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Qualia and thoughts are distinct, but to say the former doesn't exist just seems nonsensical to me. Qualia are self-evident by their very nature. I look at some

Qualia and thoughts are distinct, but to say the former doesn't exist just seems nonsensical to me. Qualia are self-evident by their very nature. I look at something red and I experience the appearance of red, and I don't know how someone who experiences that can say it doesn't happen. I could believe the red thing doesn't exist, and that the experience is caused by something else, but to say my experience of a red thing doesn't exist is just clearly false.

naasking 10y ago
> Qualia and thoughts are distinct, but to say the former doesn't exist just seems nonsensical to me. I'm sure it does, just like it probably seems nonsensical to deny that water breaks pencils. I mean, just look at it, you can just see it for yourself. How could you possibly deny the evidence of your own eyes? It's obvious to someone who is ignorant of any broader context, that water simply must break pencils and reconstitute them. We are likewise ignorant of the broader context of what constitutes consciousness, and we're all just flapping our gums making exactly these same fallacious arguments. Like I initially said, "doesn't exist"/illusion has a specific meaning. It doesn't mean that we don't have perceptions or that perceptions don't convey some kind of knowledge, but merely that perception is not truly subjective, and so qualia don't deserve distinguished ontological status. Their apparent irreducibility is an illusion, a mental trick, like the many optical and auditory illusions to which our brain is susceptible. I highly recommend reading the paper on the attention schema model of consciousness [1] for an idea of how a real scientific theory might explain this trick. [1] http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00500/full http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00...
- aninhumer 10y ago
  >I'm sure it does, just like it probably seems nonsensical to deny that water breaks pencils. But you're not saying that the pencil is not broken, you're saying I can't see a broken pencil. >but merely that perception is not trulky subjective I'm not sure what distinction you're making? What would it mean for something to be "truly subjective"? >I highly recommend reading the paper on the attention schema model of consciousness Hmm, the paper makes some interesting observations about the nature of awareness as part of the mind model, and it explains how a p-zombie could believe it has a subjective experience of that model. ...but I know I'm not a p-zombie. Even if I can't prove it to you, I know I definitely have subjective experience.
  - naasking 10y ago
    > But you're not saying that the pencil is not broken, you're saying I can't see a broken pencil. No, I'm saying you're inferring a false conclusion (the pencil is broken/we have subjectivity) from an inherently flawed perception (I see a broken pencil sitting in water/I perceive subjectivity). For the sake of argument, let's assume the mental model of the paper I linked to. Our pseudo-perception of our own subjectivity is really a false conclusion we infer from a differential between the signal we receive from our perceptions of the outside world, with the signal from our internal model of ourselves perceiving the outside world. The constant switching back and forth as these signals consecutively dominate each other, combined with our slow perceptual response time relative to this switching, yields the illusion of subjectivity, similar to how a uniprocessor computer yields the illusion of real parallelism by context switching processes thousands of times per second. It's still just an illusion though. > I'm not sure what distinction you're making? What would it mean for something to be "truly subjective"? Subjective in the ontological sense, in that it cannot be reduced to an account consisting purely of third-person objective facts. Certainly we perceive a type of "epistemic subjectivity" that's inherent to our distinct perspectives, but that's not true subjectivity in the ontological sense, like qualia. > ...but I know I'm not a p-zombie. Even if I can't prove it to you, I know I definitely have subjective experience. Materialistic theories of consciousness necessarily deny the conceivability of p-zombies, so you have nothing to prove. Any system with the same information processing structure as the model described in the paper (or whatever the "correct" model may be) would necessarily have consciousness. There is no non-functional "secret sauce" by which you can construct a p-zombie.

naasking 10y ago

> Qualia and thoughts are distinct, but to say the former doesn't exist just seems nonsensical to me. I'm sure it does, just like it probably seems nonsensical to deny that water breaks pencils. I mean, just look at it, you can just see it for yourself. How could you possibly deny the evidence of your own eyes? It's obvious to someone who is ignorant of any broader context, that water simply must break pencils and reconstitute them. We are likewise ignorant of the broader context of what constitutes consciousness, and we're all just flapping our gums making exactly these same fallacious arguments. Like I initially said, "doesn't exist"/illusion has a specific meaning. It doesn't mean that we don't have perceptions or that perceptions don't convey some kind of knowledge, but merely that perception is not truly subjective, and so qualia don't deserve distinguished ontological status. Their apparent irreducibility is an illusion, a mental trick, like the many optical and auditory illusions to which our brain is susceptible. I highly recommend reading the paper on the attention schema model of consciousness [1] for an idea of how a real scientific theory might explain this trick. [1] http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00500/full http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00...

aninhumer 10y ago
>I'm sure it does, just like it probably seems nonsensical to deny that water breaks pencils. But you're not saying that the pencil is not broken, you're saying I can't see a broken pencil. >but merely that perception is not trulky subjective I'm not sure what distinction you're making? What would it mean for something to be "truly subjective"? >I highly recommend reading the paper on the attention schema model of consciousness Hmm, the paper makes some interesting observations about the nature of awareness as part of the mind model, and it explains how a p-zombie could believe it has a subjective experience of that model. ...but I know I'm not a p-zombie. Even if I can't prove it to you, I know I definitely have subjective experience.
- naasking 10y ago
  > But you're not saying that the pencil is not broken, you're saying I can't see a broken pencil. No, I'm saying you're inferring a false conclusion (the pencil is broken/we have subjectivity) from an inherently flawed perception (I see a broken pencil sitting in water/I perceive subjectivity). For the sake of argument, let's assume the mental model of the paper I linked to. Our pseudo-perception of our own subjectivity is really a false conclusion we infer from a differential between the signal we receive from our perceptions of the outside world, with the signal from our internal model of ourselves perceiving the outside world. The constant switching back and forth as these signals consecutively dominate each other, combined with our slow perceptual response time relative to this switching, yields the illusion of subjectivity, similar to how a uniprocessor computer yields the illusion of real parallelism by context switching processes thousands of times per second. It's still just an illusion though. > I'm not sure what distinction you're making? What would it mean for something to be "truly subjective"? Subjective in the ontological sense, in that it cannot be reduced to an account consisting purely of third-person objective facts. Certainly we perceive a type of "epistemic subjectivity" that's inherent to our distinct perspectives, but that's not true subjectivity in the ontological sense, like qualia. > ...but I know I'm not a p-zombie. Even if I can't prove it to you, I know I definitely have subjective experience. Materialistic theories of consciousness necessarily deny the conceivability of p-zombies, so you have nothing to prove. Any system with the same information processing structure as the model described in the paper (or whatever the "correct" model may be) would necessarily have consciousness. There is no non-functional "secret sauce" by which you can construct a p-zombie.