Similarly, I believe that most people who believe in materialism do so on the basis of extremely poor reasons and without knowledge of some of the stronger arguments for qualia existing.
individual instances of subjective, conscious experience
and gives these examples:
the perceived sensation of pain of a headache, the taste of wine, as well as the redness of an evening sky
Wikipedia also quotes Daniel Dennett:
Philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett once suggested that qualia was “an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us”.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy also has an article on qualia, with much more detailed discussion of what the term is used to mean; however, it does not contradict the basic definition given above.
a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions.
I believe in materialism but also in qualia. (It’s not hard to believe in qualia; I have qualia all the time! They obviously exist sufficiently for me to experience them, which is plenty enough ‘existence’, as far as I’m concerned.) Why do you think that materialism implies the nonexistence of qualia? The consensus among philosophers seems to be that it does no such thing. You disagree? If so, why?
In fact, according to the SEP—
In this broad sense of the term, it is difficult to deny that there are qualia. Disagreement typically centers on which mental states have qualia, whether qualia are intrinsic qualities of their bearers, and how qualia relate to the physical world both inside and outside the head.
So, really, my question is: against whom are you arguing, exactly? Who is denying that qualia exist? It would be helpful if you linked to some examples of this (rather strange) position.
These discussions are always complicated by different people using different words in different words.
This post was written to argue primarily against a view that has cropped up in conversations I’ve had with people personally, none of whom were professional philosophers. Most of these people were scientifically minded and many of them have been influenced by Daniel Dennett. Nonetheless, I feel I should be slightly cautious of saying that I’m arguing against Daniel Dennett’s views as I have only been exposed to his ideas second-hand.
Keeping this in mind: Wikipedia says that Daniel Dennett “offers an argument against qualia”, so it sounds like he rejects their existence; however the quote you listed makes it sound more like he supports a thin version of qualia instead. In practise the actual label is mostly irrelevant; two people can have exactly the same underlying views with one person saying they don’t believe in qualia and the other saying they only support a thin definition.
So I’m not just arguing against people who say qualia don’t exist, I’m also arguing against those who assert a thin definition by denying a thick definition. Some of my arguments might only work against those who claim non-existence, but others apply to both.
At this point, it would be natural to ask what exactly I mean by a thick definition, but there is a sense in which you can already predict what I mean by that. I’m sure you can already guess that if you give me your definition of qualia, then I’ll respond that what I mean by qualia is not the mere arrangement of atoms or particular, but some feeling that exists beyond that. And that definition won’t satisfy you because I haven’t clearly stated what it is, but as I already argue in a comment below we should take the definition of qualia as primitive, so that we can only say what it is not, not what it is.
What is this business of ‘thick’ and ‘thin’? I am not familiar with these terms as applied to qualia, or definitions, or any such thing. Could you elaborate? I’m afraid I really can’t guess what you mean, and nor does your brief allusion to ‘not the mere arrangement of atoms’, etc., clarify things much.
Have you considered reading Dennett? He writes quite engagingly. In Consciousness Explained, for instance, he devotes an entire chapter to qualia. And if you find yourself frequently arguing against people who’ve been inspired by Dennett’s ideas, then why not go straight to the source?
A thin definition of consciousness would be one such as in the relabelling argument above. People start by taking a collection of atoms or quarks or part of a wavefunction. They view them in a materialistic sense, so no consciousness properties above and in addition to the physical properties. Finally they just declare that particular arrangements count as being conscious. I address this most directly in the relabelling argument above. Maybe I will read Dennett, but reluctant to buy a book just to read one chapter.
I confess that your relabeling argument makes very little sense to me. The rest of your comment, likewise. For one thing, it doesn’t seem to be a “definition” of “consciousness” at all, neither a “thick” one nor a “thin” one nor any other kind. For another thing, aren’t we trying to define “qualia” and not “consciousness”? Or are they the same thing (somehow)?
All in all, I remain very confused about what you are saying. (I certainly don’t presume to demand that you make any further attempts to explain it to me; perhaps someone else, who does understand your claims, can try their hand at an explanation?)
If somebody would insist that triangles need to be made of molecyles I could be hard pressed to talk about mathematical triangles if I can only effectively refer to triangle prototype objects. Or if someone insisted that floating point numbers were only real and real numbers were imaginary and took all statements about “reals” to “really” be claims that should be translated to be claims about floating point numbers for their actual semantics.
