Heterophenomenology immediately closes the door to Camp #2 style reasoning, which is all about leveraging the fact of experience as a phenomenon above and beyond our reports of it.
One can report that one’s experiences are not fully describable in one’s reports, and people often do. Heterophenomenology as an exclusive approach also implies refusing to introspect ones own consciousness, which seems highly question-begging to Camp 2. In the ears of Camp #2-ers, Camp #1 people say a lot of wacky stuff, and they usually don’t realize how wacky they sound.
-It’s obvious that conscious experience exists.
-Yes, it sure looks like the brain is doing a lot of non-parallel processing that involves several spatially distributed brain areas at once, so
-You mean, it looks from the outside. But I’m not just talking about the computational process, which I am not even aware of as such, I am talking about qualia, conscious experience.
-Define qualia
-Look at a sunset. The way it looks is a quale. taste some chocolate,. The way it tastes is a quale.
-Well, I got my experimental subject to look at a sunset and taste some chocolate, and wrote down their reports. What’s that supposed to tell me?
-No, I mean you do it.
-OK, but I don’t see how that proves the existence of non-material experience stuff!
-I didn’t say it does!
-Buy you qualophiles are all the same—you’re all dualists and you all believe in zombies!
-Sigh....!
for Camp #1, the labels “consciousness” and “physical information processing in the brain” refer to the same thing;
That’s neurologically false: most information processing in the brain is unconscious.
In the two camps post, I mentioned the difficulty of formulating a well-defined crux between Camp #1 and Camp #2 (i.e., a claim that everyone in one camp will agree with and everyone in the other will disagree with).
I would have thought it was “subjective evidence is evidence, too”. Or the stronger form “all evidence is fundamentally subjective evidence, perceptions by subjects, and then a subset is counted as objective on basis of measurability, intersubjective agreement, etc”
Remember that the physicalist case against qualia is that qualia are not found on the physical map—which is presumed to be a complete description of the territory—so they do not exist in the territory. The counterargument is that physics is based on incomplete evidence (see above) and is not even trying to model anything subjective.
Many theories agree that a Cartesian Theater exists, though they usually won’t describe it as such. Conversely, the Multiple Drafts Model is what Dennett champions throughout the book.
OK. So what? If there isn’t a CT , then …there isn’t a single definitive set of qualia. That includes the idea that there are no qualia at all , but doesn’t necessitate it. Most of CE just isn’t relevant to qualophilia, providing you take a lightweight view of qualia.
What is all the fuss about? Denett takes it that qualia have a conjunction of properties, and if any one is missing, so much for qualia.
. “Some philosophers (e.g, Dennett 1987, 1991) use the term ‘qualia’ in a still more restricted way so that qualia are intrinsic properties of experiences that are also ineffable, nonphysical, and ‘given’ to their subjects incorrigibly (without the possibility of error). ”
But what the fuss is about is materialism, versus dualism, etc.
From that point of view, not all the properties of qualia are equal—and, in fact, it is the ineffability/subjectivty that causes the problems, not the directness/certainty.
(I find it striking, BTW, that neither review quotes Dennet’s anti-qualia argument.
Camp #2 people usually start with the assumption that qualia must exist because they perceive them, and if someone wants to convince them otherwise, it’s their job to find good arguments. Such arguments usually come down to whether or not one can be mistaken about perceiving qualia.
“Exist enough to need explaining”. If you want to say they are illusions, you need to explain how the illusion is generated. “Enough to need explaining” is quite compatible with MD.
It’s conceivable that a blindsight subject could be trained to volunteer guesses, thus narrowing the behavioral gap
But, speculation aside, blindsight, vision without qualia, is worse than normal vision. Also, synaesthesia can be an advantage in problem solving. So there are two phenomenal which are only describable in terms of some kind of phenomenality or qualia—and where qualia make a difference.
Mary’s Room has already received a much more thorough treatment than what’s found in the book.
That’s a relative rather than absolute claim. The article has pushback from camp 2
Note that if you accept that Mary wouldn’t be able to tell what red looks like, you have admitted that physicalism is wrong in one sense , ie. it isn’t a compete description of everything; and if you think the answer is that Mary needs to instantiate the brain state, then you imply that it is false in another sense, that there are fundamentally subjective states.
That’s a relative rather than absolute claim. The article has pushback from camp 2
Yeah—I didn’t mean to imply that orthormal was or wasn’t successful in dissolving the thought experiment, only that his case (plus that of some of the commenters who agreed with him) is stronger than what Dennett provides in the book.
One can report that one’s experiences are not fully describable in one’s reports, and people often do. Heterophenomenology as an exclusive approach also implies refusing to introspect ones own consciousness, which seems highly question-begging to Camp 2. In the ears of Camp #2-ers, Camp #1 people say a lot of wacky stuff, and they usually don’t realize how wacky they sound.
-It’s obvious that conscious experience exists.
-Yes, it sure looks like the brain is doing a lot of non-parallel processing that involves several spatially distributed brain areas at once, so
-You mean, it looks from the outside. But I’m not just talking about the computational process, which I am not even aware of as such, I am talking about qualia, conscious experience.
-Define qualia
-Look at a sunset. The way it looks is a quale. taste some chocolate,. The way it tastes is a quale.
-Well, I got my experimental subject to look at a sunset and taste some chocolate, and wrote down their reports. What’s that supposed to tell me?
-No, I mean you do it.
-OK, but I don’t see how that proves the existence of non-material experience stuff!
-I didn’t say it does!
-Buy you qualophiles are all the same—you’re all dualists and you all believe in zombies!
-Sigh....!
That’s neurologically false: most information processing in the brain is unconscious.
I would have thought it was “subjective evidence is evidence, too”. Or the stronger form “all evidence is fundamentally subjective evidence, perceptions by subjects, and then a subset is counted as objective on basis of measurability, intersubjective agreement, etc”
Remember that the physicalist case against qualia is that qualia are not found on the physical map—which is presumed to be a complete description of the territory—so they do not exist in the territory. The counterargument is that physics is based on incomplete evidence (see above) and is not even trying to model anything subjective.
OK. So what? If there isn’t a CT , then …there isn’t a single definitive set of qualia. That includes the idea that there are no qualia at all , but doesn’t necessitate it. Most of CE just isn’t relevant to qualophilia, providing you take a lightweight view of qualia.
What is all the fuss about? Denett takes it that qualia have a conjunction of properties, and if any one is missing, so much for qualia.
But what the fuss is about is materialism, versus dualism, etc. From that point of view, not all the properties of qualia are equal—and, in fact, it is the ineffability/subjectivty that causes the problems, not the directness/certainty.
(I find it striking, BTW, that neither review quotes Dennet’s anti-qualia argument.
“Exist enough to need explaining”. If you want to say they are illusions, you need to explain how the illusion is generated. “Enough to need explaining” is quite compatible with MD.
But, speculation aside, blindsight, vision without qualia, is worse than normal vision. Also, synaesthesia can be an advantage in problem solving. So there are two phenomenal which are only describable in terms of some kind of phenomenality or qualia—and where qualia make a difference.
That’s a relative rather than absolute claim. The article has pushback from camp 2
Note that if you accept that Mary wouldn’t be able to tell what red looks like, you have admitted that physicalism is wrong in one sense , ie. it isn’t a compete description of everything; and if you think the answer is that Mary needs to instantiate the brain state, then you imply that it is false in another sense, that there are fundamentally subjective states.
Yeah—I didn’t mean to imply that orthormal was or wasn’t successful in dissolving the thought experiment, only that his case (plus that of some of the commenters who agreed with him) is stronger than what Dennett provides in the book.