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Re: Qualia
Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2015 4:53 pm
by Arising_uk
raw_thought wrote:Exactly! There is information ( the visualized triangle) that is not represented physically. Scroll back. I have not ruled out the idea that neurons firing may facilitate a visualized triangle because that has nothing to do with the argument.
The visualized triangle is an example of a qualia because it does not have the physical shape of a triangle even tho it is perceived as a triangle.
I'm unsure why you think that this argument refutes materialism as it is physically represented in the activation pattern of the neurons?
Re: Qualia
Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2015 5:32 pm
by raw_thought
raw_thought wrote:1. It is self evident that one can visualize a triangle.
2. The visualized triangle has no physicality. The neurons are not firing in a triangular shape etc. There is not a physical triangle in a person's brain when he/she visualizes one.
Note that saying that the brain has no physical triangle but facilitates it misses the point. It is similar to saying that holding a CD of Mozart's music is equivalent to hearing his music. While holding the CD there is no music. While visualizing the triangle there is no physical triangle.
3. Materialists believe that only the physical exists.
4. The triangle has no physicality.
5. Therefore, for the materialist there is no visualized triangle.
6. Therefore, for the materialist it was impossible to visualize a triangle.
7. I know that I can visualize a triangle. I am visualizing one right now.
8. Therefore, I know that materialism cannot be true in all cases.
9. Since materialism believes that only the physical exists in all cases,I know that materialism is false.
Show me what numbered point you believe is false or how my argument is invalid
There is a difference between truth and validity.
Here is an argument that is true and valid.
1. Socrates was a man.
2. All men are mortal.
3. Therefore Socrates was mortal.
Here is an argument that is valid but not true.
1. All Martains eat snakes.
2. Bob is a Martain.
3. Therefore, Bob eats snakes.
Here is an argument that is true but invalid.
1. Nixon was president of the US.
2. Carter was president of the US.
3. Therefore Reagan was president.
If one cannot show how 1-8 (at the top of this post) are not all true, or cannot show how ythe argument is invalid,then the conclusion (9) must be true.
“Your whole argument is a one-step reduction ad absurdum: things are the way I say they are and anyone who disagrees is silly.”
Wyman
??? Note that #2 above is different than the conclusion. (9). Also, #2 by itself is not a one-step reducto. #2’s argument (an argument within an argument) is that either visualized images are a physical object in your brain or they are not. If they are, then silly things must be true, your brain must turn neon when you visualize neon, your inner voice can be heard using a sound amplifier, a physical triangle with edges and everything is in your brain when you visualize a triangle. Since those are all absurd, #2 cannot be false. *
You claim that #2 is not based on empirical data. Simply, try to visualize a triangle. If you can then there is a triangle that is not represented physically.
Sure, someone might be able to speculate (and even be correct) that such and such neurons firing caused me to visualize a triangle, but they will not see a triangle, it is a private experience. The proof (on paper) that such and such a neuron firing caused me to visualize a triangle is not direct empirical validation that what I am seeing is a triangle.
The materialist is wrong. There is information that is subjective. Not all truths are objective.
PS; Ironically, Dennett’s argument (quining qualia) against qualia is a one-step reducto.
1. Qualia are ineffable.
2. Therefore, qualia are impossible.
Which reduces to, “qualia are impossible because qualia are impossible.
My triangle argument is a more sophisticated form of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_argument. With Mary’s room one can say that there is a physical blue. One cannot say that there is a physical triangle.
*
Even if one takes the absurd position that visualized objects are represented physically (for example that my visualized triangle actually has a physical edge in my brain), I proved that even in that situation your particular perception would be undetectable. One would not be able to tell if you were visualizing a duck or a rabbit.
Re: Qualia
Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2015 10:56 pm
by Wyman
Here is a paragraph from the wiki article you quoted explaining how Jackson now believes in physicalism.
Jackson now believes that the physicalist approach (from a perspective of indirect realism) provides the better explanation. In contrast to epiphenominalism, Jackson says that the experience of red is entirely contained in the brain, and the experience immediately causes further changes in the brain (e.g. creating memories). This is more consilient with neuroscience's understanding of color vision. Jackson suggests that Mary is simply discovering a new way for her brain to represent qualities that exist in the world. He likens her to patients suffering from akinetopsia, the inability to perceive the motion of objects. If someone were cured of akinetopsia, they would not be surprised to discover any new facts about the world (they do, in fact, know that objects move). Instead, their surprise would come from their brain now allowing them to see this motion.[14]
Your characterization that materialism implies a 'physical object in your brain' is incorrect. I don't think that radiation is a physical object, but I think belief in light and microwaves and energy, etc. is consistent with materialism.