Some ontological stances hold for exmple that a atom can have a subjective experience. I believe these are called panpsychisist theories. It would seem a lot of people default to a ontology where you can have a single atom without any “psychisism”. If you build up with non-psychic building blocks it would seem that the only way to recover psychisim to the theory would be to have it as an emergent property. But having it as an emergent property would mean it’s implications for ontologcal basic being would be rather weak.
If people assume floating points trancendental numbers become inaccessible and it could seem that the question of whether existence contains “non-inert” components hangs on whether it is safe to assume that an atom is “dumb”.
So people could employ a logic of “I am psychisist, I exists therefore existence has a psychisist component, therefore a theory that has no psychisist component is neccesarily inadequte”. The trouble comes when you want to distuinguish this property from things like “being a computer/being able to be in complex computational states”. Some people seem fine with “dead clockwork computer” theories essentially p-zombie worlds where things definetely happen and are in certain positions. Any talk trying to adress the “deadness” part can easily convert into discussion how you get complex computers from simple computers. (and the worlds are “alive” in the sense that there are dynamics they are not “frozen”)
I have used almost every word except qualia, but out of the various angles I am starting to get the feeling that these kinds of things are trying to get pointed at. In phenomenology there are probably attempts in trying to understsand how “rich expereinces” get built out of “poor experiences” and it might be ontology ambivalent in that the background ontology is not terribly relevant. But I think there are a lot of people tha think there is strong correlation between poor experiences and simple computational states and rich experiences and complex computational states and the phenomenology can be understood as an attempt to get the computational state boundaries right in a very particular field which can be seen to be about very particular kinds of computers. But others might see it as being about new kinds of theories that are “alive” whose dynamics are poorly understood and the aliveness correlates with some exotic kind of ontological properties. Or that the bridge between “complex computational states” and “rich experiences” deserves recognition and theorization. That is when we explain experiences we give an explanation to a thing that other have not yet explained and can not explain and the kind of explanation is novel enough that why this type of explanation is even needed needs discussion and some might reject because it doesn’t fullfill the criteria for the old type of explanation.
Well, to be fair, there is this bit in Consciousness Explained (which I happened to be reading just now):
Philosophers have adopted various names for the things in the beholder (or properties of the beholder) that have been supposed to provide a safe home for the colors and the rest of the properties that have been banished from the “external” world by the triumphs of physics: “raw feels,” “sensa,” “phenomenal qualities,” “intrinsic properties of conscious experiences,” “the qualitative content of mental states,” and, of course, “qualia,” the term I will use. There are subtle differences in how these terms have been defined, but I’m going to ride roughshod over them. In the previous chapter I seemed to be denying that there are any such properties, and for once what seems so is so. I am denying that there are any such properties. But (here comes that theme again) I agree wholeheartedly that there seem to be qualia.
Yes, Dennett denies that there are qualia in the sense he’s arguing against (and in this, he disagrees with many other philosophers). But does he deny that there are “individual instances of subjective, conscious experience”? Well, he denies that there are such things in fact, but not that there are such things heterophenomenologically. As I said, his position is nuanced. (See also the bit about “fatigues”.) However, on the definition I cited in the top-level comment of this thread, Dennett does not deny the existence of qualia.
Dennett’s views are nuanced, but central to them is his idea of heterophenomenology: the idea that “how things seem to me” is a perfectly real phenomenon (one which is constituted by our self-reports of how things [allegedly] seem to us, and other behavior which is apparently caused by such seemings), which it is our task (as philosophers of mind) to explain—but our explanation of which need not include anything like the entities (allegedly, apparently) experienced by the subject.
Under this view, “qualia” is taken to be a description of a certain aspect of our experiences of the world. What we do not take as given, however, is any notion that our explanation of “qualia” must ultimately include anything like qualia. (And, indeed, Dennett’s explanation does not—he spends, in fact, considerable effort on demonstrating that no sensible explanation of “qualia” will include any qualia.)
(As for the explanation itself—I really can’t do justice to it in a comment, or even a post. I do recommend Consciousness Explained, and also Brainstorms; they’re fun reading, even if you’re ultimately unconvinced by some or all of Dennett’s arguments.)
Dennett does not present himself as explaining “qualia” in any sense, not even a merely heterophenomenological sense.
