There really does only seem to be a taste of tea, Dennet takes us through step by step how what we'd like to think is the taste of tea is not what it seems. I've added a bit of gloss from modern cognitive psychology, but, as I said right at the beginning, Dennet's argument is that our intuitions are mistaken, so it's pointless responding to that with reference to those same intuitions. — Isaac

There are our intuitions about our sensations, and then there are our sensations given to us in experience. I saw colored objects and tasted tea long before I knew anything about qualia. And I even noticed that my taste of certain foods or drink changed over time.

Seeing a colored in world isn't an intuition. It just is there in your visual field. Same with tasting tea. Reflecting on the nature of those sensations is where intuitions start to come in to play.

Consciousness is made up of matter and energy. Consciousness is not another form of existence separate from matter and energy. If someone claims this to be, they must provide evidence to counter the evidence that shows consciousness comes from the brain, which is made out of matter and energy. — Philosophim

Maybe so, but matter and energy are physical concepts created to explain a wide range of phenomena. It's possible that these concepts are lacking when it comes to consciousness, because they are abstracted categories based on careful investigation of what our senses tell us about the world.

You still have

But maybe that just is consciousness, not immediately, not straight from the senses, but the continual updating of your model of a world of objects. That sounds pretty close to what we'd expect a conscious organism to be doing, responding to change in a way that enables planning. Is there an alternative that doesn't require a Cartesian theater? — Srap Tasmaner

Except that you're just substituting "continual updating of your model of a world of objects" for the world of sensory objects and feels we experience. Somehow that updating of the model has to lead to colors, pains, etc. Computer simulations can continuously update their models and we don't take that as evidence for consciousness. There is nothing it's like to be a computer program, at least none we've created so far. That is to say, computer models don't have sensations. They don't see a colored in world, feel the coldness of the wind, smell the fragrance of flowers, feel the heaviness of a long workout in their joints.

Something has to make the model feel. Breathe life into the algorithms, if you will.

That makes sense. Somehow conscious experience arises from discrimination. That might be a clue. If it's possible to break down all the discriminations to some fundamental level which could possibly be shown to be produced by whatever neural activity or function it's performing.

I don't know, just thinking about how one might try to approach explaining consciousness. Somehow you have to show how the act of discriminating becomes a conscious sensation.

Then again, maybe it happens with the integration of the various discriminations into a unified experience that is the center of attention. It still seems like trying to marry two fundamentally different categories. One for objective observation and one for subjective experience. But maybe it can be done?

We don't. That's the easy solution. — Isaac

So you outright deny that we have conscious experiences. How does that work for you? You tell yourself it's only seems like there is a taste of tea when you sip?

To be fair, I have a few times tried to believe this upon reading some well argued paper, but I always go back to the warm embrace of the hard problem. That seeming is bloody hard to dismiss.

No, my point was that if I claim we do already have a science of consciousness, and as such we already do know what's conscious, you'll still claim we don't. — Isaac

Because there is no consensus in any related field for an explanation of consciousness. Of course there is much ink spilled on the topic with many different approaches, but Dennett's work is controversial and not accepted by many professional philosophers.

That is 'how'. As I showed with my examples of other 'how' questions, that's exactly the sort of thing which counts as an answer to 'how' — Isaac

No it isn't. That's just an assertion that consciousness is somehow identical to certain functions. If we knew that to be true, then there would be no mystery as to what else is conscious. If it performed those functions, whether it was a bat nervous system, a simulation, a robot or a Chinese Brain, it would all be conscious, end of story.

Even so, you're still just repeating the dismissal without specifying a reason. If "explain[ing] how my brain performs certain functions related to discriminating color" isn't an answer for you to "how there is a color sensation", then it seems entirely reasonable to ask you for an account of what's missing. — Isaac

Because it doesn't explain how it is that we're conscious. Why do functions result in an experience at all? They're just functions.

