Qualia

[HexHammer]

1. If pain is only c fibers firing (there is nothing pain feels like) then there is nothing wrong with torture, if it doesnt result in physical damage. Why would anyone care if c fibers fire up?
2. Visualize a triangle. Anti- qualia people ( if they are consistent) must say that it is impossible to visualize a triangle. I know that I can visualize a triangle. I trust my empirical data.
There is no objective visualized triangle. My neurons do not fire in a triangular shape. If I visualize green, no part of my brain turns green.
Since no one can see my visualized triangle, an anti qualia person must say that it doesnt exist. In other words I cannot visualize a triangle.True, I cannot prove that I am visualizing a triangle. However, I am absolutely certain that I can visualize a triangle.
Visualize a triangle. If you can you have just proved to yourself that qualia exist!

You have an absurdly bad logical argumentation and zero common sense.

You don't even have the most basic understanding of torture, it amazes me how ignorant you are. People who are tortured even with very mild forms of torture like "water boarding" where there are no physical damage, can suffer from mental breakdowns, and their neurological damage can be permanent. Haven't you heard about PTSD? Flash backs?

When you can't distinct the imaginative power of the mind of physical existence, only witness about your inept mind.

You are the kind that needs sub basic things explained to you.

[Wyman]

Interesting! Please provide a link that shows that there is a physical triangle in your brain if you visualize one. Note, that I am not talking about seeing (with your eyes) a physical triangle. I know that the photons from a triangle that you see with your eyes enter the brain in a triangular shape. That is why I stipulated VISUALIZED.

the photons from a triangle that you see with your eyes enter the brain in a triangular shape.

This is where you go wrong (I think). You believe that in normal perception, there is something physical, whereas in imagination, there is not. Read the quote from Schrodinger, above. Here is a quote from Hawking referring to the perceptual process:

And so the raw data sent to the brain are like a badly pixilated picture with a hole in it. Fortunately, the human brain processes that data, combining the input from both eyes, filling in gaps on the assumption that the visual properties of neighboring locations are similar and interpolating. Moreover, it reads a two-dimensional array of data from the retina and creates from it the impression of three-dimensional space. The brain, in other words, builds a mental picture or model. The brain is so good at model building that if people are fitted with glasses that turn the images in their eyes upside down, their brains, after a time, change the model so that they again see things the right way up. If the glasses are then removed, they see the world upside down for a while, then again adapt. This shows that what one means when one says “I see a chair” is merely that one has used the light scattered by the chair to build a mental image or model of the chair. If the model is upside down, with luck one’s brain will correct it before one tries to sit on the chair.

In perception, the brain constructs the visual image with help of input from the outside world. In imagination or dreaming, the brain constructs a visual image with the help of input from within the brain.

Both processes, I believe (with Trixie!), are physical. The fact that you or I cannot look into someone else's brain or eyes and 'see' the same visual image is not proof that the image that brain is perceiving is not physical. But I cannot prove this as a fact to you - it is a scientific question and techniques and instruments must be created to make the necessary observations to refute it or verify it. The evidence is good, however, that the distinction you seem to draw between perceived triangles and imagined triangles is illusory, given the above quote in so far as it expresses current scientific understanding of perception.

[Wyman]

1. If pain is only c fibers firing (there is nothing pain feels like) then there is nothing wrong with torture, if it doesnt result in physical damage. Why would anyone care if c fibers fire up?
2. Visualize a triangle. Anti- qualia people ( if they are consistent) must say that it is impossible to visualize a triangle. I know that I can visualize a triangle. I trust my empirical data.
There is no objective visualized triangle. My neurons do not fire in a triangular shape. If I visualize green, no part of my brain turns green.
Since no one can see my visualized triangle, an anti qualia person must say that it doesnt exist. In other words I cannot visualize a triangle.True, I cannot prove that I am visualizing a triangle. However, I am absolutely certain that I can visualize a triangle.
Visualize a triangle. If you can you have just proved to yourself that qualia exist!

