Qualia?

[Broletariat]

Could someone explain the basic concept here, is it valid at all? How do you feel about it etc.

[lulks]

belief in qualia is just the newest form of dualism. it is not valid at all and it is one of the worst ideas in philosophy

[Invincible Summer]

Could someone elaborate?

[Broletariat]

Could someone elaborate?
From what I gather, qualia is the idea that you're not the one thinking your thoughts and you're just hearing them or something. It's something to do with how you merely experience everything or something? I'm not sure that's why I came here.

[leftace53]

Qualia is like an intuition or a feeling of things like pain, or "redness". A quality of experiences in a sense. Sort of like the differences in the feeling of a light blue and a dull brown - the characteristics of these experiences can count for what qualia is.

I agree with lulks in that its just another form of dualism, and is quite useless. Monism (whether physicalism, or idealism) is the way to go.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

I find qualia complicated and quite fascinating. I don't know enough to be satisfied with dismissing or accepting them. As a reductionism, I'll side with Dennett. On the other hand, I'm not sure.

I don't know if my worry is actually one related to qualia. I am inclined to think you can teach someone about red even if they haven't seen it. However, I'm also inclined to think that if the same is done for emotions, it fails. Maybe this is a desire to leave room for literature. I just don't see how a logical explanation can exist for anger as an emotion, not as the physical process. The experience works in X way and that might make sense, but it still feels like something is missing. And it's not always correct to dismiss intuitions.

[lulks]

according to physicalists everything about mental states can be externally observed. you can observe the brain processes, you can observe stimuli, and you can observe behavior.

according to qualophiles (people who believe in qualia) there is more to experience than what can another person can observe. they believe there is an element to experience, qualia, that is only experienced subjectively.

[syndicat]

according to physicalists everything about mental states can be externally observed. you can observe the brain processes, you can observe stimuli, and you can observe behavior.



no. this is not correct. physicalism is not a thesis about observation. physicalism says that the ultimate forces and particulars in the world, and thus the ones that all more complex particulars and forces are explainable in terms of, are the sorts of forces and particulars that physicists investigate and which figure as ultimate explanatory entities in physical theory. physicalism is thus a thesis about ontology and explanation, not observation.

qualia are supposed to be whatever features are the subjective aspects of the individual's mental states. according to functionalist forms of physicalism, however, these would end up being identical with certain internal physical features in the person's central nervous system.

qualia, tho, are not the same thing as "mental states". that's because mental states have intentionality or "object directedness". and there are functionalist physicalist accounts of this that make it a physical relational property, like the concept of function in biology. in other words, an account of intentional states such as belief has to account for how certain things are determined to be the object, such as what one believes. this may be independent of the person's "subjectivity".

[lulks]

physicalism says that the ultimate forces and particulars in the world, and thus the ones that all more complex particulars and forces are explainable in terms of, are the sorts of forces and particulars that physicists investigate and which figure as ultimate explanatory entities in physical theory.this is true and i don't believe it is in conflict with what i said. according to physics humans are only made of particles or strings or whatever, and these things can be observed. in contrast, qualia are immaterial things that are not made of particles or strings or anything in physics.

edit: actually i don't think strings can be directly observed, but there can be empirical evidence for their existence. however there has never been any evidence for the existence of qualia and there never can be because according to qualophiles qualia are subjective and can only be detected by the "subject". i think believing in qualia is like believing that demons cause diseases.

according to functionalist forms of physicalism, however, these would end up being identical with certain internal physical features in the person's central nervous system.i don't think physicalism is compatible with belief in qualia.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Physicalism is compatible with qualia, according to some. These are people who believe qualia are physical phenomenon. They just don't think they can be reduced to the extent others suggest. Kind of life claiming the body can be reduced to the heart. They would say there is "more to it." Obviously, the opposition to qualia is more comparable to someone saying the body is reducible to all its parts and the relations between them, or something.

