is possible without presupposing the very location qualia they deny. (The mind boggles.)

Further, we know that there is a "what it is like" to be standing here that is private and ineffable. It's quite likely that bats don't stand here in the way that humans do. There's apparently even suggestions that they hang upside down (not that that would be verifiable - it's purely a thought experiment which means that it is therefore a logical possibility that can't be ruled out). For a further knock-down argument, no one can deny that it seems that I'm standing here. That's location qualia too.

In conclusion, rejecting location qualia not only defies common sense, it denies what it means to be human.

Q.E.D.

(And I haven't even got to size qualia yet. Alice says that Bob is fat, which Bob denies. Explain that, science.)

Since you're going over what I see as travelled ground in thread, I'll link you posts I've made in the discussion that I see as relevant:

See here,here,here and here.

Summary of relevant travelled ground:

(1) Dennett isn't denying that people feel all sorts of stuff.

(2) Dennett is denying that qualia are useful in describing how people feel stuff.

(3) The paper is an attempt to tease that out. Allegedly conceptions of qualia come with theoretical baggage.

(4) The thread touches on a lot of ground regarding Dennett's views of consciousness, a lot of it comes down to undermining the subject object distinction and the idea of perceptual intermediaries which bear properties of experiences.

(5) Qualia as Dennett's attacking them are (I think) subjective state properties ("my experience of the red quale") that are dependent upon a perceptual intermediary (The "Cartesian Theatre" metaphor).

(6) In the paper, he's especially attacking various second order properties imputed to those subjective states through the subject object relation. I'll write a list, and put a hidden precis of what I read as his supporting claim for the attack. Intrinsicality of mental content , infallibility of the experiencer's access to mental content , strict ineffability of the mental content and finally privacy (. There is also a less sustained attack on the individuation of first order properties of experience being reflected by the retrospective binning people do with qualia.

(7) Broadly, a lot of it comes down to trying to take a look at the individuating principles of experiences, and the role environmental/bodily context plays in that. Dennett finds qualia unsuited for the task of describing how people feel, so he believes they should be discarded. He settles down to characterising experiential properties as "extrinsic relational properties", rather than intrinsic ones. The externality puts subject/object into question, the mode of relation puts perceptual intermediaries into question.

Unless you're playing devil's advocate strongly, I'm quite surprised by your antipathy towards Dennett's qualia denial strategies; you can read them as undermining the subject object distinction!

(5) Qualia as Dennett's attacking them are (I think) subjective state properties ("my experience of the red quale") that are dependent upon a perceptual intermediary (The "Cartesian Theatre" metaphor). — fdrake

Can you explain the difference between seeing red and experiencing a red quale? If we eliminate the supposed Cartesian Theatre, does it imply that we don't/can't really see red? In other words, why must qualia advocates be committed to perceptual intermediaries?

In other words, why must qualia advocates be committed to perceptual intermediaries? — Luke

I don't think they must in general. I imagine it depends on the account. I've found references for people that don't (there are apparently people that view qualia as similar to extrinsic relational properties) but I haven't pursued them. That's a big rabbit hole.

I think the view of qualia Dennett is responding to is one that he sees as conjuring a perceptual intermediary which has properties that are then projected into consciousness. One of the ways this is done is to treat "I experience a red quale" as "I saw a red object".

So then to the distinction between the two, I'll go for coffee because @Banno has used coffee to make what I think is a similar point. I take a sip of coffee from my cup, and I taste coffee. That's a relationship between me and the coffee. Phrased generally, that's a perceptual relationship between me and a perceptual stimulus.

Another way of parsing that is that I took a sip of coffee from my cup, and I experienced a coffee taste quale. That's a relationship between me and and the coffee taste quale.

Then what's the quale? It's either a property of the coffee, or a property of the experience of the coffee. But on the account that the taste of coffee isn't some "objective property" - it's not in the coffee because it's not a property of the perceptual stimulus (the coffee), then it must be a subjective property - a property of my experiential state. Phrased generally, that's a perceptual relationship between the coffee and the experiential property of its taste, then a presentational relationship between that experiential property and my consciousness.

In the first, there's one step: perceptual stimulus -> me, where the arrow is the perceptual relationship.
In the second, there's two steps: perceptual stimulus -> experiential property -> me, where the first arrow is a perceptual relationship, and the second is a presentational relationship.

