Can you really not imagine why I put forward those particular examples?
Sure, change the neural patterns in a person’s brain and they’ll get new experiences.
What new experiences? That’s the hard problem.
As far as non-humans are concerned, if you punch them in the face they’ll experience pain and fear or anger.
Yes, non human animals have some experiences in common with humans. They also have some that are different, like dolphin sonar. That’s the other hard problem?
Could you really not see what I was getting at?
And are you now admitting that there ever was a problem?
Sure, that’s a hard problem, but it’s not the hard problem. You can go through the usual scientific process and identify what neural patterns correlate with which experiences, but that’s all doable with solutions to the Easy Problem.
>Yes, non human animals have some experiences in common with humans. They also have some that are different, like dolphin sonar. That’s the other hard problem?
Again, sure, a hard problem, but to explain such things you can go through the usual scientific process and come up with new ontologies to describe new kinds of experiences.
In contrast, the problem with the Hard Problem is that you can’t even begin the scientific process. What it looks like to me what you’re trying to get at is that, for example, if there is a cup, we can both acknowledge that there are physical constituents that make up the cup, but you seem to pose that in addition to this there is a “cupness” to the cup. This is basically the essentialist position, which is related to philosophical realism.
In terms of consciousness, you seem to be saying that there is something it is like to be conscious, in addition to what the brain is doing from an objective standpoint. I deny that this is the case and therefore I deny that there is a problem that needs explanation. What does need explanation is why some people such as yourself claim that it requires an explanation, which I have tried to explain earlier.
You can go through the usual scientific process and identify what neural patterns correlate with which experiences
Why would you? The point of using reductive explanation is that it identifies phenomenal consciousness with neural activity, and therefore supports physicalism. On the other hand, you would still be able find correlations in a universe where dualism holds.
You can’t prove that physicslism, or anything else is true just by assuming it.
In contrast, the problem with the Hard Problem is that you can’t even begin the scientific process.
So what? You can’t assume that only things you want to explain in a particular way exist. Why would the universe care?
You seem to be assuming that science/physicslism is unfalsifiable—that if something defies scientific epistemology or physical ontology, then it can be dismissed for that reason.
In terms of consciousness, you seem to be saying that there is something it is like to be conscious, in addition to what the brain is doing from an objective standpoint.
I″m not positing that there is: I have subjective conscious experience because I’m a subject. I’m not looking at myself from the outside. Are you?
Qualia don’t go away when you stop believing in them: pains still hurt , tomatoes are still red.
In terms of consciousness, you seem to be saying that there is something it is like to be conscious, in addition to what the brain is doing from an objective standpoint
I am saying that there is something that is not , currently, explained from an objective viewpoint. It’s not the problem that assumes a non physicalist ontology, it’s the lack of solution that implies it.
>Why would you? The point of using reductuive explanation is that it *identitfies” phenomenal consciousness with neural activity, and therefore supports physicalism. On the other hand, you would still be able find correlations in a universe where dualism holds
You asked how changing neural patterns in a person’s brain can be linked to what experiences. You can use the scientific process to establish those links inasfar as they can be linked.
There is no possible universe in which dualism holds due to the interaction problem, unless you use a very narrow definition of what’s physical. (For example, I have encountered people who claimed that light is not physical. That’s fair, but that’s not the definition of physical that I or the vast majority of physicists and scientists use.)
>So what? You can’t assume that only things you want to explain in a particular way exist. Why would the universe care?
The point is that you can’t say anything meaningful about things you can’t explain using the scientific process. You can’t even say they exist. They may well exist, but you can’t tell something that doesn’t exist apart from something that can’t be explained scientifically. The scientific process is not just a particular way to explain things; indeed, the universe does not care to what degree you can know things; it just so happens that falsifying theories through predictions is the only way to know things. If horoscopes or dowsing rods were a way to know what’s true they would be science, but they aren’t so they’re not.
>I″m not positing that there is: I have subjective conscious experience because I’m a subject. I’m not looking at myself from the outside. Are you?
You are an object. Of course it looks like you’re a subject because that’s what your brain (i.e., “you”) looks like to that brain.
>I am saying that there is something that is not , currently, explained from an objective viewpoint. I’ve said so several times.
How do you decide whether a candidate explanation is sufficient to explain this something?
There is no possible universe in which dualism holds due to the interaction problem
Hopefully making this point won’t derail your discussion:
Quantum mechanics is not deterministic. This is a gap which dualists can use. The major names here might be John Eccles (in neuroscience) and Henry Stapp (in physics).
If a theory says that something is fundamentally random—e.g. when a nucleus undergoes radioactive decay—then the event had no cause. It just happened. This is an opportunity to extend the theory by introducing a cause. In these dualistic quantum mind theories, a nonphysical mind is added to quantum mechanics as an additional causal factor that determines some of the randomness.
This is an opportunity to extend the theory by introducing a cause. In these dualistic quantum mind theories, a nonphysical mind is added to quantum mechanics as an additional causal factor that determines some of the randomness.
Firstly, how would we know that the correct way to extend the theory was to introduce a nonphysical mind as a cause? How would we tell the difference between the validity of this hypothesis and that of the infinite other possible causes?
Secondly, what is the difference between something physical and nonphysical? I hope I can assume that you agree that if something exists, then it behaves in some way. It is then up to us to try to describe that behavior as far as we can. Whether or not something is physical or not seems meaningless at this point. Quarks might as well be considered supernatural, magical, nonphysical objects whose behavior we happen to be able to describe, including how our mundane, physical reality emerges from it.
Supernatural, magical and nonphysical are contradictions in terms unless one decides on some arbitrary distinction between behaviors that are such and those that are not, because they will regardless behave in some way and we can predict that behavior inasfar as we can describe it.
what is the difference between something physical and nonphysical?
In naive, pre-scientific, pre-philosophical experience, there’s a world of things that we know through the senses, and a world of our own thoughts and feelings that we know in some other way. That is the root of physical versus non-physical, or matter versus mind.
Once science and philosophy get involved, the dividing line between physical and nonphysical can shift away from its naive starting point. Idealist philosophy can try to claim everything for the mind, physical science can try to claim everything for matter.
