Talk:Qualia

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Contents 1 Paul Churchland 2 Giant Rewrite 3 Bizarre definition 4 Qualia vs. Experiences 5 Larger scale phenomena - refactoring 6 Neutrality 7 Aaron McDaid's changes on the 4th Feb 8 merge? 9 Confusion over physicalist ideas of qualia

[edit] Paul Churchland

The discussion of feral children under the Paul Churchland heading needs a lot of work. I don't know his argument here so its a little hard for me to edit. The actual heading needs at the least to be integrated into the text. As its stands its not clear that Churchland even made this argument. Of course Feral Children suffer from social not sensory deprivation so they are quite unlike Mary. patrickw 14:48, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, the Churchland section needs attention. It especially needs some source citing. - Jaymay 08:10, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't "red looks hot" be a metaphor, rather than an analogy? kostmo 20:37, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

This article has problems. First of all, these lists are terrible. Entries like "8. Junction points between being and experiencing" and "9. Starting points of becoming" are so vague as to be meaningless, and the entries under "Qualia in Practice" are completely unexplained. (I think that the reference to Sony might be nothing more than a poor pun.) Would anyone object if I deleted these? --Conover 05:27, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)

Do it... Evercat 11:27, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Done and done. --Conover 20:12, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Giant Rewrite

I just did a giant rewrite of this article. I tried to keep everything I could, but unfortunately a large part of the previous version struck me as unsalvagable. Of course, I admit that I could be wrong about a lot of it, so I encourage everyone to check the last version of the page and integrate anything you think worth keeping.

Also, I am concerned that the explanation of Jackson and Dennett's arguments may have gone on a little long to be truly encyclopedaic. If necessary, they could be moved to the pages of the philosophers themselves, or to specific pages about their arguments.

What does everyone think?

--Conover 23:32, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Bizarre definition

The article begins: Qualia (singular: "quale") are most simply defined as the properties of sensory experiences by virtue of which there is something it is like to have them. ...What on earth does that mean? --Jorend 21:55, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

it (above) is a fairly classic philosophical definition. Qualia are what distinguish the various types of sensations that we experience. Your personal experience of the "redness" of red differs from your experience of the "blueness" of blue.....red and blue objects act by way of your visual system to produce different qualia. Some people deny that the "redness" of red can be accounted for in terms of physical brain activity. Biologists like Gerald Edelman propose theories of mind in which qualia do result from brain activity. JWSchmidt 18:54, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This current definition is supposed to be less "vague" (quoting Conover) than its previous definitions!? -- 198.166.58.45 04:27, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It's true that this definition is vague, but unfortunately that problem comes with the territory. I have thoroughly researched the definition of qualia, and this much is widely agreed-upon. — Adam Conover † 20:53, Jun 15, 2004 (UTC)

The problem is that if you aren't familiar with the phrase "something it is like to ..." (ie, if you haven't read much philosophy of mind), then the sentence is impossible to parse.

It might be better not to restrict the group of people who can derive meaning from the most important sentence on the whole page to such a small group of readers. Until the thought experiment further down the page, there is no way for somebody who doesn't know what "something it is like to" means in a philosophy of the mind context to know what qualia are.

Isn't Wikipedia supposed to be an encyclopedia anyone can use, and not only philosophers of mind?? Seriously, there has to be a simpler definition you can put which says the same (and common people could understand)! Kreachure 17:22, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I did modify the article at one point to offer a variation on the plain English dictionary definition. The Random House Unabridged defines a quale as, "as quality, as bitterness, regarded as an independent object". I think the definition I offered was, "A quality or feeling, like redness, regarded independently of its effect on behavior; a raw feel." Alienus 23:15, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

It would probably be helpful to include some version of this definition in the introductory section. N6 05:00, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I just updated the intro to lead with a version of the simplified definition above. Hopefully, it'll keep people's eyes from glazing over immediately. Alienus 06:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

