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The cones in your eye are essentially the same as the color filters, they respond to certain wavelengths and not others. It is the neurons in our brains that in
by AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
The cones in your eye are essentially the same as the color filters, they respond to certain wavelengths and not others. It is the neurons in our brains that interpret what those signals mean, as the person in the room does. It is doubtful that any single neuron has an experience of color as we would, and neither would the cone, but in aggregate the system does. There is no component that you can point to and say "that's the part that experiences the color", the same way as you can't for the room. It is only our intuition that 'inanimate objects' aren't conscious (and that people are!) that makes your's and Searle's arguments appear reasonable.
- DonaldFisk 5y agoThis is just the system argument, which I accept works well for understanding, but I'm unconvinced it works for qualia. Here's another thought experiment: Replace the coloured filters with a system consisting of a camera connected to a computer which prints out the colour, which is then read by the achromatope. Here I assume you'd argue that the camera + computer doesn't experience colours, but the system (camera + computer + achromatope) does. Now, replace the camera + computer by a person who can actually see colours, who tells the achromatope which colours they see. In that case, the person who can see colours experiences the colours, and there's no need to invoke the system argument.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y agoThis is a compelling argument, but it does make the assumption that the experiential system need necessarily wholly contain the experience of the component parts, rather than merely overlap with it. Yes, the color-sighted person can experience colors on their own, but their ability to see color is what is part of the experiential system the same way the computer's ability to see color was.