To quite the contrary, I would call it a failed philosophical attempt at taking proper account of what conscious experience consists of and/or is existentially dependent upon. A failed attempt at setting out the pre-theoretical, basic, and/or fundamental elements of conscious experience. — creativesoul

Oh okay. I misunderstood. I agree that illusionism fails in this regard. And Dennett is sometimes hard to pin down, but I think he has outright supported illusionism at times, even though he says he doesn't deny consciousness. Because for him, consciousness is completely explainable in functional terms. It only seems like it's something more to us.

But that seeming just won't go away so easily.

The signals which chemosensory neurons send to cotices higher in the hierarchy. Nothing more. Beyond that you start to see the influence of a whole slew of non-chemosensory systems getting involved, feeding back to the chemosensory neurons, suppressing certain signals, re-iterating others. One if the many paths taken ends up (together with input from a hundred other unrelated paths) in the stimulation of the motor neurons responsible for forming the words "this tea tastes bitter". Where in all that is the 'taste' of the tea? — Isaac

Indeed, but yet we have an experience of tasting the tea. That's the hard problem.

But this is circular. Maybe we have created consciousness in robots "no, they're just p-zombies", how do we know what they've got isn't consciousness? — Isaac

Isn't this admitting to the hard problem, or at least Block's harder problem? If we had a science of consciousness, we would would be able to know what was conscious.

How could an understanding of the world have sensations? If this is your target then its not the 'hard' problem its the downright ridiculous problem. — Isaac

The hard problem is aimed at the ontological conclusions derived from our understanding of the world, which would be physicalism. It's part of the ongoing mind/body debate between materialists and dualists.

I don't think so. If one is going to dismiss Dennet's hard work as missing the target, I think it's fair to ask for an account of what the target is. — Isaac

Dennett isn't a neuroscience, and his multiple drafts doesn't explain sensations. It just suggests how various activity in the brain becomes the center of attention.

This just repeats the question. If, say, I explain the neuroscience of colour recognition, I'm trying to get at the sense in which that's not answering 'how?' for you. It's exactly answering 'how' for me. — Isaac

It doesn't tell me how there is a color sensation. Instead, it explains how my brain performs certain functions related to discriminating color. But as you admitted, we don't know if the same functions in a computer would also result in a color sensation.

What would an explanation of this be like? — Isaac

How the brain creates experiences of colors, smells, feels, etc. So far, there are only correlations, but not an actual explanation. Such and such neural activity does some sort of discrimination of incoming electrical impulses from eyes and is integrated with other brain activity to create a conscious awareness of a red cup. But it would have to show how that happens, and not just claim it does (which would be a correlation with observed brain activity).

It's kind of unfair to ask what the explanation would look like since nobody knows yet. Assuming neuroscience can provide one. But if it did, then the entry in the journal of philosophy could then go on to say how we could use this to understand bat sonar consciousness and create consciousness in robots.

One reason to be skeptical of this is that neuroscience is like all science in that it's an abstraction from various first person experiences to arrive at an objective understanding of the world. But that objective understanding has no sensations of color, etc.

Orthodox Christians do believe God is spirit, so their worldview is still dualistic.

What is their nature? I don’t know, nor does anyone else, it would seem. What I do know is they are the result of certain animal nervous systems when perceiving, dreaming, etc. But they vary by species, and to some degree, by individual. Take three people in a room. One feels cold, another warm and the third just right. But the thermometer measures the same temperature. This sort of thing was noticed by ancient philosophers in Greece, India and China.

Are you blind from birth? What is the point of this sort of questioning?

Combinations of red, green, blue visual experiences. Are you a color realist?

Yes, and that gets my goat.

I don’t have conclusions in this debate. It remains a puzzle.

Thinking for a wee bit ...

Although the original is identical to the materials which make up the painting (when arranged in that particular fashion), the image itself can be reproduce in other media, such as the digital version you posted. So although we might be tempted to say that a red cup is identical to the process of perception of seeing a cup, we can also produce red cup experiences in dreams, imagination and hallucinations.

So then it would seem sensations like images can be produced by different processes.

