I have been mulling over this discussion, trying to identify the best ways to move it forward—focus on the case of an object that isn’t red but still looks red? focus on the relationship between representation and experience? - not just because the nature of reality is interesting, but because getting the nature of consciousness right, is potentially central to alignment of superintelligence (what OpenAI is now calling “superalignment”). I was also interested in exploring your hypothesis that some substantial difference (of phenomenology, cognition, and/or metacognition), maybe even a phenotypic difference, might be the reason why some naturally favor qualia, and others don’t.
However, in another comment you have declared that along with qualia, you also disbelieve in properties, kinds, people, and time. These are all concocted by our brains. So your ontology seems to be one in which, there’s physics, and then there are brains, which fabricate an entire fake reality, which is nonetheless the reality that we live in.
At this point, I have to conclude that I’m not dealing with a subtly different phenomenology, but rather with the effects of a philosophical belief system. There’s no reason to suppose that your skepticism towards qualia has a special subtle cause, when you deny the reality of so much else.
Maybe we could call it Democritus Syndrome, since he had a very similar outlook. In reality, there’s just atoms and the void; but “by convention”, we also say there’s color and taste and everything else. Interestingly, the fragment which reports this proposition (fragment 125) actually attributes it to the intellect, and also presents a riposte from the senses, who say, how can you deny us when you rely on our evidence?
But Democritus is just one of the first known examples of this stance. When Locke distinguishes secondary qualities from primary qualities, it’s a step in the same direction. One response to that distinction is found in doctrines like property dualism and emergentism, in which one acknowledges that physics portrays the world of the primary qualities as causally closed and self-sufficient, but one is unable to deny the reality of the secondary qualities, and therefore regards them as equally real, and either correlated with, or dependent on, the primary qualities.
Then there’s the response which denies the reality of the secondary qualities, or at least regards them as having a lesser reality. You seem to fall into this category. I don’t know if you adhere to a specific philosophical school of this type, or if you’re just a scientific materialist who is agnostic about the details. (I also want to note something Dennett said about eliminativism, that eliminativists can be selective; they can believe in some aspects of reported phenomenology, and disbelieve in others.)
Then we have various ontological doctrines for which robust realism regarding the phenomenal is all but axiomatic. There is the idealist option which says, if I am faced with a dilemma between physics and phenomenology, of course I choose phenomenology, that’s what I actually and directly know about reality. And then there’s a kind of qualic realism which says, physics only provides a relational or structural description of reality, but phenomenology gives us a glimpse of the things in themselves. The experienced world, the “lifeworld”, is the actual nature of the conscious part of the brain. That is my position, more or less.
So if I try to imagine what it’s like to be you, I imagine a phenomenology which is a normal human phenomenology, but then (when ontological issues arise) there’s an internal commentary which reminds you that all this is a construction of the brain, and the true reality is the wavefunction of the universe (or however it is that you conceive of fundamental physics).
I first noticed my inability to understand qualia in 1981 or 1982, when I was an undergraduate in Ned Block’s Philosophy of Mind class. That wasn’t a big deal, I didn’t understand lots of things as an undergraduate. But it was a niggling problem. It wasn’t until the ’90s sometime that I came up with my “I don’t have qualia” theory. And it wasn’t until 2016, when I read The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts, and other Kantian philosophy, that I realized that many things whose reality I accepted were actually constructed by my mind for my convenience. That‘s a problem for the theory that Democritus Syndrome causes claiming disbelief in qualia, since I claimed to not have qualia before I caught Democritus Syndrome.
Here’s an alternate theory. Qualia are a kind of tag on top of perceptions, that says “This is real, reason on that basis.” I don’t have that tag, so it’s easier for me to believe that my mind has constructed reality from sense data, rather than that I directly perceive it. The direction of causality is reversed from your theory.
Saying that qualia dont really exist, but only appear to, solves nothing. For one thing qualia are definitionally appearances , so you haven’t eliminated them. For another, the physicalist still need to explain how and why the brain produces such appearances. For a third, you have to know what “qualia” means to express a sceptical.theory about them.
For a third, you have to know what “qualia” means to express a sceptical.theory about them.
I mean, by your definition the experience of red is a quale, by their definition experience is some neural activity, and then there is nothing else to explain. The sceptical theory is only sceptical about “but experience is not neural activity!” and for that “qualia, as a thing that is not neural activity, only appears to exist” is a reasonable answer when appearances are defined to be some neural activity.
The way I see it works is every definition is under a theory of the model that includes these definitions describing reality better or worse. Otherwise they are just empty words. So “qualia are experiences” or just “there are such things as qualia” are also implicitly low-resolution theories. Experiences are privileged only under misguided theories of knowledge (which are theories because it’s in the name) which make experiences axiomatically true. Otherwise just gesturing to “you know, experiences, you obviously see some things” is not fundamentally different from gesturing to neural activity, and the one about neural activity is more precise.
So, I don’t understand which part of the above you have a problem with. You don’t disbelief in theoretical ability of neuroscience to show on a screen what you are seeing, right? Because all that talk about reductive explanation may give such impression. So it’s all about Mary? That even after we obtain precise theory of what you see, it still wouldn’t make you see and that… “seems necessary” or something.
I don’t mind corrections to specific steps, but would appreciate you confirming that yes, you think Mary is a strong argument. And then it would be nice to have a better justification for this than “seems necessary”.
>Experiences are privileged only under misguided theories of knowledge (which are theories because it’s in the name) which make experiences axiomatically true.
Science regards experiences as probably correct about their causes, because you can’t do empiricism without that assumption. “Qualia are axiomatically true” is not something you need to claim to define qualia, and not something that is always claimed about qualia, and not central to the problem of qualia.
> Otherwise just gesturing to “you know, experiences, you obviously see some things” is not fundamentally different from gesturing to neural activity, and the one about neural activity is more precise.
It’s different because we don’t experience neural activity as neural activity. That doesn’t rule out neural activity being causal or constitutive of qualia. But what the camp #2 person wants is an explanation of how neural activity constitutes the experience. Asserting, as a definition, that it does isn’t a persuasive explanation...and is talking-past.
>So, I don’t understand which part of the above you have a problem with. You don’t disbelief in theoretical ability of neuroscience to show on a screen what you are seeing, right?
That’s ambiguous in just the way that Mary’s Room is supposed to disambiguate. Mary is able to tell what someone is seeing in the third-person reading-the label sense, just not in the first person, drinking the wine, sense.
>Because all that talk about reductive explanation may give such impression. So it’s all about Mary? That even after we obtain precise theory of what you see, it still wouldn’t make you see and that… “seems necessary” or something.
An objective explanation of seeing red doesn’t make you personally see red *and* personally seeing red is necessary to know what red looks like...ie. the explanation is incomplete.
Physicalists sometimes respond to Mary’s Room by saying that one can not expect Mary actually to actually instantiate Red herself just by looking at a brain scan. It seems obvious to them that a physical description of brain state won’t convey what that state is like, because it doesn’t put you into that state. As an argument for physicalism, the strategy is to accept that qualia exist, but argue that they present no unexpected behaviour, or other difficulties for physicalism.
That is correct as stated but somewhat misleading: the problem is why is it necessary, in the case of experience, and only in the case of experience to instantiate it in order to fully understand it. Obviously, it is true a that a descirption of a brain state won’t put you into that brain state. But that doesn’t show that there is nothing unusual about qualia. The problem is that there in no other case does it seem necessary to instantiate a brain state in order to understand something.
>I don’t mind corrections to specific steps, but would appreciate you confirming that yes, you think Mary is a strong argument. And then it would be nice to have a better justification for this than “seems necessary
It’s tautologous that an explanation of subjective experience needs be about subjective experience. If subjective experience is reducible to brain states, then an explanation should be able to predict qualia, including novel ones...given a brain state as an input , it predicts a set of qualia as an output. But what does that mean? How can an entirely objective theory produce such an output? You say: well, naturally doesn’t , because it doesn’t put you into the brain state. But even though you have excused the shortcoming, it is still there. You have a meta explanation for why the explanation fails, not a successful explanation. And “Mary needs to actually instantiate Red herself” concedes that there are some things that are intrinsically subjective.
