I have a family member who's a fruitarian (subsists, at least tries to, only on fruits) and no she didn't know that's the most ethical diet ever. Why? Fruits are meant to be eaten - their sweetness is a reward for aiding the plant in seed dispersal - and so there really is no sin involved in consuming fruit. We should all adopt fruitarianism - its healthy too say nutritionists. — Agent Smith

That's an interesting angle. I am no nutritionist but I don't think that a fruitarian diet is likely to be regarded as a nutritionally adequate or healthy diet.

No. Don't tell me what my answer is. My answer is sometimes yes, sometimes no depending on the circumstances. It's not my problem that you're too dogmatic to accept a nuanced answer. — Isaac

You cannot be ambivalent about this, it's a yes or no answer. I didn't ask you if it's OK to kill someone in certain circumstances. I very clearly asked you whether or not you believe it is ethical to own human beings AND to breed them for your own ends AND to kill them when you wish as part of meeting those ends. You either do or you dont. This is your problem - you prefer to answer questions according to your own restatement of them to suit your purposes then pretend you have actually made some insightful point. You haven't.

The point I'm making by bringing in natural disasters and natural predation is that you've provided no argument for why (if we're going to extend the scope of human rights) we should not extend them to the treatment of humans by natural forces or the treatment of animals by other animals. — Isaac

Because this is not relevant to human rights as we understand them. Nowhere did I suggest extending human rights, I specifically noted that just three rights as described in the UNDHR are relevant and I quite specifically did not suggest we extend those rights to other species. Again, you are just nitpicking with made up versions of what I have said.

So, it's clear there is nothing to gain from talking with you further. Thanks for your input.

Good faith debating isn't necessarily in Isaac's toolbox. It's funny, I've had a back-and-forth with him several times and I've also used the term "not in good faith" towards his style, so there may be a pattern here. — schopenhauer1

Yes, I think he has taken an unnecessarily adversarial tack. The trouble with that as I see it is that you no longer end up debating an issue but simply responding to an endless series of slight variations on a theme.

Is it true though? Do you think that we have an obligation to save wild animals in a natural disaster? The same way as humans? Because that's what the argument was about. — schopenhauer1

I don't think this issue is relevant to my post. My interest is in regard to our duties in the context of our direct relations with other species, that is, when we do things that affect them directly. Whether we also have a moral obligation to wild animals beyond that would be a different question.

On the face of it, we probably do at some level because we do see some efforts to assist (look at YT videos of people freeing trapped animals). However, I think here we are straying into territory related to the ability to be reasoning, good faith members of a moral community. When we seek to save humans from natural disasters, we typically do so in the expectation that the victims will likely work with us on this. Wild animals will not. I think it would be different if every human we tried to save from disaster did their best to resist us, hurt us and even kill us. We'd be far less disposed to act this way.

I can't make sense of this expression. It sounds like you've already decided the argument is rational and defensible, but you want to find out why. That seems like an oddly dogmatic approach. — Isaac

I just mean that I am interested in hearing both critical and non-critical points raised.

The answer is "no, with caveats". It's not a question that can be answered with a simple yes or no. There are caveats where we use other humans to our own ends, there are caveats where we kill other humans to our own ends. That is the conclusion of the examples I gave. It's the reason I gave them. — Isaac

So your answer is no. It's that simple. Digging around trying to find the possible reasons why human rights don't always carry through isn't a good faith strategy. The question is "Do you think it ethical to own human beings, breed them for your own ends, and kill them when you wish to further those ends?" Your answer is no. Don't fiddle around trying to pretend that you could potentially find a good reason for the answer to be yes. Gee, here you are so keen to counter my proposition that you want to start dismantling human rights.

I mean this is patently false. Again the reason why I provided the example I did. If other humans were suffering as a result of frequent animal attacks, or frequent earthquakes, or volcanoes... We don't wash our hands of the humanitarian issues because they were not caused by other humans. We have barriers in place to prevent such tragedies because we care about the humans who would otherwise suffer. So if our ethical concerns extend without caveat, to other animals, then why do we not similarly protect prey from the suffering at the hands of their predators. A lion is no less a natural occurrence than an earthquake. We evacuate people from the vicinity of the latter, ought we evacuate prey from the vicinity of the former? — Isaac

This is just poor reasoning. We don't save people from natural disasters simply because human rights mean we should. This is for several reasons, including from simple sentimentality, to being good members of the human community, to having regard to our duties as rights bearers. Once again, what happens outside of direct human relations with other species is not relevant to the proposition. If you want to make it such that it should, only to reject it, feel free to go right ahead. It's an irrelevant distraction.

If your position wasn't correct, would that not be an ideal candidate for a reason why it is not taken seriously? — Isaac

I mean in the sense that perhaps I have explained poorly. Your approach has been purely to find fault, which is fine, but I am also interested in why it is a rational and defensible argument.

You don't do 'explaining' here because such an activity is reserved for when the notion in question is to be understood by the interlocutor (such as a teacher-student relationship, or the giving of an instruction). You've presented a proposition which may or may not be coherent. Either clarifying, defending or modifying it is the response to criticism. — Isaac

Feel free to insert "clarifying", "defending" or "modifying" in place of "explaining".

This just re-affirms the obvious - that we each act according to our own ethical standards. It's conceited for you to assume that others not acting so compassionately toward animals is an indication that they just haven't thought about it. It may be an indication that they have thought about it but reached a different conclusion to you. — Isaac

This is just restating what I have proposed. My proposition is that IF our ethical principles are valid, it is reasonable to apply them to the case of other species. I think the public debate should be more informed in this regard whereas it typically is not. If after that an individual prefers to act contrary to the principles outlined, that is their choice.