[Zanthorus]

Obviously, the opposition to qualia is more comparable to someone saying the body is reducible to all its parts and the relations between them, or something.

I think the opposition to qualia is more along the lines of the fact that no-one who supports the concept can come up with a credible explanation of "what it is like" to percieve something.

[lulks]

"an inner process stands in need of outward criteria" - ludwig wittgenstein

all mental states are defined by things that can be externally observed. for example when i teach someone what it means to be in pain i teach them what can cause pain and the behaviors that being in a state of pain tends to produce. mental states and experiences are not private.

[Zanthorus]

"an inner process stands in need of outward criteria" - ludwig wittgenstein

all mental states are defined by things that can be externally observed. for example when i teach someone what it means to be in pain i teach them what can cause pain and the behaviors that being in a state of pain tends to produce. mental states and experiences are not private.

I don't know if this was directed at me but this is what I was trying to get at. Advocates of the existence of qualia believe that there is "something that it is like to feel something" which is completely private and not communicable to others. But as you said, it is a mistake to think of people as having authority over their own minds as if they had access to some private peep show consisting fo a Cartesian soul.

[syndicat]

this is true and i don't believe it is in conflict with what i said. according to physics humans are only made of particles or strings or whatever, and these things can be observed. in contrast, qualia are immaterial things that are not made of particles or strings or anything in physics.


this begs the question. how do you know they aren't identical with features of the central nervous system? when you talk of "things made of particles or strings" you're talking about enduring particulars. but neither processes nor features are particulars.

let's consider belief for example. we might regard the capacity of humans to have beliefs as an evolved biological trait, just as sight is. sight is the function of a eye in biology and this gets unpacked this way: among our ancestors eyes supported the activity of sight, and this activity was highly advantageous to the survival of those ancestors, and this contribution to survival explains why we still have eyes. thus it is the function of an eye to provide sight even for someone who is blind. things can have a biological function without actually succeeding in serving that function. the function of sperm is to merge with an egg to propagate a new organism, but very few sperm even do this.

so, belief is some sort of internal adjustment that occurs in response to sensory stimulation and thought processes, and which provides a basis for action. thus acquiring and changing beliefs adapts the organism to subtle changes in its surroundings. thus "belief" can be said to refer to those internal states, whatever they are, that serve this function. and these internal states can be processes or features of brain structures.

[lulks]

how do you know they aren't identical with features of the central nervous system?mental states and experiences are states of the body. let's say for the sake of argument that being in the state of pain is the same as being in a state where c-fibers are firing in the brain. having c-fibers firing is not what it means to be in pain, but it is identical to it. what it means to be in pain is approximately being in a state that tends to be caused by things like being hit hard and tends to cause behavior like crying or saying ouch. and scientists have discovered that all the time, when humans are in this state, their c-fibers are firing.

however, qualia are not the same as states of the body because qualia don't exist.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

I think the opposition to qualia is more along the lines of the fact that no-one who supports the concept can come up with a credible explanation of "what it is like" to percieve something.

The view of many qualia supporters is that this is precisely the point. You can't come up with a credible explanation of "what it is like." Nagel makes this point in "What it's like to be a Bat," in some degree.

Basically, those who object to qualia think you can explain what "seeing red is" without actually encountering it. The relation between the individual perceiving and the perceived object are derivable from one another. There is no third "creation" that results of perception and an object interacting. There are also implications about the idea that you can scientifically explain emotions not merely in terms of their physical natures, but the emotional aspects that poets write about are supposedly scientifically expressible. "What is love" (lol) will be explained to people in a science textbook, and theoretically you can teach people what it's like to be a crack addict without them using it, as far as I can interpret their views.

I really don't know the neuroscience behind the debate, but they seem to be motivated by reductionist motivations. I don't completely gather the plausibility of having no qualia, to be honest. We know plenty about heat, but we don't know how to explain what it's like to feel heat without relating to experiences people have had, or sensory impressions.