In the case of these quantum mind theories which have a Cartesian kind of dualism (mind and matter as distinct kinds of “substance”), there is no attempt to assimilate the mental world of thoughts and feelings, to the material world of things.
For example, in the Eccles theory, apparently thoughts and feelings in some way set the probabilities of quantum events in the synapse, and that’s how the interaction of substances occurs. Thoughts and feelings may fairly be called non-physical in such a theory, because there is no attempt to identify them with attributes of the physical brain. The mental realm is made of thoughts and feelings, the physical realm is made of particles with mass and spin, they are separate kinds of entity that interact in a specific way, and that’s it.
How would we tell the difference between the validity of this hypothesis and that of the infinite other possible causes?
Any theory (whether dualist, monist, or something else) that includes both mind and matter, is constrained by two kinds of data: introspective observation of thoughts and feelings, and physical observation of the material world. So you test it against the facts, like any other theory. Facts are not always easy to ascertain, they may be ambiguous, disputed, or denied, but they are still the touchstone of truth.
You asked how changing neural patterns in a person’s brain can be linked to what experiences. You can use the scientific process to establish those links inasfar as they can be linked.
Which isnt enough to exclude dualism.
There is no possible universe in which dualism holds due to the interaction problem,
There are lots of logically universes where the interaction problem doesn’t apply.
If there is complete determinism, or physical closure, then interaction implies overdetermination. But complete determinism and physical closure aren’t logical implications of just having some sort of physics.
So what? You can’t assume that only things you want to explain in a particular way exist. Why would the universe care?
The point is that you can’t say anything meaningful about things you can’t explain using the scientific process. You can’t even say they exist. They may well exist, but you can’t tell something that doesn’t exist
Sure you can. I have qualia right now, and so do you.
apart from something that can’t be explained scientifically. The scientific process is not just a particular way to explain things; indeed, the universe does not care to what degree you can know things; it just so happens that falsifying theories through predictions is the only way to know things.
Of course not. People knew things before Francis Bacon.
If horoscopes or dowsing rods were a way to know what’s true they would be science, but they aren’t so they’re not.
Horoscopes and dowsing rods aren’t the only alternative to science.
I″m not positing that there is: I have subjective conscious experience because I’m a subject. I’m not looking at myself from the outside. Are you?
You are an object.
I’m an object to you , and a subject to me. You can doubt my qualia, but I can’t doubt your own. You would notice your own if you did not insist on looking at yourself from the outside.
Of course it looks like you’re a subject because that’s what your brain (i.e., “you”) looks like to that brain.
Of course it looks to you like I’m a object because that’s what my brain looks like to your brain.
So far, so symmetrical.
You’re not showing that the object perspective is the only possible one. You could show that by showing that all subjective phenomena reduce to objective ones, since reduction is asymmetrical. But that involves actually solving the HP, not just writing down correlations.
I am saying that there is something that is not , currently, explained from an objective viewpoint. I’ve said so several times.
How do you decide whether a candidate explanation is sufficient to explain this something?
Using the same criteria I apply to anything else, such as falsifiability the ability to make novel predictions. You are the one who is special-pleading for a lower bar.
If it mispredicts a quale , I suppose. Of course, I don’t know how an equation describes a quale, and I also don’t know how to build a qualiometer. But then I’m not on side that thinks the HP can be solved by ordinary scientific means.
I don’t know how an equation describes a quale, and I also don’t know how to build a qualiometer.
When you find an explanation, how will you know that that was the explanation you were looking for?
If as you say you don’t know in advance how to describe qualia, that means you won’t be able to recognize that an explanation actually describes qualia, which in turn means you don’t actually know what you mean when you talk about qualia.
If as you say you don’t know in advance how to measure qualia, that means the explanation’s predictions can’t be tested against observations because we won’t know whether we are actually measuring qualia, which in turn means any explanation is a priori unfalsifiable.
You need to know in advance how to describe and measure what you’re seeking to explain in such a way that a third party can use those descriptions and measurements to falsify an explanation, otherwise the falsity of any explanation depends on your personal sensibilities; somebody else may have different sensibilities and come to an equally legitimate yet contradictory decision. Presumably, we are in a shared reality where it is an objective matter of fact that we either have qualia or we don’t; it can’t be subjectively true and false at the same time, depending on who you are.
I’m not saying qualia don’t exist, but I am saying that without objective descriptions of qualia and the ability to measure them objectively we can’t tell the difference between qualia and something that doesn’t exist.
That’s the thing, though—qualia are inherently subjective. (Another phrase for them is ‘subjective experience’.) We can’t tell the difference between qualia and something that doesn’t exist, if we limit ourselves to objective descriptions of the world.
Which is to say, the difference between qualia and nothing is easy to detect subjectively
..there’s a dramatic difference between having an operation with and without anaesthetic.
That’s the thing, though—qualia are inherently subjective. (Another phrase for them is ‘subjective experience’.) We can’t tell the difference between qualia and something that doesn’t exist, if we limit ourselves to objective descriptions of the world.
That doesn’t mean qualia can be excused and are to be considered real anyway. If we don’t limit ourselves to objective descriptions of the world then anyone can legitimately claim that ghosts exist because they think they’ve seen them, or similarly that gravity waves are transported across space by angels, or that I’m actually an attack helicopter even if I don’t look like one, or any other unfalsifiable claim, including the exact opposite claims, such as that qualia actually don’t exist. You won’t be able to disagree on any grounds except that you just don’t like it, because you sacrificed the assumptions to do so in order to support your belief in qualia.
The claim is that there is a hard problem...that qualia exist enough to need explaining,...not that they are ultimately real.
At one time, the existence of meteorites was denied because it didn’t fit with what people “knew” to be true.
There’s a problem in taking scattered subjective reports as establishing some conclusion definitively...but there’s an equal and opposite problem in rejecting reports because they don’t fit a prevailing dogma.
That doesn’t mean qualia can be excused and are to be considered real anyway. If we don’t limit ourselves to objective descriptions of the world then anyone can legitimately claim that ghosts exist because they think they’ve seen them, or similarly that gravity waves are transported across space by angels, or that I’m actually an attack helicopter even if I don’t look like one, or any other unfalsifiable claim, including the exact opposite claims, such as that qualia actually don’t exist. You won’t be able to disagree on any grounds except that you just don’t like it, because you sacrificed the assumptions to do so in order to support your belief in qualia.
