Neither theory provides mechanistic insight into subjective experience
Interactive dualism allows a mechanism , epiphenomenal dualism doesnt.
Panpsychists can claim all.causation is mental causation, but that doesn’t explain why only some systems report consciousness.
Dual aspect theorists say that physical causation is valid, but not exclusive...the existence of a physical explanation of a report of conscious does not preclude a mental explanantion.
Even if one learns everything about the science of color, this would not affect the parts of their brain that deal with perception in the same way that actually seeing color would
why does that matter?
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....that is an assumption of “specialness”. Obviously, it is true a that a description 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.
It feels as if there is something special about subjective experience.
No we experience it all the time. The problem is that it isn’t captured by physics...and there is no reason it should be. Physics is only interested in the objective and quantifiable....but we don’t know that apriori that everything is objective and quantifiable.
The specialness of qualia lies in their being unexplained by physics, as you effectively concede. And that’s quite possible because physics isn’t necessarily true. And it’s not immediately obvious because physics isnt.
I tend to think this specialness is a cognitive illusion in a similar way to how there are visual and auditory illusions.
Interactive dualism allows a mechanism , epiphenomenal dualism doesnt.
Panpsychists can claim all.causation is mental causation, but that doesn’t explain why only some systems report consciousness.
Dual aspect theorists say that physical causation is valid, but not exclusive...the existence of a physical explanation of a report of conscious does not preclude a mental explanantion.
why does that matter?
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....that is an assumption of “specialness”. Obviously, it is true a that a description 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.
No we experience it all the time. The problem is that it isn’t captured by physics...and there is no reason it should be. Physics is only interested in the objective and quantifiable....but we don’t know that apriori that everything is objective and quantifiable.
The specialness of qualia lies in their being unexplained by physics, as you effectively concede. And that’s quite possible because physics isn’t necessarily true. And it’s not immediately obvious because physics isnt.
An illusory quale is a quale.