Has there ever been a case of someone being in camp #1, but eventually realizing, according to their self-report, “I actually do have qualia; it was right in front of me this whole time, but I’ve only now noticed it as a separate thing needing explanation, even though in retrospect it seems obvious to me”? (I don’t mean someone who somehow convinces themself into camp #2 semantically, but still doesn’t truly recognize the referent and maybe feels confused about the topic with people writing complex-sounding things in favor of either side, which I’d guess happens rarely.)
Such cases (even one) would help me (of camp #2) get evidence about two hypotheses I’ve seen: (A) illusionists[1] for some reason experience qualia but don’t recognize it as a thing needing explaining, instead having some sort of deep unquestioned background assumption that it is ‘just how reality is’ to a point of not being noticed, and (B) illusionists actually do not experience qualia, which Carl Feynman’s first comment (from a camp #1 view) proposed as an explanation for themself.
one who believes that those in camp #2 merely have a strong intuition that they have <mysterious-word>, like the intuition people apparently have that they “have free will”, i.e. that those of camp #2 are confused about something that should be dissolved by basic reductionism. (I hope my ability to pass your ITT is some evidence that this is not what’s happening)
Has there ever been a case of someone being in camp #1, but eventually realizing, according to their self-report, “I actually do have qualia; it was right in front of me this whole time, but I’ve only now noticed it as a separate thing needing explanation, even though in retrospect it seems obvious to me”?
This is almost exactly my story. I used to think that qualia was just another example of anti-physicalist magical thinking.
Currently, I am actually pretty firmly in Camp #2
illusionists actually do not experience qualia
As someone who used to be (but no longer is) an illusionist about both free will and qualia, I can assure you that this was not the case (at least with me). Nothing really changed, besides me getting a deeper understanding of the position of the other camp.
I once had an epiphany that pushed me from fully in Camp #2 intellectually rather strongly towards Camp #1. I hadn’t heard about illusionism before, so it was quite a thing. Since then, I’ve devised probably dozens of inner thought experiments/arguments that imho +- proof Camp #1 to be onto something, and that support the hypothesis that qualia can be a bit less special than we make them to be despite how impossible that may seem. So I’m intellectually quite invested in Camp #1 view.
Meanwhile, my experience has definitely not changed, my day-to-day me is exactly what it always was, so in that sense definitely “experience” qualia just like anyone.
Moreover, it is just as hard as ever before to take my intellectual belief that our ‘qualia’ might be a bit less absolutely special than we make it to be, seriously in day-to-day life. I.e. emotionally, I’m still +- 100% in Camp #2, and I guess I might be in a rather similar situation
I used to be a hard determinist (I think that’s what people usually mean by “illusionism”)
That’s not actually what I mean by illusionism (although under certain metaphysical views it could be related). I tried to define it my first comment. Determinism seems compatible with qualia being a metaphysically fundamental thing.
(Edit: I replaced some text while you were replying. My original reply mentioned that I’m an anti-realist about free will and morality as an example)
Under the terminology of your most recent comment, I would be a determinist and a realist about free will.
I understand the ‘compatibilist’ view on free will to be something like this:
“determinism is true, but we still run some algorithm which deterministically picks between options, so the algorithm that we are is semantically describable as ‘making a choice’, which I choose to conceptualize as “free will and determinism are compatible”, though “anti-realists about free will” and I have no actual disagreement about the underlying reality of determinism being true and us being predictable.”
If so, is your view on qualia similar, in that you’ve mostly re-conceptualized it instead of having “noticed a metaphysically fundamental thing”? I.e., your beliefs about the underlying reality haven’t changed? Is qualia reducible to a kind of mathematical process in the way everything else seems to be, in your view? Another way of asking this: would you say that “we have qualia” is just a strong intuition imbued in us by the mathematical process of evolution, and your “realist” position is that you choose to accept {referring to it as if it is real} as a good way of communicating about that imbued intuition/process?
If so, then I’d guess you’re not actually the kind of person I meant. These words in your original comment also confused me at the time but are explainable under this: “Nothing really changed, besides me getting a deeper understanding of the position of the other camp”; if you were the kind of person I meant, the core thing which changed wouldn’t have been “understanding their view better” but “noticing there’s actually a metaphysically-fundamental kind-of-thing which is not a math object”. But I’m not confident because of communication about this being hard.
(Another way of asking would be to ask you to explain what ‘qualia’ is, in your ontology)
I understand the ‘compatibilist’ view on free will to be something like this: determinism is true, but we still run some algorithm which deterministically picks between options, so the algorithm that we are is still ‘making a choice’, which I choose to conceptualize as “free will and determinism are compatible”
I would rather conceptualize it as acting according to my value system without excessive external coercion. But I would also say that I agree with all four claims that you made there, namely:
Determinism is true
We run some algorithm which deterministically picks between options
We are making a choice
Free will and determinism are compatible
Anti-realists about free will” and I have no actual disagreement about the underlying reality of determinism being true and us being predictable.
Yeah, I would agree that we are predictable in principle.
If so, is your view on qualia similar, in that you’ve mostly re-conceptualized it instead of having “noticed a metaphysically fundamental thing”?