Under heterophenomeonological investigation, an ordinary person will not claim to have “a red quale” or “a pain quale”. A qualiaphilic investigator might regard those as reports of qualia, but Dednnett is no qualiaphile.
I can see how there could be a Dennett-alike philosopher who objects to “thick” qualia but not thin ones. However, the Dennett we have wants to “ride roughshod”, not make fine distinctions.
Wikipedia defines qualia as
and gives these examples:
Wikipedia also quotes Daniel Dennett:
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy also has an article on qualia, with much more detailed discussion of what the term is used to mean; however, it does not contradict the basic definition given above.
Meanwhile, materialism is said to be
I believe in materialism but also in qualia. (It’s not hard to believe in qualia; I have qualia all the time! They obviously exist sufficiently for me to experience them, which is plenty enough ‘existence’, as far as I’m concerned.) Why do you think that materialism implies the nonexistence of qualia? The consensus among philosophers seems to be that it does no such thing. You disagree? If so, why?
In fact, according to the SEP—
So, really, my question is: against whom are you arguing, exactly? Who is denying that qualia exist? It would be helpful if you linked to some examples of this (rather strange) position.
These discussions are always complicated by different people using different words in different words.
This post was written to argue primarily against a view that has cropped up in conversations I’ve had with people personally, none of whom were professional philosophers. Most of these people were scientifically minded and many of them have been influenced by Daniel Dennett. Nonetheless, I feel I should be slightly cautious of saying that I’m arguing against Daniel Dennett’s views as I have only been exposed to his ideas second-hand.
Keeping this in mind: Wikipedia says that Daniel Dennett “offers an argument against qualia”, so it sounds like he rejects their existence; however the quote you listed makes it sound more like he supports a thin version of qualia instead. In practise the actual label is mostly irrelevant; two people can have exactly the same underlying views with one person saying they don’t believe in qualia and the other saying they only support a thin definition.
So I’m not just arguing against people who say qualia don’t exist, I’m also arguing against those who assert a thin definition by denying a thick definition. Some of my arguments might only work against those who claim non-existence, but others apply to both.
At this point, it would be natural to ask what exactly I mean by a thick definition, but there is a sense in which you can already predict what I mean by that. I’m sure you can already guess that if you give me your definition of qualia, then I’ll respond that what I mean by qualia is not the mere arrangement of atoms or particular, but some feeling that exists beyond that. And that definition won’t satisfy you because I haven’t clearly stated what it is, but as I already argue in a comment below we should take the definition of qualia as primitive, so that we can only say what it is not, not what it is.
What is this business of ‘thick’ and ‘thin’? I am not familiar with these terms as applied to qualia, or definitions, or any such thing. Could you elaborate? I’m afraid I really can’t guess what you mean, and nor does your brief allusion to ‘not the mere arrangement of atoms’, etc., clarify things much.
Have you considered reading Dennett? He writes quite engagingly. In Consciousness Explained, for instance, he devotes an entire chapter to qualia. And if you find yourself frequently arguing against people who’ve been inspired by Dennett’s ideas, then why not go straight to the source?
A thin definition of consciousness would be one such as in the relabelling argument above. People start by taking a collection of atoms or quarks or part of a wavefunction. They view them in a materialistic sense, so no consciousness properties above and in addition to the physical properties. Finally they just declare that particular arrangements count as being conscious. I address this most directly in the relabelling argument above. Maybe I will read Dennett, but reluctant to buy a book just to read one chapter.
I confess that your relabeling argument makes very little sense to me. The rest of your comment, likewise. For one thing, it doesn’t seem to be a “definition” of “consciousness” at all, neither a “thick” one nor a “thin” one nor any other kind. For another thing, aren’t we trying to define “qualia” and not “consciousness”? Or are they the same thing (somehow)?
All in all, I remain very confused about what you are saying. (I certainly don’t presume to demand that you make any further attempts to explain it to me; perhaps someone else, who does understand your claims, can try their hand at an explanation?)
If somebody would insist that triangles need to be made of molecyles I could be hard pressed to talk about mathematical triangles if I can only effectively refer to triangle prototype objects. Or if someone insisted that floating point numbers were only real and real numbers were imaginary and took all statements about “reals” to “really” be claims that should be translated to be claims about floating point numbers for their actual semantics.