You have an absurdly bad logical argumentation and zero common sense.

You don't even have the most basic understanding of torture, it amazes me how ignorant you are. People who are tortured even with very mild forms of torture like "water boarding" where there are no physical damage, can suffer from mental breakdowns, and their neurological damage can be permanent. Haven't you heard about PTSD? Flash backs?

When you can't distinct the imaginative power of the mind of physical existence, only witness about your inept mind.

You are the kind that needs sub basic things explained to you.

Oh, blow it out your ass, Hex. He's engaging in a conversation, which some of us here appreciate. We don't need you trying to shut it down with insults.

[GreatandWiseTrixie]

There is a huge difference between an imagined triangle and one that you see with your eyes. For example, if I am in Egypt and look at a pyramid, the light enters my eyes in a triangular shape. I thought I had already explained why I stipulated, visualized.

What are you even talking about? The difference is because imagination takes data from memory cells and data may not be exactly accurate. Its still rendered in the same LCD screen. Data from eyes is also adjusted, filtered, and rendered to the same LCD screen. LCD screen being the brain's nueronal pixel array.

So you are saying that when I visualize a triangle, I remove a physical triangle from a memory cell and let it take center stage? So even when I am not visualizing a triangle there are physical images of triangles, bears, kitchen sinks...in my brain?

No that's ridiculous. A computer does not render a mountain by "removing a mountain from a memory cell." A computer has a cluster of memory cells and the memory cells transfer energy to the render screen resulting in a picture of mountain in physical space. The render also updates and clears the screen and old images on the screen fade away after the virtual memory is allocated elsewhere.

[HexHammer]

Oh, blow it out your ass, Hex. He's engaging in a conversation, which some of us here appreciate. We don't need you trying to shut it down with insults.

What it boils down to ..am I right or wrong?

[Ginkgo]

I don't see what "panexperientialism" has to do with the Cartesian theatre.

How many times did you see "Cartesian theatre" mentioned in my comment? Would you also like to ask what panexperientialism has to do with how many times I beat my wife last night? [Sorry for the confusion. I was partially addressing Trixie's "...then puts it on a screen in the brain that is in physical space" and then tacking on comment about "viewer" in a more generic sense, which you opened the door to prior to the specificity of that link.]

It is not an argument for physical matter having mental properties.

Why submit it to a thread dealing with qualia, then? [Or: Tentatively judging from what was posted later by others about "Cartesian theatre", maybe you should straighten them out about it not being applicable to "mental properties" (assuming the latter is of the qualitative sort).]

That's OK, you posted your comment directly beneath my link to the Cartesian theatre. Nonetheless, I don't see how panexperientialism is related to Trixie's comment. Is she not talking about experience within a cognitive system?

When it comes to the Cartesian theatre, it is assumed that mental properties are not of the qualitative sort. It is a rebuttal of the materialist explanation for a neural core of consciousness.

[Ginkgo]

I think that it is extremely counterintuitive to believe that when I visualize anything there is a physical image of it in my brain. What is that image composed of? Do the neurons fire in the shape of a furry mammal when I visualize a bear?

There no physical image of the object in the brain because we need a way of interpreting, or making sense of information received through our senses. It's all about converting sensory stimulation into electro/chemical spike trains. We get all of this sensory information (sight, sound, touch) about furry animals in the world. All of this sensory information is converted to electro/chemical energy in the form of spike trains that head towards a central area of the brain where it can be interpreted as a particular type of furry animal. The animal we are viewing at the moment.

It all sounds logical and reasonable, but it's actually incorrect. This is the Cartesian theatre.

[GreatandWiseTrixie]

I think that it is extremely counterintuitive to believe that when I visualize anything there is a physical image of it in my brain. What is that image composed of? Do the neurons fire in the shape of a furry mammal when I visualize a bear?