Have you actually seen orthonormal’s sequence on this exact argument? My intuitions say the “Martha” AI described therein, which imitates “Mary,” would in fact have qualia; this suffices to prove that our intuitions are unreliable (unless you can convincingly argue that some intuitions are more equal than others.) Moreover, it suggests a credible answer to your question: integration is necessary in order to “understand experience” because we’re talking about a kind of “understanding” which necessarily stems from the internal workings of the system, specifically the interaction of the “conscious” part with the rest.
(I do note that the addendum to the sequence’s final post should have been more fully integrated into the sequence from the start.)
Have you actually seen orthonormal’s sequence on this exact argument?
Yes.
My intuitions say the “Martha” AI described therein, which imitates “Mary,” would in fact have qualia;
Obviously, both arguments rely on intuition.
this suffices to prove that our intuitions are unreliable
I don’t think intuitions are 100% reliable.
I do think we are stuck with them.
(unless you can convincingly argue that some intuitions are more equal than others.)
I have been addressing the people who have the expected response to Mary’s Room
..I can’t do much about the rest.
Moreover, it suggests a credible answer to your question: integration is necessary in order to “understand experience” because we’re talking about a kind of “understanding” which necessarily stems from the internal workings of the system, specifically the interaction of the “conscious” part with the rest.
I think that sort of objection just pushes the problem back. If “integration” is a fully physical and objective process, and if Mary is truly a superscientist, then Mary will fully understand how her subject “integrated” their sense experience, and won’t be surprised by experiencing red.
It’s different because we don’t experience neural activity as neural activity. That doesn’t rule out neural activity being causal or constitutive of qualia. But what the camp #2 person wants is an explanation of how neural activity constitutes the experience. Asserting, as a definition, that it does isn’t a persuasive explanation...and is talking-past.
Yeah, that’s what I mean when I talk about axiomatically privileging experience and what I explicitly disagree with—we don’t experience experiences as experiences either. It’s not different. Describing things as “I’m seeing blue” or having similar internal thoughts is not inherently better. In fact it’s worse, because it’s less precise. There is no strong foundation for preferring such theory/definitions and so there is no reason to demand for a better theory to logically derive concepts from a worse one—it’s not how reductionism works[1].
And as to why Mary doesn’t provide such foundation...
That is correct as stated but somewhat misleading: the problem is why is it necessary, in the case of experience, and only in the case of experience to instantiate it in order to fully understand it.
...it’s not necessary. At the point where physical theory fully describes both knowledge and state of Mary, there is no argument for why you must define knowledge in a way that leads to contradictions. And there are arguments why you shouldn’t—we understand how knowledge works physically, so you can’t just say that “not fully understand” feels appropriate here and treat it as enough of a justification.
And again, experience is not the only case—if you told someone to look at Mary falling from a bicycle and asked them whether she knows how to ride a bicycle, they would say that she doesn’t.
So, considering that the meta explanation is correct in identifying the demand to use the bad definitions as wrong, why would someone not be persuaded? What is the argument for the necessity of instantiating experience for knowledge that keeps you persuaded in it?
Yeah, that’s what I mean when I talk about axiomatically privileging experience and what I explicitly disagree with—we don’t experience experiences as experiences either.
Of course we do.
It’s not different. Describing things as “I’m seeing blue” or having similar internal thoughts is not inherently better. In fact it’s worse, because it’s less precise.
It would be a less accurate way of defining the same thing, if we already knew that experiences are fully identifiable with neural activity. But we don’t know, that....that is what the whole debate is about.
Once you have a successful theory, it is reasonable to change a definition in accordance. For instance, knowing that water (“wet stuff in rivers, seas, and lakes”) is H2O,you can define water as H2O.
You can’t make the arrow go in the other direction. Defining a tail as a leg doesn’t prove a dog has five legs.
Would you concede that it’s ever possible to misuse arbitrary redefinitions?
There is no strong foundation for preferring such theory/definitions and so there is no reason to demand for a better theory to logically derive concepts from a worse one—it’s not how reductionism works[1].
Definitions aren’t theories. Preferring “precise”,objective, etc., definitions of words doesn’t prove everything is objective , because it’s just your own preference. What you are not doing is investigating reality in an unbiased way… instead you have placed yourself in the driving seat.
An explanation of fire is not about fire in logical sense—it’s about atoms.
It is of course, about both. A reductive explanation relates a higher level phenomenon to a lower level one, If you insist on ignoring the higher level phenomeneon because it is “bad” or “imprecise”, you can’t achieve an explanation. You have to have the vague understanding of water as wet stuff before you can have the precise understanding of water as H2O.
...it’s not necessary. At the point where physical theory fully describes both knowledge and state of Mary, there is no argument for why you must define knowledge in a way that leads to contradictions.
What contradiction? If something is contradictory, you need to show it.
Physical theory doesn’t fully describes the knowledge and state of Mary, because physical theory can’t describe sensations. That’s the whole point.
There is an argument against physical theory being fully adequate, and since the theory isn’t known to be correct, we shouldn’t change the definition of “quale”.
And there are arguments why you shouldn’t—we understand how knowledge works physically,
We understand how some kinds of knowledge do, but maybe not all kinds. People have believed in knowledge-by-aquaintance for a long time.
so you can’t just say that “not fully understand” feels appropriate here and treat it as enough of a justification.
You cant just say “fully understand” feels appropriate here and treat it as enough of a justification. It’s intuitions either way
And again, experience is not the only case—if you told someone to look at Mary falling from a bicycle and asked them whether she knows how to ride a bicycle, they would say that she doesn’t.
You’re not the first person to think that knowledge-by-acquaintance is the same thing as know-how. But...consider showing it , not just telling it.
So, considering that the meta explanation is correct in identifying the demand to use the bad definitions as wrong, why would someone not be persuaded?
You haven’t shown anything is bad.
What is the argument for the necessity of instantiating experience for knowledge that keeps you persuaded in it?
The Mary’s Room argument is not a logical proof. It is nonetheless persuasive to a lot of people because a lot of people find that experiencing something personally is more informative than hearing about it at second hand.
To be clear, I don’t argue for physicalism about qualia in general here, only against Mary.
Would you concede that it’s ever possible to misuse arbitrary redefinitions?
Yes, of course, it’s possible to use a definition from incomplete or wrong theory, among other things.
What contradiction?
The contradiction between with physical description of knowledge.
You cant just say “fully understand” feels appropriate here and treat it as enough of a justification. It’s intuitions either way
It’s not—it’s intuitions and precise description of everything about the situation (Which you agree with, right? That it’s not surprising for an image of a brain scan to have a different effect on Mary from seeing something red, that physicalism predicts the difference) on the one side and just intuition on the other. So...
It would be a less accurate way of defining the same thing, if we already knew that experiences are fully identifiable with neural activity. But we don’t know, that....that is what the whole debate is about.
...we (or we from future, or Mary) do know this by observing that neural activity works the same way the thing that you call “experience” works. The argument for identifying experiences with neural activity works as much now as arguments for reductive explanation about trajectory of a falling leaf, but even if you want to check whether it works in the future and imagine Mary, you would still discover that at best it’s slightly unintuitive.
There is an argument against physical theory being fully adequate, and since the theory isn’t known to be correct, we shouldn’t change the definition of “quale”.
The problem is that the whole argument is “it feels unintuitive”, when the theory is known to be correct to the level of precisely describing everything about the situation.
We understand how some kinds of knowledge do, but maybe not all kinds. People have believed in knowledge-by-aquaintance for a long time.
We also understand how knowledge-by-acquaintance works physically—it just changes your brain. There is nothing problematic on the knowledge level.
If you insist on ignoring the higher level phenomeneon because it is “bad” or “imprecise”, you can’t achieve an explanation.
The only part being ignored in physical description of knowledge-by-aquaintance is the feeling of it being unintuitive.
a lot of people find that experiencing something personally is more informative than hearing about it at second hand.
Which is explained physically. What’s the argument for demanding more?
You’re not the first person to think that knowledge-by-acquaintance is the same thing as know-how. But...consider showing it , not just telling it.
They are not precisely the same thing—they are different neural processes. But yes, they both harder to obtain with just description. What’s there to show? The argument was that experiences are the only kind of knowledge that requires something except physical description. Do you disagree that Mary can have all physical knowledge but still don’t know how to drive a bike? The thing we can deduce from this is that such definition of physical knowledge is bad.
Of course we do.
And why do you think this is true? All definitions bottom out somewhere and there is no reason to stop at experiences specifically.