Those analogies don’t hold, because you’re describing claims I might make about the world outside of my subjective experience (‘ghosts are real’, ‘gravity waves are carried by angels’, etc.). You can grant that I’m the (only possible) authority on whether I’ve had a ‘seeing a ghost’ experience, or a ‘proving to my own satisfaction that angels carry gravity waves’ experience, without accepting that those experiences imply the existence of real ghosts or real angels.
I wouldn’t even ask you to go that far, because—even if we rule out the possibility that I’m deliberately lying—when I report those experiences to you I’m relying on memory. I may be mistaken about my own past experiences, and you may have legitimate reasons to think I’m mistaken about those ones. All I can say with certainty is that qualia exist, because I’m (always) having some right now.
I think this is one of those unbridgeable or at least unlikely-to-be-bridged gaps, though, because from my perspective you are telling me to sacrifice my ontology to save your epistemology. Subjective experience is at ground level for me; its existence is the one thing I know directly rather than inferring in questionable ways.
Those analogies don’t hold, because you’re describing claims I might make about the world outside of my subjective experience (‘ghosts are real’, ‘gravity waves are carried by angels’, etc.).
The analogies do hold, because you don’t get to do special pleading and claim ultimate authority about what’s real inside your subjective experience any more than about what’s real outside of it. Your subjective experience is part of our shared reality, just like mine.
People are mistaken all the time about what goes on inside their mind, about the validity of their memories, or about the real reasons behind their actions. So why should I take at face value your claims about the validity of your thoughts, especially when those thoughts lead to logical contradictions?
I think we’re mostly talking past each other, but I would of course agree that if my position contains or implies logical contradictions then that’s a problem. Which of my thoughts lead to which logical contradictions?
Let’s say the Hard Problem is real. That means solutions to the Easy Problem are insufficient, i.e., the usual physical explanations.
But when we speak about physics, we’re really talking about making predictions based on regularities in observations in general. Some observations we could explain by positing the force of gravity. Newton himself was not satisfied with this, because how does gravity “know” to pull on objects? Yet we were able to make very successful predictions about the motions of the planets and of objects on the surface of the Earth, so we considered those things “explained” by Newton’s theory of gravity. But then we noticed a slight discrepancy between some of these predictions and our observations, so Einstein came up with General Relativity to correct those predictions and now we consider these discrepancies “explained”, even though the reason why that particular theory works remains mysterious, e.g., why does spacetime exist? In general, when a hypothesis correctly predicts observations, we consider these observations scientifically explained.
Therefore to say that solutions to the Easy Problem are insufficient to explain qualia indicates (at least to me) one of two things.
Qualia have no regularity that we can observe. If they really didn’t have regularities that we could observe, we wouldn’t be able to observe that they exist, which contradicts the claim that they do exist. However, they do have regularities! We can predict qualia! Which means solutions to the Easy Problem are sufficient after all, which contradicts the assumption that they’re insufficient.
We’re aspiring to a kind of explanation for qualia over and above the scientific one, i.e., just predicting is not enough. You could posit any additional requirements for an explanation to qualify, but presumably we want an explanation to be true. You can’t know beforehand what’s true, so you can’t know that such additional requirements don’t disqualify the truth. There is only one thing that we know will be true however, namely that whatever we will observe in the future is what we will observe in the future. Therefore as long as the predictions of a theory don’t deviate from future observations, we can’t rule out that it’s accurately describing what’s actually going on, i.e., we can’t falsify it. In a way it’s a low bar, but it’s the best we can do. However, if a hypothesis makes predictions that are compatible with any and all observations, i.e., it’s unfalsifiable, then we can’t ever gain any information about its validity from any observations even in principle, which directly contradicts the assumption that you can find an explanation.
When you find an explanation, how will you know that that was the explanation you were looking for?
I’m describing how the process of explaining qualia scientifically would look.
Science isn’t based on exactly predermining an explanation before you have it.
which in turn means you don’t actually know what you mean when you talk about qualia.
Says who? If I can tell that qualia are indescribable or undetectable, I must know something of “qualia” means. One of the problems with the Logical Positivist theory of meaning is tha it can’t be the whole story.
If as you say you don’t know in advance how to measure qualia, that means the explanation’s predictions can’t be tested against observations because we won’t know whether we are actually measuring qualia,
I said we dont know how to measure qualia, not that some device might be measuring something else. One could test a qualiometer on oneself.
which in turn means any explanation is a priori unfalsifiable.
L
If you exclude qualiometers , entirely subjective approaches and a few other things, you can’t have a standard scientific explanation. You can still have a philosophical explanation, such as qualia don’t exist, qualia are non physical, etc.
You need to know in advance how to describe and measure what you’re seeking to explain in such a way that a third party can use those descriptions and measurements to falsify an explanation, otherwise the falsity of any explanation depends on your personal sensibilities; somebody else may have different sensibilities and come to an equally legitimate yet contradictory decision.
But I’m not saying there is a scientific explanation of qualia
Presumably, we are in a shared reality here it is an objective matter of fact that we either have qualia or we don’t;
And if it is an objective fact that there is some irreducible subjectivity, it is clan objective fact that it doesn’t have a full scientific explanation.
it can’t be subjectively true and false at the same time, depending on who you are.
I don’t know who is suggesting that.
I’m not saying qualia don’t exist, but I am saying that without objective descriptions of qualia and the ability to measure them objectively we can’t tell the difference between qualia and something that doesn’t exist.
But you can notice your own qualia.. anaesthesia makes a difference.
Science isn’t based on exactly predermining an explanation before you have it.
But then how you would know that a given explanation, scientific or not, explains qualia to your satisfaction? How will you be able to tell that that explanation is indeed what you were looking for before?
If I can tell that qualia are indescribable or undetectable, I must know something of “qualia” means.
People have earnestly claimed the same thing about various deities. Do you believe in those? Why would your specific belief be true if theirs weren’t? Why are you so sure you’re not mistaken?
And if it is an objective fact that there is some irreducible subjectivity
Could be, but we don’t know that.
One could test a qualiometer on oneself.
