Re: Qualia Question

On 01 Jul 2005 05:48:30 GMT, curt@xxxxxxxx (Curt Welch) in
comp.ai.philosophy wrote:

>lesterDELzick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Lester Zick) wrote:
>
>> It's only gotten lost because behaviorists and memists pretend it
>> isn't there. There are at least three metaphors for the subjective in
>> this respect: behavior, qualia, and memes. None of them explain
>> anything about subjective behavior. They just rename the effects and
>> then go on to pretend they aren't there.
>>
>> Regards - Lester
>
>The subjective aspect of experience seems so simple and obvious to me I
>don't understand why people have such problems with it.
>
>We are machines which react to the environment. But we are also part of
>the same environment which we are able to react to. That means we are able
>to react to our own actions. We can sense our own actions, both
>internally, and externally, and that's what creates our subjective
>sensations.
>
>We are not a single entity. We are a large and complex machine made up of
>billions of independent parts, all which have the ability to react in
>complex ways to the other parts. If my brain tells my hand to move, and
>then the brain receives new visual signals in response to seeing the hand
>move, our body had created a subjective experience which then goes on to
>cause more behavior in the future, and more subjective experience.

So why is it a subjective experience exactly? You don't seem to be
able to discriminate behavior very well. You just hypothesize certain
interactions and call them subjective. What's the difference between
subjective and objective behavior exactly in mechanical terms?

>If we have an edge detector in our visual hardware, the reason we can see
>"edges" and not just light, is because we are able to sense the output of
>that edge detector just as easily as we can sense the raw outputs from the
>eye. It's just one part of the brain sensing what another part of the
>brain/CNS is doing. It's just one part of the CNS reacting to another
>part of the CNS. Just like the brain can externally make a hand move and
>then sense that it has happened.
>
>This is all "subjective experience" is. This is why we have a subjective
>experience we can not share with others. When my edge detectors activate,
>only I can sense that activity. It's my personal subjective experience.
>It's my qualia.
>
>When I look at English words, I don't just see light, and edges. I also
>see letters with names to them, and I have a subjective experience of the
>sound of the words as I read them to myself and I have a subjective
>experience of the "meaning" of the words. This is because my brain is
>activating different neurons in response to that input which are associated
>with each of these various qualia. The brain is creating a behavior
>response to the sensation of that word internally and I'm able to sense
>that internal behavior created by the brain.
>
>When I look at words in a language I don't know made up of symbols I don't
>know, all I see is light and edges and shapes. There is no subjective
>experience of the sound of the word or the meaning of the word in any other
>sense because my brain has not been trained to produce any type of special
>internal behavior in response to those symbols. There are no extra qualia
>associated with those sensory signals for me.

So which edge detectors exactly do we use to experience Beethoven's
Ninth?

>memes likewise are simply learned behavior passed from one person to the
>next. There is nothing complex or confusing about the idea when talked
>about in this form. All the behavior we pass from person to person whether
>it's language behavior or other types of physical behavior (holding a door
>open for someone), are all memes. All our shared knowledge and culture are
>our memes.

So how do memes differ from subjective and objective knowledge in
mechanical terms and how do they differ from qualia?

>As long as you realize everything is just behavior, then there are no
>problems. It's only when you starting playing with language and creating
>things that don't exist that any of this becomes hard.

Everything is just behavior? Indeed. Then what is behavior exactly?

>You do not loose the idea of subjective experience when you define
>everything in terms of physical behavior of the body and the brain. You do
>not define it away. It's there, and it's simple to understand what it is
>as I tried to explain above.

Yeah, just not very well.

>All this only becomes hard, when you make the assumption that only humans
>are conscious - that this subjective experience is something only a human
>(or only a limited set of life forms) can have.

It only becomes hard when you explain away behavior with philosophy.

>If you throw that idea out, and just accept the idea that all mater has a
>level of consciousness, then everything is easily explained, and there are
>no problems.

You mean you explain nothing by assuming everything.

>Our level of consciousness results in the fact that the brain is a very
>complex reaction learning machine which is able to sense and react to its
>own behavior - both externally, and internally.
>
>A rocks ability to consciously react is limited to just sitting there and
>being "hard" - i.e. if you push it, it pushes back. It's conscious, it's
>just not intelligent enough to talk about it with us.

Let me speak to the rock. It'll probably make more sense.

Regards - Lester
.

Relevant Pages

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