The only way Mary can work as an argument is if you give the “we experience experiences as experiences”-assumption a special status: if you have an axiom of “I know what it’s like to see red”, then you can build on that the justification for why it’s so important to preserve all aspects of your assumed knowledge including what must be called knowledge and the intuitions about knowledge-by-acquaintance.
To be clear, I don’t argue for physicalism about qualia in general here, only against Mary.
You’re arguing against Mary’s Room on the basis of physicalism:-
It’s not—it’s intuitions and precise description of everything about the situation
The idea that a complete physical and explanation captures “everything” is a clam equivalent to physicalism.
The contradiction between with physical description of knowledge.
Of course “Mary doesn’t know what Red looks like” contradicts “physical descriptions in the form of detailed brain scans capture everything”...and vice versa. That’s the point. An argument for X contradicts not X. That’s not the same as a self contradiction.
(Which you agree with, right? That it’s not surprising for an image of a brain scan to have a different effect on Mary from seeing something red, that physicalism predicts the difference)
The point is not just that seeing a tomato has a different effect , the point is that Mary learns something. And physicalism does not predict that , because it implies complete physical descriptions leave something out.
on the one side and just intuition on the other. So...
It would be a less accurate way of defining the same thing, if we already knew that experiences are fully identifiable with neural activity.
We don’t know that. Assuming it is equivalent to assuming physicalism, which begs the question against Mary’s Room.
..we (or we from future, or Mary) do know this by observing that neural activity works the same way the thing that you call “experience” works.
No. One of them is only knowable by personal instantiation...as you concede...kind of.
The argument for identifying experiences with neural activity works as much now as arguments for reductive explanation about trajectory of a falling leaf,
Every individual reductive argument has to pay it’s own way. There’s no global argument for reductionism.
but even if you want to check whether it works in the future and imagine Mary, you would still discover that at best it’s slightly unintuitive.
Since we don’t actually have a reductive explanation of conscious experience, it’s intuition telling you that we will or should or must.
There is an argument against physical theory being fully adequate, and since the theory isn’t known to be correct, we shouldn’t change the definition of “quale”.
The problem is that the whole argument is “it feels unintuitive”, when the theory is known to be correct to the level of precisely describing everything about the situation.
No it isn’t.
a lot of people find that experiencing something personally is more informative than hearing about it at second hand.
Which is explained physically. What’s the argument for demanding more?
Are you saying:-
we don’t learn from acquaintance..
but we have a false intuition we do...
and science can definitely predict 2.
...?
Ie., something like illusionism. Because I’m pretty sure 3 is false.
You’re not the first person to think that knowledge-by-acquaintance is the same thing as know-how. But...consider showing it , not just telling it.
They are not precisely the same thing—they are different neural processes. But yes, they both harder to obtain with just description. What’s there to show? The argument was that experiences are the only kind of knowledge that requires something except physical description. Do you disagree that Mary can have all physical knowledge but still don’t know how to drive a bike?
I agree, but I don’t see how that makes both things the same.
Of course we do.
And why do you think this is true? All definitions bottom out somewhere and there is no reason to stop at experiences specifically.
I’ve didn’t say there was. I’m calling for experiences to be accepted as having some sort of existence, and explained somehow. To not be ignored.
The only way Mary can work as an argument is if you give the “we experience experiences as experiences”-assumption a special status: if you have an axiom of “I know what it’s like to see red”,
I agree with “I know what it’s like to see red” , but I don’t see how it equates to “we experience experiences as experiences”. What else would we experience our own experiences as? Brain scans?
then you can build on that the justification for why it’s so important to preserve all aspects of your assumed knowledge
It’s important not to disregard things, and the claim that you have a “complete” explanation.
I’m saying that it’s ok to beg the question here, because, as you say, Mary is not a logical argument: if there is no contradiction either way, then physicalism wins by precision. And you don’t need to explicitly assume “physical descriptions in the form of detailed brain scans capture everything”—you only need to consistently use one of common-sense-to-someone-who-knows-physics definitions of knowledge.
Ie., something like illusionism. Because I’m pretty sure 3 is false.
Yes, I’m saying that you can non-contradictory choose your definitions of knowledge in such a way that 1 is true and so 2 is also true because intuition asserting non-true proposition is wrong and 3 is true because intuition is just neural activity and science predicts all of it. And yes, that means that illusionism is right in that you can be wrong about your (knowledge of) experiences.
I agree with “I know what it’s like to see red” , but I don’t see how it equates to “we experience experiences as experiences”. What else would we experience our own experiences as? Brain scans?
As neural signals. There is no justification to start from a model that includes experiences. If Mary is not an argument for adding experiences to a physical model, then it’s not an argument for not ignoring (contradictory aspects of) them when reducing high level description to a physical model.
I’m calling for experiences to be accepted as having some sort of existence, and explained somehow. To not be ignored.
They are not ignored, they’re represented by corresponding neural processes. Like, what is ignored and not explained by a physical description? It’s not the need for instantiation—it’s predicted by experiences being separate neural process. You can’t say “it ignores qualia”—that would be ignoring the whole Mary setup and begging the question—as far as Mary goes there is no problem with “qualia are neural processes”. So it leaves only intuition about knowledge—about high-level concept which you can define however you want.
No. One of them is only knowable by personal instantiation...as you concede...kind of.
Under a definition of knowledge that calls experiences “knowledge” knowing some of your own neural activity also requires instantiating that neural activity.
I’m saying that it’s ok to beg the question here, because, as you say, Mary is not a logical argument: if there is no contradiction either way, then physicalism wins by precision.
There is a fact of the matter about whether physical descriptions are exhaustive, even if Mary’s Room doesnt prove it. If physical descriptions don’t convey experiences as such , they are fundamentally flawed , and the precision isn’t much compensation.
And you don’t need to explicitly assume “physical descriptions in the form of detailed brain scans capture everything”—you only need to consistently use one of common-sense-to-someone-who-knows-physics definitions of knowledge.
Defining knowledge as purely physical doesn’t prove anything about the world. (But you are probably using “definition” to mean “theory’.)
Are you saying:-
1 we don’t learn from acquaintance..
2 but we have a false intuition we do...
3 and science can definitely predict 2.
Yes, I’m saying that you can non-contradictory
Lots of things are non contradictory. Non circularity is more of an achievement.
choose your definitions of knowledge in such a way that 1 is true and so 2 is also true because intuition asserting non-true proposition is wrong and 3 is true because intuition is just neural activity and science predicts all of it. And yes, that means that illusionism is right in that you can be wrong about your (knowledge of) experiences.
Again, you can’t prove things by adopting definitions. If we had a detailed understanding of neuroscience that predicted an illusion of knowledge-by -acquaintance specifically, you’d be onto something. But illusionist claims are philosophical theories, not scientific facts.
What else would we experience our own experiences as? Brain scans?
As neural signals.
We don t experience experiences as neural signals. A person can spend their life with no idea that there is such a thing as a neural signal.
There is no justification to start from a model that includes experiences
Experience need to be explained because everything needs to be explained. Experiences need not end up in the final ontological model, because sometimes less an explanation explains-away.
If Mary is not an argument for adding experiences to a physical model, then it’s not an argument for not ignoring (contradictory aspects of) them when reducing high level description to a physical model.
I’m calling for experiences to be accepted as having some sort of existence, and explained somehow. To not be ignored.
They are not ignored, they’re represented by corresponding neural processes. Like, what is ignored and not explained by a physical description?
The experience itself.
It’s not the need for instantiation—it’s predicted by experiences being separate neural process. You can’t say “it ignores qualia”—that would be ignoring the whole Mary setup and begging the question—as far as Mary goes there is no problem with “qualia are neural processes”.
That would be the case if physicalism is true, but you don’t know that physicalism is.true..
You basically assumed it, by assuming that physical explanations are complete. That’s circular.
Under a definition of knowledge that calls experiences “knowledge” knowing some of your own neural activity also requires instantiating that neural activity.
So maybe I could arbitrarily assume that definition?
Lots of things are non contradictory. Non circularity is more of an achievement.
Such physical definitions of knowledge are not more circular than anything, I think?
So maybe I could arbitrarily assume that definition?
I mean, go ahead—then Mary would just be able to imagine red.
Again, you can’t prove things by adopting definitions.
Exactly—that’s why Mary doesn’t work.