There no physical image of the object in the brain because we need a way of interpreting, or making sense of information received through our senses. It's all about converting sensory stimulation into electro/chemical spike trains. We get all of this sensory information (sight, sound, touch) about furry animals in the world. All of this sensory information is converted to electro/chemical energy in the form of spike trains that head towards a central area of the brain where it can be interpreted as a particular type of furry animal. The animal we are viewing at the moment.

Sounds like circular reasoning to me. Either there is a physical screen in the brain or isn't. I read there is. Are you saying there is not a physical screen or not. This particular matter is not philosophical you can't argue it away. Either it exists or it doesnt. You cant argue there is no such physical screen because of your "needs" or anyone elses "needs". No if ands or butts, either there is a screen or there isnt and it has nothing to do with anyones needs or philosophical arguments.

[Ginkgo]

I think that it is extremely counterintuitive to believe that when I visualize anything there is a physical image of it in my brain. What is that image composed of? Do the neurons fire in the shape of a furry mammal when I visualize a bear?

There no physical image of the object in the brain because we need a way of interpreting, or making sense of information received through our senses. It's all about converting sensory stimulation into electro/chemical spike trains. We get all of this sensory information (sight, sound, touch) about furry animals in the world. All of this sensory information is converted to electro/chemical energy in the form of spike trains that head towards a central area of the brain where it can be interpreted as a particular type of furry animal. The animal we are viewing at the moment.

Sounds like circular reasoning to me. Either there is a physical screen in the brain or isn't. I read there is. Are you saying there is not a physical screen or not. This particular matter is not philosophical you can't argue it away. Either it exists or it doesnt. You cant argue there is no such physical screen because of your "needs" or anyone elses "needs". No if ands or butts, either there is a screen or there isnt and it has nothing to do with anyones needs or philosophical arguments.

It's actually an infinite regress.

There is no screen because there is no one to watch the screen. There is no place in the brain where consciousness is unified. Consciousness is actually dis-unified.

[hammock]

That's OK, you posted your comment directly beneath my link to the Cartesian theatre. Nonetheless, I don't see how panexperientialism is related to Trixie's comment. Is she not talking about experience within a cognitive system?

If by some miracle I've finally found where to extract the correct numbers of individual posts and their links on this board, see these:

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15052&start=30#p195243

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15052&start=45#p195274

Regarding these next two...

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15052&start=15#p195194

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15052&start=30#p195226

...should any further clarification need be attempted for this area, then:

Many people seem to naively assume a literal pattern of a triangle in and of itself (whether in the environment or in a brain) would contain its own qualitative manifestation or have such hovering epiphenomenal-like about it [whatever the hell the latter relationship implies]. And outlandishly [!?] perhaps even have the additional understanding of itself as a triangle; but this only what a few direct realists suggest: That even the "purpose" of objects like chairs is outside the brain, and such "obvious" significance would be transmitted to the senses of a squirrel who otherwise would have zero interest in interpreting chairs as such.

It appears as if these people either subconsciously or outright consciously hold that the cosmos overall or its objects are omniphanic (I hate using the world panexperientialism, but I guess it's unavoidable in terms of trying to indicate what one means). Such an in-the-closet or out of it belief could also fall out of something other than naive realism or commonsense tradition. Via combination of taking into account that matter in the skull is the same as elsewhere on the Earth, and that its working organization alone shouldn't have sufficient casual powers to conjure such a radical novelty as experience. (Which is to say, those who believe that functional structure alone can accomplish its "goals" irrelevant of the substrate that instantiates it should try replicating the circuity and components of a radio with wooden material and learn how well it works). Accordingly, speculating that qualitative events / showings occur at the fundamental level of physics prior to the diversity of material "substances" at higher levels, and that the brain's dynamic organization is simply manipulating a capacity or properties inherent to conventional matter everywhere. [The latter being a panexperiential view that proceeds from reflective thought instead of any native or unthinking assumption.] The panpsychism of Galen Strawson's very un-traditional "real materialism" or whatever label may fall along that line.

