In case of the bat sonar, the answer is even simpler, IMO: we lack the capacity to experience what the world sonars like to a bat, except in the vaguest terms. Again, I don’t see this is a problem
I see that as a problem for the claim that mind-brain identity theory explains qualia. It does not enable us
to undestand the bat’s qualia, or to predict what they would be like. However, other explanations do lead
to understanding and predicting.
Again, I’m not entirely sure I understand what additional things we need to explain w.r.t qualia.
I guess I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “understanding” and “predicting”. As I said, if we could scan the bat’s brain and figure out how all of its subsystems influence each other, we would know with a very high degree of certainty what happens to it when the bat receives a sonar signal. We could identify the changes in the bat’s model of the world that would result from the sonar signal, and we could predict them ahead of time.
Thus, for example, we could say, “if the bat is in mid-flight, and hungry, and detects its sonar reflecting from a small object A of size B and shape C etc., then it would alter its model of the world to include a probable moth at the object’s approximate location (*). It would then alter course to intercept the moth, by sending out signals to its wing muscles as follows: blah blah”.
Are predictions of this sort insufficient ? If so, what additional predictions could be made by those other explanations you mentioned ?
(*) Disclaimer: I don’t really know much about the hunting habits of real-life bats.
We can’t figure out the former from the latter. If we want to know what such-and-such and experience is like, a description of a brain state won’t tell us. They might still be identical in some way we can;t understand… but
then we can’t undestand it. So it remains the case that m/b identity theory doesn’t constitute an explanation.
The map is not the territory. Just because descriptions of our brain states won’t help us figure out what subjective experiences are like (either currently or in the foreseeable future), doesn’t mean that those experiences aren’t a part of the physical world somehow. Reductionism has been a very successful paradigm in our description of the physical world, but we can’t state with any confidence that it has captured what the ontologically basic, “ground” level of physics is really like.
The map is not the territory. Just because descriptions of our brain states won’t help us figure out what subjective experiences are like (either currently or in the foreseeable future), doesn’t mean that those experiences aren’t a part of the physical world somehow
OK. I am not arguing for duaism. I am arguing against the claim tha adopting reductionism, or materialism, or m/b identity constitutes a resolution of any of any Hard Problem. What you are saying is that m/b identity might be true as unintelligible brute fact. What I am saying is that brute facts aren’t explanations.
is you parpahrase actually a fair translation of my comment? Are “mappings” things that tell people what such-and-such an experience is like, as if they had had it themselves? What, concretely, is a mapping?
Our goal is to estimate what someone else will experience, “from the inside”, in response to some stimulus—given that we know what we’d experience in response to that stimulus. One way to do it is observe our own brains in action, and compare them to the other brain under similar conditions. This way, we can directly relate specific functions of our brain to the target brain. To use a rather crude and totally inadequate example, we could say,
“Every time I feel afraid, area X of my brain lights up. And every time this bat acts in a way that’s consistent with being afraid, area Y of its brain lights up. Given this, plus what we know about biology/evolution/etc., I can say that Y performs the same function as X, with 95% confidence.”
That’s a rather crude example because brains can’t be always subdivided into neat parts like that, and because we don’t know a lot about how they work, etc. etc. Still, if we could relate the functioning of one brain to another under a variety of circumstances with some degree of certainty, we’d have a “mapping”.
When you say, “I think if another human saw this piece of paper, he’d believe it was red”, you’re referencing the “mapping” that you made between your brain and the other human’s. Sure, you probably created this mapping based on instinct or intuition, rather than based on some sort of scientific analysis, but it still works; in fact, it works so well you don’t even need to think about it.
In the case of bat sonar, we’d have to analytically match up as many of our mental functions to the bat’s, and then infer where the sonar would fit in—since we humans don’t have one of those. Thus, while we could make an educated guess, our degree of confidence in it would be low.
Agreed; but then, what is your goal ? If you are trying to answer the question, “how would it feel to have sonar”, one possible answer is, “you can’t experience it directly, but you’d be able to sort of see intermittently in the dark, except with your ears instead of eyes; here’s a detailed probabilistic model”. Is that not enough ? If not, what else are you looking for, and why do you believe that it’s achievable at all ?
Some humans do seem to have managed to experience echolocation, and you could presumably ask them about it—not that that’s terribly relevant to the broader question of experience.
Discussing whether “reductionism is true” or what is a “reductionistic explanation” feels to me like discussing whether “French cuisine is true”, it’s not apparent what particular query or method of explanation you are talking about. I think it’s best to taboo “reductionism” in discussions such as this one.
I’m still not seeing what it is that you’re trying to explain. I think you are confusing the two statements: a). “bats experience sonar”, and b). “we can experience sonar vicariously through bats, somehow”.
I’m not claiming to be able to explain anything. Some people have claimed that accepting materialism, or reductioinism, or something, solves the hard problem. I am pointing out that it doens’t. The HP is the problem
of explaining how experiential states relate in a detailed way to brain states, and materialists are no clearer about that than anyone else.
I suppose I’m as confused as the average materialist, because I don’t see what the “hard problem” even is. As far as I understand, materialism explains it away.
To put it another way, I don’t think the fact that we can’t directly experience what it’s like to be a bat is a philosophical problem that needs solving. I agree that “how experiential states relate in a detailed way to brain states” is a question worth asking, but so are many other questions, such as “how does genetic code relate in a detail way to expressed phenotypes”. People are working on it, though—just check out Nornagest’s link on this thread.
To put it another way, I don’t think the fact that we can’t directly experience what it’s like to be a bat is a philosophical problem that needs solving.
Philosophers don’t suppose that either.
“The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining how and why we have qualia or phenomenal experiences — how sensations acquire characteristics, such as colors and tastes.”—WP
People are working on it, though
Maybe but you have clearly expressed why it is difficult: you can’t predict novel qualia, or check your predictions. If you can’t state quala verbally (mathematically, etc), then it is hard to see how you could have
an explanation of qualia.
How novel are we talking ? If I have a functional model of the brain (which we currently do not, just as we don’t have a model of the entire proteome), I can predict how people and other beings will feel in response to stimuli similar to the ones they’d been exposed to in the past. I can check these predictions by asking them how they feel on one hand, and scanning their brains on the other.
I can also issue such predictions for new stimuli, of course; in fact, artists and advertisers implicitly do this every day. As for things like, “what would it feel like to have sonar”, I could issue predictions as well, though they’d be less certain.
If you can’t state quala verbally (mathematically, etc)...
I thought we were stating them verbally already, f.ex. “this font is red”. As for “mathematically”, there are all kinds of MRI studies, psychological studies, etc. out there, that are making a good attempt at it.
Thus, I’m still not sure what remains to be explained in principle. I get the feeling that maybe you’re looking for some sort of “theory of qualia” that is independent of brains, or possibly one that’s only dependent on sensory mechanisms and nothing else. I don’t think it makes sense to request such a theory, however; it’d be like asking for a “theory of falling” that excludes gravity.
They wouldn’t be novel. I don’t mean further instances of the same kind.
What do you mean, then ? I’m still rather confused. Sure, it’s interesting to imagine what it’d feel like to have bat sonar (although some people apparently don’t have to imagine), but, well, we don’t have a sonar at the moment. Once we do, we can start talking about its qualia, and see if our predictions were right.
why there is phenomenal experience at all
That’s kind of a broad question. Why do we have eyes at all ? The answer takes a few billion years...
why we see colours and smell smells—how and why quaia match up to sensory modalities.
Again, to me this sounds like, “why do our brain states change in response to stimuli received by our sensory organs (which are plugged into the brains); how and why do brain states match up to brain states”. Perhaps you mean something special by “sensory modalities” ?
I mean something like the standard meaning of ” novel prediction”. Like black holes are a novel prediction of GR
Sure “why is there experience at all” a broad question. Particularly since you wouldn’t expect to find irreducible subjectivity in a physical universe. And its another question that isn’t adressed by Accpeting Materialism.
how and why do brain states match up to brain states”
Yes, but you can’t make that work in practice. You can;t describe a quale by describig the related brain state.
For us, given our igonrance, brains states and qualia are informationally and semantically independent, even
if they are ontologically the same thing. WHich is anothe way of saying that identity theory doens’t explain much..
Perhaps you mean something special by “sensory modalities” ?
Particularly since you wouldn’t expect to find irreducible subjectivity in a physical universe.
People keep asserting that and it’s not obvious. Why would you not expect a being in a “physical” (Q1. what does this mean?) universe, to have “subjective experience” (Q2. what does that mean?)? (Q3 is the question itself)
If “physcical” is cashed out as “understandable by the methods of the physcal sciences”, then it follows that
“everything is physical” means “everything is understandable from an extenal, objective perspective”. If that is the
case, the only kind of subjectivity that could exist is a kind that can be reduced to physics, a kind whch is ultimately objective, in the way that the “mental”, for physicalists, is a subset of the physical.
That “irreducible” part is bothering me. What does it mean? I can see that it could take us out of what “materialism” would predict, but I can’t see it doing that without also taking us out of the set of phenomena we actually observe. (the meanings of irreducible that materialism prohibits are also not actually observed, AFAICT).
Anyways, getting downvoted, going to tap out now, I’ve made my case with the program and whatnot, no one wants to read the rest of this. Apologies for the bandwidth and time.
Irreducile as in reducible as in reductionism. How can you spend any time on LW and not know what reductionism is? Reducibility is not observed except the form of explanations pubished in journals and gi vn in classrooms. Irreducibility is likewise not observed.
I mean something like the standard meaning of ” novel prediction”. Like black holes are a novel prediction of GR
I don’t know enough neurobiology to offer up any novel predictions off the top of my head; here are some random links off of Google that look somewhat interesting (disclaimer: I haven’t read them yet). In general, though, the reduction of qualia directly to brain states has already yielded some useful applications in the fields of color theory (apparently, color perception is affected by culture, f.ex. Russians can discern more colors than Americans), audio compression (f.ex. ye olde MP3), and synthetic senses (people embedding magnets under their skin to sense magnetic fields).
And its another question that isn’t adressed by Accpeting Materialism.
Why not ? I do not believe that subjectivity is “irreducible”.
For us, given our igonrance, brains states and qualia are informationally and semantically independent, even if they are ontologically the same thing.
I’m not sure what this means. I mean, yes, given our ignorance, the Moon is a small, dim light source high up in the sky; but today we know better.
I mean sight is one modality hearing another.
How is this different from saying, “sight and sound are captured by different organs and processed by different sub-structures in the brain, thus leading to distinct experiences” ?
Believeing in materialism does not reduce subjectviity, and neither does believing in the reducibility of subjectivity.
I have no idea what this means. Believing or disbelieving in things generally doesn’t poof them in or out of existence, but seeing as neither of us here are omniscient, I’m not sure why you’d bring it up.
Do you believe that subjective experiences are “irreducible” ? If so, you are making a very strong existential claim, and you need to provide more evidence than you’ve done so far.
That kind of depends on what the question is, and you still haven’t told me. If the question is, “who makes the most delicious cupcakes”, then Materialism is probably not the answer. If the question is, “how do you account for the irreducibility of subjective experience”, then Materialism is not the answer either, since you have not convinced me that subjective experience is irreducible, and thus the answer is “mu”.
I haven’t told you because they haven’t told me. Which is not surprising, since thinking about what the questions are tends to reveal that materaiism doens’t answer most of them.
Ok, so there are some questions that materialism doesn’t answer, but you don’t know what those questions are, or why it doesn’t answer them ? Why are we still talking about this, then ?
I know what the questions materialism doesn’t answer are. I’ve mentioned them repeatedly. I don’t know what the questions materialism does answer are, ebcause the true Believers wont say.
I see that as a problem for the claim that mind-brain identity theory explains qualia. It does not enable us to undestand the bat’s qualia, or to predict what they would be like. However, other explanations do lead to understanding and predicting.
Understanding and predicting.
I guess I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “understanding” and “predicting”. As I said, if we could scan the bat’s brain and figure out how all of its subsystems influence each other, we would know with a very high degree of certainty what happens to it when the bat receives a sonar signal. We could identify the changes in the bat’s model of the world that would result from the sonar signal, and we could predict them ahead of time.
Thus, for example, we could say, “if the bat is in mid-flight, and hungry, and detects its sonar reflecting from a small object A of size B and shape C etc., then it would alter its model of the world to include a probable moth at the object’s approximate location (*). It would then alter course to intercept the moth, by sending out signals to its wing muscles as follows: blah blah”.
Are predictions of this sort insufficient ? If so, what additional predictions could be made by those other explanations you mentioned ?
(*) Disclaimer: I don’t really know much about the hunting habits of real-life bats.
More irrelevant. None of them are actualy about qualia, about how things seem to experiencing subjects. You have Substituted an Easier Problem.
Is “how things seem to experiencing subjects” somehow different from “things happening to the brains of experiencing subjects” ? If so, how ?
We can’t figure out the former from the latter. If we want to know what such-and-such and experience is like, a description of a brain state won’t tell us. They might still be identical in some way we can;t understand… but then we can’t undestand it. So it remains the case that m/b identity theory doesn’t constitute an explanation.
The map is not the territory. Just because descriptions of our brain states won’t help us figure out what subjective experiences are like (either currently or in the foreseeable future), doesn’t mean that those experiences aren’t a part of the physical world somehow. Reductionism has been a very successful paradigm in our description of the physical world, but we can’t state with any confidence that it has captured what the ontologically basic, “ground” level of physics is really like.
OK. I am not arguing for duaism. I am arguing against the claim tha adopting reductionism, or materialism, or m/b identity constitutes a resolution of any of any Hard Problem. What you are saying is that m/b identity might be true as unintelligible brute fact. What I am saying is that brute facts aren’t explanations.
I read this sentence as,
“If we want to build an approximate mapping between someone else’s brain states and ours, a description of a brain state won’t help us”.
That sounds contradictory to me.
is you parpahrase actually a fair translation of my comment? Are “mappings” things that tell people what such-and-such an experience is like, as if they had had it themselves? What, concretely, is a mapping?
Our goal is to estimate what someone else will experience, “from the inside”, in response to some stimulus—given that we know what we’d experience in response to that stimulus. One way to do it is observe our own brains in action, and compare them to the other brain under similar conditions. This way, we can directly relate specific functions of our brain to the target brain. To use a rather crude and totally inadequate example, we could say,
“Every time I feel afraid, area X of my brain lights up. And every time this bat acts in a way that’s consistent with being afraid, area Y of its brain lights up. Given this, plus what we know about biology/evolution/etc., I can say that Y performs the same function as X, with 95% confidence.”
That’s a rather crude example because brains can’t be always subdivided into neat parts like that, and because we don’t know a lot about how they work, etc. etc. Still, if we could relate the functioning of one brain to another under a variety of circumstances with some degree of certainty, we’d have a “mapping”.
When you say, “I think if another human saw this piece of paper, he’d believe it was red”, you’re referencing the “mapping” that you made between your brain and the other human’s. Sure, you probably created this mapping based on instinct or intuition, rather than based on some sort of scientific analysis, but it still works; in fact, it works so well you don’t even need to think about it.
In the case of bat sonar, we’d have to analytically match up as many of our mental functions to the bat’s, and then infer where the sonar would fit in—since we humans don’t have one of those. Thus, while we could make an educated guess, our degree of confidence in it would be low.
OK. The cases where confidence is low are the cases where a dexcription of a brain state won’t help.