How would you determine that it is working? That if you’re seeing something red, the qualiometer says “red”? If so, how would that show that there is something more going on than what’s explained with solutions to the Easy Problem?
it can’t be subjectively true and false at the same time, depending on who you are.
I don’t know who is suggesting that.
It’s a logical consequence of claiming there is no objective fact about something.
But you can notice your own qualia.. anaesthesia makes a difference.
Again, I agree with you that subjective experience exists, but I don’t see why solutions to the Easy Problem wouldn’t satisfy you. There’s something mysterious about subjective experience, but that’s true for everything, including atoms and electromagnetic waves and chairs and the rest of objective reality. Why does anything in the universe exist? It’s “why?” all the way down.
But then how you would know that a given explanation, scientific or not, explains qualia to your satisfaction?
You keep asking the same question. If we are talking about scientific explanation: a scientific explanation of X succeeds if it is able to predict X’s, particularly novel ones, and it doesn’t mispredict X’s.
A scientific explanation of qualia is exactly that with X=qualia. It’s not a different style of explanation. It may well be impossible, but that’s another story.
As for a philosophical explanation...well, how do you know? You have some philosophical account, probably along the lines of qualia don;’t exist or aren’t meaningful, although you refuse to say which. So you have some criteria for judging that to be the best explanation.
If I can tell that qualia are indescribable or undetectable, I must know something of “qualia” means.
People have earnestly claimed the same thing about various deities.
Of course they have. To believe in Zeus youmust know what “Zeus” means, and likewise to disbelieve in Zeus.
Do you believe in those?
HUh? Why are you asking?. I said “qualia” is meaningful. I also believe in qualia, but I don’t believe in qualia just because “qualia” is meaningful, I believe in qualia because I have them, as I have stated many times.
Why would your specific belief be true if theirs weren’t?
I don’t see Zeus, I do see colours. Do you find that confusing?
How would you determine that it is working? That if you’re seeing something red, the qualiometer says “red”?
Whatever. I am not saying there is a scientific explanation of qualia.
it can’t be subjectively true and false at the same time, depending on who you are.
I don’t know who is suggesting that.
It’s a logical consequence of claiming there is no objective fact about something.
That’s conflating two senses of “subjective”. Qualia are subjective in the sense that subjects can access their own qualia, but not other peoples.
But you can notice your own qualia.. anaesthesia makes a difference.
Again, I agree with you that subjective experience exists, but I don’t see why solutions to the Easy Problem wouldn’t satisfy you.
They don’t explain subjective experience. The Easy Problem is everything except subjective experience.
There’s something mysterious about subjective experience, but that’s true for everything, including atoms and electromagnetic waves and chairs and the rest of objective reality.
The fact that qualia are physically mysterious can’t be predicted from physics .. if physicalism is true, they should as explicable as the Easy problem stuff. That suggests physicalism is wrong.
You say you see colors and have other subjective experiences and you call those qualia and I can accept that, but when I ask why solutions to the Easy Problem wouldn’t be sufficient you say it’s because you have subjective experiences, but that’s circular reasoning. You haven’t said why exactly solutions to the Easy Problem don’t satisfy you, which is why I keep asking what kind of explanation would satisfy you. I genuinely do not know, based on what you have said. It doesn’t have to be scientific.
If we are talking about scientific explanation: a scientific explanation of X succeeds if it is able to predict X’s, particularly novel ones, and it doesn’t mispredict X’s.
But it’s not clear to me how you would judge that any explanation, scientific or not, does these things for qualia, because it seems to me that solutions to the Easy Problem do exactly this; I can already predict what kind of qualia you experience, even novel ones. If I show you a piece of red paper, you will experience the qualia of red. If I give you a drink or a drug you haven’t had before I can predict that you will have a new experience. I may not be able to predict quite exactly what those experiences will be in a given situation because I don’t have complete information, but that’s true for virtually any explanation, even when using quantum mechanics.
I suspect you may now object again and say, “but that doesn’t explain subjective experience”. Then I will object again and say, “what explanation would satisfy you?”, to which you will again say, “if it predicts qualia”, to which I will say, “but we can already predict what qualia you will have in a given situation”. Then you will again object and say, “but that doesn’t explain subjective experience”. And so on.
It looks to me like you’re holding out for something you don’t know how to recognize. True, maybe an explanation is impossible, but you don’t know that either. When some great genius finally does explain it all, how will you know he’s right? You wouldn’t want to miss out, right?
They don’t explain subjective experience. The Easy Problem is everything except subjective experience.
But this is the very thing in question. Can you explain to me how exactly you come to this conclusion? Having subjective experience does not in itself imply that it’s not physical.
The fact that qualia are physically mysterious can’t be predicted from physics
I’m genuinely curious what you mean by this. Can you expand on this?
You say you see colors and have other subjective experiences and you call those qualia and I can accept that, but when I ask why solutions to the Easy Problem wouldn’t be sufficient you say it’s because you have subjective experiences,
No it’s because the Easy Problem is , by definition ,everything except subjective experience. Its [consciousness-experience] explained [however], not [consciousness] explained [physically]. It happens to be the case that easy problems can be explained physically, but its not built into the definition.
Can you explain to me how exactly you come to this conclusion? Having subjective experience does not in itself imply that it’s not physical.
Because I’ve read the passages where Chalmers defines the Easy/ Hard distinction.
“What makes the hard problem hard and almost unique is that it goes beyond problems about the performance of functions. To see this, note that 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? (1995, 202, emphasis in original).”
See? It’s not defined in terms of physicality!
Have you even read that passage before?
but that’s circular reasoning. You haven’t said why exactly solutions to the Easy Problem don’t satisfy you, which is why I keep asking what kind of explanation would satisfy you.
...an EP explanation isn’t it even trying to be an explanation of X for X=qualia.
It doesn’t have to be scientific.
If we are talking about scientific explanation: a scientific explanation of X succeeds if it is able to predict X’s, particularly novel ones, and it doesn’t mispredict X’s.
But it’s not clear to me how you would judge that any explanation, scientific or not, does these things for qualia, because it seems to me that solutions to the Easy Problem do exactly this;
Only by lowering the bar.
I can already predict what kind of qualia you experience, even novel ones.
Of course not …you can’t even express them.
If I show you a piece of red paper, you will experience the qualia of red.
