Nothing much hinges on the claim that colour qualia are not really primitive. If we could use their non-primitivity to communicate them, you would be on to something, but
the scientific understanding you mention isn’t subjectively accessible.
You seem happy with the idea that all those disparate experiences are experiences. Why not be happy with the idea that they are all qualia?
We do use their non-primitivity to communicate them. I learned the names of the colors in kindergarten as a result of a demonstration involving three kinds of rods in my eyes and photons of various wavelengths. Of course, I didn’t realize all that at the time, but the learning would have been less successful if one of my three types of photoreceptors had not been generally functional.
You seem happy with the idea that all those disparate experiences are experiences. Why not be happy with the idea that they are all qualia?
I don’t object to the word—I object to the exclusionary way it is used—the discriminatory weight it is called upon to bear. “Yeah, buddy, you and me, we have qualia. Unlike those nasty robots over there.” How did my humanity become so inextricably tied to my possession of certain kinds of sense organs? Or rather, my use of those organs.
You were not using their non- primitivity to communicate them: you were not offering or being offered a descrption that sed a decomposition of a quale into primitive terms. You were using a knowledge-by-acquaintance mechanism that happened to
be complex, although you did not know it was complex, or needed to know it was complex. In fact it could have been primitive for all you knew.
The issue about discrimination you bring up is not, I think, central. Moral relevance
is tied to the ability to suffer and enjoy. These are qualia. No one feels guilty about kicking rocks because we believe rocks don’t have pain qualia. But even if we did
believe rocks have pain qualia, the epistemological and metaphysical issues remain.
Does your objection to “discrimination” extend to treating rocks as sensitive beings?
Does your objection to “discrimination” extend to treating rocks as sensitive beings?
I certainly would treat a rock as sensitive if I had reason to believe that it would be willing to treat me as sensitive. (Maybe the only thing Kant got right!). Certainly my decision regarding how to treat rocks would have absolutely nothing to do with my guesses as to whether the way they experience the world was ontologically similar to the way I experience the world.
Even if their sensitivity were perfectly well understood in terms of geochemical cause and effect? Understood well enough to simulate? A simulation that could be connected to actuators that would act in my interests (assuming I reciprocated)? Great. Then we are in agreement. There is nothing mysterious or unsimulatable about qualia.
Nothing much hinges on the claim that colour qualia are not really primitive. If we could use their non-primitivity to communicate them, you would be on to something, but the scientific understanding you mention isn’t subjectively accessible.
You seem happy with the idea that all those disparate experiences are experiences. Why not be happy with the idea that they are all qualia?
We do use their non-primitivity to communicate them. I learned the names of the colors in kindergarten as a result of a demonstration involving three kinds of rods in my eyes and photons of various wavelengths. Of course, I didn’t realize all that at the time, but the learning would have been less successful if one of my three types of photoreceptors had not been generally functional.
I don’t object to the word—I object to the exclusionary way it is used—the discriminatory weight it is called upon to bear. “Yeah, buddy, you and me, we have qualia. Unlike those nasty robots over there.” How did my humanity become so inextricably tied to my possession of certain kinds of sense organs? Or rather, my use of those organs.
You were not using their non- primitivity to communicate them: you were not offering or being offered a descrption that sed a decomposition of a quale into primitive terms. You were using a knowledge-by-acquaintance mechanism that happened to be complex, although you did not know it was complex, or needed to know it was complex. In fact it could have been primitive for all you knew.
The issue about discrimination you bring up is not, I think, central. Moral relevance is tied to the ability to suffer and enjoy. These are qualia. No one feels guilty about kicking rocks because we believe rocks don’t have pain qualia. But even if we did believe rocks have pain qualia, the epistemological and metaphysical issues remain.
Does your objection to “discrimination” extend to treating rocks as sensitive beings?
I certainly would treat a rock as sensitive if I had reason to believe that it would be willing to treat me as sensitive. (Maybe the only thing Kant got right!). Certainly my decision regarding how to treat rocks would have absolutely nothing to do with my guesses as to whether the way they experience the world was ontologically similar to the way I experience the world.
You’re sensitive. If they were, that would be a broad similarity
Even if their sensitivity were perfectly well understood in terms of geochemical cause and effect? Understood well enough to simulate? A simulation that could be connected to actuators that would act in my interests (assuming I reciprocated)? Great. Then we are in agreement. There is nothing mysterious or unsimulatable about qualia.