Some ontological stances hold for exmple that a atom can have a subjective experience. I believe these are called panpsychisist theories. It would seem a lot of people default to a ontology where you can have a single atom without any “psychisism”. If you build up with non-psychic building blocks it would seem that the only way to recover psychisim to the theory would be to have it as an emergent property. But having it as an emergent property would mean it’s implications for ontologcal basic being would be rather weak.
If people assume floating points trancendental numbers become inaccessible and it could seem that the question of whether existence contains “non-inert” components hangs on whether it is safe to assume that an atom is “dumb”.
So people could employ a logic of “I am psychisist, I exists therefore existence has a psychisist component, therefore a theory that has no psychisist component is neccesarily inadequte”. The trouble comes when you want to distuinguish this property from things like “being a computer/being able to be in complex computational states”. Some people seem fine with “dead clockwork computer” theories essentially p-zombie worlds where things definetely happen and are in certain positions. Any talk trying to adress the “deadness” part can easily convert into discussion how you get complex computers from simple computers. (and the worlds are “alive” in the sense that there are dynamics they are not “frozen”)
I have used almost every word except qualia, but out of the various angles I am starting to get the feeling that these kinds of things are trying to get pointed at. In phenomenology there are probably attempts in trying to understsand how “rich expereinces” get built out of “poor experiences” and it might be ontology ambivalent in that the background ontology is not terribly relevant. But I think there are a lot of people tha think there is strong correlation between poor experiences and simple computational states and rich experiences and complex computational states and the phenomenology can be understood as an attempt to get the computational state boundaries right in a very particular field which can be seen to be about very particular kinds of computers. But others might see it as being about new kinds of theories that are “alive” whose dynamics are poorly understood and the aliveness correlates with some exotic kind of ontological properties. Or that the bridge between “complex computational states” and “rich experiences” deserves recognition and theorization. That is when we explain experiences we give an explanation to a thing that other have not yet explained and can not explain and the kind of explanation is novel enough that why this type of explanation is even needed needs discussion and some might reject because it doesn’t fullfill the criteria for the old type of explanation.
He certainly argues against a thick version, but does not present himself as arguing for any version.
Chalmers use “materialism” to label the position he contrasts with the qualiaphilic position. I think it’s an unfortunate choice.
Dennett does.
This is a mischaracterization of Dennett’s views.
Well, to be fair, there is this bit in Consciousness Explained (which I happened to be reading just now):
Yes, Dennett denies that there are qualia in the sense he’s arguing against (and in this, he disagrees with many other philosophers). But does he deny that there are “individual instances of subjective, conscious experience”? Well, he denies that there are such things in fact, but not that there are such things heterophenomenologically. As I said, his position is nuanced. (See also the bit about “fatigues”.) However, on the definition I cited in the top-level comment of this thread, Dennett does not deny the existence of qualia.
How would you characterise his views then?
Dennett’s views are nuanced, but central to them is his idea of heterophenomenology: the idea that “how things seem to me” is a perfectly real phenomenon (one which is constituted by our self-reports of how things [allegedly] seem to us, and other behavior which is apparently caused by such seemings), which it is our task (as philosophers of mind) to explain—but our explanation of which need not include anything like the entities (allegedly, apparently) experienced by the subject.
Under this view, “qualia” is taken to be a description of a certain aspect of our experiences of the world. What we do not take as given, however, is any notion that our explanation of “qualia” must ultimately include anything like qualia. (And, indeed, Dennett’s explanation does not—he spends, in fact, considerable effort on demonstrating that no sensible explanation of “qualia” will include any qualia.)
(As for the explanation itself—I really can’t do justice to it in a comment, or even a post. I do recommend Consciousness Explained, and also Brainstorms; they’re fun reading, even if you’re ultimately unconvinced by some or all of Dennett’s arguments.)
Dennett does not present himself as explaining “qualia” in any sense, not even a merely heterophenomenological sense.
Under heterophenomeonological investigation, an ordinary person will not claim to have “a red quale” or “a pain quale”. A qualiaphilic investigator might regard those as reports of qualia, but Dednnett is no qualiaphile.
I can see how there could be a Dennett-alike philosopher who objects to “thick” qualia but not thin ones. However, the Dennett we have wants to “ride roughshod”, not make fine distinctions.
I beg to differ.