4 ms·

So what is qualia, or the experience of conscious beings?

Tenoke 7y ago
I'm not saying we have an answer today, just that an answer is reachable. I can give you my currently favourite theories of course, but they are beside the point.
protonfish 7y ago
Qualia is not a scientific concept and really needs to be dismissed. (By definition it cannot be measured or observed.) I doubt you agree, but any study of consciousness that has a chance of succeeding will need to be extremely rigorous. I believe that an explanation of consciousness - much like the theory of evolution - will be both very simple and very unpopular.
- Jedi72 7y ago
  "Consciousness is god experiencing their creation, through themself" Let the downvotes rolll.....
  - JamOnItMahn 7y ago
    It's easy to downvote, but seriously, any trip down this line of thought can easily converge on topics which overlap many religions.
- corporate_shi11 7y ago
  >"Qualia is not a scientific concept" That is true. >"And really needs to be dismissed" I would agree with you if it weren't for these darn images and sounds and thoughts that flood my mind every time I wake up from the un-consciousness of sleep. It seems to me that you're recognizing the impossibility of scientific study of qualia itself (rather than correlates of it) but you are then taking the radical step of dismissing it simply because it cannot be studied scientifically. That's where we differ.
  - cr0sh 7y ago
    > every time I wake up from the un-consciousness of sleep. Do you not dream when you sleep (I mean, when you enter REM state)? I know there are people who don't - but most of us I believe do dream (and some of us can become "conscious" of being in the dream state, while continuing to dream - aka, so-called "lucid dreaming"). I'm not a researcher or anything in regards to consciousness - but I wonder if there is anything that study of people who dream vs those who don't can tell us about it?

I'm not saying we have an answer today, just that an answer is reachable. I can give you my currently favourite theories of course, but they are beside the point.

protonfish 7y ago

Qualia is not a scientific concept and really needs to be dismissed. (By definition it cannot be measured or observed.) I doubt you agree, but any study of consciousness that has a chance of succeeding will need to be extremely rigorous. I believe that an explanation of consciousness - much like the theory of evolution - will be both very simple and very unpopular.

Jedi72 7y ago
"Consciousness is god experiencing their creation, through themself" Let the downvotes rolll.....
- JamOnItMahn 7y ago
  It's easy to downvote, but seriously, any trip down this line of thought can easily converge on topics which overlap many religions.
corporate_shi11 7y ago
>"Qualia is not a scientific concept" That is true. >"And really needs to be dismissed" I would agree with you if it weren't for these darn images and sounds and thoughts that flood my mind every time I wake up from the un-consciousness of sleep. It seems to me that you're recognizing the impossibility of scientific study of qualia itself (rather than correlates of it) but you are then taking the radical step of dismissing it simply because it cannot be studied scientifically. That's where we differ.
- cr0sh 7y ago
  > every time I wake up from the un-consciousness of sleep. Do you not dream when you sleep (I mean, when you enter REM state)? I know there are people who don't - but most of us I believe do dream (and some of us can become "conscious" of being in the dream state, while continuing to dream - aka, so-called "lucid dreaming"). I'm not a researcher or anything in regards to consciousness - but I wonder if there is anything that study of people who dream vs those who don't can tell us about it?