Hmm. Unless I’m misunderstanding you completely, I’ll assume we can work from the example of the “red” qualium (?)
What would it mean for even just the experience of “red” to be ontologically fundamental? What “essence of experiencing red” could possibly exist as something independent of the workings of the wetware that is experiencing it?
For example, suppose I and a dichromatic human look at the same red object. I and the other human may have more or less the same brain circuitry and are looking at the same thing, but since we are getting different signals from our eyes, what we experience as “red” cannot be exactly the same. A bee or a squid or a duck might have different inputs, and different neural circuitry, and therefore different qualia.
A rock next to the red object would have some reflected “red” light incident upon it. But it has no eyes and as far as I know no perception or mental states at all. Does it make sense to say that the rock can also see its neighbouring object as “red”? I wouldn’t say so, outside the realm of poetic metaphor.
So if your qualia are contingent on the circumstances of certain inputs to certain neural networks in your head, are they “ontologically fundamental”? I’d say no. And by extension, I’d say the same of any other mental state.
If you could change the pattern of signals and the connectivity of your brain one neuron at a time, you could create a continuum of experiences from “red” to “intuitively perceiving the 10000th digit of pi” and every indescribable, ineffable inhuman state in between. None of them would be more fundamental than any other; all are sub-patterns in a small corner of a very richly-patterned universe.
How do you know? Do you know Latin, or just how this word works?
I’m not doubting you—just curious. I’ve always wanted to learn Latin so I can figure this sort of thing out (and then correct people), but I’ve settled for just looking up specific words when a question arises.
I apologize for being too brief. What I meant to say is that I posit that my subjective experience of qualia is real, and not explained by any form of reductionism or eliminativism. That experience of qualia is fundamental in the same way that gravitation and the electromagnetic force are fundamental. Whether the word ontological applies may be a semantic argument.
Basically, I am reprising Chalmers’ definition of the Hard Problem, or Thomas Nagel’s argument in the paper “What is it like to be a bat?”
Do qualia describe how matter interacts with matter? For example, do they explain why any person says “I have qualia” or “That is red”? Would gravity and electromagnetism, etc. fail to explain all such statements, or just some of them?
If qualia cause such things, is there any entropy when they influence and are influenced by matter? Is energy conserved?
If I remove neurons from a person one by one, is there a point at which qualia no longer are needed to describe how the matter and energy in them relates to the rest of matter and energy? Is it logically possible to detect such a point? If I then replace the critical neuron, why ought I be confident that merely considering, tracking, and simulating local, physical interactions would lead to an incorrect model of the person insofar as I take no account of qualia?
How likely is it that apples are not made of atoms?
You may posit that your subjective experience is not explained by reduction to physical phenomena (including really complex information processes) happening in the neurons of your brain. But to me that would be an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence.
It seems to me that until we completely understand the physical and informational processes going on in the brain, the burden of proof is on anyone suggesting that such complete understanding would still be in principle insufficient to explain our subjective experiences.
There is no explanation of HOW mass generates or causes gravity, similarly for the lack of explanation of how matter causes or generates forces such as electromagnetism. (Yes I know that some sort of strings have been proposed to subserve gravity, and so far they seem to me to be another false “ether”.) So in a shorthand of sorts, it is accepted that gravity and the various other forces exist as fundamentals (“axioms” of nature, if you will accept a metaphor), because their effects and interactions can be meaningfully applied in explanations. No one has seen gravity, no one can point to gravity—it is a fundamental force. Building on Chalmers in one of his earlier writings, I am willing to entertain the idea the qualia are a fundamental force-like dimension of consciousness. Finally every force is a function of something: gravity is a function of amount of mass, electromagnetism is a function of amount of charge. What might qualia and consciousness be a function of? Chalmers and others have suggested “bits of information”, although that is an additional speculation.
I don’t think “[T]heir effects and interactions can be meaningfully applied in explanations” is a good way of determining if something is “fundamental” or not: that description applies pretty nicely to aerodynamics, but aerodynamics is certainly not at the bottom of its chain of reductionism. I think maybe that’s the “fundamental” you’re going for: the maximum level of reductionism, the turtle at the bottom of the pile.
Anyways: (relativistic) gravity is generally thought not to be a fundamental, because it doesn’t mesh with our current quantum theory; hence the search for a Grand Unified Whatsit. Given that gravity, an incredibly well-studied and well-understood force, is at most questionably a fundamental thingie, I think you’ve got quite a hill to climb before you can say that about consciousness, which is a far slipperier and more data-lacking subject.
Hmm. Unless I’m misunderstanding you completely, I’ll assume we can work from the example of the “red” qualium (?)
