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> Nobody (that I'm aware of) suggests that there is an experience within the electronic circuit, despite the fact that it "senses" different frequencies in the

by bnralt 4y ago

> Nobody (that I'm aware of) suggests that there is an experience within the electronic circuit, despite the fact that it "senses" different frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum. The circuit is qualia-free. Your thought experiment actually shows why a materialistic model makes much more sense than any model that takes "the hard problem" seriously. It's trivially easy to show that the human brown is much more complex than an electronic circuit that registers red or blue light, and that the human brain is doing much more. It's no surprise to anyone that a simple circuit like that lacks an abstraction of the world around it. But if you believe qualia is an actual thing, than how can you show that the circuit lacks it? No one seems to be able to come up with any way of measuring qualia, or even showing that it exists. There's no way to show that we have more of it than the circuit, and we're left relying on what "feels right." Before demanding that models solve "the hard problem," we should first ask ourselves if there's any evidence that "the hard problem" even exists. The only evidence I've seen anyone provide for qualia is that they feel they have it, or extremely contrived thought experiments where people feel like it makes the most sense. Counter to this is the entirety of science showing that the world we live in is one that is an emergent one of physical properties. Which, yes, leads to a good number of surprising things. Creationists thought that god had to have a role in creating life, because they couldn't conceive that something as complex as an eye could be an emergent feature of random physical properties. "Hard problem" folks think that there must be some sort of non-physical "qualia," because they can't comprehend that our experiences are simply an emergent feature of the extremely complex neurons in our brains. Yet scientists that actually study these things don't run into these problems, and keep using the physical model because it's the only one that has made any sense so far.

nicoburns 4y ago
> The only evidence I've seen anyone provide for qualia is that they feel they have it Is that not sufficient? It's Descartes' "I think therefore I am". Qualia are just experiences, so if you experience something then they exist. I don't think qualia need to be non-physical. The "hard problem" remains even if they are physical, because they don't exist within our current understanding of physics and thus still need to be explained. Actually, reading https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/#Uses https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/#Uses, it seems that your restricted definition of qualia "Qualia as intrinsic, nonphysical, ineffable properties" is one use of the term. But it also has a more general meaning: "Qualia as phenomenal character. Consider your visual experience as you stare at a bright turquoise color patch in a paint store. There is something it is like for you subjectively to undergo that experience. What it is like to undergo the experience is very different from what it is like for you to experience a dull brown color patch. This difference is a difference in what is often called ‘phenomenal character’."
- bnralt 4y ago
  > Is that not sufficient? It's Descartes' "I think therefore I am". Qualia are just experiences, so if you experience something then they exist. If you experience something, some experience exists. It does not mean that qualia exists. I've had people use the same personal experiential evidence for the soul, god, reiki, and a whole host of other metaphysical phenomenon. Hopefully we can agree that someone relating their experience of the metaphysical is not sufficient evidence that the metaphysical exists (if it is, we need to believe in a whole host of things). I've followed a lot of neuroscience research. I've never seen any that says "hey, we've run into this problem, but it can't be solved by our current understanding of physics." The "hard problem" seems to reside entirely in the realm of philosophy. There might be a few neuroscientists who engage it in an informal way from time to time, but by and large the people who actually study the mind don't seem to have this problem. That's not to say that there's not a lot left to learn. There is. But there's no evidence that anything like the "hard problem" or "qualia" exists or is a barrier to our understanding of the brain.
  - nicoburns 4y ago
    > I've followed a lot of neuroscience research. I've never seen any that says "hey, we've run into this problem, but it can't be solved by our current understanding of physics." That's because neuroscience explicitly avoids the philosophical problems of the mind as a premise of the entire discipline. The "hard problem" is that we can reach a point where neuroscience has completely explained human behaviour, and we still won't have explained the existence of experience or how it relates to the physical world. Neuroscience doesn't worry about the "hard problem" because it isn't even close to solving the "easy problem" yet. > If you experience something, some experience exists. It does not mean that qualia exists. I believe that "qualia" as used in the context of the "hard problem" is just "experience". It doesn't imply anything more specific than that. To quote Chalmers who coined the term "hard problem": "...even when we have explained the performance of all the cognitive and behavioral functions in the vicinity of experience—perceptual discrimination, categorization, internal access, verbal report—there may still remain a further unanswered question: Why is the performance of these functions accompanied by experience?" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousnes...) What he is talking about is just experience. Not a more specific meaning of qualia (i.e. definition 1, not 2, 3, or 4 on this list https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/#Uses https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/#Uses)

by bnralt 4y ago

nicoburns 4y ago

> The only evidence I've seen anyone provide for qualia is that they feel they have it Is that not sufficient? It's Descartes' "I think therefore I am". Qualia are just experiences, so if you experience something then they exist. I don't think qualia need to be non-physical. The "hard problem" remains even if they are physical, because they don't exist within our current understanding of physics and thus still need to be explained. Actually, reading https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/#Uses https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/#Uses, it seems that your restricted definition of qualia "Qualia as intrinsic, nonphysical, ineffable properties" is one use of the term. But it also has a more general meaning: "Qualia as phenomenal character. Consider your visual experience as you stare at a bright turquoise color patch in a paint store. There is something it is like for you subjectively to undergo that experience. What it is like to undergo the experience is very different from what it is like for you to experience a dull brown color patch. This difference is a difference in what is often called ‘phenomenal character’."

bnralt 4y ago
> Is that not sufficient? It's Descartes' "I think therefore I am". Qualia are just experiences, so if you experience something then they exist. If you experience something, some experience exists. It does not mean that qualia exists. I've had people use the same personal experiential evidence for the soul, god, reiki, and a whole host of other metaphysical phenomenon. Hopefully we can agree that someone relating their experience of the metaphysical is not sufficient evidence that the metaphysical exists (if it is, we need to believe in a whole host of things). I've followed a lot of neuroscience research. I've never seen any that says "hey, we've run into this problem, but it can't be solved by our current understanding of physics." The "hard problem" seems to reside entirely in the realm of philosophy. There might be a few neuroscientists who engage it in an informal way from time to time, but by and large the people who actually study the mind don't seem to have this problem. That's not to say that there's not a lot left to learn. There is. But there's no evidence that anything like the "hard problem" or "qualia" exists or is a barrier to our understanding of the brain.
- nicoburns 4y ago
  > I've followed a lot of neuroscience research. I've never seen any that says "hey, we've run into this problem, but it can't be solved by our current understanding of physics." That's because neuroscience explicitly avoids the philosophical problems of the mind as a premise of the entire discipline. The "hard problem" is that we can reach a point where neuroscience has completely explained human behaviour, and we still won't have explained the existence of experience or how it relates to the physical world. Neuroscience doesn't worry about the "hard problem" because it isn't even close to solving the "easy problem" yet. > If you experience something, some experience exists. It does not mean that qualia exists. I believe that "qualia" as used in the context of the "hard problem" is just "experience". It doesn't imply anything more specific than that. To quote Chalmers who coined the term "hard problem": "...even when we have explained the performance of all the cognitive and behavioral functions in the vicinity of experience—perceptual discrimination, categorization, internal access, verbal report—there may still remain a further unanswered question: Why is the performance of these functions accompanied by experience?" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousnes...) What he is talking about is just experience. Not a more specific meaning of qualia (i.e. definition 1, not 2, 3, or 4 on this list https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/#Uses https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/#Uses)