I’m a colour blind super scientist , what is this Red?
If I give you a drink or a drug you haven’t had before I can predict that you will have a new experience. I may not be able to predict quite exactly what those experiences will be
Unfortunately , that’s what “predict novel experiences” means. CF other areas of science: you don’t get Nobels for saying “I predict some novel effect I cant describe or quantify”.
in a given situation because I don’t have complete information, but that’s true for virtually any explanation, even when using quantum mechanics.
The problem isnt that you don’t have infinite information, it’s that you are not reaching the base line of every other scientific theory, because “novel qualia , don’t ask me what” isn’t a meaningful prediction.
I suspect you may now object again and say, “but that doesn’t explain subjective experience”. Then I will object again and say, “what explanation would satisfy you?”, to which you will again say, “if it predicts qualia”, to which I will say, “but we can already predict what qualia you will have in a given situation”.
Not in a good enough way, you can’t.
Then you will again object and say, “but that doesn’t explain subjective experience”. And so on.
It looks to me like you’re holding out for something you don’t know how to recognize. True, maybe an explanation is impossible, but you don’t know that either. When some great genius finally does explain it all, how will you know he’s right? You wouldn’t want to miss out, right?
They don’t explain subjective experience.
The fact that qualia are physically mysterious can’t be predicted from physics
I’m genuinely curious what you mean by this. Can you expand on this?
I explained in the next clause, which you snipped:-
if physicalism is true, they [qualia] should as explicable as the Easy problem stuff.
The core issue is that there’s an inference gap between having subjective experience and the claim that it is non-physical. One doesn’t follow from the other. You can define subjective experience as non-physical, as Chalmer’s definition of the Hard Problem does, but that’s not justified. I can just as legitimately define subjective experience as physical.
I can understand why Chalmers finds subjective experience mysterious, but it’s not more mysterious than the existence of something physical such as gravity or the universe in general. Why is General Relativity enough for you to explain gravity, even though the reason for the existence of gravity is mysterious?
he core issue is that there’s an inference gap between having subjective experience and the claim that it is non-physical.
Of course there is. There is no reason there should not be. Who told you otherwise? Chalmers takes hundreds of pages to set out his argument.
Physical reductionism is compatible with the idea that the stuff at the bottom of the stack is irreducible, but consciousness appears to be a high level phenomenon.
Chalmers takes hundreds of pages to set out his argument.
His argument does not bridge that gap. He, like you, does not provide objective criteria for a satisfying explanation, which means by definition you do not know what the thing is that requires explanation, no matter how many words are used trying to describe it.
I know. Like I said, neither Chalmers nor you or anyone else have shown it plausible that subjective experience is non-physical. Moreover, you repeatedly avoid giving an objective description what you’re looking for.
Until either of the above change, there is no reason to think there is a Hard Problem.
Also., the existence of a problem does not depend on the existence of a solution.
Agreed, but even if no possible solution can ultimately satisfy objective properties, until those properties are defined the problem itself remains undefined. Can you define these objective properties?
All I’m asking for is a way for other people to determine whether a given explanation will satisfy you. You haven’t given enough information to do that. Until that changes we can’t know that we even agree on the meaning of the Hard Problem.
The meaning of the Hard Problem doesn’t depend on satisfying me, since I didn’t invent it. If you want to find out what it is, you need to read Chalmers at some point.
Can you really not imagine why I put forward those particular examples?
What new experiences? That’s the hard problem.
Yes, non human animals have some experiences in common with humans. They also have some that are different, like dolphin sonar. That’s the other hard problem?
Could you really not see what I was getting at?
And are you now admitting that there ever was a problem?
>What new experiences? That’s the hard problem.
Sure, that’s a hard problem, but it’s not the hard problem. You can go through the usual scientific process and identify what neural patterns correlate with which experiences, but that’s all doable with solutions to the Easy Problem.
>Yes, non human animals have some experiences in common with humans. They also have some that are different, like dolphin sonar. That’s the other hard problem?
Again, sure, a hard problem, but to explain such things you can go through the usual scientific process and come up with new ontologies to describe new kinds of experiences.
In contrast, the problem with the Hard Problem is that you can’t even begin the scientific process. What it looks like to me what you’re trying to get at is that, for example, if there is a cup, we can both acknowledge that there are physical constituents that make up the cup, but you seem to pose that in addition to this there is a “cupness” to the cup. This is basically the essentialist position, which is related to philosophical realism.
In terms of consciousness, you seem to be saying that there is something it is like to be conscious, in addition to what the brain is doing from an objective standpoint. I deny that this is the case and therefore I deny that there is a problem that needs explanation. What does need explanation is why some people such as yourself claim that it requires an explanation, which I have tried to explain earlier.
Why would you? The point of using reductive explanation is that it identifies phenomenal consciousness with neural activity, and therefore supports physicalism. On the other hand, you would still be able find correlations in a universe where dualism holds.
You can’t prove that physicslism, or anything else is true just by assuming it.
So what? You can’t assume that only things you want to explain in a particular way exist. Why would the universe care?
You seem to be assuming that science/physicslism is unfalsifiable—that if something defies scientific epistemology or physical ontology, then it can be dismissed for that reason.
I″m not positing that there is: I have subjective conscious experience because I’m a subject. I’m not looking at myself from the outside. Are you?
Qualia don’t go away when you stop believing in them: pains still hurt , tomatoes are still red.
I am saying that there is something that is not , currently, explained from an objective viewpoint. It’s not the problem that assumes a non physicalist ontology, it’s the lack of solution that implies it.
>Why would you? The point of using reductuive explanation is that it *identitfies” phenomenal consciousness with neural activity, and therefore supports physicalism. On the other hand, you would still be able find correlations in a universe where dualism holds
You asked how changing neural patterns in a person’s brain can be linked to what experiences. You can use the scientific process to establish those links inasfar as they can be linked.
There is no possible universe in which dualism holds due to the interaction problem, unless you use a very narrow definition of what’s physical. (For example, I have encountered people who claimed that light is not physical. That’s fair, but that’s not the definition of physical that I or the vast majority of physicists and scientists use.)
>So what? You can’t assume that only things you want to explain in a particular way exist. Why would the universe care?