[lulks]

those who object to qualia think you can explain what "seeing red is" without actually encountering itnot necessarily. david lewis makes the distinction between "knowing that" and "knowing how". he claims that knowing what red looks like is having the ability (knowing how) to recognize that something is red. this doesn't mean he believes in qualia because knowing what red looks like has outward criteria ("bob knows what red looks like" approximately means that if bob was shown many things he would be able to identify the red ones)

[syndicat]

however, qualia are not the same as states of the body because qualia don't exist.

but then you'd need to give an argument for that. clearly people do have experiences. now, insofar as these are object-directed states, a functional analysis is feasible. but the argument is that the intentional object isn't all there is to the state. there is the fact one can have knowledge one is in such a state in a way different than one's observation of things via sense perception.

[lulks]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_language

i believe everything about experience has outer criteria
but if qualia exist, people can know something about their experience that can't be observed by someone else and that they can't communicate to other people
the private language argument by wittgenstein shows why this is impossible

[syndicat]

in order to have words to track things, it is sufficient that people have some way to identify the items in question. this doesn't mean they have to be able to observe them. there are things we can't observe such as electrons which are such that a person can sucessfully refer to them. humans being of the same species it is a reasonable hypothesis that what it "feels" like to experience things on the part of one person have similarities to another person. the way i acquire the belief that Fred is in pain need not be the same way i know i am.

[lulks]

first, as i have said, mental states have outer criteria. people are taught what it means for others to be in a mental state by giving outer criteria like what behaviors that mental state tends to cause and what things tend to cause that mental state.

belief in qualia is not compatible with this. if one can know that one has a certain quale, then mental states can't always be define by outer criteria. there can be no criteria for detecting the difference between a human that has qualia and only seems externally like it has qualia so there can be no criteria for detecting the difference between someone who is aware of a quale and someone who isn't. but mental states are defined by outer criteria, therefore qualia don't exist.

i believe wittgenstein had the same basic argument. since mental states are defined by outer criteria, and knowing the meaning of a symbol is a mental state, knowing the meaning of a symbol has to have outer criteria. but for a private language there can be no outer criteria, therefore it's not possible for there to be a private language

[j-dog]

Hi, I'm new to the site, and was compelled to join upon coming across this thread, as this is my favourite topic in the whole world and something I'm really interested in. Here's a few points in defence of qualia:

1. a) Why do mental states have to be defined in terms of external criteria, and why does the fact that they can't be observed from the "outside" matter? There's lots of things that we can't observe (yet), such as distant galaxies, and lots of things we couldn't observe before, like very small particles. That doesn't mean they don't exist, or that our discussion about them should be essentially a discussion in logic.

b) Further, I could say that I'm more sure about my own qualia than anything "external". I could always be under the illusion of external things being the way I perceive them to be, and be mistaken, but I'm always sure that what I perceive is what I perceive. (Or at least more sure, I don't agree with Descartes word for word on this one, but it is a good argument nevertheless.)

2. a) When you look at a book, for example, or any other physical object around you, you have in front of your eyes a "picture" of this book. The book itself is made of paper, but what is this picture made out of? Some neural process? Definitely, but if we were to describe fully this neural process from the outside, we would talk about which neurons were involved, what what precise electrochemical reactions were taking place, and a heap of other physical things that can be reduced to fundamental physical quantities like mass, energy, voltage etc., and the particles involved in it could be reduced to quarks, etc. But what I'm experiencing isn't made up of any of these fundamental physical quantities, it's an irreducible picture. The "blueness" of the cover of the book that's in front of me may correlate 100% with some neural process, but it is not the neural process in itself, as it can't be reduced to quarks. It's just "blue".

b) The vast majority of dualists would agree that every quale is in identity with a neural process. This is in fact one of the principles of psychology, as all qualia potentially result in behaviour and as all behaviour is physical, it should be traceable back to a physical process (i.e. a neural process). This does not, however, mean that qualia don't exist on top of the brain, or by its side.