Firstly, we've agreed there are many caveats to the principles you've outlined, even for humans. Take children, for example. Are they free to leave the school grounds or the home whenever they feel like it? No. ... <snip> ...If you have an answer to that question - if you have a reason why you think it is wrong, or unnecessary to interfere with the 'appalling' conditions that prey animals live in in the African savanna, conditions we would be monsters for allowing other humans to endure unaided, then you have your first caveat, your first difference of circumstance between humans and other animals. — Isaac

The difficulty I have with this section is that you appear to me still to be arguing against something I haven't said, or more exactly to be trying to find a way to misinterpret the principles outlined.

What if we just step back from all of your loopholes and caveats about human rights and tackle the main concern. Do you think it ethical to own human beings, breed them for your own ends, and kill them when you wish to further those ends? If not, then such matters as children leaving school grounds or being "owned" by their parents are irrelevant. If yes, then we can't discuss this any further because you wish to hold a view that I do not think is generally held by most modern societies.

Also, raising the matter of the ethical nature of relations between other species is clearly irrelevant. Why would you do this unless you simply refuse to contemplate the proposition and prefer to be contrary just fo the sake of it? The fact we don't excuse thugs killing people because lions kill zebras gives rise to the reason why we might not excuse the killing of farmed animals because lions kill zebras.

In the case of human rights, we are specifically constraining our ethical concern to how human beings affect other human beings (relations between people). Similarly, our ethical concern in the case of animals rights is only in the context of how human beings affect other species (relations between people and other species).

I agree that modern ethics doesn't seem to include the just treatment of other species in this way. My topic is to pose the argument that modern ethical societies should. In my post, I explained why that is the case. I also outlined why, given that such rights have not been awarded, the best we can do is act as though they have been.

Again, address these claims made by Isaac. If you cannot refute this then your argument doesnt stand.
The fact that you only got “animals can be farmed ethically” from reading Isaacs posts is amazing to me, and it should give you pause on your own position that you have so clearly failed to comprehend counterpoints made against it. This is a very good sign that you haven’t considered the issue thoroughly. Also a good indicator you are making an ad hoc argument, rather than in good faith. — DingoJones

I don't see the case you are making. Consider in the light of human rights as expressed in those core three articles. The aim is to prevent the treatment of humans as property and to prevent them being used as a means rather than an end. It also seeks to ensure that humans are free to live their lives on their own terms. Nothing about that suggests that it is fine to own a person, to breed humans as needed as a means to some end, nor that it is right to kill a person.

Isaac is arguing that we can choose to do that in relation to other humans. I don't think we can - their rights are inherent and inalienable except when forfeited (as happens for example when someone attacks someone else with the intent to do them harm). In the case of animal farming, it is the act of ownership and use as a means that breaches the ethical principle (or the animal's right, if you prefer). His argument about how well they are treated when alive doesn't bear on the question of whether it is right to own them, breed tham, and use them. Of the three principles, we have breached the first two by farming them. We *might* be able to treat them well while they live and thereby meet the duty in the third principle, but even that is questionable because I think we would agree that killing a human being for our own ends is a "cruel or inhuman" treatment and if so, it is also cruel when applied to another animal.

I am saying it is not controversial to argue that humans have a right not to be treated the way farmed animals are. As I am proposing that the exact same ethical principles should apply to other species, it is therefore not ethical to farm them. Whatever reasons can be adduced that show why we cannot do so to humans also apply to other species.

I guess the crux of this matter is to what extend everyday human ethics should also apply to animals. You take the position that it should apply almost completely (citing human rights), but I don't think that is the dominant ethical view in today's society. — PhilosophyRunner

I agree this isn't the dominant position; my claim is that it should be for already well established reasons. I am saying that the ethical principles are the same whether applied to humans or other species. Not all human rights can apply, of course, but the core ones relating to the right to life, liberty and freedom from cruel treatment should.

We could of course take the view that humans just are far more important and only they deserve this kind of consideration, but when we dig into why this might be the case we seem to end up with the likelihood that other species deserve the same consideration.

It may seem that way to you. The point of posting in a discussion forum is surely to discover if it also seems that way to others. If you already have all the answers then one wonders what the point was. — Isaac

I don't mind the idea being critiqued but I feel you are simply restating your objection in different ways and I keep answering the same way. It is pretty unproductive. That said, the actual topic isn't whether my proposition is perfectly correct but rather why is it the case that an ethical society shouldn't wish to treat this ethical issue seriously. I have explained why the ethical basis for the proposition is consistent with everyday human ethics and why we can make similar decisions about the things we do in this regard.

You agree in regard to "factory" farming which as we know is about 90% of farming, yet it seems impossible for this debate to gain any traction with people generally, being rejected as some kind of subversive foolishness at best or lunatic anti-society at worst.

So the real question is, if we can reframe the vegan argument so that it makes sense in the context of our general ethical outlook, shouldn't society be more open to actual genuine debate around the issue?

In the case of your objection which is - as best I can tell - that animals can be farmed ethically, then your personal choice would be to buy only meat and dairy from those kinds of producers. Which is entirely consistent with the proposition I have made. What I am suggesting is that in the absence of laws proscribing behaviours, the best we can do is be open to learning about how various animal-based industries operate, consider these in the context of the three ethical principles I describe and then decide what we want to do. But for that to actually have any effect on making things better (eg with regard to CAFOs), then we have to agree there is a rational ground for thinking that way.

