It means that I used to belive the experience of consciousness/qualia/the hard problem is just like the sound of the heart, i.e. whitout any functional role. I never thought zombies would really be possible… just in principle. And I had my doubts even then. Don´t laugh at me because the functional role of qualia is not easy to understand.
poke:
I think you missed the point here. The question is why choclate eating feels like anything, it seems that the qulia should be unessecary for the brain function of chocolate eating behavior. The same goes with orgasm. They seem to be things that try to guide one part of the brain system with input with qualia from another in order to guide our behavior towards thinks that statistically makes us survive and reproduce. If qualia has no functional role, then the zombie argument is sound. Or this is how I have understood it attending consciousness studies here at Skövde with professor Antti Revonsuo who published his book Inner Pressence on MIT Press.
If qualia would just be a confusion it seems highly unlikely that evolution would have spent any time making qualias just for the fun of it, and qualia has to be a real event taking place in the universe, a real event that needed some energy and information content to produce.
To deny qualia today is like the behaviorists who denied cognitive processes yesterday. You are smarter than that!
Or it may be that some of you actually don´t experience qualia, sometimes I encounter people who I really doubt experiences qualia in the normal way, especially in the autism spectrum. So if you suffer from any disorder, please mention that if you are talking about qualia. But my quess is that everybody has qualia, it may just be easier to deny them if they are not connected to emotions.
Hopefully Anonymous:
It means that I used to belive the experience of consciousness/qualia/the hard problem is just like the sound of the heart, i.e. whitout any functional role. I never thought zombies would really be possible… just in principle. And I had my doubts even then. Don´t laugh at me because the functional role of qualia is not easy to understand.
poke:
I think you missed the point here. The question is why choclate eating feels like anything, it seems that the qulia should be unessecary for the brain function of chocolate eating behavior. The same goes with orgasm. They seem to be things that try to guide one part of the brain system with input with qualia from another in order to guide our behavior towards thinks that statistically makes us survive and reproduce. If qualia has no functional role, then the zombie argument is sound. Or this is how I have understood it attending consciousness studies here at Skövde with professor Antti Revonsuo who published his book Inner Pressence on MIT Press. If qualia would just be a confusion it seems highly unlikely that evolution would have spent any time making qualias just for the fun of it, and qualia has to be a real event taking place in the universe, a real event that needed some energy and information content to produce.
To deny qualia today is like the behaviorists who denied cognitive processes yesterday. You are smarter than that!
Or it may be that some of you actually don´t experience qualia, sometimes I encounter people who I really doubt experiences qualia in the normal way, especially in the autism spectrum. So if you suffer from any disorder, please mention that if you are talking about qualia. But my quess is that everybody has qualia, it may just be easier to deny them if they are not connected to emotions.