3. We could look at it from an ethical angle as well. Why is smashing someone's head repeatedly on a sharp surface on the ground so that they bleed considered immoral, while doing the same to a rock isn't? Because of C-fibers firing? What's so bad about C-fibers firing?

[Meridian]

2. a) When you look at a book, for example, or any other physical object around you, you have in front of your eyes a "picture" of this book. The book itself is made of paper, but what is this picture made out of? Some neural process?
You have no "picture" in front of yourself. As you said, you have a book in front of yourself. You are not looking at a picture, so it is not made of anything. If you were looking at a picture it would be possible to look 'outside' of it.

[lulks]

Why do mental states have to be defined in terms of external criteria
well, the word "pain" doesn't *have* to be defined with external criteria. but, like all terms for mental states, it is defined with external criteria. this is based on a simple observation of how mental states are defined.

if i teach someone about mental states i teach them what external things are associated with it, such as behavior. if i teach someone what water is, i teach them the qualities that can't be observed with a microscope, like being wet. before microscopes invented, people didn't know that water was h2o. if they discovered that the chemical formula for water was co2, they wouldn't have said "oh we made a mistake, this clear liquid is not water after all" because the chemical formula was not part of how water was defined. the chemical formula is not essential to the meaning. similarly, brain states are not part of how mental states are defined. mental states were first defined externally and it was only discovered later what brain states they corresponded with.

Further, I could say that I'm more sure about my own qualia than anything "external".qualia don't exist, but people can't always be absolutely certain about their own experiences. for example, say i am teaching a child what it means to say "i have pain". i teach him how to say it correctly by making him replace crying with saying "i have pain". a dualist would say that "i have pain" is an observation of qualia, but it is actually just a behavior that expresses pain, like crying, just like a computer making a certain noise is a "behavior" that expresses that you have mail. in the beginning of when i am teaching him how to say "i have pain", he might not be able to say it in the correct situations. in this case, i know better than he does whether he has pain. so one does not always know one's experiences better than other people.

I could always be under the illusion of external things being the way I perceive them to be, and be mistaken, but I'm always sure that what I perceive is what I perceive. (Or at least more sure, I don't agree with Descartes word for word on this one, but it is a good argument nevertheless.)
it's not a good argument, it's a terrible argument that assumes dualism is correct.

When you look at a book, for example, or any other physical object around you, you have in front of your eyes a "picture" of this book.no you don't. the position you are espousing is called representative realism, or indirect realism. indirect realists believe that people do not perceive things directly but instead have a representation in their mind consisting of sense data. the opposite view is direct realism, or naive realism. sense and sensibilia by jl austin is a good book that refutes arguments against direct realism.

What's so bad about C-fibers firing? because that means someone is in pain

[j-dog]

You don't teach someone what it's like to be in pain, they know it from their own experiences. You don't need to see someone else in pain to know what pain is, you experience pain yourself. Then, you act in a certain way. Then, when you see other people acting that way, you just assume that they're feeling the same thing you feel when you act in that same way, i.e. pain. So knowledge of the behaviour comes after the experience, and the definition of the mental state in terms of behaviour can only be established later, and for that reason the behaviour is non-essential to the experience.

So your example is exactly what I'm saying: people always had and knew about subjective experiences, long before brain states were discovered, and only after brain states were discovered did physicalists start saying that what people call qualia are actually just physical, neural processes. So these physical processes in the brain are not essential to the meaning, and neither are people's behaviours, but rather the subjective experience.

The reason people's behaviours are not essential to mental states or qualia is because our brains might be wired differently so that we laugh when we're sad or cry when we're happy. A dualist would not say "I have pain" is an observation of qualia because qualia are externally unobservable. It's behaviour that's completely non-essential to pain. And when you're teaching a kid when to say he or she is in pain, then they know better than you when they're in pain (it's utterly absurd to claim otherwise, just look around yourself), they just might not know when to display a behaviour, because this behaviour is completely non-essential to pain.

