Kindly ignore every mention of "homomorphism" and replace it with "isomorphism". I often confuse the two, but I actually mean the latter. JIC you look it up and don't understand what I'm saying.

"Phenomenal consciousness" refers to the fact that we have conscious experience associated with sight and taste and so on.

One of the ways this first became significant is that industrialists treated people like machines. It was an extension of the use of slaves in sugar production where people were just used up and discarded.

It became a question: is it morally right to treat people like p-zombies? This was a prominent issue in the 19th and 20th Centuries.

And then came Turing. It's not like some bored philosopher invented the concept of qualia. It rose from a seismic cultural shift.

Hello Isaac, I'm new here and I've never heard of model-dependent realism, so I'd be interested in a concise description of it, and some indication of why it means we don't see colours.

Why the third, that in addition to there being an apple and there being it's taste, there is also 'the way' it tastes? — Isaac

The taste is the way it tastes. It’s a conscious sensation. Stating what it’s like is just to point that out.

There is no part of your brain which shows you a colour, it cannot happen, brains are made up of neurons, not colours — Isaac

Where oh where does the color come from?

Hence, the meaning of "red" cannot be the experience it points to. — Banno

But it can be the thing that produces an experience in us. Which would be the visual perception of an apple.

But it can be the thing that produces an experience in us. Which would be the visual perception of an apple. — Marchesk

The visual perception of an apple produces an experience in us?

The process does. Notice that a description of the process does not include the experience. It ends at neurons firing.

"The process" of conscious experience...

Perfect!

What does that consist of?

The visual perception of an apple produces an experience in us? — Banno

The process does. Notice that a description of the process does not include the experience. It ends at neurons firing. — Marchesk

So, putting that together, The process of the visual perception of an apple produces an experience in us?

That is, the experience is something different to, and produced by, the process of the perception?

Doesn't blindsight for example suggest a distinction between perception and experience?

Reflective surfaces, photons, eyes, nerves, brain for vision.

Yes. Notice that the process need not result in conscious awareness if we’re paying attention to something else. Such as daydreaming while driving on the highway.

So, the experience is the conscious awareness... but not always. hence, the process of the visual perception of an apple sometimes produces conscious awareness.

Ok, so what next?

I'm wondering about that word, "produces". Are we talking a causal link?

Tracing the discussion back,

Hence, the meaning of "red" cannot be the experience it points to. — Banno

Yet,

the process of the visual perception of an apple sometimes produces conscious awareness.

Not sure what this does to make things clearer.

Visual perception of red apples does not guarantee conscious experience of red apples.

Seems to me that that follows from what has suggested.

Which is to say, sometimes the apple goes unnoticed.

Now @Marchesk offered this as a reply to my 'the meaning of "red" cannot be the experience it points to'.

I'm not following the argument.

I do not understand it as an answer to your exchange either.

We can put that distinction there, if needed. Sure.

And?

Now Marchesk offered this as a reply to my 'the meaning of "red" cannot be the experience it points to'. — Banno

You argued this is the case because otherwise we’d have communication issues. I showed why that doesn’t have to be the case. But I want to ask if red is not the experience it points to then what is it? I don’t think it can be the neurological process happening as you see red. Otherwise understanding that neurological process should be required to understand what red is but that is clearly not required.

There must be some information about red that is not contained in the neurological process that occurs when you look at red things. And I’d argue that understanding the process is not required at all to understand what “red” is.

You seemed (to me) to be implying that there was no such distinction, so I was looking for clarification.

Oh - no, I was just trying to follow Marchesk.

Both a robot and a human can detect red light.

A human has an accompanying experience. The robot doesn't.

Right?

Correct. If we wanted to design a conscious robot, we wouldn’t know how to do it.

Correlated at least.

The robot doesn't. — frank

Well we wouldn’t know about that. Which is what makes the problem hard. We can’t detect the property we’re testing for. At least not yet.

Visual perception of red apples does not guarantee conscious experience of red apples — creativesoul

Or at least the process all the way up to focus/attention, assuming normal neurological functioning.

I showed why that doesn’t have to be the case. — khaled

This:
?

I haven't been able to follow that argument, either -

I'd thought you were claiming something like that the set of word - meaning correspondences in one mind was homomorphic with the set in another mind - an interesting argument - but now you say we should use 'isomorphic'.

It would be a great help if you articulated your argument.

Correlated at least — Marchesk

So... there is a statistical relation between there being an apple in one;s visual field and one noticing the apple.

What's this got to do with my "the meaning of "red" cannot be the experience it points to"?

Again, it would be a great help if you articulated your argument.

Now Marchesk offered this as a reply to my 'the meaning of "red" cannot be the experience it points to'. — Banno

Well, this was meant to cover cases where people do not have the exact same experience, but they can still communicate about the same object.

But let’s say we never evolved eyes. In that case, red would have no meaning, even when we discovered light and that some creatures navigated by sight. It would be colorless like the rest of the EM spectrum to us.

Similarly, sonar or detecting magnetic fields might have some rich experience we have no words for, because we lack those sensory modalities.