[Ginkgo]

That's OK, you posted your comment directly beneath my link to the Cartesian theatre. Nonetheless, I don't see how panexperientialism is related to Trixie's comment. Is she not talking about experience within a cognitive system?

If by some miracle I've finally found where to extract the correct numbers of individual posts and their links on this board, see these:

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15052&start=30#p195243

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15052&start=45#p195274

Regarding these next two...

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15052&start=15#p195194

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15052&start=30#p195226

...should any further clarification need be attempted for this area, then:

Many people seem to naively assume a literal pattern of a triangle in and of itself (whether in the environment or in a brain) would contain its own qualitative manifestation or have such hovering epiphenomenal-like about it [whatever the hell the latter relationship implies]. And outlandishly [!?] perhaps even have the additional understanding of itself as a triangle; but this only what a few direct realists suggest: That even the "purpose" of objects like chairs is outside the brain, and such "obvious" significance would be transmitted to the senses of a squirrel who otherwise would have zero interest in interpreting chairs as such.

It appears as if these people either subconsciously or outright consciously hold that the cosmos overall or its objects are omniphanic (I hate using the world panexperientialism, but I guess it's unavoidable in terms of trying to indicate what one means). Such an in-the-closet or out of it belief could also fall out of something other than naive realism or commonsense tradition. Via combination of taking into account that matter in the skull is the same as elsewhere on the Earth, and that its working organization alone shouldn't have sufficient casual powers to conjure such a radical novelty as experience. (Which is to say, those who believe that functional structure alone can accomplish its "goals" irrelevant of the substrate that instantiates it should try replicating the circuity and components of a radio with wooden material and learn how well it works). Accordingly, speculating that qualitative events / showings occur at the fundamental level of physics prior to the diversity of material "substances" at higher levels, and that the brain's dynamic organization is simply manipulating a capacity or properties inherent to conventional matter everywhere. [The latter being a panexperiential view that proceeds from reflective thought instead of any native or unthinking assumption.] The panpsychism of Galen Strawson's very un-traditional "real materialism" or whatever label may fall along that line.

I don't think we need to resort to panexperientialism in order to explain the apparent active role of consciousness in the world from a subjective point of view. I think the materialist mistake is to look at consciousness as a single level processing system. Dennett wants to provide us with a materialists explanation so he has to reject the idea of the Cartesian theatre and the "interpreter" or "viewer" of information entering the brain via the senses.

In order to explain consciousness he rejects this idea of a single viewer of information and replaces it with a non-viewer 'multiple- copies' theory. Copies of information from the senses ends up many parts of the brain. In this respect Dennett is correct because the science tells us that consciousness is actually dis-unified, or spread throughout the brain. However, I think materialists will always have a problem accounting for the 'the viewer', the 'experience-er' as a type of raw information smeared across the brain on a singular level. Do various parts of the brain that receive these copies of information also create multiple 'viewers' of these copies?

This is where multiple levels of processing within the brain provide a better explanation for conscious experience. That is to say, how we can arrive at a situation whereby we have a first person perspective on the world.

[Wyman]

That's OK, you posted your comment directly beneath my link to the Cartesian theatre. Nonetheless, I don't see how panexperientialism is related to Trixie's comment. Is she not talking about experience within a cognitive system?

If by some miracle I've finally found where to extract the correct numbers of individual posts and their links on this board, see these:

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15052&start=30#p195243

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15052&start=45#p195274

Regarding these next two...

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15052&start=15#p195194

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15052&start=30#p195226

...should any further clarification need be attempted for this area, then:

Many people seem to naively assume a literal pattern of a triangle in and of itself (whether in the environment or in a brain) would contain its own qualitative manifestation or have such hovering epiphenomenal-like about it [whatever the hell the latter relationship implies]. And outlandishly [!?] perhaps even have the additional understanding of itself as a triangle; but this only what a few direct realists suggest: That even the "purpose" of objects like chairs is outside the brain, and such "obvious" significance would be transmitted to the senses of a squirrel who otherwise would have zero interest in interpreting chairs as such.

