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Why do I need to convince you I experience qualia? You're welcome to propose models that omit it, but they'll fail basic logic to me: they fail to explain the

Why do I need to convince you I experience qualia? You're welcome to propose models that omit it, but they'll fail basic logic to me: they fail to explain the only experiment Im absolutely sure of the results of and which is continually running while I'm existing. Im less sure gravity exists than that qualia does for me. It's entirely possible no one else does, or that they experience a different qualia. It's also not possible to prove that you do to others. I see no point in trying to convince non-qualia-experiencing entities that I experience it, because they fundamentally don't have experiences and I don't think it's possible to bridge that gap.

simonh 10y ago
To me that, and 'I think therefore I am' are just I'm a special snowflake arguments. I take the simulated Intelligence argument the same way. Suppose you could create a simulation of an intelligence that was indistinguishable from a real one? Well then, you'd have created an artificial intelligence. If such a thing reported that it experienced qualia I'd have no reason to doubt it. Edit: to put it differently. Suppose I built a model of a Formula 1 engine. I used different materials at a different scale and used a different fuel, but to precise tolerances so that it could actually run. Would it be a Formula 1 engine? No. Would it be an internal combustion engine? Of course, nobody would doubt it.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  I think you're wrong about them being "special snowflake" arguments, and likely miss the point of them. Those arguments are very low-level in the intellectual stack, and can only address matters of subjective self because what they seek to establish or discuss is more fundamental than concepts like objectivity. (Well, cogito ergo sum is establishing an objective fact from a subjective one to give a basis for later objective discovery.) Any full accounting of the world must explain the mechanism by which I experience it, or it hasn't explained the only part of the world Im sure exists (my experience of it), and hence can't be a full accounting. You can have a very good predictive model for features of that experience, but neglecting that experience -- qualia -- is leaving a major thing unexplained. Similarly, cogito ergo sum is likely better phrased as "computation ergo existence" -- the process of doubting is a form of doing something, and so something must exist which is doing that (or is that process). This establishes that there must be some sort of existence, even if it's just a brain in a jar, random memory from quantum noise, etc. You can't doubt there's an existence, because the very act of doubting is proof of existing. You can only doubt the form of it. I also disagree that we'd have no reason to doubt the claim, but I agree we have no a prior reason to reject it. Your edit also makes a major assumption: that we know what causes qualia (our brain structure). That's the very thing being debated, so you're just begging the question.
  - simonh 10y ago
    But the qualia argument isn't just that a full description of a mind must explain qualia, it's that the nature of qualia are such that no description of a mind can possibly explain them. Philosophers like David Chalmers are making a specific very strong claim, which I see no reason to accept. I can't right now explain how qualia arise from the mechanisms in our brain, but I see no reason to suppose that such an explanation is impossible.

simonh 10y ago

To me that, and 'I think therefore I am' are just I'm a special snowflake arguments. I take the simulated Intelligence argument the same way. Suppose you could create a simulation of an intelligence that was indistinguishable from a real one? Well then, you'd have created an artificial intelligence. If such a thing reported that it experienced qualia I'd have no reason to doubt it. Edit: to put it differently. Suppose I built a model of a Formula 1 engine. I used different materials at a different scale and used a different fuel, but to precise tolerances so that it could actually run. Would it be a Formula 1 engine? No. Would it be an internal combustion engine? Of course, nobody would doubt it.

SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
I think you're wrong about them being "special snowflake" arguments, and likely miss the point of them. Those arguments are very low-level in the intellectual stack, and can only address matters of subjective self because what they seek to establish or discuss is more fundamental than concepts like objectivity. (Well, cogito ergo sum is establishing an objective fact from a subjective one to give a basis for later objective discovery.) Any full accounting of the world must explain the mechanism by which I experience it, or it hasn't explained the only part of the world Im sure exists (my experience of it), and hence can't be a full accounting. You can have a very good predictive model for features of that experience, but neglecting that experience -- qualia -- is leaving a major thing unexplained. Similarly, cogito ergo sum is likely better phrased as "computation ergo existence" -- the process of doubting is a form of doing something, and so something must exist which is doing that (or is that process). This establishes that there must be some sort of existence, even if it's just a brain in a jar, random memory from quantum noise, etc. You can't doubt there's an existence, because the very act of doubting is proof of existing. You can only doubt the form of it. I also disagree that we'd have no reason to doubt the claim, but I agree we have no a prior reason to reject it. Your edit also makes a major assumption: that we know what causes qualia (our brain structure). That's the very thing being debated, so you're just begging the question.
- simonh 10y ago
  But the qualia argument isn't just that a full description of a mind must explain qualia, it's that the nature of qualia are such that no description of a mind can possibly explain them. Philosophers like David Chalmers are making a specific very strong claim, which I see no reason to accept. I can't right now explain how qualia arise from the mechanisms in our brain, but I see no reason to suppose that such an explanation is impossible.