I've thought through the consciousness debate more than any other philosophical subject, which includes reading and listening to debates.

Again, if you assume a distinction between objective and subjective statements, you shouldn't be surprised to find that you can't bridge the gap you created. — Banno

The distinction falls out of whatever language you wish to use, because our perceptions of the world and mental processes differ from the world.

We end up with two different ways of talking about the same thing. The coin is an alloy of tin and copper; and it can be exchanged for a bag of lollies. That's not a mismatch. — Banno

But you agreed earlier in this thread that red isn't electromagnetic radiation of certain wavelength. Are you saying now the entire process is identical to having a red sensation?

Red is used in explanations. I handed you that cup because it is red. — Banno

That's not scientific. The red isn't the reflective surface, it's not the lighting, it's not the activated cones, it's not the electrical impulses going to my visual cortex, and it's not the neural activity.

Unless you wish to defend either color realism or mind-brain identity.

Introduce the problematic division of objective and subjective statements and of course you end up with an inability to bridge the great divide that is the hard problem. It's sitting in your assumptions. — Banno

You don't need to. Just use the terms of sensation and the terms of neurons, electromagnetic radiation and molecular surfaces and you'll see there's a mismatch. Ordinary language analysis doesn't help here.

The problem is the implicit dualism in the claim. There are no 'first-person' versus 'third-person' perspectives. There is just your perspective, my perspective, and Alice's perspective. Each is a distinctive perspective of the world, but it is a world that we all participate in, and use common language to describe. — Andrew M

The problem with this is that the world is more than individual perspectives. Science describes a world independent of that. We can't sense most of what science tells us, and what we do sense is based on our particular biology, which science has to work to abstract from to arrive at mathematical models that are predictive and explain the world as it appears to us.

Another problem is that people do have private thoughts, dreams, feelings. We can't always know that Alice's tooth is aching, or whether she's faking. But she knows, because she's the one feeling or faking the pain. We also don't know what it's like if her brain works in an idiosyncratic way from our own. Thus people who have no inner dialog, people who think in images, people with odd neurological conditions and so on.

As Chalmers and Nagel have argued, the red sensation is not part of any objective explanation. Rather, it's either a label ("red light") or the known end result ("red sensation"). It can be removed and it doesn't effect the science at all. It's a correlation with our talk of sensations.

As Block and Lanier have argued, we don't know whether the red sensation is itself biological or functional. So a computer might implement the same functionality and not have red sensations. Or maybe it does, and so do meteor showers and nation states on the occasions they implement said functionality. Both of which imply some sort of weird identity that's absent from the biological or functional concepts.

But this is most plainly put is Locke's primary qualities being used in science, while the secondary qualities themselves remain unexplained. Somehow the primary qualities in an organism results in secondary ones, but so far no explanation has shown how. Thus, the hard problem remains.

You asked whether it was a part of metaphysics. I was explaining to you how it is. Whether you find it interesting is irrelevant.

It’s a question of whether objects having parts is coherent and consistent with physics. If not, then complex objects don’t exist.

Kind of similar to arguing over the coherency of qualia.

Even if we say red sensations are relational, we're still left with the problem of explaining how the neural activity which produces them does so. So far, neural activity along with every other objective fact of the world can be described without reference to the sensations we experience the world with.

That's a problem, regardless of how you characterize it, and whether it's the end result of a reporting mechanism. There needs to be an explanation for how the sensations are produced.

Yep, there's a difference between red and a certain frequency. No problem. What about the qualia? — Banno

The hard problem arises here because we have sensations of a world which is different from our objective explanations of that world. Red isn't a certain wavelength of light, nor is it certain neurons firing. Red isn't part of our scientific explanation of the world. And yet we all have sensations.

Even if we dispense with qualia as incoherent, we're still stuck with the secondary qualities of perception, along with dreams, inner dialog, imagination, hallucinations, etc. We still have a modern form of the mind/body problem. It doesn't go away just because we ditch a problematic term.

