Why suppose it needs to be broken down into instances? — Marchesk

What else could what it's like to drink tea consist of if not each and every instance?

What's missing?

What else could what it's like to drink tea consist of if not each and every instance? — creativesoul

The continuous experience, unless you want to break perceived time down into atoms.

What else could what it's like to drink tea consist of if not each and every instance?
— creativesoul

The continuous experience... — Marchesk

We do not drink tea each and every day, all day long, for our entire lives. There is no continuous experience of what it's like to drink tea unless we drink tea each and every day, all day long, for our entire lives...

The continuous tea drinker...

:brow:

We know that doesn't make sense.

Fucksake. The coffee tasting sweet is not ineffable either.

Does this conscious experience consist of quality? — javra


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

If your asking me to define quality, dictionaries can do this far better than I.

Two definitions stand out: 1) level of excellence [as in quality of life, or the quality of a song, or the quality of an apple (for the purpose of eating)] and 2) a property or an attribute that differentiates a thing or a person [as in one of the apple's properties qualities is that it is red rather than green]

To then answer, if an experience is in any way qualitative, it will then consist of (be made up of) qualities - in sense 1, in sense 2, or, arguably, in both senses.

Given that we both acknowledge the occurrence of the word "quality" in the English language (you've made use of it), and if in your view conscious experiences do not consist of quality, where does quality take place?

Or is it your view that quality does not take place anywhere, that it has no occurrence, thereby making the term fully meaningless to you?

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. — Andrew M

I think there's a parallel between qualia and 'secondary qualities' - not that Dennett says that. The primary qualities are those which are subject to precise quantification, while tastes, smells and so on are secondary and associated with the obsering subject. I think in physicalism, only bearers of primary attributes - that would be 'matter' - is real. It's those annoying 'inneffable feels' that have to be disolved in the acid of Darwin's dangerous idea into the doings of the only real sources of agency, which are molecules:

Dennett, in one of his characteristic remarks, assures us that “through the microscope of molecular biology, we get to witness the birth of agency, in the first macromolecules that have enough complexity to ‘do things.’ … There is something alien and vaguely repellent about the quasi-agency we discover at this level — all that purposive hustle and bustle, and yet there’s nobody home.” Then, after describing a marvelous bit of highly organized and seemingly meaningful biological activity, he concludes:

Love it or hate it, phenomena like this exhibit the heart of the power of the Darwinian idea. An impersonal, unreflective, robotic, mindless little scrap of molecular machinery is the ultimate basis of all the agency, and hence meaning, and hence consciousness, in the universe.

Daniel Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 202-3, quoted by Steve Talbott

Are those my only choices?

:brow:

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

It's your denial that I find sad. You guys are denying your own senses and your own life. It's nothing to me of course, but it makes TPF a bit depressing.

Are those my only choices?

:brow: — creativesoul

Nope. But a non-evasive reply would do.

I see the subjective experience as the font of all knowledge.
— Olivier5

:up: It was put very well by somebody on another thread, but I can not remember who. It went something like; every experience creates a note, in sequence the notes create a tune - this is what we dance to! I love it :smile: — Pop

Haha, thanks. It's good to see an optimist philosopher who hasn't sacrificed his senses on the altar of nihilism, and can still enjoy his coffee.. :-)

Some posters here call subjectivity "self-report" and they see it with a great deal of suspicion. They mistrust themselves.

I'm by no means denying my senses. I grant them as necessary elemental constituents of all conscious experience.



Which satisfies Dennett's criterion?

I'm by no means denying my senses. I grant them as necessary elemental constituents of all conscious experience. — creativesoul

Good for you. Can you tell sugar from salt by tasting it? If yes, you have qualia too.

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. — fdrake

Thanks for clarifying. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I take the "perceptual relationship" to be the perception itself, and I further assume that the perception has properties, such as seeing a red flower, or tasting bitter coffee. Would it be problematic to refer to these properties of perception as the qualia?

I assume the response will be that it might mislead us to think that such properties are subjective rather than objective, and that if the flower is perceived as red or if the coffee is perceived as bitter, then each of them really are red and bitter. Except that's not how everyone perceives them?

The main sticking point for me is the definition of privacy that I gave earlier. Qualia or not, conscious experience is surely private in the sense that nobody else can experience (or "see") your conscious experience. Nobody can look into your skull and compare whether you see red the same as they do.