The point is that you can’t say anything meaningful about things you can’t explain using the scientific process. You can’t even say they exist. They may well exist, but you can’t tell something that doesn’t exist apart from something that can’t be explained scientifically. The scientific process is not just a particular way to explain things; indeed, the universe does not care to what degree you can know things; it just so happens that falsifying theories through predictions is the only way to know things. If horoscopes or dowsing rods were a way to know what’s true they would be science, but they aren’t so they’re not.
>I″m not positing that there is: I have subjective conscious experience because I’m a subject. I’m not looking at myself from the outside. Are you?
You are an object. Of course it looks like you’re a subject because that’s what your brain (i.e., “you”) looks like to that brain.
>I am saying that there is something that is not , currently, explained from an objective viewpoint. I’ve said so several times.
How do you decide whether a candidate explanation is sufficient to explain this something?
Hopefully making this point won’t derail your discussion:
Quantum mechanics is not deterministic. This is a gap which dualists can use. The major names here might be John Eccles (in neuroscience) and Henry Stapp (in physics).
MWI is deterministic.
How could dualists use a random process?
If a theory says that something is fundamentally random—e.g. when a nucleus undergoes radioactive decay—then the event had no cause. It just happened. This is an opportunity to extend the theory by introducing a cause. In these dualistic quantum mind theories, a nonphysical mind is added to quantum mechanics as an additional causal factor that determines some of the randomness.
Firstly, how would we know that the correct way to extend the theory was to introduce a nonphysical mind as a cause? How would we tell the difference between the validity of this hypothesis and that of the infinite other possible causes?
Secondly, what is the difference between something physical and nonphysical? I hope I can assume that you agree that if something exists, then it behaves in some way. It is then up to us to try to describe that behavior as far as we can. Whether or not something is physical or not seems meaningless at this point. Quarks might as well be considered supernatural, magical, nonphysical objects whose behavior we happen to be able to describe, including how our mundane, physical reality emerges from it.
Supernatural, magical and nonphysical are contradictions in terms unless one decides on some arbitrary distinction between behaviors that are such and those that are not, because they will regardless behave in some way and we can predict that behavior inasfar as we can describe it.
In naive, pre-scientific, pre-philosophical experience, there’s a world of things that we know through the senses, and a world of our own thoughts and feelings that we know in some other way. That is the root of physical versus non-physical, or matter versus mind.
Once science and philosophy get involved, the dividing line between physical and nonphysical can shift away from its naive starting point. Idealist philosophy can try to claim everything for the mind, physical science can try to claim everything for matter.
In the case of these quantum mind theories which have a Cartesian kind of dualism (mind and matter as distinct kinds of “substance”), there is no attempt to assimilate the mental world of thoughts and feelings, to the material world of things.
For example, in the Eccles theory, apparently thoughts and feelings in some way set the probabilities of quantum events in the synapse, and that’s how the interaction of substances occurs. Thoughts and feelings may fairly be called non-physical in such a theory, because there is no attempt to identify them with attributes of the physical brain. The mental realm is made of thoughts and feelings, the physical realm is made of particles with mass and spin, they are separate kinds of entity that interact in a specific way, and that’s it.
Any theory (whether dualist, monist, or something else) that includes both mind and matter, is constrained by two kinds of data: introspective observation of thoughts and feelings, and physical observation of the material world. So you test it against the facts, like any other theory. Facts are not always easy to ascertain, they may be ambiguous, disputed, or denied, but they are still the touchstone of truth.
Which isnt enough to exclude dualism.
There are lots of logically universes where the interaction problem doesn’t apply.
If there is complete determinism, or physical closure, then interaction implies overdetermination. But complete determinism and physical closure aren’t logical implications of just having some sort of physics.
Sure you can. I have qualia right now, and so do you.
Of course not. People knew things before Francis Bacon.
Horoscopes and dowsing rods aren’t the only alternative to science.
I’m an object to you , and a subject to me. You can doubt my qualia, but I can’t doubt your own. You would notice your own if you did not insist on looking at yourself from the outside.
Of course it looks to you like I’m a object because that’s what my brain looks like to your brain.
So far, so symmetrical.
You’re not showing that the object perspective is the only possible one. You could show that by showing that all subjective phenomena reduce to objective ones, since reduction is asymmetrical. But that involves actually solving the HP, not just writing down correlations.
Using the same criteria I apply to anything else, such as falsifiability the ability to make novel predictions. You are the one who is special-pleading for a lower bar.
How do you decide that an explanation specifically for this something (that is not currently explained from an objective viewpoint) is falsified?
If it mispredicts a quale , I suppose. Of course, I don’t know how an equation describes a quale, and I also don’t know how to build a qualiometer. But then I’m not on side that thinks the HP can be solved by ordinary scientific means.
When you find an explanation, how will you know that that was the explanation you were looking for?
If as you say you don’t know in advance how to describe qualia, that means you won’t be able to recognize that an explanation actually describes qualia, which in turn means you don’t actually know what you mean when you talk about qualia.
If as you say you don’t know in advance how to measure qualia, that means the explanation’s predictions can’t be tested against observations because we won’t know whether we are actually measuring qualia, which in turn means any explanation is a priori unfalsifiable.
You need to know in advance how to describe and measure what you’re seeking to explain in such a way that a third party can use those descriptions and measurements to falsify an explanation, otherwise the falsity of any explanation depends on your personal sensibilities; somebody else may have different sensibilities and come to an equally legitimate yet contradictory decision. Presumably, we are in a shared reality where it is an objective matter of fact that we either have qualia or we don’t; it can’t be subjectively true and false at the same time, depending on who you are.
I’m not saying qualia don’t exist, but I am saying that without objective descriptions of qualia and the ability to measure them objectively we can’t tell the difference between qualia and something that doesn’t exist.
That’s the thing, though—qualia are inherently subjective. (Another phrase for them is ‘subjective experience’.) We can’t tell the difference between qualia and something that doesn’t exist, if we limit ourselves to objective descriptions of the world.
Which is to say, the difference between qualia and nothing is easy to detect subjectively ..there’s a dramatic difference between having an operation with and without anaesthetic.