If we had a detailed understanding of neuroscience that predicted an illusion of knowledge-by -acquaintance specifically, you’d be onto something. But illusionist claims are philosophical theories, not scientific facts.
There is no need for additional scientific facts. There are enough scientific facts to accept physical explanation of the whole Mary setup. That’s why people mostly seek philosophical problems with physicalism and why physicalists answer with philosophical theories—if physicalism is philosophically coherent, then it is undoubtedly true.
That would be the case if physicalism is true, but you don’t know that physicalism is.true..You basically assumed it, by assuming that physical explanations are complete. That’s circular.
The Mary’s room was supposed to be an argument against physicalism. If there are no philosophical problems in the setup after you assume physicalism, then argument fails. It is equivalent to disagreeing with some step of an argument, like “Mary gets new knowledge”—you can’t just disallow disagreeing with this because it’s logically equivalent to assuming physicalism—that would be assuming non-physicalism that the argument was about. Of course, I don’t just assume physicalism—you need to satisfy the “no philosophical problems” condition, so I talk about why “Mary gets new knowledge” is just trying to prove things by adopting definitions. I don’t see how do you think it can work otherwise—you can’t derive “physicalism is true” from Mary’s assumptions alone. Obviously, assuming physicalism doesn’t prove that physicalism is true. But again, I don’t argue, that physicalism is true, I’m arguing that Mary is a bad argument.
There is a fact of the matter about whether physical descriptions are exhaustive, even if Mary’s Room doesnt prove it. If physical descriptions don’t convey experiences as such , they are fundamentally flawed , and the precision isn’t much compensation.
Sure. So you do agree now that talking about Mary or knowledge is unnecessary?
They are not ignored, they’re represented by corresponding neural processes. Like, what is ignored and not explained by a physical description?
The experience itself.
So, what is your argument against “experience itself is explained by “human experiences are neural processes”″, if it’s not Mary?
Experience need to be explained because everything needs to be explained. Experiences need not end up in the final ontological model, because sometimes less an explanation explains-away.
If you don’t demand specific experiences to be in the final ontological model, they are explained the same way the fire is explained. The explanation of fire does not usually set you on fire. What you call “I’m seeing blue” is actually “your neurons are activated in a way similar to a way they are activated when blue light is directed to your eyes”. On what basis then you say that these 3gb of numbers from a simulation do not explain fire?
Such physical definitions of knowledge are not more circular than anything, I think?
I don’t know what your mean. I wasn’t intentionally saying anything physical or non physical.
So maybe I could arbitrarily assume that definition?
I mean, go ahead—then Mary would just be able to imagine red.
No,because you can’t prove things through definitions.
Again, you can’t prove things by adopting definitions.
Exactly—that’s why Mary doesn’t work.
The Mary’s Room argument is not an argument from definitions.
If we had a detailed understanding of neuroscience that predicted an illusion of knowledge-by -acquaintance specifically, you’d be onto something. But illusionist claims are philosophical theories, not scientific facts.
There is no need for additional scientific facts. There are enough scientific facts to accept physical explanation of the whole Mary setup.
Show me a prediction of a novel quale!
That’s why people mostly seek philosophical problems with physicalism and why physicalists answer with philosophical theories—if physicalism is philosophically coherent, then it is undoubtedly true.
No. Consistency is necessary for truth, but nowhere near sufficient.
That would be the case if physicalism is true, but you don’t know that physicalism is.true..You basically assumed it, by assuming that physical explanations are complete. That’s circular.
The Mary’s room was supposed to be an argument against physicalism. If there are no philosophical problems in the setup after you assume physicalism,
It’s suppose to be an argumetn against phsysicalism, so you can’t refute it by assuming physicalism.
then argument fails. It is equivalent to disagreeing with some step of an argument, like “Mary gets new knowledge”—you can’t just disallow disagreeing with this
I don’t disallow disagreeing with it. I disallow assuming physicalism. The point is to think about what would happen in the situation whilst suspending judgement about the ontology the world works on.
because it’s logically equivalent to assuming physicalism—that would be assuming non-physicalism that the argument was about.
Non physicalism doesn’t imply “Mary would not know what Red looks like”>
Of course, I don’t just assume physicalism—you need to satisfy the “no philosophical problems” condition, so I talk about why “Mary gets new knowledge” is just trying to prove things by adopting definitions. I don’t see how do you think it can work otherwise—you can’t derive “physicalism is true” from Mary’s assumptions alone. Obviously, assuming physicalism doesn’t prove that physicalism is true. But again, I don’t argue, that physicalism is true, I’m arguing that Mary is a bad argument.
So you do agree now that talking about Mary or knowledge is unnecessary?
No.
They are not ignored, they’re represented by corresponding neural processes.
There’s no fact of the matter about that. If they are fully represented , then Mary would know what red looks like, otherwise not. If we could perform M’s R as a rela experiment, we would not need it as a thought experiment.
Like, what is ignored and not explained by a physical description?
The experience itself.
So, what is your argument against “experience itself is explained by “human experiences are neural processes”″, if it’s not Mary?
There’s no reason it shouldn’t be Mary. Mary’s Room isn’t a proof, but there is no proof of the contrary. Arguments that start “assuming physicalism” are not proof because they are invalid because they are circular.
If you don’t demand specific experiences to be in the final ontological model, they are explained the same way the fire is explained.
We have a detailed gears-level explanation of fire, we do not have one of conscious experience. There are three possibilities, not two:
X is explained, and survives the explanation as part of ontology.
X is explained away.
X is not explained at all.
Merely saying that “X is an emergent, high level phenomenon..but don’t ask me how or why” is not an explanation, despite what many here think.
The explanation of fire does not usually set you on fire.
You only need to instantiate something yourself if it fundamentally subjective.
Physicalists sometimes respond to Mary’s Room by saying that one can not expect Mary actually to actually instantiate Red herself just by looking at a brain scan. It seems obvious to them that a physical description of brain state won’t convey what that state is like, because it doesn’t put you into that state. As an argument for physicalism, the strategy is to accept that qualia exist, but argue that they present no unexpected behaviour, or other difficulties for physicalism.
That is correct as stated but somewhat misleading: the problem is why is it necessary, in the case of experience, and only in the case of experience to instantiate it in order to fully understand it. Obviously, it is true a that a descirption of a brain state won’t put you into that brain state. But that doesn’t show that there is nothing unusual about qualia. The problem is that there in no other case does it seem necessary to instantiate a brain state in order to undertstand something.
If another version of Mary were shut up to learn everything about, say, nuclear fusion, the question “would she actually know about nuclear fusion” could only be answered “yes, of course....didn’t you just say she knows everything”? The idea that she would have to instantiate a fusion reaction within her own body in order to understand fusion is quite counterintuitive. Similarly, a description of photosynthesis will make you photosynthesise, and would not be needed for a complete understanding of photosynthesis.
There seem to be some edge cases.: for instance, would an alternative Mary know everything about heart attacks without having one herself? Well, she would know everything except what a heart attack feels like, and what it feels like is a quale. the edge cases, like that one, are cases are just cases where an element of knowledge-by-acquaintance is needed for complete knowledge. Even other mental phenomena don’t suffer from this peculiarity. Thoughts and memories are straightforwardly expressible in words, so long as they don’t involve qualia.
So: is the response “well, she has never actually instantiated colour vision in her own brain” one that lays to rest and the challenge posed by the Knowledge argument, leaving physicalism undisturbed? The fact that these physicalists feel it would be in some way necessary to instantiate colour, but not other things, like photosynthesis or fusion, means they subscribe to the idea that there is something epistemically unique about qualia/experience, even if they resist the idea that qualia are metaphysically unique.
What you call “I’m seeing blue” is actually “your neurons are activated in a way similar to a way they are activated when blue light is directed to your eyes”.
Says who? You can’t actually show me the explanation, and you can’t prove it by assuming physicalism.
On what basis then you say that these 3gb of numbers from On what basis then you say that these 3gb of numbers from a simulation do not explain fire?
I didn;’t say fire doesn’t have an explanation. Note that explanations have nothing to do with simulations. Explanations have to do with
i) showing that two things are necessarily, not arbitrarily linked.
ii) making predictions, especially novel ones.
An explanation of conscious experience would render zombies unimaginable (because of i) and allow you to predict novel qualia (because of ii).
That is correct as stated but somewhat misleading: the problem is why is it necessary, in the case of experience, and only in the case of experience to instantiate it in order to fully understand it.