It appears as if these people either subconsciously or outright consciously hold that the cosmos overall or its objects are omniphanic (I hate using the world panexperientialism, but I guess it's unavoidable in terms of trying to indicate what one means). Such an in-the-closet or out of it belief could also fall out of something other than naive realism or commonsense tradition. Via combination of taking into account that matter in the skull is the same as elsewhere on the Earth, and that its working organization alone shouldn't have sufficient casual powers to conjure such a radical novelty as experience. (Which is to say, those who believe that functional structure alone can accomplish its "goals" irrelevant of the substrate that instantiates it should try replicating the circuity and components of a radio with wooden material and learn how well it works). Accordingly, speculating that qualitative events / showings occur at the fundamental level of physics prior to the diversity of material "substances" at higher levels, and that the brain's dynamic organization is simply manipulating a capacity or properties inherent to conventional matter everywhere. [The latter being a panexperiential view that proceeds from reflective thought instead of any native or unthinking assumption.] The panpsychism of Galen Strawson's very un-traditional "real materialism" or whatever label may fall along that line.

I don't think we need to resort to panexperientialism in order to explain the apparent active role of consciousness in the world from a subjective point of view. I think the materialist mistake is to look at consciousness as a single level processing system. Dennett wants to provide us with a materialists explanation so he has to reject the idea of the Cartesian theatre and the "interpreter" or "viewer" of information entering the brain via the senses.

In order to explain consciousness he rejects this idea of a single viewer of information and replaces it with a non-viewer 'multiple- copies' theory. Copies of information from the senses ends up many parts of the brain. In this respect Dennett is correct because the science tells us that consciousness is actually dis-unified, or spread throughout the brain. However, I think materialists will always have a problem accounting for the 'the viewer', the 'experience-er' as a type of raw information smeared across the brain on a singular level. Do various parts of the brain that receive these copies of information also create multiple 'viewers' of these copies?

This is where multiple levels of processing within the brain provide a better explanation for conscious experience. That is to say, how we can arrive at a situation whereby we have a first person perspective on the world.

I don't think that the problem lies in some thinking that there are not multiple levels of processing - I think that there are is pretty well established. The problem is whether these multiple levels are eventually merged into one. Either merged into one or a choice is made between a finite list of 'choices' so that one is presented to consciousness. I see that as a scientific question - no amount of introspection could solve it. However, an interesting question is, what difference would it make as to which (or some other) model is correct?

[GreatandWiseTrixie]

It's actually an infinite regress.

There is no screen because there is no one to watch the screen. There is no place in the brain where consciousness is unified. Consciousness is actually dis-unified.

That is your opinion. Your opinion has little to do with reality of the matter. Either there is a screen or there isn't. Your opinion does not change the existence of a screen, just as your opinion does not change the existence of a tree in the forest just because you're aren't there to watch it.

[Rilx]

Trixie, your PC don't need a screen to proceed with the data. I don't even believe that you'd think that robots had screens inside their CPUs. Think of Roomba, the automatic vacuum cleaner. Different "species" have different qualia. The landscape we "see" is how we conceive our position within our environment.

[GreatandWiseTrixie]

Trixie, your PC don't need a screen to proceed with the data. I don't even believe that you'd think that robots had screens inside their CPUs. Think of Roomba, the automatic vacuum cleaner. Different "species" have different qualia. The landscape we "see" is how we conceive our position within our environment.

Who said PC's were sentient? I said they might be. And PC's do have a screen, and a GPU which renders to physical space. It's a bad analogy for several reasons, and what he was saying was this

"There is no screen because there is no one to watch the screen"

Not to mention most species have similar brain structures, therefore their qualia would be similar.

Bad analogy also because computers do not process data in the manner humans do, nor is their screen a source of input, it is an ouput non-vital to their inner operations.