Secondly, with the book: you certainly don't have access to the actual book, because you could for example be hallucinating. The actual book is out there in the world. You have access to something that corresponds to your brain state (i.e. a quale). That is all I meant by "picture", only that and nothing else. And from that, I asked: what is this picture made up of? Physicalists say neural processes, just like water is made up of H2O, but that doesn't hold because this "picture" does not have mass, voltage, and everything else that a chunk of the brain or a process in the brain has. It's irreducible to anything else that is physical, so it has to be made out of a different kind of "stuff".

And if C-fibers firing means someone is in pain, then what's so bad about being in pain?

[lulks]

You don't teach someone what it's like to be in pain, they know it from their own experiences. You don't need to see someone else in pain to know what pain is, you experience pain yourself.
experiencing pain is different from knowing you have pain. when a baby is in pain, he doesn't know that he is in pain. for him to know that he is in pain and for him to know what it is like to be in pain he has to know the concept of pain. so you actually do have to teach people what it is like to be in pain

So your example is exactly what I'm saying: people always had and knew about subjective experiences, long before brain states were discovered, and only after brain states were discovered did physicalists start saying that what people call qualia are actually just physical, neural processes. So these physical processes in the brain are not essential to the meaning, and neither are people's behaviours, but rather the subjective experience.you are just brushing aside my argument that mental states are defined by external criteria. brain processes are not a necessary part of mental states, and qualia aren't either because they don't exist.

The reason people's behaviours are not essential to mental states or qualia is because our brains might be wired differently so that we laugh when we're sad or cry when we're happy. this is already addressed by my argument that mental states are defined by external criteria. when i teach someone how to correctly say that someone else is in pain, i teach them the external criteria for saying that someone is in pain. it is not possible for one person to feel differently from another person when they are both in the same functional state (by functional state i approximately mean a state of being disposed to certain behaviors) because mental states are defined by behaviors (and other critera). to someone who believes in qualia, it is not possible to ever know what another person's feelings are or even if that person has feelings at all. the only evidence a qualophile has for another person's feelings is their behavior and other external critera, but the only evidence they have that feelings correlate with behaviors is themselves. but that is a horrible induction based on only one datum. it is like saying that because one stop sign is red, all things that are shaped like an octagon must be red.

And when you're teaching a kid when to say he or she is in pain, then they know better than you when they're in painwhen someone is just learning the concept of pain, they might not be able to always apply correctly. for example, they might make the understandable mistake of thinking that anytime they cry, they are in pain. so even when they have tears of joy they would say they are in pain. this is a mistake, i would be able to correct them because i know better than them.

Secondly, with the book: you certainly don't have access to the actual book, because you could for example be hallucinating.when you are hallucinating, you are obviously not directly perceiving a book, but in normal circumstances you are. hallucinations do not require the existence of sense data. like all mental states they can be explained only through outer criteria. when someone is hallucinating they are in a state that tends to be caused by things like taking drugs and tends to cause things like claiming that things that aren't there are there.

That is all I meant by "picture", only that and nothing else. And from that, I asked: what is this picture made up of?there is no picture

Physicalists say neural processes, just like water is made up of H2O, but that doesn't hold because this "picture" does not have mass, voltage, and everything else that a chunk of the brain or a process in the brain has. It's irreducible to anything else that is physical, so it has to be made out of a different kind of "stuff".i agree that if qualia exist, dualism is necessarily true. however, qualia do not exist.


And if C-fibers firing means someone is in pain, then what's so bad about being in pain? what do you mean? this is like asking why octagons have 8 sides. if qualia did exist, what would be bad about pain-qualia?