My proposition is meant to offer a rational, defensible and consistent ground for genuine consideration of the problem. It really isn't that hard.

I don't see how that applies to hunting. You seem to have gone back to this being about foreshortening life. — Isaac

Hmmm... Are you sure you are acting in good faith here? It would be good if you were willing to be more open to the proposition rather than simply trying to find weaknesses. The claim is straight-forward. Like humans, other animals deserve to have their basic interests protected. If a basic interest is to be free to conduct one's own life (which is what is meant by the right to life, liberty, freedom and not be enslaved), then a) we should not breed them to be used as property and treated as a means rather than an end, AND b) we should not kill them when we do not need to.

I am not sure what is inconsistent or unreasonable about this, presuming we agree that other species deserve this kind of consideration.

As a society we've agreed that farming is a reasonable way to create food. I don't see how your argument works here. — Isaac

We have agreed (somewhat) that a fair wage is a reasonable antidote to workers being exploited. Is animal farming a reasonable antidote to the problem of animals being treated as property and being exploited? It's difficult to see that it is for the simple reason the problem is the farming itself.

Now, I am not saying that someone cannot believe that ethical farming practice isn't sufficent to ensure ethical food production. I am saying that given that such is very much in the minority, shouldn't an ethical society be open to considering the ethical claims of veganism? What individuals decide is up to them, but I would hope that evaluating an ethical issue would be a priority of an ethical society.

Absolutely!

Then I'm unsure what ethical concern you're raising against welfare-concerned farming. The animals 'have' their own lives. — Isaac

Again, let's consider the human example, because I am arguing for the same consideration of basic interests. Is it ethical to own slaves? I would say no, and I think that is generally agreed by most people today. The issue isn't how well the slaves live, it is the fact they are slaves in the first place.

So you've no objection to hunting? — Isaac

Well, I do object to sport hunting or trophy hunting. Personally I am a little on the fence about people in Western societies hunting for food - by and large I don't think we need to and it is definitely acting against the interests of the animals. Still, if it's legal then people can do it. My argument is that if we wish to protect the interests of other species we probably should choose not to hunt animals for food. In the case of people living where that is a necessity, then I think it is ethical.

How do you feel about factory work? Is it your view that factory workers have chosen to work in those conditions of their own free will? — Isaac

Depends on which factories. Generally speaking, people working in lowly paid jobs are exploited because they do not get to share fairly in the profit of their labour. However as a society we have agreed that a fair wage is sufficient to minimise this form of exploitation. If they are working in third world conditions where they are not paid enough and are coerced into those jobs, then I would say this is wrong. The best I can do is choose not to buy products from the companies that do this.

No. Veganism would preclude hunting, for example. — Isaac

Well, I've already answered that. Yes, veganism would preclude that in the cases where it is not necessary, just as I said above. That is a consistent position. The definition of veganism includes the caveat "when possible and practicable". Which is precisely what I say when I use the caveat "whenever we can". But again, no-one is forced to be "a vegan", so all we can do is hope people choose to act ethically. The proposition I am making is to outline what ethical means in this context. From there, people get to make their own choices.

So now you're talking about freedom, not death. If the animals were free prior to us killing them for food, then it would be ethical? I can see that as an argument. It would still apply to pets, which, by and large, aren't free — Isaac

I don't believe I ever talked about death. The claim is that other species have a right to their own lives. Whenever we can, we should respect that. Is it therefore ethical to kill a free living animal for food? I would say yes, if there are no other alternatives.

How? Dogs are perfectly capable of living free, they do so in large packs in many southern European cities. So how is restraining them on a lead and imprisoning them in a house 'guardianship'? — Isaac

One could take the view that owning a pet is against the principles I have outlined. But like I said, this is about guiding what people choose to do. If someone still wants to own a dog, for example, I am simply pointing out that it seems a lesser form of exploitation than raising chickens for eggs. All we can do is offer guidance to people, from there they get to make their own choices.

Yet all you have given so far as unethical is lifespan (the foreshortening of it)... So if all you've got as non-ethical is the reduction of lifespans, then high-welfare farming is the most ethical way to treat animals. — Isaac

I don't think you have properly understood my proposition. The problem is nothing to do with the lifespan of a farmed animal or the fact it gets killed. The argument is that other animals have a right to their own lives and to be treated fairly, including the right not to be treated cruelly. On these grounds, we should choose not to farm animals for the same reasons we shouldn't farm humans. That is, it is not ethical to own a human, to treat a person as property, to use them as a means rather than an end. So, our first priority is not create farmed animals in the first place. However, there is no law preventing that so the best we can do as ethical members of society is to not support these systems of exploitation by not buying their products. This is exactly how we might behave in the case of human exploitation. If we know that product X is produced by enslaved teenagers in Country X, teenagers who are killed at 20 because they are less useful at their job, the only ethical thing we can do is not to buy that product. We *can* also protest against Country X, of course, but that has no guarantee of success.

Agreed. But that's not the argument you made. It's got nothing to do with Veganism... Then you're using a different definition to most. That might be part of the misunderstanding here... Veganism is not just a position that we ought act ethically toward animals, it is a declaration of what that ethical treatment should entail. It bypasses the debate about what constitutes ethical treatment and substitutes its pre-conceived notion of the solution. — Isaac

I do not agree with you. If under Articles 3-5 it is not ethical to enslave humans, then we have already specified what is ethical. The same applies in the case of other species. Which is exactly what veganism is. It isn't simply a diet.