My eyes did glaze over a bit the first time I read the article, and it took some of the thought experiments further down the page to illuminate the definition. I feel I do understand it now, and I've clarified the introductory definitions a little further in an attempt to help those who might have been similarly confused. I'm no expert on this subject, though; please feel free to revert my edit if it seems incorrect. N6 06:55, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I notice you've removed the reference to "physical properties". Could you explain why this is misleading? (for my own understanding) I added it because I felt that mentioning effect on behavior as the only reference point was unilluminating at best and misleading at worst. As I understand it, the question of qualia is not so much "Does consciousness affect our behavior?" as "Does consciousness affect our understanding?" N6 07:10, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Qualia vs. Experiences

Aren't qualia the same thing as experiences? If not, what's the difference? — Monedula 09:16, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

In a nutshell, qualia are properties of experiences, just like colors are properties of objects. Specifically, qualia are the properties of experiences which describe what it is like to have that particular experience. — Adam Conover † 20:53, Jun 15, 2004 (UTC)

Then, what aspect of experiences is not covered by qualia? If we know what it is like to have a particular experience, then we know everything about that experience, isn't it? — Monedula 21:25, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Well, first I should tell you to go read the primary source material, just as Frank Jackson's "Epiphenomenal Qualia" and Dennett's "Quining Qualia" -- both should be available in any good phil mind compilation. But in a nutshell, no -- even if we knew the qualia of an experience, we would not thereby know anything about its other properties, such as its intentional properties, its causal properties, and its capacity to cause certain behavioral responses. — Adam Conover † 23:39, Jun 15, 2004 (UTC)

I would rather say that qualia are not properties of experiences, but the material they are made of, a sort of "mental substance". And the intentional and casual properties have more to do with the "outside world" than with experiences themselves. — Monedula 11:31, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Larger scale phenomena - refactoring

I'm not certain what happened, but I signed up for an account, logged in, and the bottom section of the article is no longer visible. It was fascinating, talking about how qualia could be experienced differently at higher metabolic rates. I was going to ask if anyone could provide references to this idea. Now it's gone. I think it also talked about the idea of 'refactoring'. Can anyone help?

Scroll up the page to the link to the old page before the large rewrite.Second section. ---Steenies 16:59, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality

This article bears little resemblance to normal, balanced approaches to this subject. The excessive attention given to Dennett and Lewis is not at all typical of more balanced approaches. See:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/

The history should start with Descartes. There should be some mention of Kant. Nagel should be prominent. loxley 19:01, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I fully expected you to stalk me here. Please understand that, as usual, I will revert any harmful changes you make without the slightest bit of remorse. Alienus 19:05, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

No, not "stalking", you introduced this article as an "argument" in the talk for consciousness where you were pressing home Dennett's ideas. When I referred to it I discovered it was very lightweight. It is of little use to any student of philosophy. Encyclopedia articles on philosophy should say "this movement thinks this.." and "this movement thinks that..". They should not be trying to impress a particular worldview on the reader. However, I have noticed that wherever you go in the philosophy of mind category you fight tooth and nail for a particular, naive realist idea of Dennett's work, foisting it on our readers. How old are you? loxley 09:33, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for proving my point. As I said, I will quickly revert any damage you cause. Alienus 15:52, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I've just read that page [1]. I agree that it's far superior. And I'd prefer to remove any attempt to define qualia. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 03:09, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Why would you prefer to remove any attempt at definition? Remember that this is an encyclopedia article, not an article in a philosophy journal or a chapter in a philosophy text. N6 04:45, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I would normally agree, but it's difficult with qualia. I would use something from the first few lines of [2]. I probably went too far when I said "remove any attempt to define qualia.", but I do think we should stick to a simple paragraph. Qualia probably only make sense to the reader after much discussion, and contemplation of thought experiments, so I don't think a precise definition is possible that will help someone who's new to qualia. I'm not even sure that Dennett would describe his 4 properties as a 'definition' - the 4 things listed are properties he might attribute to qualia, but that's not the same as a definition. For example, if you say "2 is an even number", that doesn't mean that all even numbers are 2. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 13:01, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

If you agree that "remove any attempt to define qualia" is going to far, I don't think there is anything for us to disagree over. Your edits seem quite sensible to me, at least. N6 21:13, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Waita not answer his question numbnuts. This article is biased and needs to be cleaned up. Block Alienus and then get it done. (Unsigned by 128.206.59.163.