[syndicat]

you are just brushing aside my argument that mental states are defined by external criteria. brain processes are not a necessary part of mental states, and qualia aren't either because they don't exist.

you didn't give an argument. you made an assertion, combined with reference to your guru Wittgenstein. this is a highly implausible theory of meaning. that's because words in general aren't "defined" by "criteria."

for a person to have a concept of F is simply to have some way to refer to Fs or identify them. now, when George was a five year old he had the concept of cat because he could pick out and talk about cats, differentiate them from toy cats, etc. But there is no particular "criterion" he needs to have. Jake might have had different experiences with cats and know more about them than George. Maybe Jake studies and becomes a veterinarian. His conception of cats becomes very rich, much richer than when he was a boy and richer than George. but the word has the same meaning for both of them since they are talking about the same thing when they use the word "cat". the meaning is the social function of the word...what it is used to track, in this case, cats.

also, you fail to differentiate between object-directed mental states and the internal experience of having them. these are not the same. a type of object-directed state has a particular functional role to play. to take beliefs, we can suppose that it was highly advantageous to our ancestors millions of years ago, perhaps, to have the ability to "adjust" their internal states, to become more attuned to features of the world as they encounter them, and to change these internal states in light of new sensory inputs. So our brains support a kind of internal state that we acquire on the basis of sensory interactions and reports from others, and we change them on this basis also, so that our internal state is adjusted to reality. so there is some internal brain state that mediates between sensory input and action, and this state is such that we have states of this kind because it was adaptive for our ancestors to have this belief-forming facility. so a "belief" is whatever internal state plays this role.

same with sensory perceptions or any object-oriented state. the "object" of the belief that the state of affairs that it represents. And this is true of perceptions which are also cognitive and representational. but this is not the same thing as the internal experience someone has that is interpreted as a perception of S. depending on the person's knowledge and mindset, a different perception might have been generated by the same sensory stimuli. now, having the experience is presumably a quale. there's no particular reason to deny it exists.

so to take your baby example, the baby doesn't know she's in pain because she's not developed the concepts. but she may still have the experience.

what happens when a person learns the word "pain" is that they come acquire the ability to identify and refer to things as "pains". now having a certain kind of experience is one way they identify a pain occurring in themselves. what they learned was to refer to this as a "pain" as the latter is a word in the language of their community. now there are a variety of symptoms someone might exhibit that would lead us to infer someone is in pain. but there is no logical necessity in the connection between a particular symptom and pain. thus pain is not "defined" by such symptoms. in fact the word need not be "defined" at all. Most words are not defined.

why do you think the existence of qualia implies dualism? why can't they be identical with features of the neurosystem?


when you are hallucinating, you are obviously not directly perceiving a book, but in normal circumstances you are. hallucinations do not require the existence of sense data. like all mental states they can be explained only through outer criteria. when someone is hallucinating they are in a state that tends to be caused by things like taking drugs and tends to cause things like claiming that things that aren't there are there.


i once had a hallucination of a clock breathing in and out. (I was on a strong form of LSD.) this experience can't be reduced to the sorts of causes and effects you refer to. now, a hallucinatory sense perception is liike a false belief. it represents a state of affairs but one that doesn't exist. that's the cognitive or interpretive aspect of it. but there was also the sensory quality.

[norwegian commie]

The point here must be not vulagrize our materialism, making it behaviorism, epiphenomenalism, reductionist physicalism - a position simply not tolerable. Consciusness is something real, as is our will (free, in some sense). 1. Matter over mind. Human beings are biological creatures. And in a "philosophy of mind" we must, of course uphold a physicalist point of view (as does, by the way, most other theorists of "philosophy of mind"). 2. The concept of qualia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia) is not opposed to a physicalist understanding of man. Of course conciusness is something else than external features, than simple response. 3. Qualia gives us problems when forming a materialist conception of man, yes, but qualia in itself need not be rejected. (If we do, i wonder what our ultimate conception of man really is - cetrainly it must be like a cartesian automaton, in reality un-conscius simply responding to the world.