What's missing is the explanation of how those individuals are stimulated or non-perceptually affected, and how they are subsequently disposed to behave or believe that adequately describes thought and belief itself(consciousness). "Consciousness" as described by proponents of "qualia" is based upon a gross misunderstanding of how consciousness emerges(here I'm fond of the discussion regarding whether or not perceptual features/properties/quale can be divorced from conscious experience and retain their unity as an entity). — creativesoul

I somewhat agree with this, if we grant Dennett's arguments for quniing qualia. However, you do seem to be espousing illusionism in this paragraph. Which would be that we're being deluded by some trick of cognition into thinking sensations of color, sound, paint, etc. are something they're not, which is some form of the private, ineffable subjectivity.

If there is such an illusion, the mechanism needs to be explained so that we can see how this illusion comes about. The problem I and many others have with this approach is it implies that sensations themselves are illusions, because that's the only way to avoid espousing qualia. Which would imply that we only think that we see color, hear sound, feel pain.

What could that possibly mean? And what does that do for epistemology if our sensations are themselves illusions? And aren't illusions themselves experiences?

Can you think of any examples of total revolution; where existing institutions are not merely co-opted and rearranged, but completely done away with by starting from scratch? — Janus

Khmer Rouge's cultural revolution:

As the new ruler of Cambodia, Pol Pot set about transforming the country into his vision of an agrarian utopia. The cities were evacuated, factories and schools were closed, and currency and private property was abolished. Anyone believed to be an intellectual, such as someone who spoke a foreign language, was immediately killed. Skilled workers were also killed, in addition to anyone caught in possession of eyeglasses, a wristwatch, or any other modern technology. In forced marches punctuated with atrocities from the Khmer Rouge, the millions who failed to escape Cambodia were herded onto rural collective farms. — https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/pol-pot-overthrown

It only cost about 2 million lives or 25% of the population of Cambodia. Of course that's one of the worst case scenarios, but it is a cautionary tale against ideological purity driving revolution.

No one has ever made this argument, as far as I’m aware. Conservatives are skeptical of human reason and believe a moderate reform is far better for everyone than radical revolutionary change. They believe that we ought not to sacrifice present society on the whims of a few revolutionaries. It actually sounds like they have more empathy than the revolutionary types. — NOS4A2

I wonder what that makes Frank Herbert. His Dune saga has the oppressed become the oppressors as they wage a holy war. But it was setup by the oppressors which backfired on them. He said he wrote the Dune Saga as a warning against charismatic leaders. He also has the main protagonist in book four talk about how revolutionaries are easy to convert to aristocrats, because they seek power.

think this is hard to take seriously for anyone who suffers greatly under whatever social order exists at the time. Conservatives like Stove always seem to lack a degree of empathy for those in different situations: they have something to lose, but they don't recognize that many others don't. "I don't want to suffer, so you should just keep suffering." — darthbarracuda

Everyone has something to lose as long as they are alive. Wars have collateral damage, and they can disrupt food supplies. They can also result in even more oppression. If I'm homeless, the situation isn't made better by gun fire in the streets and stores being bombed.

These are pretty flabby responses. No one has pointed out that Stove constructs an obvious straw man. Look around and you will see folk fighting for Black Lives, for the environment, for the rights of the disabled, for a living wage, for animal rights; No on argues for change for the sake of change. — Banno

There's a big difference between pushing for changes within current institutions, and wanting to dismantle them in favor of new ones, which often means violent revolution or civil war. Some have lead to better outcomes, but often enough they do not.

Who gets to be in charge of the rebuild after everything is torn down? There's no guarantee it won't be someone authoritarian, supported by followers who won't tolerate dissent. There's also no guarantee that disruption of the economy doesn't lead to starvation. And if there is no clear victor, conflicts can stretch on for decades. There are plenty of historical examples to draw from along with current ones. A few are the stuff of nightmares. Hopefully, nobody wants a repeat of Pol Pot.