Given that we both acknowledge the occurrence of the word "quality" in the English language (you've made use of it), and if in your view conscious experiences do not consist of quality, where does quality take place?

Or is it your view that quality does not take place anywhere, that it has no occurrence, thereby making the term fully meaningless to you? — javra

That's a very elegant argument... Thanks!

Which satisfies Dennett's criterion? — creativesoul

You're making this feel like kindergarten.

I asked you:

Does this conscious experience consist of quality? — javra

to which you replied:

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

to which I in essence replied:

if in your view conscious experiences do not consist of quality, where does quality take place? — javra

to which you answer:

Which satisfies Dennett's criterion? — creativesoul

... after I asked that you don't evade the question.

I'm calling it a day. Have (non-qualitative) fun!

My pleasure. :grin:

Some posters here call subjectivity "self-report" and they see it with a great deal of suspicion... — Olivier5

Guilty as charged on the first count. Innocent on the second. I grant subjectivity in it's entirety.

All things ever thought, believed, spoken, written, uttered, and/or otherwise expressed come through a subject. Thus, we must set the notion aside, for it is incapable of being used to draw any further distinction between our differing claims.

You guys are denying your own senses and your own life. — Olivier5

Yeah, no. This is about the language used to talk about sense and life.

Qualia are an attempt to push an unneeded extra beyond the tase of the coffee.

The discussion is about Dennett's paper, in which he is targeting a certain criterion, description, and/or characterization of qualia. Which of the two different definitions of quality are germane to this discussion? I suspect neither.

I'll steal it. We can apprehend the world through quality and quantity, hence both of these must exist, at least in our mind. Very neat.

Quite the compliment. Thank you.

All things ever thought, believed, spoken, written, uttered, and/or otherwise expressed come through a subject. Thus, we must set the notion aside, for it is incapable of being used to draw any further distinction between our differing claims. — creativesoul

The credibility of a source is important, though. Who is saying what, and for which reason/motive, is important. Or do you believe anything Trump says?

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. — Marchesk

No, that's just the first matter to be eliminated in 8. He then goes on to eliminate matters relating to current qualia, the sipping of the coffee right now and the response {not liking the taste, wanting to stop drinking etc.}. All they have is the act of sipping coffee and the response to it. They know the response is unusual for them (this much is not based on fallible memory, they could ask a hundred other people whether they used to like it or not). the point is that they cannot tell whether right now the unusual response is the result of a change in the 'qualia production system' or a change is the 'qualia response system'. All they can tell is that somewhere in that process something has changed. If they had access to their qualia, they could tell which (by checking to see if the qualia have changed). they can't, so they don't.

You could then go back to claiming that qualia are the whole process, but then p-zombies become impossible and wine-tasting machines have qualia, because both go through the process from sensory input to response.

We can apprehend the world through quality and quantity, hence both of these must exist, at least in our mind. — Olivier5

I've no issue with that aside from the "in our mind" part. Ad homs aren't very compelling.

Qualia are an attempt to push an unneeded extra beyond the tase of the coffee. — Banno

Oh for gode sake. Don't use the concept if you don't need it, and let others use it if they seem to need it. It's not like we're forcing you to eat your cauliflower qualia even if you don't like it.

You feel insulted by the concept of mind?

Yeah. Time to retire for the night.

Sweet non-dreams.

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)? — Luke

Yes, to an extent. If we can (in theory) agree intersubjectively on the sources of sensory inputs, and on the responses to those sensory input, then we could compare (or even share) experiences. I say in theory because the process by which those responses are generated is so complex as to be almost chaotic (tiny adjustments having large consequences), and so there might well be a pragmatic limit to such an ability (indeed, I strongly believe there is).

What use are they for what? Qualia are "the way things seem to us". Why do they need to have a use? — Luke

Because they're a word and words without uses are meaningless.

Aren't you just expressing the hard problem with that question: why do we have qualia if they make no functional difference? — Luke

No, that question assumes we have qualia. I'm saying that we don't. That nothing ontologically answers to that description.

Can "the way things seem to us" be theoretical? — Luke

It is only theoretical. We can only tell the story of how things were, not how things are. Our brains simply don't work in real time. and that story of how things were is filtered through several theories.

Anyway, pumps 7-12 is where most of the "demolition" occurs? — Luke

Yep. They're the key ones. 13-15 just put some neurological findings into the mix.

:kiss: