I mean, sure, the fact that a circuit implementing the algorithm “1+1=2” returns “2″ given the instruction to execute “1+1” is entirely predictable, much as the fact that a mouse conditioned to avoid red will avoid a red room is predictable. Absolutely agreed.
But as I understand the idea of qualia, the claim is that the mouse’s predictable behavior with respect to a red room (and the neural activity that gives rise to it) is not a complete description of what’s going on… there is also the mouse’s experience of red, which is an entirely separate, nonphysical, fact about the event, which cannot be explained by current physics even in principle. (Or maybe it turns out mice don’t have an experience of red, but humans certainly do, or at least I certainly do.) Right?
Which, OK. But I also have the experience of seeing two things, just like I have the experience of seeing a red thing. On what basis do I justify the claim that that experience is completely described by a description of the physical system that calculates “2”? How do I know that my experience of 2 isn’t an entirely separate nonphysical fact about the event which cannot be explained by current physics even in principle?
Are they?
I mean, sure, the fact that a circuit implementing the algorithm “1+1=2” returns “2″ given the instruction to execute “1+1” is entirely predictable, much as the fact that a mouse conditioned to avoid red will avoid a red room is predictable. Absolutely agreed.
But as I understand the idea of qualia, the claim is that the mouse’s predictable behavior with respect to a red room (and the neural activity that gives rise to it) is not a complete description of what’s going on… there is also the mouse’s experience of red, which is an entirely separate, nonphysical, fact about the event, which cannot be explained by current physics even in principle. (Or maybe it turns out mice don’t have an experience of red, but humans certainly do, or at least I certainly do.) Right?
Which, OK. But I also have the experience of seeing two things, just like I have the experience of seeing a red thing. On what basis do I justify the claim that that experience is completely described by a description of the physical system that calculates “2”? How do I know that my experience of 2 isn’t an entirely separate nonphysical fact about the event which cannot be explained by current physics even in principle?