“Intentionality” is an unfortunate word choice here, because it’s not primarily about intention in the sense of will. Blame Brentano, and Searle for following him, for that word choice. Intentionality means aboutness, i.e. a semantic relation between word and object, belief and fact, or desire and outcome. The last example shows that intention in the sense of will is included within “intentionality” as Searle uses it, but it’s not the only example. Your argument is still plausible and relevant, and I’ll try to reply in a moment.
As you suggest, I didn’t even bother trying to argue against the contention that qualia are prerequisite for intentionality. Not because I don’t think an argument can be made, but mainly because the Less Wrong community doesn’t seem to need any convincing, or didn’t until you came along. My argument basically amounts to pointing to plausible theories of what the semantic relationship is, such as teleosemantics or asymmetric dependence, and noting that qualia are not mentioned or implied in those theories.
Now to answer your argument. I do think it’s conceivable for an agent to have intentions to act, and have perceptions of facts, without having qualia as we know them. Call this agent Robbie Robot. Robbie is still a subject, in the sense that, e.g. “Robbie knows that the blue box fits inside the red one” is true, and expresses a semantic relation, and Robbie is the subject of that sentence. But Robbie doesn’t have a subjective experience of red or blue; it only has an objective perception of red or blue. Unlike humans, Robbie has no cognitive access to an intermediate state between the actual external world of boxes, and the ultimate cognitive achievement of knowing that this box is red. Robbie is not subject to tricks of lighting. Robbie cannot be drugged in a way that makes it see colors differently. When it comes to box colors, Robbie is infallible, and therefore there is no such thing as “appears to be red” or “seems blue” to Robbie. There is no veil of perception. There is only reality. Perfect engineering has eliminated subjectivity.
This little story seems wildly improbable, but it’s not self-contradictory. I think it shows that knowledge and (repeat the story with suitable substitutions) intentional action need not imply subjectivity.
“Intentionality” is an unfortunate word choice here, because it’s not primarily about intention in the sense of will. Blame Brentano, and Searle for following him, for that word choice. Intentionality means aboutness, i.e. a semantic relation between word and object, belief and fact, or desire and outcome. The last example shows that intention in the sense of will is included within “intentionality” as Searle uses it, but it’s not the only example. Your argument is still plausible and relevant, and I’ll try to reply in a moment.
As you suggest, I didn’t even bother trying to argue against the contention that qualia are prerequisite for intentionality. Not because I don’t think an argument can be made, but mainly because the Less Wrong community doesn’t seem to need any convincing, or didn’t until you came along. My argument basically amounts to pointing to plausible theories of what the semantic relationship is, such as teleosemantics or asymmetric dependence, and noting that qualia are not mentioned or implied in those theories.
Now to answer your argument. I do think it’s conceivable for an agent to have intentions to act, and have perceptions of facts, without having qualia as we know them. Call this agent Robbie Robot. Robbie is still a subject, in the sense that, e.g. “Robbie knows that the blue box fits inside the red one” is true, and expresses a semantic relation, and Robbie is the subject of that sentence. But Robbie doesn’t have a subjective experience of red or blue; it only has an objective perception of red or blue. Unlike humans, Robbie has no cognitive access to an intermediate state between the actual external world of boxes, and the ultimate cognitive achievement of knowing that this box is red. Robbie is not subject to tricks of lighting. Robbie cannot be drugged in a way that makes it see colors differently. When it comes to box colors, Robbie is infallible, and therefore there is no such thing as “appears to be red” or “seems blue” to Robbie. There is no veil of perception. There is only reality. Perfect engineering has eliminated subjectivity.
This little story seems wildly improbable, but it’s not self-contradictory. I think it shows that knowledge and (repeat the story with suitable substitutions) intentional action need not imply subjectivity.