Agreed; but then, what is your goal ? If you are trying to answer the question, “how would it feel to have sonar”, one possible answer is, “you can’t experience it directly, but you’d be able to sort of see intermittently in the dark, except with your ears instead of eyes; here’s a detailed probabilistic model”. Is that not enough ? If not, what else are you looking for, and why do you believe that it’s achievable at all ?
Some humans do seem to have managed to experience echolocation, and you could presumably ask them about it—not that that’s terribly relevant to the broader question of experience.
If reductionism is true, I would expect a reductive explanation, and I’m not getting one.
Discussing whether “reductionism is true” or what is a “reductionistic explanation” feels to me like discussing whether “French cuisine is true”, it’s not apparent what particular query or method of explanation you are talking about. I think it’s best to taboo “reductionism” in discussions such as this one.
Don’t tell me, tell EY..while I’m at a safe distance, please.
I’m still not seeing what it is that you’re trying to explain. I think you are confusing the two statements: a). “bats experience sonar”, and b). “we can experience sonar vicariously through bats, somehow”.
I’m not claiming to be able to explain anything. Some people have claimed that accepting materialism, or reductioinism, or something, solves the hard problem. I am pointing out that it doens’t. The HP is the problem of explaining how experiential states relate in a detailed way to brain states, and materialists are no clearer about that than anyone else.
I suppose I’m as confused as the average materialist, because I don’t see what the “hard problem” even is. As far as I understand, materialism explains it away.
To put it another way, I don’t think the fact that we can’t directly experience what it’s like to be a bat is a philosophical problem that needs solving. I agree that “how experiential states relate in a detailed way to brain states” is a question worth asking, but so are many other questions, such as “how does genetic code relate in a detail way to expressed phenotypes”. People are working on it, though—just check out Nornagest’s link on this thread.
Philosophers don’t suppose that either.
“The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining how and why we have qualia or phenomenal experiences — how sensations acquire characteristics, such as colors and tastes.”—WP
Maybe but you have clearly expressed why it is difficult: you can’t predict novel qualia, or check your predictions. If you can’t state quala verbally (mathematically, etc), then it is hard to see how you could have an explanation of qualia.
How novel are we talking ? If I have a functional model of the brain (which we currently do not, just as we don’t have a model of the entire proteome), I can predict how people and other beings will feel in response to stimuli similar to the ones they’d been exposed to in the past. I can check these predictions by asking them how they feel on one hand, and scanning their brains on the other.
I can also issue such predictions for new stimuli, of course; in fact, artists and advertisers implicitly do this every day. As for things like, “what would it feel like to have sonar”, I could issue predictions as well, though they’d be less certain.
I thought we were stating them verbally already, f.ex. “this font is red”. As for “mathematically”, there are all kinds of MRI studies, psychological studies, etc. out there, that are making a good attempt at it.
Thus, I’m still not sure what remains to be explained in principle. I get the feeling that maybe you’re looking for some sort of “theory of qualia” that is independent of brains, or possibly one that’s only dependent on sensory mechanisms and nothing else. I don’t think it makes sense to request such a theory, however; it’d be like asking for a “theory of falling” that excludes gravity.
They wouldn’t be novel. I don’t mean further instances of the same kind.
Do they? Surely they make arrangements of existing qualia types.
That’s no good for novel qualia.
why there is phenomenal experience at all
why we see colours and smell smells—how and why quaia match up to sensory modalities.
anything to do with quala we don’t have
Nope.
What do you mean, then ? I’m still rather confused. Sure, it’s interesting to imagine what it’d feel like to have bat sonar (although some people apparently don’t have to imagine), but, well, we don’t have a sonar at the moment. Once we do, we can start talking about its qualia, and see if our predictions were right.
That’s kind of a broad question. Why do we have eyes at all ? The answer takes a few billion years...
Again, to me this sounds like, “why do our brain states change in response to stimuli received by our sensory organs (which are plugged into the brains); how and why do brain states match up to brain states”. Perhaps you mean something special by “sensory modalities” ?
See above.
