I disagree in that we can say some of their experiences might be fundamentally different from our own, because they have a form of perception we don't. What that is, we cannot say.

It's just noting a hard limit to our understanding, at least as things stand now. — Marchesk

Hold on a minute.

When we're reporting upon another's conscious experience, in order to know what we're talking about, we must be able to take that conscious experience into proper account.

Agree? — creativesoul

:brow:

Pay attention . Here comes the death knell.

So you're quesitoning whether we can know that we don't know something? Or are you questioning whether it's meaningful to say there could be conscious experiences different from the kinds humans have?

Because the second one is awful anthropocentric. But maybe I don't follow your death knell blow.

That's the position I'm arguing for/from — creativesoul

Yeah, I know. Me too. So who have these other folk been arguing with?

I obviously can't explain that — Marchesk

:lol:

:lol: — Banno

adjective
incapable of being expressed or described in words; inexpressible:
ineffable joy sonary.

Should I circle back to Luke's comment on showing?

Here comes the death knell. — creativesoul

It'll never stay dead. The corpse will be reanimated, probably several times, over the coming years.

You can't tell us what qualia are, because they are ineffable.

And you cannot show them to us, because they are private.

But they are there, he cries!

p-zombies are hard to kill.

http://digitalcollections.library.cmu.edu/awweb/awarchive?type=file&item=47537

ou can't tell us what qualia are, because they are ineffable. — Banno

I thought we were talking about red. I don't know whether the concept of qualia is worth salvaging, but trying to explain a sensation is impossible other than via analogy. Doesn't mean there is no sensation of color.

Problem is that sensations tend to lead back to qualia, so round and round we go.

I don't undestand what you mean by "consciousness" then. — Marchesk

The ability to attribute meaning.

p-zombies are hard to kill. — Marchesk

As is The Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Is it just a conflict about what qualia is?

It'll never stay dead. — Banno

If we cannot somehow, someway, adequately explain what it's like(for our own selves) to see red, then we certainly have no business talking about - or in terms of - "what it's like" to be some other conscious creature. We seem to be fatally disconnected from ourselves on such a rendering...

Odd indeed.

Added to which, in Descartes there is the tendency to objectify the mind. 'Res cogitans' means 'thinking thing'. It was from that, that the self-contradictory concept of 'thinking substance' developed. Whereas pre-Cartesian philosophy didn't conceive of it in those terms. — Wayfarer

Yes. It is the human being (a living, sentient organism) that has the capacity to think, not brains or Cartesian minds.

BTW- excellent passage from Phil. of Mind. :up: — Wayfarer

Yes, Jaworski knows his stuff. Perhaps of interest, he also presents and compares hylomorphism to the standard physicalist and dualist theories.

A hylomorphic approach to mental phenomena differs in a fundamental way from many of the mind-body theories considered so far. Most of those theories are committed in some way to the idea that mental phenomena are inner states, ones that occur "in the head," so to speak, in an interior domain such as a brain or Cartesian mind.
...
Hylomorphists' commitment to externalism is closely related to their rejection of the inner experience thesis. Hylomorphists deny that our experiences are things that occur "in our heads" so to speak. Instead, they say, our experiences occur in the world. Consider an example: perception. Exponents of the inner mind picture often suggest that our perceptual experiences consist in having internal representations of the external world, but hylomorphists reject the idea that our experiences are internal states that mirror external things. They claim instead that our experiences are patterns of interaction involving individuals, properties, and events in the real world itself. — Philosophy of Mind: A Comprehensive Introduction p314, p321 - William Jaworski

You cannot explain it because there is no it...
— creativesoul

There is a conscious visual experience with red in it. — Marchesk

So the "it" in "what it's like to see red" is a conscious visual experience with red in it?

Color is a primitive property making up visual experience.

Is it just a conflict about what qualia is? — frank

I prefer to just say qualia is the contents (or properties) of conscious experience, whatever that turns out to be. If qualia is too problematic, we can drop it in favor of colors, sounds, pains, etc. Or just sensations.

Or one can defend qualia against it's critics, maybe with some amendments to the concept. Your choice. The interesting thing is that conscious properties do tend to circle back to those four properties Dennett critiqued. Or three, since he didn't really do anything with privacy.

The ability to attribute meaning. — creativesoul

So you have your own definition for consciousness.

Wouldn't that better fall under intentionality, cognition or intelligence?

So you have your own definition for consciousness.

Wouldn't that better fall under intentionality, cognition or intelligence? — Marchesk

Is that what counts as an acceptable reply nowadays?

You can't tell us what qualia are, because they are ineffable. — Banno

Primitive is another way to put it. You can't break down red into anything else, unless there is someday a neurological explanation from neural function to red experience.

And you cannot show them to us, because they are private. — Banno

Certainly not if you've never seen red before. But if you have, I can remind you or point out a red thing.

They claim instead that our experiences are patterns of interaction involving individuals, properties, and events in the real world itself — Philosophy of Mind: A Comprehensive Introduction p314, p321 - William Jaworski

HOWEVER, a major caveat with that is, in Aquinas' epistemology, there's a sense in which the intellect receives the form of the object per this blog post. Otherwise, they would be like modern realists, but they're not - they're scholastic realists, and there's a world of difference.

s that what counts as an acceptable reply nowadays? — creativesoul

Is it acceptable to use a different definition? Attributing meaning is a separate topic.

in·ten·tion·al·i·ty
the fact of being deliberate or purposive.
PHILOSOPHY
the quality of mental states (e.g., thoughts, beliefs, desires, hopes) that consists in their being directed toward some object or state of affairs.

Maybe that's not exhaustive enough, thus I mentioned cognition and intelligence.

So the model is of entities interacting in a relational sense, rather than a model where the world is divided in a physical/mental sense.
— Andrew M

There's a misunderstanding somewhere. I do not divide the world in a physical/mental sense, or a physical/non physical sense. — creativesoul

I'm not saying you do. That would be the Cartesian dualism model.

Internal, external, that which consists of both. Conscious experience being of the third; part physical, part non physical; part internal, part external, part neither. — creativesoul

Those predicates are inapplicable if Cartesian dualism is rejected. One might kick a football either purposefully or aimlessly. Nothing meaningful is added by characterizing those experiences with physical/non-physical, or internal/external qualifiers.

. If qualia is too problematic, we can drop it in favor of colors, sounds, pains, etc. Or just sensations. — Marchesk

So functionalism? If not, why not?

Is it acceptable to use a different definition? — Marchesk

And here yet another obtuse question...

:roll:

Of course it is!

That's exactly what the problem is... the criterion underwriting what counts as conscious experience. Part of a few different definitions is under direct attack. That's the freaking point of the paper.

Shakes head and walks away...

So functionalism? If not, why not? — frank

Because colors and pains don't make up functional explanations.

Because colors and pains don't make up functional explanations. — Marchesk

Because there's no color or pain in neurons?

That works.

Ah yes. A Dennett speciality. Change the definition and declare the problem dissolved.

I'm beginning to think some of you don't actually experience colors or pains. How else could you claim to be conscious and argue the way you do? Maybe Jaron Lanier was right. You can't argue with a zombie.

Because there's no color or pain in neurons?

That works. — frank

Yes, but apparently we can just talk about something else and there's no problem.