What do you mean by “empirical”? Given a putative explanation, how do you assess it? It appears to me that you are merely saying that you do not accept the putative explanation that the Duck (among many others) accepts. Putting it in the impersonal language seems extremely misleading to me. Moreover, the existence of the disagreement appears strong evidence against the claim this is an empirical question, at least if “empirical” is interpreted in an impersonal way.
Maybe your point is your second sentence and your disagreement is a minor detail, but I find your phrasing emphasizes disagreement and distracts from the second sentence. Indeed, the second sentence seems to take a personal view of acceptance of arguments.
The claim that “materialism will be capable of explaining qualia” is proven if materialism does indeed come up with a convincing explanation of qualia. And while one can’t disprove it entirely, the claim becomes quite improbable if we ever reach a point in time where it looks like we’ve solved every other scientific mystery aside for the problem of qualia.
I have no idea of how I’d assess a proposed materialistic explanation of qualia, given that such an explanation seems to me impossible in principle. But then, just because I’m incapable of imagining such an explanation doesn’t mean that it would actually be impossible to come up with one, so I remain open to the possibility of someone coming up with it regardless.
What do you mean by “empirical”?
Given a putative explanation, how do you assess it?
It appears to me that you are merely saying that you do not accept the putative explanation that the Duck (among many others) accepts. Putting it in the impersonal language seems extremely misleading to me. Moreover, the existence of the disagreement appears strong evidence against the claim this is an empirical question, at least if “empirical” is interpreted in an impersonal way.
Maybe your point is your second sentence and your disagreement is a minor detail, but I find your phrasing emphasizes disagreement and distracts from the second sentence. Indeed, the second sentence seems to take a personal view of acceptance of arguments.
The claim that “materialism will be capable of explaining qualia” is proven if materialism does indeed come up with a convincing explanation of qualia. And while one can’t disprove it entirely, the claim becomes quite improbable if we ever reach a point in time where it looks like we’ve solved every other scientific mystery aside for the problem of qualia.
I have no idea of how I’d assess a proposed materialistic explanation of qualia, given that such an explanation seems to me impossible in principle. But then, just because I’m incapable of imagining such an explanation doesn’t mean that it would actually be impossible to come up with one, so I remain open to the possibility of someone coming up with it regardless.