On the contrary, my introspection is that I do not normally notice those differences at all on the conscious level, I only make use of those differences on the lower level of subconscious processing. What percolates up to my subjective experience is “qualities”, specific “qualia textures”, specific colors, sounds, smells, etc, and my subjective reality is composed of those.
So it looks like the results of our respective introspections do differ drastically.
Perhaps Carl Feynman is correct when he is saying that different people have drastically different subjective realities which are structured in drastically different ways, and that we tend to underestimate how different those subjective realities are, that we tend to assume that other people are more or less like us, when this is actually not the case.
No no, I’m not saying that I myself am actively aware of all difference in my experience, I feel the noise too, but whenever I investigate a phenomenon what I find is that it just gets broken into more difference that I didn’t notice originally. Since noise logically requires difference, you can’t get static without some variation in the signal, and when I investigate I only find more difference, never any positive thing in itself, I can only conclude that the difference extends down to the noise, the texture, and I’m simply not aware of the full extent of the differences.
If you’re speaking of /specific/ colors, sounds and smells, then you’re already acknowledging that you’re differentiating them from other experiences.
I differentiate them when I talk about more than one. But when I focus on one particular “qualia texture”, I mostly ignore existence of others.
The only difference I am aware of in this sense (when I choose to focus on one specific quale) is its presence or absence as the subject of my focus, not of how it differs from other “qualia textures”. If I want to I can start comparing it to other “qualia textures”, but typically I would not do that.
So normally this is the main difference, “now I am focusing on this ‘qualia texture’, and at some earlier point I was not focusing on it”. This is the change which is present.
There is a pre-conscious, pre-qualia level of processing where e.g. contrast correction or color correction apply, so these different things situated near each other do affect each other, but that happens before I am aware of the results, and the results I am aware of already incorporate those corrections.
But no, I actually don’t understand what do you mean when you use the word “noise” in this context. I don’t associate any of this with “noise” (except for the situations when a surface is marked by variations, the sound is unpleasant, and things like that, basically when there are blemishes, or unpleasant connotations, or I actually focus on the “scientific noise phenomena”).
There’s also differentiation in time, and so long as you’re aware that it’s the presence or absence of your focus, then you’re aware it’s differentiated from the rest of your awareness/experience.
However, the specifics of the feeling associated with a particular qualia texture are not captured by this.
Moreover, those specifics do not seem to be captured by how it differs from other qualia textures (because those specifics don’t seem to depend much on the set of other qualia textures I might choose to contrast it with; e.g. on what were the prevailing colors recently, or on whether I have mostly been focusing on audio or on olfactory modality recently, or just on reading; none of that seems to noticeably affect my relationship with a particular shade of red or with the smell of the instant coffee I am using).
Right I’m arguing that the specific differences which fully enable the experience of a qualia are unconscious, and must necessarily be outside of consciousness awareness, that’s what I was talking about wrt to the patterns of qualia and their relations necessarily implying an external phenomenal substance which we are not always aware of.
That does not correspond to my introspection.
On the contrary, my introspection is that I do not normally notice those differences at all on the conscious level, I only make use of those differences on the lower level of subconscious processing. What percolates up to my subjective experience is “qualities”, specific “qualia textures”, specific colors, sounds, smells, etc, and my subjective reality is composed of those.
So it looks like the results of our respective introspections do differ drastically.
Perhaps Carl Feynman is correct when he is saying that different people have drastically different subjective realities which are structured in drastically different ways, and that we tend to underestimate how different those subjective realities are, that we tend to assume that other people are more or less like us, when this is actually not the case.
No no, I’m not saying that I myself am actively aware of all difference in my experience, I feel the noise too, but whenever I investigate a phenomenon what I find is that it just gets broken into more difference that I didn’t notice originally. Since noise logically requires difference, you can’t get static without some variation in the signal, and when I investigate I only find more difference, never any positive thing in itself, I can only conclude that the difference extends down to the noise, the texture, and I’m simply not aware of the full extent of the differences.
If you’re speaking of /specific/ colors, sounds and smells, then you’re already acknowledging that you’re differentiating them from other experiences.
I differentiate them when I talk about more than one. But when I focus on one particular “qualia texture”, I mostly ignore existence of others.
The only difference I am aware of in this sense (when I choose to focus on one specific quale) is its presence or absence as the subject of my focus, not of how it differs from other “qualia textures”. If I want to I can start comparing it to other “qualia textures”, but typically I would not do that.
So normally this is the main difference, “now I am focusing on this ‘qualia texture’, and at some earlier point I was not focusing on it”. This is the change which is present.
There is a pre-conscious, pre-qualia level of processing where e.g. contrast correction or color correction apply, so these different things situated near each other do affect each other, but that happens before I am aware of the results, and the results I am aware of already incorporate those corrections.
But no, I actually don’t understand what do you mean when you use the word “noise” in this context. I don’t associate any of this with “noise” (except for the situations when a surface is marked by variations, the sound is unpleasant, and things like that, basically when there are blemishes, or unpleasant connotations, or I actually focus on the “scientific noise phenomena”).
There’s also differentiation in time, and so long as you’re aware that it’s the presence or absence of your focus, then you’re aware it’s differentiated from the rest of your awareness/experience.
Right. But this is what is common for all qualia.
However, the specifics of the feeling associated with a particular qualia texture are not captured by this.
Moreover, those specifics do not seem to be captured by how it differs from other qualia textures (because those specifics don’t seem to depend much on the set of other qualia textures I might choose to contrast it with; e.g. on what were the prevailing colors recently, or on whether I have mostly been focusing on audio or on olfactory modality recently, or just on reading; none of that seems to noticeably affect my relationship with a particular shade of red or with the smell of the instant coffee I am using).
Right I’m arguing that the specific differences which fully enable the experience of a qualia are unconscious, and must necessarily be outside of consciousness awareness, that’s what I was talking about wrt to the patterns of qualia and their relations necessarily implying an external phenomenal substance which we are not always aware of.