As for imaginary images being private, that is an entirely different argument. Privacy has nothing to do with physicality. Perhaps one day we will be able to hook up wires connected between our brains and some one else's and see exactly what they see. The so called 'qualia' would then cease to be private - would you then say they were therefore physical? Of course not, as privacy has nothing to do with your original argument.
What if it happens that - just as an inverted image is focused onto the retina in normal sight - the brain, when you imagine your triangle, causes the same nerve endings to be 'slightly' stimulated as the ones which would be 'heavily' stimulated during perception of a similar real triangle? Would that be physical enough? You could certainly imagine something like that going on - like Hume's idea of 'ideas' being faded versions of 'impressions.'
Re: Qualia
Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:29 pm
by Ginkgo
raw_thought wrote:
PS; Ironically, Dennett’s argument (quining qualia) against qualia is a one-step reducto.
1. Qualia are ineffable.
2. Therefore, qualia are impossible.
Which reduces to, “qualia are impossible because qualia are impossible.
As far as Dennett is concerned I would have thought he was arguing for the intrinsic properties of objects.
The "physical blue' is the particular wavelength picked up in the appropriate receptors in the eye. This information is transmitted throughout the brain. As in the case of Mary, she has the ability correlate and imagine what the the colour blue looks like, despite the fact she has never actually seen anything blue. It is a 'knowing how" as opposed to "knowing that".
Materialists would probably argue that knowing how to imagine the colour blue is no different to imagine a triangle.
Raw_thought wrote:
Even if one takes the absurd position that visualized objects are represented physically (for example that my visualized triangle actually has a physical edge in my brain), I proved that even in that situation your particular perception would be undetectable. One would not be able to tell if you were visualizing a duck or a rabbit.
Difficult to sum up in a few sentences, but there is no need for the existence of a physical triangle within the brain in order to constitute imagining a triangle. It is true that the various processes going on within the brain when we imagining a triangle don't actually resemble a triangle. Nonetheless, they are all still physical processes because such processes are can be explained i n terms of cause and effect.
Re: Qualia
Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2015 6:31 pm
by SpheresOfBalance
raw_thought wrote:Obviously you are very confused. * I am not talking about hearing a physical vibration ( as in sound).
Similarly, I am arguing AGAINST the idea that one sees a physical triangle in one's brain. One however, can see a triangle, since I am quite certain that I can visualize one.
My point is that there is no physical triangle in ones brain. However, there is a triangle in your mind. ( otherwise you wouldn't be able to visualize one. )
Therefore, there is a triangle (the visualized one ) that is not represented physically.
* And very rude.
Not at all. Funny I've never visualized anything in my brain. I simply think of an item by reciting it's criterion. When I shut my eyes I see nothing but blackness. What kind of drugs do you do to see such things?
Re: Qualia
Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2015 6:37 pm
by SpheresOfBalance
raw_thought wrote:“That one says that as to pain only nerve fibers are firing, does not necessitate that pain is not painful. Your logic is flawed.”
SpheresOfBalance
???? Nerve fibers firing does not = ( is and only is ) the feeling of pain. If it were that would be a tautology and therefore a meaningless statement. * Since nerve fibers firing and pain are different, and (according to the materialist paradigm) only nerve fibers firing are real, it follows that pain is unreal.
A or B
Only A is real.
Therefore B must not be real.
* It would be equivalent to saying, " nerve fibers firing are nerve fibers firing."
You seemed to have missed it, no problem.
Re: Qualia
Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2015 6:44 pm
by SpheresOfBalance
raw_thought wrote:I hate it when an interesting debate is redirected towards mere semantics (definitions of words). However, I’ll indulge those that prefer semantics over substance with two sentences. “See” does not necessarily mean physically seeing something. One can say, “I see your point.”
Suppose a materialist is correct (he is not) when he claims that when I visualize a triangle there is the physical form of a triangle in the person’s brain. Suppose one visualizes a
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit%E2% ... k_illusion . Suppose for a moment one can only see the duck. * If someone looked into your brain they could not tell if you were seeing a duck or a rabbit at that moment. In a nutshell, even if we adopt the absurd position that there is the physical form of the duck/rabbit in your brain when you visualize a duck/rabbit, one still cannot know if the person visualizing a duck/rabbit sees a duck or a rabbit. There is information that is private (qualia).