As it happens, I've answered these repeatedly. Loxley has proven unwilling to listen or unable to understand. Instead, he prefers to edit war and whine to admins. As for blocking me, I think I'd rather block you for your insults and lack of positive contribution. Thank you for meddling cluelessly and goodbye. Alienus 19:40, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

This speaks for itself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:128.206.59.163. Alienus 19:46, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Alienus, in your edit summary for the preceding comment[3], you referred to the 'The quality of Loxley's supporters'. I can understand your frustation at 128.206.59.163's tone, but I'm sure you'd agree that if an idiot supports somebody, that doesn't mean that all his/her supporters are idiots. I'm an idiot who supports lots of different people, often across the spectrum of opinions, so that could only mean that everybody is wrong :-) ! Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 13:07, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

If an idiot says the sky is blue, that's not an argument against the sky being blue. But if only idiots say a thing, that does suggest that idiocy is a requirement for belief. In any case, I'm not suggesting that you're an idiot (though you probably shouldn't ask me what I think of 128.206.59.163).

I just did a cleanup of the changes you made, and I think that any possible contentions of POV have been addressed, so I'm removing the badge of shame. If someone disagrees, they can bring it up again in Talk. Alienus 05:39, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aaron McDaid's changes on the 4th Feb

Hi guys, as you can see I've made a lot of changes over the last hour. My aim is to show that there are many definitions and that the philosophical debate is much richer because of this. It's not just a pair of homogenous groups of philosophers arguing that they do or do not exist. Some philosophers might have multiple arguments and viewpoints, depending on what definition is used. I'm sure I've made many mistakes and would be grateful of any constructive discussion of things that could be improved or fixed, and will be happy to fix them myself if they have not been fixed already. I will assume good faith and try to be civil and hope that we can all do the same, moving on from recent arguments that some of you have been involved in. If I am unable to respond promptly to your suggestions, it does not mean that I am ignoring them — instead I may be experiencing [or not experiencing, depending on your point of view :-) ] the 'eating tasty food' quale. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 19:40, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Some of my comments in the history aren't very well written. Please consider the content of my changes, not the rushed description I've put into the history. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 19:41, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] merge?

this "hard problem of sconsiousness" is nothing but the same old grounded down debate about the existence of qualia in our selves and other minds. he just rephrased it. there is not addiitonal information here exept a praise to this David fellow. I opt for merger or deleletion.Procrastinating@^talk2me 11:11, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

That's not unreasonable, and I would support it. Al 05:37, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I am against merging. The hard problem is not only the problem posed by the existence of qualia but also the problem posed by the existence of a self for which qualia exist. (Changing "existence" into "apparent existence" won't make any difference here.)

The Hard versus Easy problem does not itself do critical philsophical work. But it is a very useful distinction to keep in hand when explaining the "interesting" problems of consciousness to non-philosophers. The term "consciousness" has so many subtle conotations that keep meging and blending together. Philosophers learn to keep technical distinctions distinct (usually). But it is harder to do without that background. The Hard/Easy categories help. Recommend Not Merging. Jdclevenger 22:45, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confusion over physicalist ideas of qualia

"One key consequence of the claim that such things as raw feels can be meaningfully discussed — that qualia exist — is that it leads to the logical possibility of two entities exhibiting identical behavior in all ways despite one of them entirely lacking qualia. While very few ever claim that such an entity, called a philosophical zombie, actually exists, the mere possibility is sufficient to refute physicalism. Those who dispute the existence of qualia therefore necessarily dispute the existence of philosophical zombies."

This sounds wrong to me. In my understanding, physicalism suggests that the human mind could, in theory, be explained in terms of physical reality: that mental processes are not ethereal, just unillucidated.