That doesn’t mean qualia can be excused and are to be considered real anyway. If we don’t limit ourselves to objective descriptions of the world then anyone can legitimately claim that ghosts exist because they think they’ve seen them, or similarly that gravity waves are transported across space by angels, or that I’m actually an attack helicopter even if I don’t look like one, or any other unfalsifiable claim, including the exact opposite claims, such as that qualia actually don’t exist. You won’t be able to disagree on any grounds except that you just don’t like it, because you sacrificed the assumptions to do so in order to support your belief in qualia.
The claim is that there is a hard problem...that qualia exist enough to need explaining,...not that they are ultimately real.
At one time, the existence of meteorites was denied because it didn’t fit with what people “knew” to be true.
There’s a problem in taking scattered subjective reports as establishing some conclusion definitively...but there’s an equal and opposite problem in rejecting reports because they don’t fit a prevailing dogma.
Those analogies don’t hold, because you’re describing claims I might make about the world outside of my subjective experience (‘ghosts are real’, ‘gravity waves are carried by angels’, etc.). You can grant that I’m the (only possible) authority on whether I’ve had a ‘seeing a ghost’ experience, or a ‘proving to my own satisfaction that angels carry gravity waves’ experience, without accepting that those experiences imply the existence of real ghosts or real angels.
I wouldn’t even ask you to go that far, because—even if we rule out the possibility that I’m deliberately lying—when I report those experiences to you I’m relying on memory. I may be mistaken about my own past experiences, and you may have legitimate reasons to think I’m mistaken about those ones. All I can say with certainty is that qualia exist, because I’m (always) having some right now.
I think this is one of those unbridgeable or at least unlikely-to-be-bridged gaps, though, because from my perspective you are telling me to sacrifice my ontology to save your epistemology. Subjective experience is at ground level for me; its existence is the one thing I know directly rather than inferring in questionable ways.
The analogies do hold, because you don’t get to do special pleading and claim ultimate authority about what’s real inside your subjective experience any more than about what’s real outside of it. Your subjective experience is part of our shared reality, just like mine.
People are mistaken all the time about what goes on inside their mind, about the validity of their memories, or about the real reasons behind their actions. So why should I take at face value your claims about the validity of your thoughts, especially when those thoughts lead to logical contradictions?
I think we’re mostly talking past each other, but I would of course agree that if my position contains or implies logical contradictions then that’s a problem. Which of my thoughts lead to which logical contradictions?
Let’s say the Hard Problem is real. That means solutions to the Easy Problem are insufficient, i.e., the usual physical explanations.
But when we speak about physics, we’re really talking about making predictions based on regularities in observations in general. Some observations we could explain by positing the force of gravity. Newton himself was not satisfied with this, because how does gravity “know” to pull on objects? Yet we were able to make very successful predictions about the motions of the planets and of objects on the surface of the Earth, so we considered those things “explained” by Newton’s theory of gravity. But then we noticed a slight discrepancy between some of these predictions and our observations, so Einstein came up with General Relativity to correct those predictions and now we consider these discrepancies “explained”, even though the reason why that particular theory works remains mysterious, e.g., why does spacetime exist? In general, when a hypothesis correctly predicts observations, we consider these observations scientifically explained.
Therefore to say that solutions to the Easy Problem are insufficient to explain qualia indicates (at least to me) one of two things.
Qualia have no regularity that we can observe. If they really didn’t have regularities that we could observe, we wouldn’t be able to observe that they exist, which contradicts the claim that they do exist. However, they do have regularities! We can predict qualia! Which means solutions to the Easy Problem are sufficient after all, which contradicts the assumption that they’re insufficient.
We’re aspiring to a kind of explanation for qualia over and above the scientific one, i.e., just predicting is not enough. You could posit any additional requirements for an explanation to qualify, but presumably we want an explanation to be true. You can’t know beforehand what’s true, so you can’t know that such additional requirements don’t disqualify the truth. There is only one thing that we know will be true however, namely that whatever we will observe in the future is what we will observe in the future. Therefore as long as the predictions of a theory don’t deviate from future observations, we can’t rule out that it’s accurately describing what’s actually going on, i.e., we can’t falsify it. In a way it’s a low bar, but it’s the best we can do. However, if a hypothesis makes predictions that are compatible with any and all observations, i.e., it’s unfalsifiable, then we can’t ever gain any information about its validity from any observations even in principle, which directly contradicts the assumption that you can find an explanation.
I’m describing how the process of explaining qualia scientifically would look.
Science isn’t based on exactly predermining an explanation before you have it.
Says who? If I can tell that qualia are indescribable or undetectable, I must know something of “qualia” means. One of the problems with the Logical Positivist theory of meaning is tha it can’t be the whole story.
I said we dont know how to measure qualia, not that some device might be measuring something else. One could test a qualiometer on oneself.
L
If you exclude qualiometers , entirely subjective approaches and a few other things, you can’t have a standard scientific explanation. You can still have a philosophical explanation, such as qualia don’t exist, qualia are non physical, etc.
But I’m not saying there is a scientific explanation of qualia
And if it is an objective fact that there is some irreducible subjectivity, it is clan objective fact that it doesn’t have a full scientific explanation.
I don’t know who is suggesting that.
But you can notice your own qualia.. anaesthesia makes a difference.
But then how you would know that a given explanation, scientific or not, explains qualia to your satisfaction? How will you be able to tell that that explanation is indeed what you were looking for before?
People have earnestly claimed the same thing about various deities. Do you believe in those? Why would your specific belief be true if theirs weren’t? Why are you so sure you’re not mistaken?
Could be, but we don’t know that.
How would you determine that it is working? That if you’re seeing something red, the qualiometer says “red”? If so, how would that show that there is something more going on than what’s explained with solutions to the Easy Problem?
It’s a logical consequence of claiming there is no objective fact about something.
Again, I agree with you that subjective experience exists, but I don’t see why solutions to the Easy Problem wouldn’t satisfy you. There’s something mysterious about subjective experience, but that’s true for everything, including atoms and electromagnetic waves and chairs and the rest of objective reality. Why does anything in the universe exist? It’s “why?” all the way down.
You keep asking the same question. If we are talking about scientific explanation: a scientific explanation of X succeeds if it is able to predict X’s, particularly novel ones, and it doesn’t mispredict X’s.