Interestingly one can use the same argument towards concepts. Suppose I think, “1+1=2”. Even if “1+1=2” were a physical form in your brain it would still not reveal what it refers to (the concept you understand). Consciousness is the foundation of meaning!
“The symbol grounding problem is related to the problem of how words (symbols) get their meanings, and hence to the problem of what meaning itself really is. The problem of meaning is in turn related to the problem of consciousness, or how it is that mental states are meaningful. According to a widely held theory of cognition called "computationalism," cognition (i.e., thinking) is just a form of computation. But computation in turn is just formal symbol manipulation: symbols are manipulated according to rules that are based on the symbols' shapes, not their meanings. How are those symbols (e.g., the words in our heads) connected to the things they refer to? It cannot be through the mediation of an external interpreter's head, because that would lead to an infinite regress, just as looking up the meanings of words in a (unilingual) dictionary of a language that one does not understand would lead to an infinite regress”
FROM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_grounding_problem
Also see
http://web.calstatela.edu/faculty/dpitt/whatsit.pdf
* Humans cannot see the duck/rabbit simultaneously. We oscillate from duck to rabbit and back again.
Semantics is extremely valid. If one uses words in a colorful fashion, they can often only see colors. Do you understand? When one skews meaning, they often create a skewed fantasy, becoming lost, though incapable of understanding it.
Re: Qualia
Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2015 6:48 pm
by SpheresOfBalance
raw_thought wrote:“Neurons firing = (is and only is) pain” is only the statement that they are two words for the same thing. In other words a materialist defines neurons firing as pain. Their “argument” is mere semantics and disingenuous semantics!
That you don't understand biochemistry, anatomy, and other such physics of the human organism, is of no material.
I'm reminded of Doors lyrics: "...his brain is squirming like a toad."
Re: Qualia
Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2015 7:56 pm
by SpheresOfBalance
Ginkgo wrote:Wyman wrote:I am simply stating that there is no physical triangle in your brain when you visualize one.
We all know that and we all disagree with you (or most of us). Your method of argument seems to consist of stating it over and over again.
Maybe try this - what do you mean by 'physical?' Maybe our definitions differ. And don't say 'Everything except qualia.'
Perhaps RT is thinking about identity. If there is a physical triangle I am observing then there must be a corresponding physical triangle in my brain that allows me to recognize the fact that I am viewing a triangle. If the triangle I am looking at cannot be replicated in a physical way in my brain then the two events cannot be one and the same.
The best analogy for what's actually going on, IMHO, is a photograph, video or a recording. Physically we know how they were created, because we created the technologies. It's a physical process, whether electromagnetic, chemical or otherwise. In a picture of a triangle, (since RT seems to like that shape so much) there is no physical triangle, just a representation created by physical means, that everyone, that's been taught what it is, shall recognize. They shall each have their own subjective view of it's importance. For instance an engineer shall value it as the one geometric shape that is strongest in it's singular form, while a hexagon is the strongest shape in groups, hence natures honey comb. The subjective experience of a triangle varies depending upon how one values it, so it's not the same to everyone. It's subjective experience is actually created through knowledge, and want. Triangles can be found in nature as well, as with facets of crystals. To me qualia, has previously been termed as "what you're taught." Nothing less or nothing more!
"Qualia (/ˈkwɑːliə/ or /ˈkweɪliə/; singular form: quale) is a term used in philosophy to refer to individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term derives from the Latin adverb quālis (Latin pronunciation: [ˈkwaːlis]) meaning "what sort" or "what kind". Examples of qualia are the
pain of a headache, the
taste of wine, or the
perceived redness of an evening sky." -Wikipedia-
Simply physical in nature, yet subjectively relative dependent upon knowledge and want, and in the case of the headache, toughness and tension.
Re: Qualia
Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2015 11:39 pm
by raw_thought
SpheresOfBalance wrote:raw_thought wrote:Obviously you are very confused. * I am not talking about hearing a physical vibration ( as in sound).
Similarly, I am arguing AGAINST the idea that one sees a physical triangle in one's brain. One however, can see a triangle, since I am quite certain that I can visualize one.