It sounds like Stove is in favor of the first. So that would mean things like police reform, reparations, disability rights, increased minimum wage, and better treatment for farm animals. Instead of tearing it all down in hopes that the victors are capable of making something better, assuming they even want to, depending on who's victorious.

I should have specified in terms of funding and global reach.

The US has massive geographical advantages with two large coastal areas on the Atlantic and Pacific in addition to the Great Lakes and the Gulf. Plus it has tons of rich farmland and Silicon Valley, whose companies are not negatively impacted by a pandemic, since their services are still needed and their workers can work remotely. California's economy alone is massive. Plus the US military remains the largest in the world.

And it's not like the US hasn't been through major wars, civil unrest and economic downturns before. 1918 was a worse pandemic at the end of WW1, then followed up by a major world depression the 30s and the second world war.

But if the US does get replaced as the major power in the world, it will be China, which is not a better option for most countries.

Nor need an antirealist deny that there is a physical world. It is open to them to say that if we talk as if there is a physical world, then by that very fact there is indeed a physical world. — Banno

True, but then this doesn't explain why we think a modern scientific account of the physical world is better than some previous mythological or metaphysical one. There has to be some explanation for why empiricism works better for understanding whatever reality is and how technology improves.

For example, It's problematic to say we evolved from a common ancestor because we agree to talk that way, as if Darwin and other biologists were better at propaganda than their opponents. Or that lasers work because we agree to talk about light as if certain physical theories were the case.

As for the cat on the mat, the cat itself doesn't care what we agree on. I realize you're not an antirealist, just wanted to add what has always bothered me about the position.

Why have a flat ontology? — Marty

Because Occam. And I think Quine. But mostly because it seems the more complex, everyday stuff is determined by the micro stuff.

Aren't their truths about individuals? I can say I'm angry, you can say that I don't look angry. I can reply that I'm holding it in. Surely there is a truth about whether I feel angry.

In Ethics, we seek to change the world to match what we say. — Banno

You do this by influencing public opinion or those in power. While it's true that we can critique the morality of public opinion or those in power, if we want the world to be more moral, then we have to change one or both.

Problem is, what makes it "more moral"? That you're able to persuade people? Because as you pointed out, morality isn't like chemistry. Chemistry forces the scientist to adjust their language to coincide with the facts. But ethics is trying to persuade people to change their moral valuation. Which can differ depending on the ethicist.

Unlike with chemistry, there is no agreed upon fact to determine what people should value. Take equality versus freedom. Which is more valuable when they come into conflict? Depends on who you ask.

We either discard the possibility out of hand or we have to accept that the content of our intuitions may be wrong. — Isaac

Usually in philosophy, one is not hemmed in by an either-or. People are frustratingly good at finding alternatives. There are many approaches to consciousness, so it's decidedly not a binary proposition. We don't have to accept or discard anything because it's not a settled matter.

I am one of the multitude who must labour for others in order to provide for my family. I am a peasant — Kenosha Kid

As opposed to laboring for yourself to provide for your family? Let's say at the end of your labors your children inherit enough to start a bakery. At first they do all the labor, but after some success, they're able to hire others to help do the labor. Eventually, the business becomes very popular, with multiple stores, and now your children are managing the business instead of doing the day to day labor.

However, in the deep dark past one of your ancestral groups came across another group camping out on a fertile tract of land. That group refused to share, so your ancestors killed them and took the land for themselves.

Should your children's bakery be considered some form of theft because of that? We can't know, but probably all of our ancestries have various crimes in their past. Maybe the crime is civilization itself, but then again, it's not like hunters and gatherers never have conflicts.

But what does any of that matter to us now? We can't go back and undo it. We only know the more recent crimes recorded in history, to the extent they were. Recent in terms of all those thousands of years humans have been around.

And I'm talking about history where everyone involved is dead, and thus nobody can actually be held accountable.

What do we mean by selfish then? — Brett

Doing something that disregards someone else's well being, to the extent you're in a position to be responsible.