Here—“fully understand” depends on definition of “understand”. What you understand is not a matter of fact, it’s a matter of definition. All you talk about is how it is “counterintuitive” to call instantiating nuclear reaction in yourself “understanding”. “It’s intuitive to call new experience “additional knowledge”″ is an argument from definitions.
There seem to be some edge cases.: for instance, would an alternative Mary know everything about heart attacks without having one herself? Well, she would know everything except what a heart attack feels like, and what it feels like is a quale. the edge cases, like that one, are cases are just cases where an element of knowledge-by-acquaintance is needed for complete knowledge. Even other mental phenomena don’t suffer from this peculiarity. Thoughts and memories are straightforwardly expressible in words, so long as they don’t involve qualia.
They are only edge cases of specific definitions of knowledge. There is no fundamental reason why you must call “knowledge” heart attack’s effect on your brain and not call “knowledge” fire’s effect on your hand.
The fact that these physicalists feel it would be in some way necessary to instantiate colour, but not other things, like photosynthesis or fusion, means they subscribe to the idea that there is something epistemically unique about qualia/experience, even if they resist the idea that qualia are metaphysically unique.
“Necessary” for what? Judging from “epistemically unique” it is implied that it is necessary for knowledge? Then it’s certainly incorrect—it’s either not necessary, because Mary can have a more compact representation of knowledge about color, or it’s necessary for all things, if Mary supposed to have all representations of knowledge. It may be necessary for satisfying Mary’s preferences to have qualia independently of their epistemic value—that’s your perfectly physicalist source of subjectivity.
If you only care about matters of fact, then there are no problems for physicalism in that the human qualia are unusual—it predicts that different neural processes are different. And predicts that it’s useful to see things for yourself. And that it will feel intuitive to say “Mary gets new knowledge” for some people. I think it even follows from casual closure, that it doesn’t make sense for there to be unphysical explanation for intuitions? If your intuition is not predicted by physics, then atoms somewhere have to be unexpectedly nudged—is it what you propose? I… don’t really understand the argument here? The physicalism doesn’t say that all things that it is intuitive to call “knowledge” are equally easy to get from books, or something—why exactly it is an argument against physicalism that Mary gets what it predicts?
No,because you can’t prove things through definitions.
There’s no fact of the matter about that. If they are fully represented , then Mary would know what red looks like, otherwise not. If we could perform M’s R as a rela experiment, we would not need it as a thought experiment.
Wait, is the problem that you actually think that it is not obviously physically possible to imagine red without seeing it? Like, knowing everything plausible includes having all permutations of neuron states, including the state where you are seeing red. Is your “matter of fact” about knowing what it is like to see considers the possibility that without actually seeing Mary could only simulate zombie-red or something?
Oh, I finally got why are you talking about predicting novel qualia—you are saying that physicalism doesn’t predict Mary seeing red, right? Because it only predicts neural activity. My point is that this complain doesn’t have anything to do with Mary or knowledge. If you only talk about Mary, then there is no motivation to doubt physicalism from the experiment. The point of Mary is that she gains knowledge and physicalism predicts gaining knowledge. There is no need to talk about novel qualia, because physical knowledge contains knowledge about differences between different, old and novel, qualia. You agree, that physicalism at least (allows definition of knowledge where it) predicts gaining some knowledge from instantiation when Mary leaves room, right? Then even if you have doubts about this predicted knowledge being incomplete, Mary doesn’t provide anything that justifies this doubt—your arguments about insufficient gears-level explanations would work the same way in situations without novel qualia or complete physical knowledge. Or do you have an example of specific difference between qualia that is not predicted by physicalism and uniquely depends on the whole instantiation thing? I mean, my position is that there are no differences between qualia that are not predicted by physicalism at all, so any examples would be appreciated.
Novel relative to what epistemic state? Sure, we probably can’t ethically and consistently make a human say “wow, it was neither sight nor hearing” now, but I really don’t get what’s the justification for ignoring other facts about qualia that physicalism can predict? Some of them were novel for humanity in their time.
Says who?
Induction.
We have a detailed gears-level explanation of fire, we do not have one of conscious experience.
We don’t usually have very detailed explanations of specific fires. And we have detailed explanation of conscious experience—physics equations^^. But ok, there is a space for more useful theories. The thing I don’t understand is how it is an argument against physicalism—do you expect to not get gears-level explanation in the future? The whole point of doing Mary is that no one expects it.
Merely saying that “X is an emergent, high level phenomenon..but don’t ask me how or why” is not an explanation, despite what many here think.
Yes, but that would just mean that the correct position is “physicalism is right, but the detailed explanation is in the works”. Not detailed-enough explanation at the present moment is just one of factors you weight, along with “physicalism has detailed explanations about physics, neurons and all other things”, not something that logically prohibits believing in physicalism. Again, that’s not what mainstream arguments against physicalism are? It’s always “physicalism can’t possibly explain consciousness even if it’s explanation have been detailed”.
i) showing that two things are necessarily, not arbitrarily linked.
That’s what I am against—it’s not justified, depending on what do you mean by “necessarily”—atoms are not necessarily linked to fire. In the end, we just arbitrary call some atoms “fire”. So why demand this only for qualia? If it’s only “as necessary as reduction of fire”, than it is already that necessary—the expectation that you will get neurological explanation in future is the same kind of inductive reasoning that you do, when you decide that correlations between atoms and fire are enough to believe explanation in terms of atoms.
I have been mulling over this discussion, trying to identify the best ways to move it forward—focus on the case of an object that isn’t red but still looks red? focus on the relationship between representation and experience? - not just because the nature of reality is interesting, but because getting the nature of consciousness right, is potentially central to alignment of superintelligence (what OpenAI is now calling “superalignment”). I was also interested in exploring your hypothesis that some substantial difference (of phenomenology, cognition, and/or metacognition), maybe even a phenotypic difference, might be the reason why some naturally favor qualia, and others don’t.
However, in another comment you have declared that along with qualia, you also disbelieve in properties, kinds, people, and time. These are all concocted by our brains. So your ontology seems to be one in which, there’s physics, and then there are brains, which fabricate an entire fake reality, which is nonetheless the reality that we live in.
At this point, I have to conclude that I’m not dealing with a subtly different phenomenology, but rather with the effects of a philosophical belief system. There’s no reason to suppose that your skepticism towards qualia has a special subtle cause, when you deny the reality of so much else.
Maybe we could call it Democritus Syndrome, since he had a very similar outlook. In reality, there’s just atoms and the void; but “by convention”, we also say there’s color and taste and everything else. Interestingly, the fragment which reports this proposition (fragment 125) actually attributes it to the intellect, and also presents a riposte from the senses, who say, how can you deny us when you rely on our evidence?
But Democritus is just one of the first known examples of this stance. When Locke distinguishes secondary qualities from primary qualities, it’s a step in the same direction. One response to that distinction is found in doctrines like property dualism and emergentism, in which one acknowledges that physics portrays the world of the primary qualities as causally closed and self-sufficient, but one is unable to deny the reality of the secondary qualities, and therefore regards them as equally real, and either correlated with, or dependent on, the primary qualities.
Then there’s the response which denies the reality of the secondary qualities, or at least regards them as having a lesser reality. You seem to fall into this category. I don’t know if you adhere to a specific philosophical school of this type, or if you’re just a scientific materialist who is agnostic about the details. (I also want to note something Dennett said about eliminativism, that eliminativists can be selective; they can believe in some aspects of reported phenomenology, and disbelieve in others.)
Then we have various ontological doctrines for which robust realism regarding the phenomenal is all but axiomatic. There is the idealist option which says, if I am faced with a dilemma between physics and phenomenology, of course I choose phenomenology, that’s what I actually and directly know about reality. And then there’s a kind of qualic realism which says, physics only provides a relational or structural description of reality, but phenomenology gives us a glimpse of the things in themselves. The experienced world, the “lifeworld”, is the actual nature of the conscious part of the brain. That is my position, more or less.
So if I try to imagine what it’s like to be you, I imagine a phenomenology which is a normal human phenomenology, but then (when ontological issues arise) there’s an internal commentary which reminds you that all this is a construction of the brain, and the true reality is the wavefunction of the universe (or however it is that you conceive of fundamental physics).