The point you missed is that there are many self-centered people in this world who are vehemently opposed to what SHOULD "be everyday practice for ethical societies" when they see it as infringing on what they enjoy or even when they don't see a direct benefit for themselves. As such it should come as no surprise "how vehemently people object to [ethical veganism]". — ThinkOfOne

I am comfortable that some people DO object to ideas about ethics and may even object to the UNDHR. But I do not think that is a commonly held view. As a broad generalisation, modern societies tend to agree that these human rights exist and should be protected.

In my post, I am saying that given this is a general stance of society, it seems reasonable that a modern society would endorse these principles as being applicable to other species.Because we do not have laws that enforce these protections, someone who disagrees is free to do as they will.

Can I help to sharpen my proposition? Veganism is the idea that we act ethically towards other species. I am suggesting that the easiest way to think of this is for people to behave as though the three basic rights I have outlined - which are agreed to be worthwhile for people - should be worthwhile in relations between people and other species.

Whether those rights should be awarded is a debate that could be had. Animal rights advocates say that they should be. But until such time as that happens, no-one is under an obligation to act accordingly (there are no laws proscribing behaviours that breach these rights in the case of other species).

However, as moral agents we should be open to behaving ethically when we can. If these rights could reasonably be applied to other species in order to reduce the extent to which we cause them to suffer in some way (even if that is just to be deprived of freedom to live their lives on their terms), we should wish to behave sympathetically, whenever we can.

The proposition is all about what each person can do to recognise the rights of other species and by extension that as a society we think this is a reasonable and preferable position to take.

Right. But for a prey animal that life includes being hunted, being free to roam, migrating, having large herds... We prevent much of that. Which should we take as a their priority? — Isaac

Let me clarify. This is not talking about relations between other species, but relations between humans and other species. Freedom is just that. How life unfolds for the free is a different matter; we cannot prevent a free human being from dying in a car accident or being seriously injured from getting into a fight. But that person is at least free.

Would your argument apply, for example, to pets? Keeping other humans on a lead would be degrading to a point where the victim might even choose death over such treatment. So is dog-owning up there with meat-eating for you? — Isaac

Further clarification. We aren't talking about actually awarding rights, rather the wish to behave as though such rights have been awarded. As such, I am saying it is up to each of us to decide what that means. Genuine pet ownership, where the well-being of the pet is important, could be seen to be a form of guardianship. CAFO breeding of chickens for meat and eggs is not about their well-being in any shape or form. So, someone taking this ethical stance might still own a pet and behave responsibly while doing so but choose not to eat chickens and their eggs. I am not suggesting I judge the choices people make, but rather that as a society we take this aim seriously.

Farm animals live longer than wild ones, so if it's being alive that's the objective, farming is better. If it's living some kind of 'fullest life' that matters, then being hunted is as much contender for part of a prey animal's natural life as any activity. I'm still not seeing in there the conclusion that we ought leave well alone. — Isaac

Other animals being alive is not the objective. Acting ethically is.

I agree, but I don't think you've made the case that a well cared for farm animal wouldn't feel good over its lifetime even if raised for slaughter. Even harder with an egg-laying chicken, or a fish. — Isaac

That could be true. However, if we pursue the ethics I describe to the fullest, we would not farm other animals. Again, I am not suggesting that we do that, instead I am talking about what each member of a modern society might choose to do. If animals must be farmed (because some people still choose to eat meat), it might be hoped that they still wish for Article 5 to apply. That is, we act in ways to prevent cruel or inhumane treatment. The argument is that members make choices that reflect these fuindamental ethical principles. So if animals are farmed in CAFO systems or skinned alive to produce fur, an ethical member would choose not to buy such products and would support legislation to prevent such systems.

From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

The above also "should be everyday practice for ethical societies". Unfortunately there are many in the US, for example, who are vehemently opposed to the above. There are a lot of self-centered people in this world. How is it that you are surprised "how vehemently people object to [ethical veganism]"? — ThinkOfOne

I disagree. Those rights you quote are not at issue in this regard. We are only concerned with those rights described in Articles 3-5 of the Declaration.

These are:

Article 3
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Now it is possible that some disagree with these as human rights (some disagree with the concept of rights, for example), however I think most modern nations do agree on those fundamental basic rights.

Do you think that people generally vehemently object to those human rights?

Your seeming disregard for the difference between humans and other animals from a moral point of view makes your argument hard to take seriously. — T Clark

It is difficult to understand how you managed to draw that inference from my post. Presuming you aren't taking a religious position, the argument is not that humans and other species are equal, but rather as sentient creatures both humans and other species share certain basic interests.

How do we work out what their interests are, since we can't ask, and we're not ourselves of those species?

And, having found out, why ought we concern ourselves with those interests being met? — Isaac

I believe the argument is that sentient creatures would have the same basic interests as human beings, which I suppose could be summarised as the freedom to pursue their own lives as they see fit. So, Articles 3-5 of the Human Rights Declaration (HRD) seem to apply. That is, as with us they have a right to be free, in charge of their own lives, and not to be treated cruelly by us. But when I say "rights", we can take that to mean these are duties we have in relation to any interaction between us and them.

Why should we be concerned? I guess that is the 64 million dollar question. I think for two reasons. First, we are 8 billion and as such our interaction with the natural world no longer is... well... natural. Personally I see nothing wrong with people hunting other animals for food and fibre, at least not in traditional hunter/gatherer societies. But what we do today by industrialising so much of our interactions with nature seems needing some kind of constraint. Secondly because we could pose the claim that we want things to be good for other people because they have feelings about being alive. If that works for other people, it probably should work for other species - at least those that can have those kinds of feelings. It just seems good to want others to feel good (be happy rather than unhappy).