What would it mean for even just the experience of “red” to be ontologically fundamental? What “essence of experiencing red” could possibly exist as something independent of the workings of the wetware that is experiencing it?
For example, suppose I and a dichromatic human look at the same red object. I and the other human may have more or less the same brain circuitry and are looking at the same thing, but since we are getting different signals from our eyes, what we experience as “red” cannot be exactly the same. A bee or a squid or a duck might have different inputs, and different neural circuitry, and therefore different qualia.
A rock next to the red object would have some reflected “red” light incident upon it. But it has no eyes and as far as I know no perception or mental states at all. Does it make sense to say that the rock can also see its neighbouring object as “red”? I wouldn’t say so, outside the realm of poetic metaphor.
So if your qualia are contingent on the circumstances of certain inputs to certain neural networks in your head, are they “ontologically fundamental”? I’d say no. And by extension, I’d say the same of any other mental state.
If you could change the pattern of signals and the connectivity of your brain one neuron at a time, you could create a continuum of experiences from “red” to “intuitively perceiving the 10000th digit of pi” and every indescribable, ineffable inhuman state in between. None of them would be more fundamental than any other; all are sub-patterns in a small corner of a very richly-patterned universe.
“Quale”, by the way.
How do you know? Do you know Latin, or just how this word works?
I’m not doubting you—just curious. I’ve always wanted to learn Latin so I can figure this sort of thing out (and then correct people), but I’ve settled for just looking up specific words when a question arises.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia
I apologize for being too brief. What I meant to say is that I posit that my subjective experience of qualia is real, and not explained by any form of reductionism or eliminativism. That experience of qualia is fundamental in the same way that gravitation and the electromagnetic force are fundamental. Whether the word ontological applies may be a semantic argument.
Basically, I am reprising Chalmers’ definition of the Hard Problem, or Thomas Nagel’s argument in the paper “What is it like to be a bat?”
Do qualia describe how matter interacts with matter? For example, do they explain why any person says “I have qualia” or “That is red”? Would gravity and electromagnetism, etc. fail to explain all such statements, or just some of them?
If qualia cause such things, is there any entropy when they influence and are influenced by matter? Is energy conserved?
If I remove neurons from a person one by one, is there a point at which qualia no longer are needed to describe how the matter and energy in them relates to the rest of matter and energy? Is it logically possible to detect such a point? If I then replace the critical neuron, why ought I be confident that merely considering, tracking, and simulating local, physical interactions would lead to an incorrect model of the person insofar as I take no account of qualia?
How likely is it that apples are not made of atoms?
You may posit that your subjective experience is not explained by reduction to physical phenomena (including really complex information processes) happening in the neurons of your brain. But to me that would be an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence.
It seems to me that until we completely understand the physical and informational processes going on in the brain, the burden of proof is on anyone suggesting that such complete understanding would still be in principle insufficient to explain our subjective experiences.
You should check out the recent series that orthonormal wrote about qualia. It starts with Seeing Red: Dissolving Mary’s Room and Qualia.
I don’t understand what you mean by this. Could you elaborate?
There is no explanation of HOW mass generates or causes gravity, similarly for the lack of explanation of how matter causes or generates forces such as electromagnetism. (Yes I know that some sort of strings have been proposed to subserve gravity, and so far they seem to me to be another false “ether”.) So in a shorthand of sorts, it is accepted that gravity and the various other forces exist as fundamentals (“axioms” of nature, if you will accept a metaphor), because their effects and interactions can be meaningfully applied in explanations. No one has seen gravity, no one can point to gravity—it is a fundamental force. Building on Chalmers in one of his earlier writings, I am willing to entertain the idea the qualia are a fundamental force-like dimension of consciousness. Finally every force is a function of something: gravity is a function of amount of mass, electromagnetism is a function of amount of charge. What might qualia and consciousness be a function of? Chalmers and others have suggested “bits of information”, although that is an additional speculation.
I don’t think “[T]heir effects and interactions can be meaningfully applied in explanations” is a good way of determining if something is “fundamental” or not: that description applies pretty nicely to aerodynamics, but aerodynamics is certainly not at the bottom of its chain of reductionism. I think maybe that’s the “fundamental” you’re going for: the maximum level of reductionism, the turtle at the bottom of the pile.
Anyways: (relativistic) gravity is generally thought not to be a fundamental, because it doesn’t mesh with our current quantum theory; hence the search for a Grand Unified Whatsit. Given that gravity, an incredibly well-studied and well-understood force, is at most questionably a fundamental thingie, I think you’ve got quite a hill to climb before you can say that about consciousness, which is a far slipperier and more data-lacking subject.