we are already incapable of defining qualia, and our agreement to use this word is based on the fact that we are all aware of the existence of one indefinable concept that appears to have a relationship with our brain states...If Yudkowsky claims that “qualia” is a confusion, then this is a refusal to accept the consensus regarding the name of the indefinable concept
Assuming that there’s a good deal of rich content in the world we don’t understand that is covered by our label “qualia”, the explanation for our use of a single label is that the generally undifferentiated confusion us label-makers have all feels the same from the inside.
The actual content of this unknown area might be divided in three equal parts, two new weird concepts (unphysicality and fundamental irreducibility) and one mundane one already constituting some of our mental maps (reductionism).
Our use of a single word for a lump of confusion doesn’t strongly imply that there is one underlying concept.
There probably is only one explanation, rather than two or especially three, for why we feel we don’t fully understand because that is a simpler explanation. But my point is that the use of a single new label does not imply that the things described are a single new concept—they could be parts of two new and one old, or all one new, or all one old.
Lessdazed, I was trying to argue that the use of a single word renders Yudkowsky’s arguments untrue, unless he is in fact presuming certain facts about this “confusion”. The implications of what he is arguing differ depending on the features of the “confusion” as I was grasping towards in my article and finally pointed out there.
I also suggested that if Bayesian rationality were to tell me that I don’t have qualia (i.e. if a thorough investigation of the brain found only an eliminative materialist explanation of the confusion “consciousness”) then I would view that as a refutation of the general applicability of Bayesian rationality to this unique case rather than a refutation of qualia. That is a measure of my confidence that I do have qualia. This may be attractive to negative karma, but I believe that it would be the actual humanly realistic response (in the scenario that investigation of the brain resolves the confusion in this particular way) of most Bayesians. It is also somewhat a restatement of Richard Kennaway’s aphorism here
I await (more in hope than expectation) recognition of the fact that Yudkowsky’s argument fails to refute extra-physicalism, or any explicit defence of the idea that he refuted it.
Assuming that there’s a good deal of rich content in the world we don’t understand that is covered by our label “qualia”, the explanation for our use of a single label is that the generally undifferentiated confusion us label-makers have all feels the same from the inside.
The actual content of this unknown area might be divided in three equal parts, two new weird concepts (unphysicality and fundamental irreducibility) and one mundane one already constituting some of our mental maps (reductionism).
Our use of a single word for a lump of confusion doesn’t strongly imply that there is one underlying concept.
There probably is only one explanation, rather than two or especially three, for why we feel we don’t fully understand because that is a simpler explanation. But my point is that the use of a single new label does not imply that the things described are a single new concept—they could be parts of two new and one old, or all one new, or all one old.
Lessdazed, I was trying to argue that the use of a single word renders Yudkowsky’s arguments untrue, unless he is in fact presuming certain facts about this “confusion”. The implications of what he is arguing differ depending on the features of the “confusion” as I was grasping towards in my article and finally pointed out there.
I also suggested that if Bayesian rationality were to tell me that I don’t have qualia (i.e. if a thorough investigation of the brain found only an eliminative materialist explanation of the confusion “consciousness”) then I would view that as a refutation of the general applicability of Bayesian rationality to this unique case rather than a refutation of qualia. That is a measure of my confidence that I do have qualia. This may be attractive to negative karma, but I believe that it would be the actual humanly realistic response (in the scenario that investigation of the brain resolves the confusion in this particular way) of most Bayesians. It is also somewhat a restatement of Richard Kennaway’s aphorism here
I await (more in hope than expectation) recognition of the fact that Yudkowsky’s argument fails to refute extra-physicalism, or any explicit defence of the idea that he refuted it.