In any case, it makes little sense to say that a theoretical possibility (like philosophical zombies) can be used to refute a philosophical position in this way. It might make more sense to put it the other way round — to say that a certain philosophical position refutes a certain possibility — but in this case, I think it would still be misleading. Physicalism doesn't 'refute' the possibility of a zombie mental state; it suggests that there is no difference between it and the other, non-zombie state. Physicalists argue that our minds are based in physics, and that our seemingly metaphysical properties (like sentience or selfness) are the apparent products of extremely complex physical systems that we don't yet understand.

I'd like to know if people agree with me: that this paragraph needs to state that physicalists refute the idea of philosophical zombies as being different from normal people, not that they refute the possibility of philosophical zombies, because that misses the point. And certainly not that the possibility could be used to refute physicalism. That just doesn't make sense. If anything, it's the other way round (and it's not, anyway).

Maybe I just don't understand physicalism properly... If anyone thinks so, please tell me why.

Callum85 19:55, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

The argument that the mere possibility of philosophical zombies constitutes a refutation of physicalism is due to Kripke, from his: 1971. "Identity and Necessity", In Identity and Individuation, edited by M. K. Munitz. New York: New York University Press. Incidentally, he was a physicalist (at least at the time). I don't recall the precise details of the argument, but the paper isn't that long if you want to just track down a copy yourself and read it. --Wclark 07:45, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the zombie argument against physicalism sounds absurd at first, because it seems like the possibility of some zombie character cannot refute a thesis such as physicalism. But you have to realize that physicalists are making a modal claim, because they are committed to saying that such zombies are (metaphysically) impossible. That is, the physicalist claims that in every world in which the physical facts are the same, all the mental facts will be the same as well. So if there is even one possible world in which there is a zombie (physical duplicate with only a difference in mental state), then physicalism is false. Qualia is just a key candidate for such a mental state that more easily seems to elude physical characterization. So, the existence of qualia in a possible world does not refute physicalism. Physicalists can admit that qualia exist in lots of worlds. Qualia in a possible world only refutes physicalism insofar as it is mental state that is something over and above a physical state--that is something that can differ among possible worlds with the same physical facts or states or whatever. - Jaymay 19:05, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

How is it an argument at all though? Physicalists don't refute that something causes what we perceive as qualia, or that they don't exist in some form, but just that our perception of them in itself isn't 'real'. A zombie of such sort, though obviously a rather dubious idea, would not act the same, because it would not be able to respond to any external stimuli. Physicalists believe that qualia are perceived in some physical way, just that the actual 'qualia' themselves are not real. In other words for example light is perceived, it has an effect on the brain, and the brain maps it in a picture-like way, using 'colour' as a way of visualizing the data (how it creates 'colour' out of nothing, and whatever colour is on a physical level, I do not understand, though I cannot imagine visual perception if a colours system wasn't used). Physicalists would simply argue that the quale itself (e.g. 'redness') does not exist in the real world, therefore it is just an illusion of some sort corresponding to some other physical process. How a zombie character (real or theoretical) can be used to refute this is beyond my understanding. If anyone could explain the concept to me I would be most grateful! Richard001 10:09, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

First, I personally don't think that the zombie argument is sound (that is, I think that one of it's premises is false, so the conclusion isn't true). However, the zombie argument is valid (that is, if it's premises are true, then the conclusion must be true). What some people seem to be thinking is that the argument isn't even valid--that it's not a good argument. As I was saying, this is a reasonable thing to think, because it's such a clever and quick argument. It's sneaky like the ontological argument for the existence of God. So, let me try to show that it's valid, since many seem to be wondering why philosophers think it's worth talking about. I'll try to make it very simplified (probably too simplified) but just to get the logical structure of the argument going.

Physicalism (P) = the view that physical things, facts, substances, whatever are all there is in the world (so, what we call "mental" is really physical--that is, most physicalists think that we will be able provide a sufficient physical characterization or explanation of mental states). The zombie argument is supposed to show that P is false as follows:

1. If P is true, then there is no possible world in which all the physical facts are the same as the actual world, but something else is different. (This is because, according to P, there are only physical things, so there is nothing to be different; any world that is physically identical to our world is just simply identical to our world, so nothing can be different about it.)
2. But there is a possible world in which the physical facts are the same as our world, but in which there is a difference in something else. (I'll describe one for you. Take, for example, a zombie. It's possible that there is a world exactly like ours in every physical respect, but that one person (or every person) does not have a certain mental state, namely any phenomenal experiences or qualia. The people there look and act just like use, but they don't feel anything; when one gets shot, for example, he yells out as if he is in pain, but he doesn't feel any pain.)
3. By a simple application of modus tollens, P is false.

