If each has an intelligible definition for “free will”, and they are the same, then there is agreement that it exists. If the definitions are different, then they should use different words to not become confused and think they think of the same thing from “free will”. A less good option is for one party to adopt the other’s meaning for the discussion. If each were confused about what he or she meant...that would be bad.
If the existence of qualia were not a shared premise in the Yudkowsky-Chalmers debate, then it would be an entirely different debate about eliminative materialism.
That doesn’t best describe what Yudkowsky took as the basis for discussion. Yudkowsky talked about “mysteriousness” and what physical process underlay consciousness, but not “qualia”.
Since we almost all agree that qualia are real, we can have arguments about the nature of qualia
Verbally agreeing that whatever is represented by the label “qualia” is real while each having a different meaning for that label is a recipe for disagreement, particularly if we believe that the label has only one definition, if only because we each agreed to that as well.
special
I hadn’t focused on this earlier, but I don’t think this is a special situation. People disagree because many or all are wrong, it happens all the time.
If we could define qualia reductively
Tell me exactly what it is you want defined, and I’ll define it for you. ;-)
If we could define qualia...”righting a wrong question”...still wouldn’t enable you to achieve this...it would delight me if you managed to use this technique to demonstrate that qualia are reducible...
That’s not the type of thing that righting a wrong question does. If the question had an answer that fit its assumptions it wouldn’t need righting. The assumptions I’m proposing tossing are that the use of a label implies the existence of a thing that falls out once one carves reality at its joints and that mutual use of a single label logically necessitates agreement about interpretations of reality.
Yudkowsky didn’t say “qualia” in the essay, and had he it wouldn’t have committed him to beliefs similar to Chalmers’ and the answer to the question “why do people say ‘qualia’?” isn’t that it’s a feature of reality that is importantly distinct from others and thus needs a label, but people are confused and in their map of reality the single blotch of confusion is well covered by a single word. It may come to pass that their confusion is replaced by belief that adjacent concepts are all that is needed to explain reality where they were previously confused, and they will expand the territory on their map marked “reductionism” or similar and be left with no landmark of reality to affix the label “qualia” to.
Alternatively, carving nature at its joints may leave experienced illusions of non-agency important enough to be labeled “the County of Qualia” on the map, in the “Country of Things Reduced to Understanding”.
1...believe...3...suspect
Beliefs are probabilistic. I don’t think any particular undiscovered thing has the inherent property of being inevitably learned.
One thing is for sure, I don’t deny the existence of “qualia”s as labels, just qualia by some people’s definitions, but perhaps not qualia under everyone’s definition.
If each has an intelligible definition for “free will”, and they are the same, then there is agreement that it exists. If the definitions are different, then they should use different words to not become confused and think they think of the same thing from “free will”. A less good option is for one party to adopt the other’s meaning for the discussion. If each were confused about what he or she meant...that would be bad.
That doesn’t best describe what Yudkowsky took as the basis for discussion. Yudkowsky talked about “mysteriousness” and what physical process underlay consciousness, but not “qualia”.
Verbally agreeing that whatever is represented by the label “qualia” is real while each having a different meaning for that label is a recipe for disagreement, particularly if we believe that the label has only one definition, if only because we each agreed to that as well.
I hadn’t focused on this earlier, but I don’t think this is a special situation. People disagree because many or all are wrong, it happens all the time.
Tell me exactly what it is you want defined, and I’ll define it for you. ;-)
That’s not the type of thing that righting a wrong question does. If the question had an answer that fit its assumptions it wouldn’t need righting. The assumptions I’m proposing tossing are that the use of a label implies the existence of a thing that falls out once one carves reality at its joints and that mutual use of a single label logically necessitates agreement about interpretations of reality.
Yudkowsky didn’t say “qualia” in the essay, and had he it wouldn’t have committed him to beliefs similar to Chalmers’ and the answer to the question “why do people say ‘qualia’?” isn’t that it’s a feature of reality that is importantly distinct from others and thus needs a label, but people are confused and in their map of reality the single blotch of confusion is well covered by a single word. It may come to pass that their confusion is replaced by belief that adjacent concepts are all that is needed to explain reality where they were previously confused, and they will expand the territory on their map marked “reductionism” or similar and be left with no landmark of reality to affix the label “qualia” to.
Alternatively, carving nature at its joints may leave experienced illusions of non-agency important enough to be labeled “the County of Qualia” on the map, in the “Country of Things Reduced to Understanding”.
Beliefs are probabilistic. I don’t think any particular undiscovered thing has the inherent property of being inevitably learned.
One thing is for sure, I don’t deny the existence of “qualia”s as labels, just qualia by some people’s definitions, but perhaps not qualia under everyone’s definition.