Naively - because I know next to zero about mathematics and cosmology - I assume that the universe exists within an infinite domain. Time and space are functions of matter and if the universe is finite, it must exist within an infinite unbounded domain. That tends to suggest there has been an infinite number of universes, indeed there are such today. Is there a reason to think not? It seems no more odd to suppose such a condition than an infinite universe, but holds greater explanatory power (why is this universe of the form that results in galaxies and human beings - because of all the universes there can be, some end up this way).

I haven't read all the comments and it's a long time since I have read Nagel's paper that refers. I take "like" to mean just that a system has feelings about its operation, where "feelings" can be taken to refer to (as Mark Solms would say it) homeostatic deviations from preferred states. That is (and following Solms), I would say that feelings are abstractions about relational properties that convey information regarding deviations from preferred states in unpredicted contexts.

Further, Solms says, "if the organism is going to make plausible choices in novel contexts it must do so via some type of here-and-now assessment of the relative value attaching to the alternatives".

I suggest that in Nagel's terms, it is to be like something if the subject is able to attach value character to contexts and adapt behaviours accordingly.

I cannot hope to understand what this proposition describes. My question is simple though. Electricity is used in electrical circuits and enables things such as lightbulbs, televisions, transistors and computers. At the classical scale, is there any need to refer to quantum properties to explain how electricity makes such things work? If not, why is it necessary to do so for the operation of brains?

I haven't read all of the comments in this thread but I do think there is a misunderstanding of the ethics of veganism here. Some people might be vegan for reasons other than ethics, for example personal health or climate change. But the ethics of veganism are simply the very same ethics of everyday human relations as broadly determined over the past several thousand years. In a nutshell, ethical veganism is about extending the same ideas of justice to other species whenever we can. That's it.

As I think about, generally speaking no-one is "a" vegan simply because everyone who follows the law and agrees with justice and human rights is already vegan but may not as yet have extended their ethics to include other species. Some actually may be "a" vegan because they really belong to a vegan club, for example paid up members of the UK Vegan Society.

On this view, the fundamental question is how to decide when and how to behave ethically to other animals. With humans, we largely do it from convention and the law. As yet, convention and the law do not demand similar moral duties to other species as they do to our species. Thus for now it is up to the individual to work out what to do.

The answer to the original question then, is yes, one can justify eating meat as an ethical stance. But it depends on circumstance and context. Ethical veganism doesn't prevent one making that choice, but the cases where it is right to do so are probably limited.

It looks like you are unintentionally participating in the Cartesian Theater fallacy itself by positing this "space" and then referring back to its physical constituents. — schopenhauer1

Indeed, but then I did say earlier that there is still no genuine solution to the hard problem, if indeed it even is a problem. The trouble is we seem unable to express a way of looking at the problem without falling into the Cartesian Theatre by default. I do think though that the solution will be more in that kind of idea of a "virtual space", a space enabled by something akin to computationalism. It can't be some kind of representationalism, if by that we mean a genuine "image" of the world.

Unless you think all introspection is just sensations, then this is wrong. As I stated before, sensations may be a necessary part of the all introspection, but not sufficient to account for all of it. — schopenhauer1

Can you describe an act of introspection that is not accompanied by "sensations"?

Qualia is brute sensation (e.g. seeing green, hearing noise, etc.). Although imagination, and memories probably rely on qualia, etc. they are not the same as qualia. My point was there are other internal states besides just qualia that one can have. And I don't understand why you would be deflating the issue. The very question regarding the Hard Question is to understand how/why internal states are equivalent to brain processes. Anything else is not the world we live in, but P-Zombie world. That is not ours though, so it is a big deal. — schopenhauer1

You confuse me here. Perhaps my confusion confirms my ignorance about the topic? My understanding of the hard problem is that there is "something that it is like" to entertain mental states. This state of affairs, this quality if you like, is what we refer to more generally as the experience of qualia. The feeling of warmth, the colour blue, the memory of a red car, the sight of my child, and so on. When we entertain mental states they are something we can introspect upon - they have some kind of presence. If they did not, we should in a literal sense be in the dark. Our brains can and do compute a vast amount of information for which we have no felt analog. That is also what we assume computers do - undertake complex computations for which there is no felt analog, no inner experience. No qualia. Qualia are all there is, as far as the hard problem goes.

Stanford says:

"The phenomenal character of an experience is what it is like subjectively to undergo the experience. If you are told to focus your attention upon the phenomenal character of your experience, you will find that in doing so you are aware of certain qualities. These qualities — ones that are accessible to you when you introspect and that together make up the phenomenal character of the experience are sometimes called ‘qualia’. C.S. Peirce seems to have had something like this in mind when he introduced the term ‘quale’ into philosophy in 1866."

My proposition is that, on this kind of definition, were mental states not experienced (were they not attended by qualia) they should not require an explanation. There'd be no hard problem and as a consequence no claims for panpsychism.

Everything has a function, in the sense meant by functionalism, which is different from the sense you seem to mean. A function in the sense that it responds to inputs with some output: if you do something to it, it does something in response. The function of a sock or a rock is very trivial, but it still has one. Imagine for clarity that you were programming a simulation and you had to code what such a virtual object does in response to other events in the virtual world: you have to code in that the rock moves in response to being pushed, for example. That’s a kind of functionality. — Pfhorrest

I shall have to leave that as I am not familiar with the concepts. Function for me denotes an active sense of the term - that is, the term "function" in this context describes the state of affairs in which an object or system undertakes an operation where an operation is a causal physical process. A rock being moved by my foot is not a function of the rock, though it might be a function of my foot. A sock sitting on a bed is an object, not a function. It has a function, but derivatively. It can be a member OF a function, but is not A function. So I guess there is a lot more to this question of what constitutes a function.