I first noticed my inability to understand qualia in 1981 or 1982, when I was an undergraduate in Ned Block’s Philosophy of Mind class. That wasn’t a big deal, I didn’t understand lots of things as an undergraduate. But it was a niggling problem. It wasn’t until the ’90s sometime that I came up with my “I don’t have qualia” theory. And it wasn’t until 2016, when I read The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts, and other Kantian philosophy, that I realized that many things whose reality I accepted were actually constructed by my mind for my convenience.
That‘s a problem for the theory that Democritus Syndrome causes claiming disbelief in qualia, since I claimed to not have qualia before I caught Democritus Syndrome.
Here’s an alternate theory. Qualia are a kind of tag on top of perceptions, that says “This is real, reason on that basis.” I don’t have that tag, so it’s easier for me to believe that my mind has constructed reality from sense data, rather than that I directly perceive it. The direction of causality is reversed from your theory.
Saying that qualia dont really exist, but only appear to, solves nothing. For one thing qualia are definitionally appearances , so you haven’t eliminated them. For another, the physicalist still need to explain how and why the brain produces such appearances. For a third, you have to know what “qualia” means to express a sceptical.theory about them.
I mean, by your definition the experience of red is a quale, by their definition experience is some neural activity, and then there is nothing else to explain. The sceptical theory is only sceptical about “but experience is not neural activity!” and for that “qualia, as a thing that is not neural activity, only appears to exist” is a reasonable answer when appearances are defined to be some neural activity.
That’s a theory, not a definition. Confusion between theories and definitions is one of the persistent problems in this debate.
The way I see it works is every definition is under a theory of the model that includes these definitions describing reality better or worse. Otherwise they are just empty words. So “qualia are experiences” or just “there are such things as qualia” are also implicitly low-resolution theories. Experiences are privileged only under misguided theories of knowledge (which are theories because it’s in the name) which make experiences axiomatically true. Otherwise just gesturing to “you know, experiences, you obviously see some things” is not fundamentally different from gesturing to neural activity, and the one about neural activity is more precise.
So, I don’t understand which part of the above you have a problem with. You don’t disbelief in theoretical ability of neuroscience to show on a screen what you are seeing, right? Because all that talk about reductive explanation may give such impression. So it’s all about Mary? That even after we obtain precise theory of what you see, it still wouldn’t make you see and that… “seems necessary” or something.
I don’t mind corrections to specific steps, but would appreciate you confirming that yes, you think Mary is a strong argument. And then it would be nice to have a better justification for this than “seems necessary”.
>Experiences are privileged only under misguided theories of knowledge (which are theories because it’s in the name) which make experiences axiomatically true.
Science regards experiences as probably correct about their causes, because you can’t do empiricism without that assumption. “Qualia are axiomatically true” is not something you need to claim to define qualia, and not something that is always claimed about qualia, and not central to the problem of qualia.
> Otherwise just gesturing to “you know, experiences, you obviously see some things” is not fundamentally different from gesturing to neural activity, and the one about neural activity is more precise.
It’s different because we don’t experience neural activity as neural activity. That doesn’t rule out neural activity being causal or constitutive of qualia. But what the camp #2 person wants is an explanation of how neural activity constitutes the experience. Asserting, as a definition, that it does isn’t a persuasive explanation...and is talking-past.
>So, I don’t understand which part of the above you have a problem with. You don’t disbelief in theoretical ability of neuroscience to show on a screen what you are seeing, right?
That’s ambiguous in just the way that Mary’s Room is supposed to disambiguate. Mary is able to tell what someone is seeing in the third-person reading-the label sense, just not in the first person, drinking the wine, sense.
>Because all that talk about reductive explanation may give such impression. So it’s all about Mary? That even after we obtain precise theory of what you see, it still wouldn’t make you see and that… “seems necessary” or something.
An objective explanation of seeing red doesn’t make you personally see red *and* personally seeing red is necessary to know what red looks like...ie. the explanation is incomplete.
Physicalists sometimes respond to Mary’s Room by saying that one can not expect Mary actually to actually instantiate Red herself just by looking at a brain scan. It seems obvious to them that a physical description of brain state won’t convey what that state is like, because it doesn’t put you into that state. As an argument for physicalism, the strategy is to accept that qualia exist, but argue that they present no unexpected behaviour, or other difficulties for physicalism.
That is correct as stated but somewhat misleading: the problem is why is it necessary, in the case of experience, and only in the case of experience to instantiate it in order to fully understand it. Obviously, it is true a that a descirption of a brain state won’t put you into that brain state. But that doesn’t show that there is nothing unusual about qualia. The problem is that there in no other case does it seem necessary to instantiate a brain state in order to understand something.
>I don’t mind corrections to specific steps, but would appreciate you confirming that yes, you think Mary is a strong argument. And then it would be nice to have a better justification for this than “seems necessary
It’s tautologous that an explanation of subjective experience needs be about subjective experience. If subjective experience is reducible to brain states, then an explanation should be able to predict qualia, including novel ones...given a brain state as an input , it predicts a set of qualia as an output.
But what does that mean? How can an entirely objective theory produce such an output? You say: well, naturally doesn’t , because it doesn’t put you into the brain state. But even though you have excused the shortcoming, it is still there. You have a meta explanation for why the explanation fails, not a successful explanation. And “Mary needs to actually instantiate Red herself” concedes that there are some things that are intrinsically subjective.
Have you actually seen orthonormal’s sequence on this exact argument? My intuitions say the “Martha” AI described therein, which imitates “Mary,” would in fact have qualia; this suffices to prove that our intuitions are unreliable (unless you can convincingly argue that some intuitions are more equal than others.) Moreover, it suggests a credible answer to your question: integration is necessary in order to “understand experience” because we’re talking about a kind of “understanding” which necessarily stems from the internal workings of the system, specifically the interaction of the “conscious” part with the rest.
(I do note that the addendum to the sequence’s final post should have been more fully integrated into the sequence from the start.)
Yes.
Obviously, both arguments rely on intuition.
I don’t think intuitions are 100% reliable. I do think we are stuck with them.
I have been addressing the people who have the expected response to Mary’s Room ..I can’t do much about the rest.
I think that sort of objection just pushes the problem back. If “integration” is a fully physical and objective process, and if Mary is truly a superscientist, then Mary will fully understand how her subject “integrated” their sense experience, and won’t be surprised by experiencing red.
Thank you for clarifying things.
Yeah, that’s what I mean when I talk about axiomatically privileging experience and what I explicitly disagree with—we don’t experience experiences as experiences either. It’s not different. Describing things as “I’m seeing blue” or having similar internal thoughts is not inherently better. In fact it’s worse, because it’s less precise. There is no strong foundation for preferring such theory/definitions and so there is no reason to demand for a better theory to logically derive concepts from a worse one—it’s not how reductionism works[1].
And as to why Mary doesn’t provide such foundation...
...it’s not necessary. At the point where physical theory fully describes both knowledge and state of Mary, there is no argument for why you must define knowledge in a way that leads to contradictions. And there are arguments why you shouldn’t—we understand how knowledge works physically, so you can’t just say that “not fully understand” feels appropriate here and treat it as enough of a justification.
And again, experience is not the only case—if you told someone to look at Mary falling from a bicycle and asked them whether she knows how to ride a bicycle, they would say that she doesn’t.
So, considering that the meta explanation is correct in identifying the demand to use the bad definitions as wrong, why would someone not be persuaded? What is the argument for the necessity of instantiating experience for knowledge that keeps you persuaded in it?
It doesn’t need to be. An explanation of fire is not about fire in logical sense—it’s about atoms.
Of course we do.
It would be a less accurate way of defining the same thing, if we already knew that experiences are fully identifiable with neural activity. But we don’t know, that....that is what the whole debate is about.
Once you have a successful theory, it is reasonable to change a definition in accordance. For instance, knowing that water (“wet stuff in rivers, seas, and lakes”) is H2O,you can define water as H2O.
You can’t make the arrow go in the other direction. Defining a tail as a leg doesn’t prove a dog has five legs.
Would you concede that it’s ever possible to misuse arbitrary redefinitions?
Definitions aren’t theories. Preferring “precise”,objective, etc., definitions of words doesn’t prove everything is objective , because it’s just your own preference. What you are not doing is investigating reality in an unbiased way… instead you have placed yourself in the driving seat.
It is of course, about both. A reductive explanation relates a higher level phenomenon to a lower level one, If you insist on ignoring the higher level phenomeneon because it is “bad” or “imprecise”, you can’t achieve an explanation. You have to have the vague understanding of water as wet stuff before you can have the precise understanding of water as H2O.