Dennett phrases this as a "double transduction" (from "The Myth of Double Transduction"):

The transduction at the retina, into neuronal impulses, has taken us, it seems, into an alien medium, not anything we recognize as the intimate medium we are familiar with. That activity in V1 is not in the Medium, you might say. It may be a medium of visual information in my brain, but it's not . . . moi. It's not the medium in which I experience consciousness. So the idea takes root that if the pattern of activity in V1 looks like that (and that's not what consciousness is like), there must be some later second transduction into the medium that is consciousness.

That second arrow is the second transduction. The status of the "experiential property" in the second scheme is as an intermediary phase between the perceptual stimulus and me. In the first, there is no intermediary phase; each instance of perception is a relationship between perceiving faculties and perceptual stimuli, and "what we experience" is part of that single transduction.

Putting an even more verbose spin on it: perception as direct representational relationship between how I am and how the perceptual stimulus is vs perception as a mediated relationship between how I am and how the perceptual stimulus is.

Unless you're playing devil's advocate strongly — fdrake

(And I haven't even got to size qualia yet. Alice says that Bob is fat, which Bob denies. Explain that, science.) — Andrew M

Humorously.

Location is subjective. — Andrew M

Twaddle.

Ah. I hope so! I was wondering if we'd get into experiential spatiality stuff (proximity, the experiential aspects of place etc) as a result of @Andrew M's post. I hope it went straight over my head!

I think the point is that none of these require talking in terms of qualia in order to be effectively and exhaustively explained.
— creativesoul

Give it a try. — Olivier5

You did a fine job.

Location is subjective. I'm standing here and you're standing there. That's a genuinely hard problem for science to explain. — Andrew M

Why wouldn't the response just be that there's nothing particularly special about one location over another. Unless location is specific to a question at hand, i.e. the view of a building from a particular place, I don't see how it presents any kind of problem for D.

Which properties of your private experience are existentially independent from language use? Which ones exist in their entirety prior to your report of them? What do they consist of?
— creativesoul

The various color, sound, taste sensations, but those are words used in language, so naturally you will complain that I'm using language.
— Marchesk

No, I won't. We must use language.

So, let me see if I have this right...

Color, sound, and taste are - according to you - properties of private experience that exist in their entirety prior to language use.

Are you ok with that? — creativesoul

↪creativesoul Yes. — Marchesk

Can a language-less creature offer us a self report? No. Of course not. Can they have some sort of basic, rudimentary, and/or fundamental form of thought and/or belief? If so, then basic, rudimentary, and/or fundamental experience cannot consist of language, or any product and/or bi-product thereof.

Agree?

Actually, that phrase: "something it is like to..." is what does violence to the language. It's a recent invention found almost only in philosophical discourse, and so is inherently fraught. — Banno

Right, because sexual partners have prior to recent philosophy readings never asked each other, "what was it like for you?"

It takes a modern philosopher to interpret this and related statements as violence to the language. Which is why I say that those of a philosophical ilk need to get out more. (I speak from experience.)

-----------

On the other hand, there's "qualia": a nifty quantification of quality for those who are endowed with "quanta"-envy.

How many qualia are there to an experience of beauty? Or of the ugly? Or else ... wait for it ... there's no quality to experiences of either. This because materialism can't account for it save via intuition pumps.

----------

In short, bah humbug.

Right, because sexual partners have prior to recent philosophy readings never asked each other, "what was it like for you?" — javra

Such intimate conversations will always go awry when "qualia" rears it's ugly head.

"What it's like" to drink tea is determined by virtue of each and every instance of tea drinking. That is a plurality of tea drinking instances. If each and every instance of tea drinking is different in it's perceptual and/or qualitative value, then there is no such thing as what it's like to drink tea, because the use of "it's" indicates a single entity.

We're talking about a plurality.

Such intimate conversations will always go awry when "qualia" rears it's ugly head. — creativesoul

Well, of course. One will start arguing about both of them being illusory intuition pumpin' machines; the other starts arguing that the quality to it all is going down the drain. And then presto, the magic is lost and there's no more making whoopee between the two.

-------

On a more serious note, quality occurs as an intrinsic aspect of our experiences. Is this debatable? For me the answer is "no". Then: A) Is a quality not possible to experientially differentiate from any other quality, thereby making quality unquantifiable; B) can a quality be experientially contrasted to other qualities and thereby be quantifiable, or c) something other?