I used to think that qualia was a reducible and non-fundamental phenomenon, whereas now I think it is an irreducible and fundamental phenomenon. So I did “notice a metaphysically fundamental thing”.
I used to think that qualia was a reducible and non-fundamental phenomenon, whereas now I think it is an irreducible and fundamental phenomenon. So I did “notice a metaphysically fundamental thing”.
Okay, interesting.
If you want to give further confirmation, I’d ask “what is qualia, in your ontology”, and “what does it mean for something to be irreducible or metaphysically fundamental?”.
Also, another thing I’m interested in is how someone could have helped past you (and camp #1 people generally) understand what camp #2 even means. There may be a formal-alignment failure mode not noticeable to people in camp #1 where a purely mathematical[1] prior does not contain any hypothesis corresponding to reality, analogous to if you used a prior only containing hypotheses capable of being expressed in some restricted formal system while receiving input generated by a mathematical world only expressible in some less restricted formal system.
It sounds to me like you previously experienced qualia, but explained it away as “reducible”—but even if it could be reduced/decomposed (which maybe it can be), it would still be ‘something which is metaphysically fundamental and not-pure-math’, right? (I’m guessing past you would have… disagreed, or maybe have not thought about it in this way, kind of like hypothesis (A)). If that was the crux, how could it have been pointed out to you at the time?
It the direct phenomenal experience of stuff like pain, pleasure, colors, etc.
what does it mean for something to be irreducible or metaphysically fundamental
Something is irreducible in a sense that it can’t be reduced to interactions between atoms. It can’t also be completely completely described from a 3rd person perspective (the perspective from which science usually operates).
Also, another thing I’m interested in is how someone could have helped past you (and camp #1 people generally) understand what camp #2 even means. There may be a formal-alignment failure mode not noticeable to people in camp #1 where a purely mathematical (it may help to read that as ‘3rd-person’)
I don’t remember the exact specifics, but I came across Mary’s Room thought experience (perhaps through this video). When presented in that way and when directly asked “does she learn anything new?” my surprising (to myself at the time) answer was an emphatic “yes”.
would you say that “we have qualia” is just a strong intuition imbued in us by the mathematical process of evolution, and your “realist” position is that you choose to accept {referring to it as if it is real} as a good way of communicating about that imbued intuition/process?
I wouldn’t say that about qualia and I wouldn’t say that about free will. What you described sounds like being only a nominal realist.
This is going into details, but I think there is a difference between semantic realism and nominal realism. Semantic realist would say that based on a reasonable definition of a term, the term is real. Most if not all realists are semantic realists. Almost nobody would an apple realist if the reasonable definition of apple would be something like “fruit that turns you into the unicorn”.
Whereas nominal realist is someone who would say that based on a reasonable definition of a term, the term probably isn’t real, but it’s a useful communication tool, so they are going to keep using it.
Using an analogy (specifically for free will), I would say that free will is as real as consent, whereas I would imagine that a nominal realist would say that free will is as real as karma.
Has there ever been a case of someone being in camp #1, but eventually realizing, according to their self-report, “I actually do have qualia; it was right in front of me this whole time, but I’ve only now noticed it as a separate thing needing explanation, even though in retrospect it seems obvious to me”? (I don’t mean someone who somehow convinces themself into camp #2 semantically, but still doesn’t truly recognize the referent and maybe feels confused about the topic with people writing complex-sounding things in favor of either side, which I’d guess happens rarely.)
Such cases (even one) would help me (of camp #2) get evidence about two hypotheses I’ve seen: (A) illusionists[1] for some reason experience qualia but don’t recognize it as a thing needing explaining, instead having some sort of deep unquestioned background assumption that it is ‘just how reality is’ to a point of not being noticed, and (B) illusionists actually do not experience qualia, which Carl Feynman’s first comment (from a camp #1 view) proposed as an explanation for themself.
one who believes that those in camp #2 merely have a strong intuition that they have <mysterious-word>, like the intuition people apparently have that they “have free will”, i.e. that those of camp #2 are confused about something that should be dissolved by basic reductionism. (I hope my ability to pass your ITT is some evidence that this is not what’s happening)
This is almost exactly my story. I used to think that qualia was just another example of anti-physicalist magical thinking.
Currently, I am actually pretty firmly in Camp #2
As someone who used to be (but no longer is) an illusionist about both free will and qualia, I can assure you that this was not the case (at least with me). Nothing really changed, besides me getting a deeper understanding of the position of the other camp.
I once had an epiphany that pushed me from fully in Camp #2 intellectually rather strongly towards Camp #1. I hadn’t heard about illusionism before, so it was quite a thing. Since then, I’ve devised probably dozens of inner thought experiments/arguments that imho +- proof Camp #1 to be onto something, and that support the hypothesis that qualia can be a bit less special than we make them to be despite how impossible that may seem. So I’m intellectually quite invested in Camp #1 view.
Meanwhile, my experience has definitely not changed, my day-to-day me is exactly what it always was, so in that sense definitely “experience” qualia just like anyone.