My point is that there is no physical triangle in ones brain. However, there is a triangle in your mind. ( otherwise you wouldn't be able to visualize one. )
Therefore, there is a triangle (the visualized one ) that is not represented physically.
* And very rude.
Not at all. Funny I've never visualized anything in my brain. I simply think of an item by reciting it's criterion. When I shut my eyes I see nothing but blackness. What kind of drugs do you do to see such things?
So you do not have dreams or daydream???
You are very unusual.
But you said you RECITE the criteria. Can your inner voice be detected by a sound amplifier?
Re: Qualia
Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2015 11:41 pm
by raw_thought
Ginkgo wrote:raw_thought wrote:
PS; Ironically, Dennett’s argument (quining qualia) against qualia is a one-step reducto.
1. Qualia are ineffable.
2. Therefore, qualia are impossible.
Which reduces to, “qualia are impossible because qualia are impossible.
As far as Dennett is concerned I would have thought he was arguing for the intrinsic properties of objects.
The "physical blue' is the particular wavelength picked up in the appropriate receptors in the eye. This information is transmitted throughout the brain. As in the case of Mary, she has the ability correlate and imagine what the the colour blue looks like, despite the fact she has never actually seen anything blue. It is a 'knowing how" as opposed to "knowing that".
Materialists would probably argue that knowing how to imagine the colour blue is no different to imagine a triangle.
Raw_thought wrote:
Even if one takes the absurd position that visualized objects are represented physically (for example that my visualized triangle actually has a physical edge in my brain), I proved that even in that situation your particular perception would be undetectable. One would not be able to tell if you were visualizing a duck or a rabbit.
Difficult to sum up in a few sentences, but there is no need for the existence of a physical triangle within the brain in order to constitute imagining a triangle. It is true that the various processes going on within the brain when we imagining a triangle don't actually resemble a triangle. Nonetheless, they are all still physical processes because such processes are can be explained i n terms of cause and effect.
Re: Qualia
Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2015 11:49 pm
by raw_thought
I am using a tablet. So this is an answer to your quote.
I never said that neurons firing does not facilitate my visualized triangle. I said that I can visualize a triangle and that format cannot be found in a physical form. Perhaps a metaphor will help. Suppose one said that only binary is real. I show that 3 (in base 10) is real. You say that base 10 = 11 in binary. I agree. However, I have shown that base 10 is a legitimate format. Similarly, I have shown that my triangle that is not in a physical format is real.
Re: Qualia
Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2015 11:57 pm
by raw_thought
SpheresOfBalance wrote:raw_thought wrote:“Neurons firing = (is and only is) pain” is only the statement that they are two words for the same thing. In other words a materialist defines neurons firing as pain. Their “argument” is mere semantics and disingenuous semantics!
That you don't understand biochemistry, anatomy, and other such physics of the human organism, is of no material.
I'm reminded of Doors lyrics: "...his brain is squirming like a toad."
I am not saying that pain is and only is C fibers firing. I am saying that materialists believe that. There are no subjective feelings (qualia) for a materialist. There is nothing ( according to materialists) that pain feels like. Pain for a materialist is and only is C fibers firing.
Your post shows that you are confused. I am not saying that neurons firing does not create the feeling of pain. I am saying that the concept "pain" and the concept "c fibers firing " are not equivalent. If they were equivalent then saying that pain=c fibers firing would be a tautology, c fibers firing =c fibers firing.
Re: Qualia
Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2015 12:13 am
by raw_thought
Dennett's argument is that qualia (what pain feels like...etc) is a private experience and therefore ineffable (it cannot be communicated.).
Qualia is defined as a private experience. You can speculate that I am in pain but you cannot feel my pain.
Qualia is defined as a private experience. Therefore one can substitute "private experience" for "qualia. Similarly, one can substitute "bachelor " for unmarried male".
Dennett's argument then becomes, " private experiences are impossible because private experiences are impossible. " Not a very good argument!!!
Re: Qualia
Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2015 12:25 am
by raw_thought
Materialists want it both ways. It would be legitimate (tho I believe wrong) to claim that consciousness does not exist. However, that would be obviously absurd. So they redefine "consciousness " as neurons firing. Such a redefinition is disingenuous. Consciousness is defined as awareness not as neurons firing.
A materialist can then claim that he believes in consciousness because he believes in neurons firing. Similarly, I can claim that I believe in unicorns because I have redefined "unicorn" as the star at the center of our solar system.