Try imagining something. Remember an event that happened. Feel sad. Feel joy. These are things that are mental states. P-Zombies presumably don't do that but somehow act as they do. — schopenhauer1

These are all still qualia. If humans were really P-Zombies and did not entertain qualia (but nonetheless acted just as though they did), would there be any need for panpsychism as an explanation? I'm puzzled by the general line here - if a person can do all the things I do but without qualia, then it seems we could explain these behaviours without recourse to any additional property beyond those uncovered by science so far. Where would panpsychism be required?

Functionalism only addresses the easy problem of access consciousness. Critics then ask “but what about the hard problem of phenomenal consciousness?” Panpsychists reply “that’s a trivial general feature of everything, nothing special in need of explanation.” Critics then ask “So my sock is conscious just like I am?” And we reply “no, not just like, but your sock is functionally different from you too. That difference is an easy problem, already answered by functionalism.” — Pfhorrest

I assume you are defending panpsychism. If an object has no functional role of its own, how is it proposed that it could be attended by mental states (even if limited). A sock has no inherent functionality, its function is derived. The thing with mentality is that we associate it with causal relationships.

Just as an aside, I watched the whole Dennett interview and was struck by the somewhat loose nature of his answers. I got the feeling he wasn't even making much sense! When he describes the blue sky thing, he talks about how as we take away various relationships and meanings the subject becomes less conscious. Have I misunderstood him here? That amounts to saying that as we incrementally diminish the extent of conscious experience, the extent of conscious experience diminishes.

Where I cannot follow you is your denial that this symbolic domain is experienced by us as " ineffable deeply personal qualit(ies)". They are deeply personal: each of has access to our own symbolic space, and no other. And they are certainly ineffable. Language is just not equipped to transmit them directly, it can only refer to them. Red would be incommunicable to a blind person, and so on. — hypericin

I'm not disagreeing that qualia/experience is not personal, more criticising that by claiming inner experience as "ineffable" people place the domain of experience beyond understanding. Similarly, by calling such experiences deeply personal I think the protagonist for this idea is unjustifiably claiming that, as Dennett puts it, we cannot explain the first person state from the third person view. I tend to disagree. I tend to the view that this domain is accessible to physical explanation and that the qualia-laden character of experience can be described in meaningful physical terms.

y "not really phenomenal qualities", you seem to mean that they are not qualities of the world. I think most here would agree, they are contrivances of our minds. But nonetheless they are phenomenal in the sense of phenomenalism, and in this sense they are real. They are the elementals of our inner lives. — hypericin

Yes, I agree that the objects of experience are phenomenal, if by phenomenalism we mean the idea that the objects of experience are all we can work with. Not though if we extend that to the notion that objects do not exist in themselves (notwithstanding that it is probably the case that we can never really "know" the external objects themselves). Here I was more trying to get at the idea that I believe people mistake the "ineffable quality of blue" for some genuine blueness. The phenomenal character of qualia are, I believe, exhausted by their physical character. Blue is a discrimination, not a "colour".

So, it still comes back to qualia though doesn't it? P-Zombies are used to make this distinction about qualia-laden systems, but presuming we actually could have a P-Zombie, would we be inclined to posit anything about the P-Zombie that needs to be explained by panpsychism that cannot already be explained by existing theory?

When you familiarize yourself with the theory and the vocabulary, then you can begin to see how material things can participate in what we call consciousness, to the extent that they likewise instantiate these properties or tendencies. — Pantagruel

OK, but isn't that just saying what we already know and why there is a problem? Brains are material things that engage in complex processes, so this statement boils down to saying that consciousness is the same as complex system properties. Is anyone convinced by that? Isn't this just claiming that Chalmers' easy problems explain the hard problem?

Ordinary functionalism explains what is different between human brains and your socks. All that’s left after that “easy problem” is some mysterious metaphysical having of a first person perspective at all, beyond just the third person behavioral differences. Panpsychism simply says that that is not a special thing that mysteriously arises only in human brains somehow; instead it’s a trivial thing that’s everywhere always, and only those functional differences actually make any difference. — Pfhorrest

I think there is something different between the claims of panpsychism and functionalism, though? OK, so "consciousness" is a common feature of the universe which attends appropriate systems/objects and that could be so (functionalism), but that's different from saying that all systems/objects can be conscious (panpsychism). Consider computations. These are genuine processes that have some kind of causal efficacy, Chalmers would say that a system undertakes a computation when the causal structure of the system mirrors the formal structure of the computation. Whether this is strictly true or not, it does note that a computation has to map to certain physical attributes that are not present in all systems or objects. So computations are a feature of the universe that are always available but only some systems/objects can perform them. We aren't then tempted to say that all objects, eg socks, can undertake computations.

It still seems to me that panpsychism aims to eliminate the hard problem by substituting for that state of affairs which gave rise to that problem a state of affairs an order of magnitude more resistant to explanation. I think maybe sime puts it best:

From this perpsective, the main difference between panspsychism and eliminative materialism is optimism. — sime

And it's here that an unbridgeable divide opens up between those who are convinced of the hard problem and those who think it isn't a hard problem.