I'm not enamored with qualia, as previously mentioned. Still, being charitable here, if we can discern and thereby distinguish between different qualities, then the philosophical notion of qualia might make some sense in certain philosophical contexts.

What say you?.

It's the too easily accomplished reification of the notion that is a primary problem, I think.

Well, of course. One will start arguing about both of them being illusory intuition pumpin' machines; the other starts arguing that the quality to it all is going down the drain. And then presto, the magic is lost and there's no more making whoopee between the two. — javra

Or it's laughed off, and immediately forgotten about.

On the other hand, there's "qualia": a nifty quantification of quality for those who are endowed with "quanta"-envy.

How many qualia are there to an experience of beauty? Or of the ugly? Or else ... wait for it ... there's no quality to experiences of either. This because materialism can't account for it save via intuition pumps. — javra

:up: You only ever read about 'qualia' in conversations by or about this academic clique.

The old gag about behaviourism (of which eliminativism is basically a rebadge):

'That was fantastic for you, dear. How was it for me?' :razz:

I'm not enamored with qualia, as previously mentioned. Still, being charitable here, if we can discern and thereby distinguish between different qualities, then the philosophical notion of qualia might make some sense in certain philosophical contexts.

What say you?. — javra

About whether or not there is an entirely private, immediate, and directly apprehensible conscious experience in some basic form?

Sure. It does not consist of qualia or quale.

It does not consist of qualia or quale. — creativesoul

Just because I'd like to get things straight: Does this conscious experience consist of quality?

The old gag about beaviourism, which eliminativism is basically a rebage: — Wayfarer

Very much agreed.

Humorously. — Srap Tasmaner

:up:

Ah. I hope so! I was wondering if we'd get into experiential spatiality stuff (proximity, the experiential aspects of place etc) as a result of Andrew M's post. I hope it went straight over my head! — fdrake

Sorry fdrake! It was satire. I regard qualia as a philosophical fiction. My post was an attempt to vividly illustrate in a slightly different context some of the standard confusions that arise. A different kind of intuition pump. Which is not to say that there isn't some philosopher somewhere that might endorse that view!

That aside, thanks for your excellent summary which seems right to me. In particular, I think exposing the often implicit subject/object duality and recognizing the relational nature of experience goes a long way towards clarifying the issues.

Why wouldn't the response just be that there's nothing particularly special about one location over another. Unless location is specific to a question at hand, i.e. the view of a building from a particular place, I don't see how it presents any kind of problem for D. — Wayfarer

Well, indeed. But I think we could say the same for red apples, or illusions, or whatever. They're just normal aspects of our experience which nonetheless seem to generate particular kinds of philosophical confusion.

Does this conscious experience consist of quality? — javra

Not on my view, but perhaps on yours it may. What counts as consisting of quality?

Thanks for the excellent summary.

Where do we start?

Dennett accepts we have feelings, dose he explain why we have feelings?

Dose he accept that every thought has its associated feeling?

One without language can most certainly see the red cup. One without color vision can most certainly see the red cup. Neither can see the cup as red.

Well, indeed. But I think we could say the same for red apples, or illusions, or whatever. They're just normal aspects of our experience which nonetheless seem to generate particular kinds of philosophical confusion. — Andrew M

Because some of them are properties of perception. Three people are in a room. It feels cold to the first, warm to the second and just right for the third. Yet the thermometer records the same temperature, which is a really a measure of the amount of kinetic energy the molecules in the atmosphere have. Our feeling cold or warm isn't the molecular energy. We didn't know anything about molecular energy until relatively recently. But humans were feeling cold and warm long before then.

So using objective property of the world such as spatial location to mock qualia is missing the point. Now if you want to talk about the feeling of being located somewhere, then we can talk about what it's like when you misjudge how close a wall is in the dark and what not. You have an experience of it being farther away than it is, and then you run into it.

All of these sort of example demonstrate that our experiences are not simply reflections of the world. They're generated by our act of perceiving and other mental activities. So appealing to some direct realism or externalism still needs to account for perceptual relativity and all the other stuff occurring for the organism.

We're talking about a plurality. — creativesoul

Why suppose it needs to be broken down into instances? Our experiences change all the time. But it does depend on the experience. Focus on one of the images in this thread, and it will stay relatively constant.

Sure; again, what has this to do with ineffable as-it-seems-to me's? That the coffee is not sugared is not ineffable, not Albert. — Banno

The coffee not being sugared is a chemical fact. The coffee not tasting sweet is the experience. You're equivocating here.