That's the structure of the argument. The devil is in the details, of course, especially in the second premise. Is a zombie or a zombie world really possible? Is it really possible in the same sense as in premise one? Well, most agree that the relevant possiblity here is not so weak as logical possibility; surely a zombie world is logically possible (there is no logical contradiction in the scenario), but that is not what is meant. Most agree that it is some sort of metaphysical or conceptual possibility. What the proponent of the zombie argument claims is that we can tell from the armchair, just by the power of reason, that such a zombie scenario is conceptually possible--that is, it's a coherent scenario.

Now a physicalist might respond in several ways, but all responses deny premise two (that is, they deny that a zombie scenario is possible). They cannot deny premise one and still remain a physicalist (since it requires denying something that most physicalists think is part of or an implication of physicalism). One response is to claim that the idea of qualia (and related notions) is all screwed up, it's actually not a coherent concept, and thus the zombie scenario is incoherent. Daniel Dennett and others take this line. They argue that while consciousness/qualia/subjective experiences exist, in some sense, they are not as the zombie argument proponent claims they are; pain, for example, is not something that you can just strip off a person's mental life without any behavioral or physiological differences. Another line is to provide some sort of error theory about the intuitions of the possibility of a zombie scenario. Many have taken this line and argued that our concepts about what is physical and is possibly physical adapt over time, so while conceptual analysis is reliable in some areas of philosophy, it is not reliable here... so on and so forth.

The zombie argument is difficult because it gets right to fundamental disagreements that philosophers have about the method and scope of philosophy itself. It gets right down to disagreements about what conceptual analysis is and what it can do. People who are proponents of the zombie argument (e.g. David Chalmers) think that conceptual analysis is pretty much all philosophy does or is supposed to do and that it can certainly do a lot--e.g. it can refute physicalism. However, others, such as Dennett, Paul Churchland, W.V. Quine, and so on, have fundamentally different views from Chalmers about the nature and scope of philosophical analysis. So, anyway, the point is: If you really want to appreciate the zombie argument, you have to really dig deep into hot topics about the nature of philosophy. It's not as simple of an argument as one might think. It's quite sophisticated, and Chalmers's stuff on it is pretty impressive, even quite difficult and technical at times. I hope that helps. If you want to see Chalmer's side, he's got an overview paper on his site called Consciousness and its Place in Nature (PDF) that's pretty good. - Jaymay 19:45, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

SidW 23:11, 10 October 2006 (UTC)== two comments: ==

1. I think someone already said this right, but to be more specific, supervenience physicalism is what the zombie argument turns on. Other versions of physicalism e.g., token physicalism, could be compatible with the mere possibility of a zombie.

2. The section on inverted qualia and the "neurosurgical prank" is wrong. See in Dennett's online Quining Qualia, "In this version, intuition pump #5: the neurosurgical prank, the experiences to be compared are all in one mind. You wake up one morning to find that the grass has turned red, the sky yellow, and so forth. No one else notices any color anomalies in the world, so the problem must be in you. You are entitled, it seems, to conclude that you have undergone visual color qualia inversion (and we later discover, if you like, just how the evil neurophysiologists tampered with your neurons to accomplish this)." How could a neurophysiologist tamper with neurons and we say there is no physical basis for the inversion? Why call it it the "neurosurgical prank" if there is no physical basis? From SEP: Inverted Qualia, it appears (though they don't reference the "prank" specifically) that the prank was probably designed (by Block and Fodor?) to refute functionalism, not physicalism. Note that SEP and Dennett both quote Block and Fodor but Dennett leaves out the next sentence, "..against Functionalist accounts.."