Either one finds the kind of explanation in your post convincing for explaining consciousness, or one finds it lacking. And yet presumably we all have color experiences. — Marchesk

I don't see it as an unbridgeable divide, more a matter of how we look at the problem. I am not proposing a solution to the hard problem, which is how we can come to have experiences. But restating the problem as not being a representational problem might get us closer.

I am not sure if Dennett's in an anti-representationalist stance. But the moment we choose to believe that what we experience represents the world, we have bought into something like the Cartesian Theatre and our problem becomes how can the actions of cells create a picture that we can see.

I believe that the clearest solution to that is to choose to believe that experience is an operational space - a kind of schematic domain, perhaps even a logical domain. It isn't telling us what the world is like, it's telling us how our operational affordances are organised.

The fact that evolution has optimised our particular operational space such that there is a pretty close approximation between the possible interactions with external objects our brains can propose and the actual interactions permissable by physics (or whatever the "laws" are that govern how objects in the world can interact) fools us a little into thinking we are really looking at (hearing, feeling) the world. But if we think instead that we are experiencing an operational space whose objects are metaphors, we can escape the notion that colours for example are actual qualities.

Does that solve the hard problem? No, we still need to work out the actual mechanism, but I think it gets us a lot closer. We no longer need to think that blue is anything more than the act of discrimination. I think this is sort of what O'Regan gets at in his book "Why Red Doesn't Sound Like A Bell". The feels of experience stand in for the possible interactions available to us, refined by evolution. That's why it probably is the case that the cells that are used to do stuff in visual cortex are much the same as the cells in auditory cortex - the cells themselves aren't the thing, it's the way they code information. The actions of cells aren't creating pictures, they are computing relationships.

So we all have blue experiences but they aren't really phenomenal qualities, no matter how much we like to say they are.

This may well be what the a function of what is happening, or the non-experienced facets of what is happening, but it doesn't take away at all from us experiencing them. IOW what you are saying does not contradict the fact that we experience something. It's additional information (you are giving) about what is happening. — Coben

Hard to offer a sensible response to that. I think my position sort of reflects Dennett's, though I really should read his ideas to better grasp where he is coming from. I read Consciousness Explained back in the 90s and didn't understand it then, but have seen references to his views in other books since which is why I *think* my view is similar to his (that is, that my opinion vaguely corresponds with his conceptions).

So, I am not discounting that we experience something. I simply mean that experience is not a kind of thing that happens to "me", experience is an operational space in which the organisation of function/behaviour is schematised. The objects of perception aren't actual objects of representation of an external world, they are metaphors of process. In a real sense, they are descriptions of what is going on internally. So qualia aren't phenomenal objects with phenomenal qualities, they are organisational artifacts. Returning to the matter of red and blue, red doesn't have a phenomenal quality even though we seem to describe it as such, it's actual property if you will is to codify (stand in for) the discriminatory properties of the brain when "triggered" by electromagnetic radiation of particular wavelengths and intensity. We cannot experience light, all we can experience is the way in which cells behave.

But my "phenomenal aspect of red" is exactly that which we could say is your phenomenal aspect of blue. — hypericin

No, because the phenomenal aspect has no genuine content, at least not in colour terms. What I am trying to get at is that red isn't a specific thing, it's really the state of discrimination. "Red" is a sort of code, if you like. Qualia are codes for discriminations, they bind up a bunch of useful information about the world such that we can distinguish between internal states. Put another way, when you discriminate between red and blue, that's all there is.

So if "that's it", and a robot can sort red and blue cards as well as you, must the robot have the same experience? — hypericin

I don't know that, I'm not proposing the solution to the hard problem. But theoretically yes. I have no idea how much functionality the robot would need to have, and something about memory will be necessary, but fundamentally yes.

Why do you believe this? Why wouldn't your memories of previous phenomenal experience remain intact? — hypericin

Because again, the experience isn't the thing at all. The discrimination is all there is. Your experience, if you like, is a simulation in which the act of perception includes the subjective perspective. Red just is different from blue, so I don't believe you can really say that it has a distinct ongoing continuity. Again, I'm not saying that in practice red today is different from yesterday, just drawing out the point that you couldn't ever know if it was. The operation of memory facilitates the firing of cell assemblies that code for red; that should result in the discrimination of "red". Red today is what red has always been, even if in the past its phenomenal character actually was different.

Of course you would experience the world as "blue", that is, you'd have a concept of the colour blue that you could use to describe your experience of this world.
— Graeme M
You are equating two things with a verbal equals sign that are entirely separate : "experience of the world", and "concept used to describe your experience". The fact that this distinction seems to elude you makes me suspect that you are, in fact, a p-zombie. — hypericin

I'm not sure of your point here, I was largely agreeing with your own statement about the blue world.

But how on earth, given this very crude system, am I supposed to communicate the actual*content* of blue?? All I can do is symbolically represent it. You are asking way too much of abstracted grunts. — hypericin

I am suggesting that there isn't anything you can say about blue because there isn't anything to be said. Colour is a description, not a thing. You use it to describe discriminations.

Seems a bit dodgy to me!!

Well, if the world contains both physical stuff and consciousness, but there doesn't seem to be a way for the physical stuff to produce consciousness, then an alternative would be that all physical stuff is conscious. — Marchesk

This depends on the presumption that consciousness is a genuine constituent of the world. Is there the slightest evidence to support the contention that it is?

There are plenty of arguments for the hard problem. Basically, no amount of objective explanation gets you to subjectivity. They're incompatible. — Marchesk

Well, at the moment perhaps. Isn't it feasible that an explanation may be forthcoming? In any case, if no objective explanation can bridge the gap, how does another non-objective explanation help?