What contradiction? If something is contradictory, you need to show it.
Physical theory doesn’t fully describes the knowledge and state of Mary, because physical theory can’t describe sensations. That’s the whole point. There is an argument against physical theory being fully adequate, and since the theory isn’t known to be correct, we shouldn’t change the definition of “quale”.
We understand how some kinds of knowledge do, but maybe not all kinds. People have believed in knowledge-by-aquaintance for a long time.
You cant just say “fully understand” feels appropriate here and treat it as enough of a justification. It’s intuitions either way
You’re not the first person to think that knowledge-by-acquaintance is the same thing as know-how. But...consider showing it , not just telling it.
You haven’t shown anything is bad.
The Mary’s Room argument is not a logical proof. It is nonetheless persuasive to a lot of people because a lot of people find that experiencing something personally is more informative than hearing about it at second hand.
To be clear, I don’t argue for physicalism about qualia in general here, only against Mary.
Yes, of course, it’s possible to use a definition from incomplete or wrong theory, among other things.
The contradiction between with physical description of knowledge.
It’s not—it’s intuitions and precise description of everything about the situation (Which you agree with, right? That it’s not surprising for an image of a brain scan to have a different effect on Mary from seeing something red, that physicalism predicts the difference) on the one side and just intuition on the other. So...
...we (or we from future, or Mary) do know this by observing that neural activity works the same way the thing that you call “experience” works. The argument for identifying experiences with neural activity works as much now as arguments for reductive explanation about trajectory of a falling leaf, but even if you want to check whether it works in the future and imagine Mary, you would still discover that at best it’s slightly unintuitive.
The problem is that the whole argument is “it feels unintuitive”, when the theory is known to be correct to the level of precisely describing everything about the situation.
We also understand how knowledge-by-acquaintance works physically—it just changes your brain. There is nothing problematic on the knowledge level.
The only part being ignored in physical description of knowledge-by-aquaintance is the feeling of it being unintuitive.
Which is explained physically. What’s the argument for demanding more?
They are not precisely the same thing—they are different neural processes. But yes, they both harder to obtain with just description. What’s there to show? The argument was that experiences are the only kind of knowledge that requires something except physical description. Do you disagree that Mary can have all physical knowledge but still don’t know how to drive a bike? The thing we can deduce from this is that such definition of physical knowledge is bad.
And why do you think this is true? All definitions bottom out somewhere and there is no reason to stop at experiences specifically.
The only way Mary can work as an argument is if you give the “we experience experiences as experiences”-assumption a special status: if you have an axiom of “I know what it’s like to see red”, then you can build on that the justification for why it’s so important to preserve all aspects of your assumed knowledge including what must be called knowledge and the intuitions about knowledge-by-acquaintance.
You’re arguing against Mary’s Room on the basis of physicalism:-
The idea that a complete physical and explanation captures “everything” is a clam equivalent to physicalism.
Of course “Mary doesn’t know what Red looks like” contradicts “physical descriptions in the form of detailed brain scans capture everything”...and vice versa. That’s the point. An argument for X contradicts not X. That’s not the same as a self contradiction.
The point is not just that seeing a tomato has a different effect , the point is that Mary learns something. And physicalism does not predict that , because it implies complete physical descriptions leave something out.
We don’t know that. Assuming it is equivalent to assuming physicalism, which begs the question against Mary’s Room.
No. One of them is only knowable by personal instantiation...as you concede...kind of.
Every individual reductive argument has to pay it’s own way. There’s no global argument for reductionism.
Since we don’t actually have a reductive explanation of conscious experience, it’s intuition telling you that we will or should or must.
No it isn’t.
Are you saying:-
we don’t learn from acquaintance..
but we have a false intuition we do...
and science can definitely predict 2.
...?
Ie., something like illusionism. Because I’m pretty sure 3 is false.
You’re not the first person to think that knowledge-by-acquaintance is the same thing as know-how. But...consider showing it , not just telling it.
I agree, but I don’t see how that makes both things the same.
I’ve didn’t say there was. I’m calling for experiences to be accepted as having some sort of existence, and explained somehow. To not be ignored.
I agree with “I know what it’s like to see red” , but I don’t see how it equates to “we experience experiences as experiences”. What else would we experience our own experiences as? Brain scans?
It’s important not to disregard things, and the claim that you have a “complete” explanation.
I’m saying that it’s ok to beg the question here, because, as you say, Mary is not a logical argument: if there is no contradiction either way, then physicalism wins by precision. And you don’t need to explicitly assume “physical descriptions in the form of detailed brain scans capture everything”—you only need to consistently use one of common-sense-to-someone-who-knows-physics definitions of knowledge.
Yes, I’m saying that you can non-contradictory choose your definitions of knowledge in such a way that 1 is true and so 2 is also true because intuition asserting non-true proposition is wrong and 3 is true because intuition is just neural activity and science predicts all of it. And yes, that means that illusionism is right in that you can be wrong about your (knowledge of) experiences.
As neural signals. There is no justification to start from a model that includes experiences. If Mary is not an argument for adding experiences to a physical model, then it’s not an argument for not ignoring (contradictory aspects of) them when reducing high level description to a physical model.
They are not ignored, they’re represented by corresponding neural processes. Like, what is ignored and not explained by a physical description? It’s not the need for instantiation—it’s predicted by experiences being separate neural process. You can’t say “it ignores qualia”—that would be ignoring the whole Mary setup and begging the question—as far as Mary goes there is no problem with “qualia are neural processes”. So it leaves only intuition about knowledge—about high-level concept which you can define however you want.
Under a definition of knowledge that calls experiences “knowledge” knowing some of your own neural activity also requires instantiating that neural activity.
There is a fact of the matter about whether physical descriptions are exhaustive, even if Mary’s Room doesnt prove it. If physical descriptions don’t convey experiences as such , they are fundamentally flawed , and the precision isn’t much compensation.
Defining knowledge as purely physical doesn’t prove anything about the world. (But you are probably using “definition” to mean “theory’.)
Lots of things are non contradictory. Non circularity is more of an achievement.
Again, you can’t prove things by adopting definitions. If we had a detailed understanding of neuroscience that predicted an illusion of knowledge-by -acquaintance specifically, you’d be onto something. But illusionist claims are philosophical theories, not scientific facts.
We don t experience experiences as neural signals. A person can spend their life with no idea that there is such a thing as a neural signal.
Experience need to be explained because everything needs to be explained. Experiences need not end up in the final ontological model, because sometimes less an explanation explains-away.
The experience itself.
That would be the case if physicalism is true, but you don’t know that physicalism is.true.. You basically assumed it, by assuming that physical explanations are complete. That’s circular.
So maybe I could arbitrarily assume that definition?
Such physical definitions of knowledge are not more circular than anything, I think?
I mean, go ahead—then Mary would just be able to imagine red.
Exactly—that’s why Mary doesn’t work.
There is no need for additional scientific facts. There are enough scientific facts to accept physical explanation of the whole Mary setup. That’s why people mostly seek philosophical problems with physicalism and why physicalists answer with philosophical theories—if physicalism is philosophically coherent, then it is undoubtedly true.
The Mary’s room was supposed to be an argument against physicalism. If there are no philosophical problems in the setup after you assume physicalism, then argument fails. It is equivalent to disagreeing with some step of an argument, like “Mary gets new knowledge”—you can’t just disallow disagreeing with this because it’s logically equivalent to assuming physicalism—that would be assuming non-physicalism that the argument was about. Of course, I don’t just assume physicalism—you need to satisfy the “no philosophical problems” condition, so I talk about why “Mary gets new knowledge” is just trying to prove things by adopting definitions. I don’t see how do you think it can work otherwise—you can’t derive “physicalism is true” from Mary’s assumptions alone. Obviously, assuming physicalism doesn’t prove that physicalism is true. But again, I don’t argue, that physicalism is true, I’m arguing that Mary is a bad argument.
Sure. So you do agree now that talking about Mary or knowledge is unnecessary?
So, what is your argument against “experience itself is explained by “human experiences are neural processes”″, if it’s not Mary?
If you don’t demand specific experiences to be in the final ontological model, they are explained the same way the fire is explained. The explanation of fire does not usually set you on fire. What you call “I’m seeing blue” is actually “your neurons are activated in a way similar to a way they are activated when blue light is directed to your eyes”. On what basis then you say that these 3gb of numbers from a simulation do not explain fire?
