Approximately localized. And even without quantum effects there are definitely relevant interactions on the macro scale. And gravity. And space. I just don’t get how “physical human is not spatially extensive” objection makes sense. Of course, it doesn’t matter, because saying that qualia are spatially extensive is like saying that fire is continuous.
Why is there a binding problem for fire?
Because there is no fire in the ontology of modern physics and there are no laws of physics that say that some arrangement of atoms are fire. There are only extra-physical conventions that say that if atoms work approximately like fire you can say that fire reduces to atoms. That’s how reductionism works. It works the same way for observations—there are no physical laws that determine how precisely your measurement equipment must draw numbers for you to conclude your physical theory is correct. And it works the same way for qualia—there are no physical laws that say that some neural activity is your experience of blue.
Are you now saying that the binding comes from neurology?
Binding comes from a human desire to describe things in an approximate, useful way. Fundamentally, there is no binding between real physics and continuity of fire. And so the binding problem is an easy problem of scientifically describing a brain in enough precision that all pixels of your visual field are predictable from this description.
And so are qualia. The only difference is that the science haven’t yet provided a useful reduction. But laws of physics still don’t say how you should reduce things. And reductions doesn’t preserve everything—fire can look continuous, but actually consist of atoms.
No it comes from the observationthat our sensorium is not a picture of our brains?
You can also observe that fire is not a picture of atoms. Reductions are indirect, can have different precision and some parts of observations are just wrong. There are no observations that contradict future neurology predicting all your experiences more precisely than you can feel them now.
If Qualia are identified with microphysical properties, those properties need to be localised to solve the binding problem.
Again, there is no reason to directly identify qualia with microphysical properties. You don’t need to make atoms continuous to bind them to continuous-looking fire. The idea is to only identify phenomenal nature of qualia with physical existence. After that science can figure out specific useful model and just say “your observations of qualia are not sensitive enough to say anything about localization on nanometer scale” like it says in the case of continuous-looking fire.
I’m not saying that figuring out how brain implements human experiences is a solved or uninteresting problem. It’s just not a Hard, philosophical problem. At least no more, than in the case of fire.
And so are qualia. The only difference is that the science haven’t yet provided a useful reduction.
The other difference is that Qualia are subjective.
But laws of physics still don’t say how you should reduce things. And reductions doesn’t preserve everything—fire can look continuous, but actually consist of atoms.
Lossy reductions don’t preserve everything.
No it comes from the observationthat our sensorium is not a picture of our brains?
You can also observe that fire is not a picture of atoms.
Fire is a picture of atoms. As you zoom into it in ever more detail, you end up with individual atoms emitting photons.
Again, there is no reason to directly identify qualia with microphysical properties.
Approximately localized. And even without quantum effects there are definitely relevant interactions on the macro scale. And gravity. And space. I just don’t get how “physical human is not spatially extensive” objection makes sense. Of course, it doesn’t matter, because saying that qualia are spatially extensive is like saying that fire is continuous.
Because there is no fire in the ontology of modern physics and there are no laws of physics that say that some arrangement of atoms are fire. There are only extra-physical conventions that say that if atoms work approximately like fire you can say that fire reduces to atoms. That’s how reductionism works. It works the same way for observations—there are no physical laws that determine how precisely your measurement equipment must draw numbers for you to conclude your physical theory is correct. And it works the same way for qualia—there are no physical laws that say that some neural activity is your experience of blue.
Binding comes from a human desire to describe things in an approximate, useful way. Fundamentally, there is no binding between real physics and continuity of fire. And so the binding problem is an easy problem of scientifically describing a brain in enough precision that all pixels of your visual field are predictable from this description.
Fire is reducible. If you want a physical explanation, you can have one.
No it comes from the observationthat our sensorium is not a picture of our brains?
If Qualia are identified with microphysical properties, those properties need to be localised to solve the binding problem.
And so are qualia. The only difference is that the science haven’t yet provided a useful reduction. But laws of physics still don’t say how you should reduce things. And reductions doesn’t preserve everything—fire can look continuous, but actually consist of atoms.
You can also observe that fire is not a picture of atoms. Reductions are indirect, can have different precision and some parts of observations are just wrong. There are no observations that contradict future neurology predicting all your experiences more precisely than you can feel them now.
Again, there is no reason to directly identify qualia with microphysical properties. You don’t need to make atoms continuous to bind them to continuous-looking fire. The idea is to only identify phenomenal nature of qualia with physical existence. After that science can figure out specific useful model and just say “your observations of qualia are not sensitive enough to say anything about localization on nanometer scale” like it says in the case of continuous-looking fire.
I’m not saying that figuring out how brain implements human experiences is a solved or uninteresting problem. It’s just not a Hard, philosophical problem. At least no more, than in the case of fire.
The other difference is that Qualia are subjective.
Lossy reductions don’t preserve everything.
Fire is a picture of atoms. As you zoom into it in ever more detail, you end up with individual atoms emitting photons.
Some sort of explanation is needed.