Then ask why the world is like it is in the model. If the explanation stays inside the original model, it is a tautology, and if it uses a different model, it’s not answering the original question because all the terms mean different things
There’s two huge assumptions there.
One is that everything within a model is tautologous in a deprecatory sense, a sense that renders it worthless.
The other is that any model features a unique semantics, incomparable with any other model.
The axioms of a system are tautologies, and assuming something as an axiom is widely regarded as a low value, as not really explaining it. The theorems or proofs within a system can also be regarded as tautologies, but it can take a lot of work to derive them, and their subjective value is correspondingly higher. So, a derivation of facts about subjective experience from accepted principles of physics would count as both an explanation of phenomenality and a solution to the hard problem of consciousness...but a mere assumption that qualia exist would not.
Its much more standard to assume that
there is some semantic continuity between different theories than none. That’s straightforwardly demonstrated by the fact that people tend to say Einstein had a better theory of gravity than Newton, and so on.
The specific case here is why-questions about bits of a model of the world (because I’m making the move to say it’s important that certain why-questions about mental stuff aren’t just raw data, they are asked about pieces of a model of mental phenomena). For example, suppose I think that the sky is literally a big sphere around the world, and it has the property of being blue in the day and starry in the night. If I wonder why the sky is blue, this pretty obviously isn’t going to be a logical consequence of some other part of the model. If I had a more modern model of the sky, its blueness might be a logical consequence of other things, but I wouldn’t mean quite the same thing by “sky.”
So my claim about different semantics isn’t that you can’t have any different models with overlapping semantics, it’s specifically about going from a model where some datum (e.g. looking up and seeing blue) is a trivial consequence to one where it’s a nontrivial consequence. I’m sure it’s not totally impossible for the meanings to be absolutely identical before and after, but I think it’s somewhere between exponentially unlikely and measure zero.
I’m sure it’s not totally impossible for the meanings to be absolutely identical before and after, but I think it’s somewhere between exponentially unlikely and measure zero.
Why? You seem to appealing to a theory of meaning that you haven’t made explicit.
Edit:
I should have paid more attention to your “absolutely”. I don’t have any way of guaranting that meanings are absolutely stable across theories , but I don’t think they change completely, either. Finding the right compromise is an unsolved problem.
Because there is no fixed and settled theory of meaning.
Right. Rather than having a particular definition of meaning, I’m more thinking about the social aspects of explanation. If someone could say “There are two ways of talking about this same part of the world, and both ways use the same word, but these two ways of using the word actually mean different things” and not get laughed out of the room, then that means something interesting is going on if I try to answer a question posed in one way of talking by making recourse to the other.
If I had a more modern model of the sky, its blueness might be a logical consequence of other things, but I wouldn’t mean quite the same thing by “sky.”
Yet it would be an alternative theory of the sky,not a theory of something different.
And note that what a theory asserts about a term doesn’t have to be part of the meaning of a term.
There’s two huge assumptions there.
One is that everything within a model is tautologous in a deprecatory sense, a sense that renders it worthless.
The other is that any model features a unique semantics, incomparable with any other model.
The axioms of a system are tautologies, and assuming something as an axiom is widely regarded as a low value, as not really explaining it. The theorems or proofs within a system can also be regarded as tautologies, but it can take a lot of work to derive them, and their subjective value is correspondingly higher. So, a derivation of facts about subjective experience from accepted principles of physics would count as both an explanation of phenomenality and a solution to the hard problem of consciousness...but a mere assumption that qualia exist would not.
Its much more standard to assume that
there is some semantic continuity between different theories than none. That’s straightforwardly demonstrated by the fact that people tend to say Einstein had a better theory of gravity than Newton, and so on.
Good points!
The specific case here is why-questions about bits of a model of the world (because I’m making the move to say it’s important that certain why-questions about mental stuff aren’t just raw data, they are asked about pieces of a model of mental phenomena). For example, suppose I think that the sky is literally a big sphere around the world, and it has the property of being blue in the day and starry in the night. If I wonder why the sky is blue, this pretty obviously isn’t going to be a logical consequence of some other part of the model. If I had a more modern model of the sky, its blueness might be a logical consequence of other things, but I wouldn’t mean quite the same thing by “sky.”
So my claim about different semantics isn’t that you can’t have any different models with overlapping semantics, it’s specifically about going from a model where some datum (e.g. looking up and seeing blue) is a trivial consequence to one where it’s a nontrivial consequence. I’m sure it’s not totally impossible for the meanings to be absolutely identical before and after, but I think it’s somewhere between exponentially unlikely and measure zero.
Why? You seem to appealing to a theory of meaning that you haven’t made explicit.
Edit:
I should have paid more attention to your “absolutely”. I don’t have any way of guaranting that meanings are absolutely stable across theories , but I don’t think they change completely, either. Finding the right compromise is an unsolved problem.
Because there is no fixed and settled theory of meaning.
Right. Rather than having a particular definition of meaning, I’m more thinking about the social aspects of explanation. If someone could say “There are two ways of talking about this same part of the world, and both ways use the same word, but these two ways of using the word actually mean different things” and not get laughed out of the room, then that means something interesting is going on if I try to answer a question posed in one way of talking by making recourse to the other.
How does that apply to consciousness?
Yet it would be an alternative theory of the sky,not a theory of something different.
And note that what a theory asserts about a term doesn’t have to be part of the meaning of a term.