I don’t know what your mean. I wasn’t intentionally saying anything physical or non physical.
No,because you can’t prove things through definitions.
The Mary’s Room argument is not an argument from definitions.
If we had a detailed understanding of neuroscience that predicted an illusion of knowledge-by -acquaintance specifically, you’d be onto something. But illusionist claims are philosophical theories, not scientific facts.
Show me a prediction of a novel quale!
No. Consistency is necessary for truth, but nowhere near sufficient.
That would be the case if physicalism is true, but you don’t know that physicalism is.true..You basically assumed it, by assuming that physical explanations are complete. That’s circular.
It’s suppose to be an argumetn against phsysicalism, so you can’t refute it by assuming physicalism.
I don’t disallow disagreeing with it. I disallow assuming physicalism. The point is to think about what would happen in the situation whilst suspending judgement about the ontology the world works on.
Non physicalism doesn’t imply “Mary would not know what Red looks like”>
No.
There’s no fact of the matter about that. If they are fully represented , then Mary would know what red looks like, otherwise not. If we could perform M’s R as a rela experiment, we would not need it as a thought experiment.
There’s no reason it shouldn’t be Mary. Mary’s Room isn’t a proof, but there is no proof of the contrary. Arguments that start “assuming physicalism” are not proof because they are invalid because they are circular.
We have a detailed gears-level explanation of fire, we do not have one of conscious experience. There are three possibilities, not two:
X is explained, and survives the explanation as part of ontology.
X is explained away.
X is not explained at all.
Merely saying that “X is an emergent, high level phenomenon..but don’t ask me how or why” is not an explanation, despite what many here think.
You only need to instantiate something yourself if it fundamentally subjective.
Physicalists sometimes respond to Mary’s Room by saying that one can not expect Mary actually to actually instantiate Red herself just by looking at a brain scan. It seems obvious to them that a physical description of brain state won’t convey what that state is like, because it doesn’t put you into that state. As an argument for physicalism, the strategy is to accept that qualia exist, but argue that they present no unexpected behaviour, or other difficulties for physicalism.
That is correct as stated but somewhat misleading: the problem is why is it necessary, in the case of experience, and only in the case of experience to instantiate it in order to fully understand it. Obviously, it is true a that a descirption of a brain state won’t put you into that brain state. But that doesn’t show that there is nothing unusual about qualia. The problem is that there in no other case does it seem necessary to instantiate a brain state in order to undertstand something.
If another version of Mary were shut up to learn everything about, say, nuclear fusion, the question “would she actually know about nuclear fusion” could only be answered “yes, of course....didn’t you just say she knows everything”? The idea that she would have to instantiate a fusion reaction within her own body in order to understand fusion is quite counterintuitive. Similarly, a description of photosynthesis will make you photosynthesise, and would not be needed for a complete understanding of photosynthesis.
There seem to be some edge cases.: for instance, would an alternative Mary know everything about heart attacks without having one herself? Well, she would know everything except what a heart attack feels like, and what it feels like is a quale. the edge cases, like that one, are cases are just cases where an element of knowledge-by-acquaintance is needed for complete knowledge. Even other mental phenomena don’t suffer from this peculiarity. Thoughts and memories are straightforwardly expressible in words, so long as they don’t involve qualia.
So: is the response “well, she has never actually instantiated colour vision in her own brain” one that lays to rest and the challenge posed by the Knowledge argument, leaving physicalism undisturbed? The fact that these physicalists feel it would be in some way necessary to instantiate colour, but not other things, like photosynthesis or fusion, means they subscribe to the idea that there is something epistemically unique about qualia/experience, even if they resist the idea that qualia are metaphysically unique.
Says who? You can’t actually show me the explanation, and you can’t prove it by assuming physicalism.
i) showing that two things are necessarily, not arbitrarily linked.
ii) making predictions, especially novel ones.
An explanation of conscious experience would render zombies unimaginable (because of i) and allow you to predict novel qualia (because of ii).
Here—“fully understand” depends on definition of “understand”. What you understand is not a matter of fact, it’s a matter of definition. All you talk about is how it is “counterintuitive” to call instantiating nuclear reaction in yourself “understanding”. “It’s intuitive to call new experience “additional knowledge”″ is an argument from definitions.
They are only edge cases of specific definitions of knowledge. There is no fundamental reason why you must call “knowledge” heart attack’s effect on your brain and not call “knowledge” fire’s effect on your hand.
“Necessary” for what? Judging from “epistemically unique” it is implied that it is necessary for knowledge? Then it’s certainly incorrect—it’s either not necessary, because Mary can have a more compact representation of knowledge about color, or it’s necessary for all things, if Mary supposed to have all representations of knowledge. It may be necessary for satisfying Mary’s preferences to have qualia independently of their epistemic value—that’s your perfectly physicalist source of subjectivity.
If you only care about matters of fact, then there are no problems for physicalism in that the human qualia are unusual—it predicts that different neural processes are different. And predicts that it’s useful to see things for yourself. And that it will feel intuitive to say “Mary gets new knowledge” for some people. I think it even follows from casual closure, that it doesn’t make sense for there to be unphysical explanation for intuitions? If your intuition is not predicted by physics, then atoms somewhere have to be unexpectedly nudged—is it what you propose? I… don’t really understand the argument here? The physicalism doesn’t say that all things that it is intuitive to call “knowledge” are equally easy to get from books, or something—why exactly it is an argument against physicalism that Mary gets what it predicts?
Wait, is the problem that you actually think that it is not obviously physically possible to imagine red without seeing it? Like, knowing everything plausible includes having all permutations of neuron states, including the state where you are seeing red. Is your “matter of fact” about knowing what it is like to see considers the possibility that without actually seeing Mary could only simulate zombie-red or something?
Oh, I finally got why are you talking about predicting novel qualia—you are saying that physicalism doesn’t predict Mary seeing red, right? Because it only predicts neural activity. My point is that this complain doesn’t have anything to do with Mary or knowledge. If you only talk about Mary, then there is no motivation to doubt physicalism from the experiment. The point of Mary is that she gains knowledge and physicalism predicts gaining knowledge. There is no need to talk about novel qualia, because physical knowledge contains knowledge about differences between different, old and novel, qualia. You agree, that physicalism at least (allows definition of knowledge where it) predicts gaining some knowledge from instantiation when Mary leaves room, right? Then even if you have doubts about this predicted knowledge being incomplete, Mary doesn’t provide anything that justifies this doubt—your arguments about insufficient gears-level explanations would work the same way in situations without novel qualia or complete physical knowledge. Or do you have an example of specific difference between qualia that is not predicted by physicalism and uniquely depends on the whole instantiation thing? I mean, my position is that there are no differences between qualia that are not predicted by physicalism at all, so any examples would be appreciated.
I predict, that if you open this link, you will experience red hair: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHPzikH0tXE
Novel relative to what epistemic state? Sure, we probably can’t ethically and consistently make a human say “wow, it was neither sight nor hearing” now, but I really don’t get what’s the justification for ignoring other facts about qualia that physicalism can predict? Some of them were novel for humanity in their time.
Induction.
We don’t usually have very detailed explanations of specific fires. And we have detailed explanation of conscious experience—physics equations^^. But ok, there is a space for more useful theories. The thing I don’t understand is how it is an argument against physicalism—do you expect to not get gears-level explanation in the future? The whole point of doing Mary is that no one expects it.
Yes, but that would just mean that the correct position is “physicalism is right, but the detailed explanation is in the works”. Not detailed-enough explanation at the present moment is just one of factors you weight, along with “physicalism has detailed explanations about physics, neurons and all other things”, not something that logically prohibits believing in physicalism. Again, that’s not what mainstream arguments against physicalism are? It’s always “physicalism can’t possibly explain consciousness even if it’s explanation have been detailed”.
That’s what I am against—it’s not justified, depending on what do you mean by “necessarily”—atoms are not necessarily linked to fire. In the end, we just arbitrary call some atoms “fire”. So why demand this only for qualia? If it’s only “as necessary as reduction of fire”, than it is already that necessary—the expectation that you will get neurological explanation in future is the same kind of inductive reasoning that you do, when you decide that correlations between atoms and fire are enough to believe explanation in terms of atoms.