Well my opinion is that the confusion between representation and reality is on your side.
Indeed, a scientific model is a representation of reality—not reality. It can be found inside books or learned at school, it is interpreted. On the contrary, qualia are not represented but directly experienced. They are real.
Not at all. What you call “qualia” could be the combination of a mental symbol, the connections and associations this symbol has and various abstract entities. When you experience experiencing such a “quale” the actual symbol might or might not be replaced with a symbol for the symbol, possibly using a set of neural machinery overlapping with the set for the actual symbol (so you can remember or imagine things without causing all of the involuntary reactions the actual experience causes)
I define qualia as the elements of my subjective experience.
“That sounds obvious” was an euphemism. It’s more than obvious that qualia are real, it’s given, it is the only truth that does not need to be proven.
Well my opinion is that the confusion between representation and reality is on your side.
Indeed, a scientific model is a representation of reality—not reality. It can be found inside books or learned at school, it is interpreted. On the contrary, qualia are not represented but directly experienced. They are real.
That sounds obvious. No?
Not at all. What you call “qualia” could be the combination of a mental symbol, the connections and associations this symbol has and various abstract entities. When you experience experiencing such a “quale” the actual symbol might or might not be replaced with a symbol for the symbol, possibly using a set of neural machinery overlapping with the set for the actual symbol (so you can remember or imagine things without causing all of the involuntary reactions the actual experience causes)
I define qualia as the elements of my subjective experience. “That sounds obvious” was an euphemism. It’s more than obvious that qualia are real, it’s given, it is the only truth that does not need to be proven.