I mean something like the standard meaning of ” novel prediction”. Like black holes are a novel prediction of GR
Sure “why is there experience at all” a broad question. Particularly since you wouldn’t expect to find irreducible subjectivity in a physical universe. And its another question that isn’t adressed by Accpeting Materialism.
Yes, but you can’t make that work in practice. You can;t describe a quale by describig the related brain state. For us, given our igonrance, brains states and qualia are informationally and semantically independent, even if they are ontologically the same thing. WHich is anothe way of saying that identity theory doens’t explain much..
I mean sight is one modality hearing another.
People keep asserting that and it’s not obvious. Why would you not expect a being in a “physical” (Q1. what does this mean?) universe, to have “subjective experience” (Q2. what does that mean?)? (Q3 is the question itself)
Please respond
If “physcical” is cashed out as “understandable by the methods of the physcal sciences”, then it follows that “everything is physical” means “everything is understandable from an extenal, objective perspective”. If that is the case, the only kind of subjectivity that could exist is a kind that can be reduced to physics, a kind whch is ultimately objective, in the way that the “mental”, for physicalists, is a subset of the physical.
Ok.
What does such a statement predict wrt subjective experience?
please respond
I have said it predicts that there is no irreducible subjective experience.
That “irreducible” part is bothering me. What does it mean? I can see that it could take us out of what “materialism” would predict, but I can’t see it doing that without also taking us out of the set of phenomena we actually observe. (the meanings of irreducible that materialism prohibits are also not actually observed, AFAICT).
Anyways, getting downvoted, going to tap out now, I’ve made my case with the program and whatnot, no one wants to read the rest of this. Apologies for the bandwidth and time.
Irreducile as in reducible as in reductionism. How can you spend any time on LW and not know what reductionism is? Reducibility is not observed except the form of explanations pubished in journals and gi vn in classrooms. Irreducibility is likewise not observed.
I don’t know enough neurobiology to offer up any novel predictions off the top of my head; here are some random links off of Google that look somewhat interesting (disclaimer: I haven’t read them yet). In general, though, the reduction of qualia directly to brain states has already yielded some useful applications in the fields of color theory (apparently, color perception is affected by culture, f.ex. Russians can discern more colors than Americans), audio compression (f.ex. ye olde MP3), and synthetic senses (people embedding magnets under their skin to sense magnetic fields).
Why not ? I do not believe that subjectivity is “irreducible”.
I’m not sure what this means. I mean, yes, given our ignorance, the Moon is a small, dim light source high up in the sky; but today we know better.
How is this different from saying, “sight and sound are captured by different organs and processed by different sub-structures in the brain, thus leading to distinct experiences” ?
Bear in mind that what is important here is the prediction of experience.
Believeing in materialism does not reduce subjectviity, and neither does believing in the reducibility of subjectivity.
Yep. Explanation first, then identitfication.
I have no idea what this means. Believing or disbelieving in things generally doesn’t poof them in or out of existence, but seeing as neither of us here are omniscient, I’m not sure why you’d bring it up.
Do you believe that subjective experiences are “irreducible” ? If so, you are making a very strong existential claim, and you need to provide more evidence than you’ve done so far.
People keep telling me that Accpeting Materialism is The Answer. You don’t beleive that, don’t. But people keep tellig me.
That kind of depends on what the question is, and you still haven’t told me. If the question is, “who makes the most delicious cupcakes”, then Materialism is probably not the answer. If the question is, “how do you account for the irreducibility of subjective experience”, then Materialism is not the answer either, since you have not convinced me that subjective experience is irreducible, and thus the answer is “mu”.
I haven’t told you because they haven’t told me. Which is not surprising, since thinking about what the questions are tends to reveal that materaiism doens’t answer most of them.
Ok, so there are some questions that materialism doesn’t answer, but you don’t know what those questions are, or why it doesn’t answer them ? Why are we still talking about this, then ?
I know what the questions materialism doesn’t answer are. I’ve mentioned them repeatedly. I don’t know what the questions materialism does answer are, ebcause the true Believers wont say.