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What word would you use to describe the subjective experiences of people? What word do you describe something like the taste of an apple, or the appearance of t

by cmdli 4y ago

What word would you use to describe the subjective experiences of people? What word do you describe something like the taste of an apple, or the appearance of the color red? That is what Qualia refer to. I would say that it is intuitively sensible that these subjective experience exist, at least for any reasonable definition of existence.

dkbrk 4y ago
When I taste an apple that corresponds to some physical pattern in my brain: electrical impulses; neurotransmitters; neural connections being created or destroyed or changing in strength, etc. I see no reason that needs a special word to describe it, nor why that same pattern couldn't be represented abstractly in a formal language or translated to some other computational architecture.
- cmdli 4y ago
  What is corresponding to the physical pattern in your brain? What word would you use to describe that thing that is corresponding to the physical event? It becomes difficult to discuss qualia because we assume their existence so often in everyday life. We talk about our emotions, or the taste of things, or the feeling of pain. All of these things are part of the same group, which is why we find a word to describe them useful. As a potential other argument, lets say qualia do not exist, and only physical states exist. If I were then to inflict pain, would that be wrong? I would simply be causing certain chemical and electrical pathways in a humans body, which doesn't seem to have any moral quandries. The wrongness of inflicting pain only occurs when we assume that there is some qualitative aspect to it in that I am causing another person to experience pain. This isn't an airtight proof of qualia's existence, but I think it does show that we certainly act like they exist in our day to day.
  - dkbrk 4y ago
    > What is corresponding to the physical pattern in your brain? What word would you use to describe that thing that is corresponding to the physical event? This presupposes something else exists, beyond the pattern itself. I might give the pattern a label, which is in itself a pattern of its own. But that label is just a convenience, something that is useful to categorize the world into more easily managed pieces, and something that is a practical necessity because I don't have the biological ability to observe the pattern directly, to describe it in more detail including how it physically maps onto the world. Because I don't have that mapping (though it could, in principle, be determined in the laboratory with sufficient effort), it's essentially an abstract symbol and I can give it any label I like. But even without knowing the underlying pattern, I know, by inferring from our understanding of biology, that any label has some such pattern, which is its ultimate ground truth. > All of these things are part of the same group, which is why we find a word to describe them useful. That seems perfectly reasonable. I'm very much in favor of useful abstractions and categories. What I'm not quite clear on is why such abstractions should be peculiarly unique to humans. > As a potential other argument, lets say qualia do not exist, and only physical states exist. If I were then to inflict pain, would that be wrong? I would simply be causing certain chemical and electrical pathways in a humans body, which doesn't seem to have any moral quandries. I think morality is ultimately an arbitrary choice. We might be guided by moral principles or adhere to some ethical system, but even if we chose what principles we adhered to according to other principles, eventually you end up at an arbitrary choice. So, you can't ask the question of whether it is wrong in an absolute sense. Rather, it is or is not wrong with respect to some moral framework, and you can choose to adhere to a framework in which it is wrong if you like.
  - epgui 4y ago
    I really think you should try to make that argument without implicating morality. Science can teach us a lot about how things are, but trying to use it to figure out how things ought to be is not going to work. (See: David Hume's "is-ought problem")

by cmdli 4y ago

dkbrk 4y ago

When I taste an apple that corresponds to some physical pattern in my brain: electrical impulses; neurotransmitters; neural connections being created or destroyed or changing in strength, etc. I see no reason that needs a special word to describe it, nor why that same pattern couldn't be represented abstractly in a formal language or translated to some other computational architecture.

cmdli 4y ago
What is corresponding to the physical pattern in your brain? What word would you use to describe that thing that is corresponding to the physical event? It becomes difficult to discuss qualia because we assume their existence so often in everyday life. We talk about our emotions, or the taste of things, or the feeling of pain. All of these things are part of the same group, which is why we find a word to describe them useful. As a potential other argument, lets say qualia do not exist, and only physical states exist. If I were then to inflict pain, would that be wrong? I would simply be causing certain chemical and electrical pathways in a humans body, which doesn't seem to have any moral quandries. The wrongness of inflicting pain only occurs when we assume that there is some qualitative aspect to it in that I am causing another person to experience pain. This isn't an airtight proof of qualia's existence, but I think it does show that we certainly act like they exist in our day to day.
- dkbrk 4y ago
  > What is corresponding to the physical pattern in your brain? What word would you use to describe that thing that is corresponding to the physical event? This presupposes something else exists, beyond the pattern itself. I might give the pattern a label, which is in itself a pattern of its own. But that label is just a convenience, something that is useful to categorize the world into more easily managed pieces, and something that is a practical necessity because I don't have the biological ability to observe the pattern directly, to describe it in more detail including how it physically maps onto the world. Because I don't have that mapping (though it could, in principle, be determined in the laboratory with sufficient effort), it's essentially an abstract symbol and I can give it any label I like. But even without knowing the underlying pattern, I know, by inferring from our understanding of biology, that any label has some such pattern, which is its ultimate ground truth. > All of these things are part of the same group, which is why we find a word to describe them useful. That seems perfectly reasonable. I'm very much in favor of useful abstractions and categories. What I'm not quite clear on is why such abstractions should be peculiarly unique to humans. > As a potential other argument, lets say qualia do not exist, and only physical states exist. If I were then to inflict pain, would that be wrong? I would simply be causing certain chemical and electrical pathways in a humans body, which doesn't seem to have any moral quandries. I think morality is ultimately an arbitrary choice. We might be guided by moral principles or adhere to some ethical system, but even if we chose what principles we adhered to according to other principles, eventually you end up at an arbitrary choice. So, you can't ask the question of whether it is wrong in an absolute sense. Rather, it is or is not wrong with respect to some moral framework, and you can choose to adhere to a framework in which it is wrong if you like.
- epgui 4y ago
  I really think you should try to make that argument without implicating morality. Science can teach us a lot about how things are, but trying to use it to figure out how things ought to be is not going to work. (See: David Hume's "is-ought problem")