A scientific explanation of qualia is exactly that with X=qualia. It’s not a different style of explanation. It may well be impossible, but that’s another story.
As for a philosophical explanation...well, how do you know? You have some philosophical account, probably along the lines of qualia don;’t exist or aren’t meaningful, although you refuse to say which. So you have some criteria for judging that to be the best explanation.
Of course they have. To believe in Zeus youmust know what “Zeus” means, and likewise to disbelieve in Zeus.
HUh? Why are you asking?. I said “qualia” is meaningful. I also believe in qualia, but I don’t believe in qualia just because “qualia” is meaningful, I believe in qualia because I have them, as I have stated many times.
I don’t see Zeus, I do see colours. Do you find that confusing?
Whatever. I am not saying there is a scientific explanation of qualia.
That’s conflating two senses of “subjective”. Qualia are subjective in the sense that subjects can access their own qualia, but not other peoples.
They don’t explain subjective experience. The Easy Problem is everything except subjective experience.
The fact that qualia are physically mysterious can’t be predicted from physics .. if physicalism is true, they should as explicable as the Easy problem stuff. That suggests physicalism is wrong.
You say you see colors and have other subjective experiences and you call those qualia and I can accept that, but when I ask why solutions to the Easy Problem wouldn’t be sufficient you say it’s because you have subjective experiences, but that’s circular reasoning. You haven’t said why exactly solutions to the Easy Problem don’t satisfy you, which is why I keep asking what kind of explanation would satisfy you. I genuinely do not know, based on what you have said. It doesn’t have to be scientific.
But it’s not clear to me how you would judge that any explanation, scientific or not, does these things for qualia, because it seems to me that solutions to the Easy Problem do exactly this; I can already predict what kind of qualia you experience, even novel ones. If I show you a piece of red paper, you will experience the qualia of red. If I give you a drink or a drug you haven’t had before I can predict that you will have a new experience. I may not be able to predict quite exactly what those experiences will be in a given situation because I don’t have complete information, but that’s true for virtually any explanation, even when using quantum mechanics.
I suspect you may now object again and say, “but that doesn’t explain subjective experience”. Then I will object again and say, “what explanation would satisfy you?”, to which you will again say, “if it predicts qualia”, to which I will say, “but we can already predict what qualia you will have in a given situation”. Then you will again object and say, “but that doesn’t explain subjective experience”. And so on.
It looks to me like you’re holding out for something you don’t know how to recognize. True, maybe an explanation is impossible, but you don’t know that either. When some great genius finally does explain it all, how will you know he’s right? You wouldn’t want to miss out, right?
But this is the very thing in question. Can you explain to me how exactly you come to this conclusion? Having subjective experience does not in itself imply that it’s not physical.
I’m genuinely curious what you mean by this. Can you expand on this?
No it’s because the Easy Problem is , by definition ,everything except subjective experience. Its [consciousness-experience] explained [however], not [consciousness] explained [physically]. It happens to be the case that easy problems can be explained physically, but its not built into the definition.
Because I’ve read the passages where Chalmers defines the Easy/ Hard distinction.
“What makes the hard problem hard and almost unique is that it goes beyond problems about the performance of functions. To see this, note that 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? (1995, 202, emphasis in original).”
See? It’s not defined in terms of physicality!
Have you even read that passage before?
...an EP explanation isn’t it even trying to be an explanation of X for X=qualia.
Only by lowering the bar.
Of course not …you can’t even express them.
I’m a colour blind super scientist , what is this Red?
Unfortunately , that’s what “predict novel experiences” means. CF other areas of science: you don’t get Nobels for saying “I predict some novel effect I cant describe or quantify”.
The problem isnt that you don’t have infinite information, it’s that you are not reaching the base line of every other scientific theory, because “novel qualia , don’t ask me what” isn’t a meaningful prediction.
Not in a good enough way, you can’t.
Then you will again object and say, “but that doesn’t explain subjective experience”. And so on. It looks to me like you’re holding out for something you don’t know how to recognize. True, maybe an explanation is impossible, but you don’t know that either. When some great genius finally does explain it all, how will you know he’s right? You wouldn’t want to miss out, right? They don’t explain subjective experience.
I explained in the next clause, which you snipped:-
if physicalism is true, they [qualia] should as explicable as the Easy problem stuff.
The core issue is that there’s an inference gap between having subjective experience and the claim that it is non-physical. One doesn’t follow from the other. You can define subjective experience as non-physical, as Chalmer’s definition of the Hard Problem does, but that’s not justified. I can just as legitimately define subjective experience as physical.
I can understand why Chalmers finds subjective experience mysterious, but it’s not more mysterious than the existence of something physical such as gravity or the universe in general. Why is General Relativity enough for you to explain gravity, even though the reason for the existence of gravity is mysterious?
Of course there is. There is no reason there should not be. Who told you otherwise? Chalmers takes hundreds of pages to set out his argument.
Physical reductionism is compatible with the idea that the stuff at the bottom of the stack is irreducible, but consciousness appears to be a high level phenomenon.
His argument does not bridge that gap. He, like you, does not provide objective criteria for a satisfying explanation, which means by definition you do not know what the thing is that requires explanation, no matter how many words are used trying to describe it.
The discussion was about whether there is a Hard Problem , not whether Chalmers or I have solved it.
I know. Like I said, neither Chalmers nor you or anyone else have shown it plausible that subjective experience is non-physical. Moreover, you repeatedly avoid giving an objective description what you’re looking for.
Until either of the above change, there is no reason to think there is a Hard Problem.
Like.I said, I don’t have to justify non physicalism when that is not.what the discussion is about.
Also., the existence of a problem does not depend on the existence of a solution.
Agreed, but even if no possible solution can ultimately satisfy objective properties, until those properties are defined the problem itself remains undefined. Can you define these objective properties?
Weve been through this.
You don’t have a non circular argument that everything is objective
It can be an objective fact that subjectivity exists.
All I’m asking for is a way for other people to determine whether a given explanation will satisfy you. You haven’t given enough information to do that. Until that changes we can’t know that we even agree on the meaning of the Hard Problem.
The meaning of the Hard Problem doesn’t depend on satisfying me, since I didn’t invent it. If you want to find out what it is, you need to read Chalmers at some point.