Moreover, it is just as hard as ever before to take my intellectual belief that our ‘qualia’ might be a bit less absolutely special than we make it to be, seriously in day-to-day life. I.e. emotionally, I’m still +- 100% in Camp #2, and I guess I might be in a rather similar situation
Do you mean you’re not an illusionist about free will either?
I used to be a hard determinist (I think that’s what people usually mean by “illusionism”), but currently I am a compatibilist.
So yeah, right now I am not an illusionist about free will either.
That’s not actually what I mean by illusionism (although under certain metaphysical views it could be related). I tried to define it my first comment. Determinism seems compatible with qualia being a metaphysically fundamental thing.
(Edit: I replaced some text while you were replying. My original reply mentioned that I’m an anti-realist about free will and morality as an example)
Ah, I see. I usually think of illusionism as a position where one thinks that a certain phenomenon isn’t real but only appears real.
Under the terminology of your most recent comment, I would be a determinist and a realist about free will.
I understand the ‘compatibilist’ view on free will to be something like this:
If so, is your view on qualia similar, in that you’ve mostly re-conceptualized it instead of having “noticed a metaphysically fundamental thing”? I.e., your beliefs about the underlying reality haven’t changed? Is qualia reducible to a kind of mathematical process in the way everything else seems to be, in your view? Another way of asking this: would you say that “we have qualia” is just a strong intuition imbued in us by the mathematical process of evolution, and your “realist” position is that you choose to accept {referring to it as if it is real} as a good way of communicating about that imbued intuition/process?
If so, then I’d guess you’re not actually the kind of person I meant. These words in your original comment also confused me at the time but are explainable under this: “Nothing really changed, besides me getting a deeper understanding of the position of the other camp”; if you were the kind of person I meant, the core thing which changed wouldn’t have been “understanding their view better” but “noticing there’s actually a metaphysically-fundamental kind-of-thing which is not a math object”. But I’m not confident because of communication about this being hard.
(Another way of asking would be to ask you to explain what ‘qualia’ is, in your ontology)
I would rather conceptualize it as acting according to my value system without excessive external coercion. But I would also say that I agree with all four claims that you made there, namely:
Determinism is true
We run some algorithm which deterministically picks between options
We are making a choice
Free will and determinism are compatible
Yeah, I would agree that we are predictable in principle.
I used to think that qualia was a reducible and non-fundamental phenomenon, whereas now I think it is an irreducible and fundamental phenomenon. So I did “notice a metaphysically fundamental thing”.
Okay, interesting.
If you want to give further confirmation, I’d ask “what is qualia, in your ontology”, and “what does it mean for something to be irreducible or metaphysically fundamental?”.
Also, another thing I’m interested in is how someone could have helped past you (and camp #1 people generally) understand what camp #2 even means. There may be a formal-alignment failure mode not noticeable to people in camp #1 where a purely mathematical[1] prior does not contain any hypothesis corresponding to reality, analogous to if you used a prior only containing hypotheses capable of being expressed in some restricted formal system while receiving input generated by a mathematical world only expressible in some less restricted formal system.
It sounds to me like you previously experienced qualia, but explained it away as “reducible”—but even if it could be reduced/decomposed (which maybe it can be), it would still be ‘something which is metaphysically fundamental and not-pure-math’, right? (I’m guessing past you would have… disagreed, or maybe have not thought about it in this way, kind of like hypothesis (A)). If that was the crux, how could it have been pointed out to you at the time?
(per your next comment, it may help to read this word as ‘3rd-person’)
It the direct phenomenal experience of stuff like pain, pleasure, colors, etc.
Something is irreducible in a sense that it can’t be reduced to interactions between atoms. It can’t also be completely completely described from a 3rd person perspective (the perspective from which science usually operates).
Thanks! (I added a bunch of text to my comment while you were writing, also.)
I will try reply to your edit:
I don’t remember the exact specifics, but I came across Mary’s Room thought experience (perhaps through this video). When presented in that way and when directly asked “does she learn anything new?” my surprising (to myself at the time) answer was an emphatic “yes”.
I will also reply to the edit here.
I wouldn’t say that about qualia and I wouldn’t say that about free will. What you described sounds like being only a nominal realist.
This is going into details, but I think there is a difference between semantic realism and nominal realism. Semantic realist would say that based on a reasonable definition of a term, the term is real. Most if not all realists are semantic realists. Almost nobody would an apple realist if the reasonable definition of apple would be something like “fruit that turns you into the unicorn”.
Whereas nominal realist is someone who would say that based on a reasonable definition of a term, the term probably isn’t real, but it’s a useful communication tool, so they are going to keep using it.
Using an analogy (specifically for free will), I would say that free will is as real as consent, whereas I would imagine that a nominal realist would say that free will is as real as karma.
By the way, I will quickly reply to your edit in this comment. Determinism certainly seems compatible with qualia being fundamental.
“Hard Determinism” is just a shorthand for a position (in a free will debate) that accepts the following claims:
Determinism is true.
Determinism is incompatible with free will
I am pretty sure that the term has no use outside of discussions about free will.
Under this definition I think I would still qualify as a former illusionist about qualia.