I'm not trying to dismiss panpsychism, I just don't get how it even flies as a serious contender.

The hard problem is one of subjectivity, which can' be scientifically measured or described. — Marchesk

How can you claim this to be true?

Right, that's just functionalism. You still need the qualia. — Marchesk

So yes, panpsychism aims to explain qualia?

The article and thread linked by csalisbury is fascinating. — hypericin

I haven't read that thread - I have little time to spare so may not get to it for a while. I should, it seems.

suppose my experience of blue is your experience of red. — hypericin

On my view, this question cannot be posed. There isn't anything that is an experience of red such that we could say it is your blue. It's meaningless. If you can respond consistently to a colour that you call red and so do I, that is what red is. Consider that on this thinking, the phenomenal aspect of red (which I hope we agree is "that" particular experience which is always the same when I look at a red rose or a swatch of red) doesn't even need to be the same day to day. As long as we discriminate, that's it. If today the phenomenal aspect has a particular quality, then we'd recall all previous examples as being the same (I am not saying this really happens, merely trying to illustrate that the phenomenal aspect doesn't have to have any actual consistency over time - all that needs to be consistent is the discrimination so that behaviour is consistent).

So if I code up something with an arduino, BASIC, and a color sensor, is that thing experiencing qualia? Seems absurd, no? — hypericin

I can't answer that, I am not proposing any mechanism for how we make said discriminations and think we are experiencing red. But theoretically at least, yes (I'd have to add a lot more to explain that suggestion, but I am agreeing that in essence to discriminate in the right way mechanically is to experience red).

If you were to plop me, a creature evolved in this colorful world, into that one, I would no doubt experience everything as blue. Perhaps that would fade over years. Natives of that world would have no experience nor concept of color, and would be baffled when I tried to communicate this chromatic monotony to them. — hypericin

That isn't quite what I am saying. Of course you would experience the world as "blue", that is, you'd have a concept of the colour blue that you could use to describe your experience of this world. But that is an evolved capacity because you came from a world where discrimination supplies a fitness advantage for your species. Any creature of the monotonously blue world probably would not.

That said, my main point is to try to tease out what it is you can say about blue. Can you tell me anything about blue that doesn't depend on using a blue object to describe it? "The sky is blue" isn't telling me about blue, it's telling me that I can distinguish between the sky and the sand.

Would you say the same thing for pain or pleasure? — Marchesk

Yes.

Let's say you're driving down a familiar road and you go into autopilot as you day dream. Now, your brain is still discriminating the steering wheel, gas pedal road and anything else relevant for keeping the car on the road. But you're having a conscious experience of imagining something else entirely. How does that work on Dennett's account? — Marchesk

I'm not sure about Dennett's account of this, I haven't read much of his. Just enough to get the essential concept (I think). My personal answer is to explain this as an outcome of memory. I think that while Dennett dismisses both the Stalinesque and Orwellian hypotheses, I'd stick to the Stalinesque explanation. This is because I do not think we experience immediate brain processes, rather what we take to be everyday experience is the memory of experience. So we do in effect still "experience" (sorry, really poor words to describe what I have in mind) driving because we have devoted some attentional resources to it, but as long as nothing particularly slaient occurs to allocate more attentional resources, what will be written to memory in order to create the narrative of experience will be what I was thinking about (I suggest there is a threshold for attentional resouces that determines what we actually recall experiencing). So "consciousness" is in effect memory, which is why the Stalinesque hypothesis fits best. Still, the actual immediate processing is probably something like Dennett's multiple drafts concept.

This question really ties people up in knots. I think a big part of the problem is language - perhaps there aren't good words for the concepts involved. We seem to be accustomed, perhaps even encultured to the idea that we actually do see things in a sort of Cartesian Theatre. Very hard to shake I guess.

Personally, I agree with Dennett generally and *think* I follow his reasoning, but the language is always confusing; at least it is to me.

But to me, a conscious being, it is clear that after subtracting all these things, you are still left with the phenomenal experience of blue — hypericin

Are you? What IS the phenomenal experience of blue? I suspect nothing at all, beyond the distinctions it tokens. Blue just is what it is for your brain to be in a particular discriminatory state. As long as we agree on the distinctions, then as far as I can see we have had a "blue experience". There isn't anything beyond that, so talk of the phenomenal quality of blue is, I believe, misleading.

Let me offer a thought experiment. Perhaps I simply don't get it, but here's how I think about it. If the world were entirely blue and the only discriminations we could make related to say shadows and lines and so on, such that we were still able to distinguish shapes and distances and so on, what could we say about blue? What would be our phenomenal experience of blue? It seems to me that we wouldn't be able to say anything, that the phenomenal experience of our perception of blue would lack any particular quality. The qualities we could talk about - the qualia of experience - would be shape, distance, shade and so on. I don't think blue itself would - indeed, could - feature in our description of the feeling of perception.

If that's the case, I think the same thing applies even in the world we have. While colours seem to exist as genuine qualities with some colour-like property, I think we are mistaken. Really the only properties are those which accrue from discrimination.

Discrimination seems to be a fundamental process before we can have behaviour into the world; only things that we can discriminate can be incorporated into behavioural routines. Colour as some ineffable deeply personal quality isn't required.

So in answer to the question, no, I don't think Dennett is a p-zombie. Nevertheless, if not experiencing genuine phenomenal qualia is the definition of a p-zombie, then we are all p-zombies.