Qualia

[Arising_uk]

No. I am saying that there is no physical triangle in my brain when I visualize one.

But the mechanism for your visualisation is the same as the one for your perception so what is it you are perceiving? As it's not a physical triangle so presumably there is no physical triangle?

[raw_thought]

#2 (in my 1-9 argument above) is a proposition that is part of my argument. Since #2 is obviously true

Yes, we call that a premise in logic. I reject your premise. Now, you will say 'but it must be true,' 'but it has to be true,' 'but it is silly to think it is not true,' 'it's true unless your brain turns into a triangle when you think about triangles.' The last statement is the closest you come to arguing your point.

as Arising recently alluded to - you cannot say that any perception is not also a qualia like your triangle. In which case you are a solipsist. For when you look at a 'real' green triangle in front of you, does your brain at that point turn green? Presumably not; and the thing itself is not green, as it is only light waves reflecting off of it which cause the eyes and brain to interpret it as green - but since light waves are not green, there must be something green in your brain - but as you claim, there is not. Therefore anything you perceive is 'qualia' and therefore not physical.

If there is no physical triangle in my brain when I visualize it (do you disgree with that?) and only the physical exists (as the materialist says) then there is no visualized triangle. Therefore, I cannot visualize a triangle. I know that I can visualize a triangle. Therefore materialism is false.

[raw_thought]

No. I am saying that there is no physical triangle in my brain when I visualize one.

But the mechanism for your visualisation is the same as the one for your perception so what is it you are perceiving? As it's not a physical triangle so presumably there is no physical triangle?

If I am actually seeing a physical triangle (suppose I am looking at a pyramid in Egypt from a certain perspective ) there is an objective physical triangle.
However, if I imagine (visualize ) a triangle,there is no objective triangle. I am the only person that sees it.

[raw_thought]

Why do you think I am advocateing solipism? Other people then myself can visualize triangles.
There is a difference between ontology and epistemology. If I say that I cannot read your mind I am not saying that you have no thoughts.

[raw_thought]

No, no one believes that in order to be 'physical,' the process of perceiving green needs to involve your brain turning green, etc..

Then #2 is true.
Or are you saying that cause =definition? That if I find the cause,I have defined the object. For example the definition of broken vase is defined in the dictionary as throwing a vase.

I added to my answer and think it is only fair (since that post is a page back) to make that clear.

[raw_thought]

I also have fallen victim to over thinking things. But to use arguments to convince oneself that one does not feel pain (according to a materialist pain is and only is C fibers firing), that I do not experience joy,saddness, dreams and day dreams seems delusional.to me.
The fact that you feel and experience things should be self evident to you. However, having been in the philosophical community for decades has taught me that philosophers have to have an argument for any proposition.

[raw_thought]

The objections to my triangle argument are,
1. My visualized triangle is not a quale because it is a geometrical form.
My response,
I am not talking about the concept “triangle”. I am not visualizing the concept “triangle’. I am visualizing an example of a triangle. Only I know its particular traits, for example if it is Equilateral, Isosceles and Scalene. I do not even have to know that it is a triangle to experience it. Similarly, I do not have to know what wind is (air particles moving) to experience wind on my face.
However, even if I am only aware of a concept, that is still an example of a quale.
Qualia also includes concepts etc. Concepts are like the concept “sign”. They consist of two properties the meaning (signified) and the physical sign. (signifier). http://changingminds.org/explanations/c ... nified.htm
http://web.calstatela.edu/faculty/dpitt/whatsit.pdf
2. There is a physical triangle in my brain because my neurons firing causes me to visualize a triangle.
My response,
When I say that the triangle is physical, I mean that it is a physical triangle. It has the shape of a triangle. If one looked into my brain with even the best scientific instruments, you would not see a triangle. Similarly, if you had a very powerful sound amplifier, you would not hear my thoughts. To say that my neurons firing are a representation of a triangle is false. They do not fire in a triangular shape etc. To say that is like saying that hearing Mozart’s music is the same as holding a CD of his music.
3. Materialist’s do not say that there are no such things as feelings.
“Surely no sane person could deny the existence of feelings. But in his reply he makes it clear that I have understood him exactly. He says, “How could anyone deny that!? Just watch…”
Searle on Dennett ( FROM http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archive ... -exchange/ )
Here is Dennett himself, “"Qualia" is an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us. As is so often the case with philosophical jargon, it is easier to give examples than to give a definition of the term. Look at a glass of milk at sunset; the way it looks to you--the particular, personal, subjective visual quality of the glass of milk is the quale of your visual experience at the moment. The way the milk tastes to you then is another, gustatory quale, and how it sounds to you as you swallow is an auditory quale; These various "properties of conscious experience" are prime examples of qualia…..At first blush it would be hard to imagine a more quixotic quest than trying to convince people that there are no such properties as qualia; hence the ironic title of this chapter. But I am not kidding. “
FROM http://cogprints.org/254/1/quinqual.htm

As a materialist he has no choice but reject qualia. A Quale is defined as a private subjective experience. For a materialist only objective reality is real.
He must also reject first person narratives. Here is a joke that shows how absurd his position is.
Dennett woke up one morning and wanted to know if the sex was good with his wife. He asked, “it was good for you, was it good for me?”

[raw_thought]

As the above shows, ( point 3) qualia is just the technical word for feelings.
To deny that quales exist is too deny that feelings exist.
Unfortunately, since the materialist believes that only objective reality exists, he must believe that feelings dont exist.

[Arising_uk]

If I am actually seeing a physical triangle (suppose I am looking at a pyramid in Egypt from a certain perspective ) there is an objective physical triangle. ...

But all you are 'seeing' is the pattern produced by your neurons? As such how can you tell that there is an objective physical triangle?

However, if I imagine (visualize ) a triangle,there is no objective triangle. I am the only person that sees it.

Why should I believe you? What you may be 'seeing' is a square that you just call a triangle.

[raw_thought]

I do not have to know what wind is (air particles moving ) to experience the wind on my face. I see something that does not resemble anything in my brain. That means that my experience is subjective.
My argument is epistemological not ontological. If I say that I cannot read your mind I am not saying that you have no thoughts.

[raw_thought]

If I am actually seeing a physical triangle (suppose I am looking at a pyramid in Egypt from a certain perspective ) there is an objective physical triangle. ...

But all you are 'seeing' is the pattern produced by your neurons? As such how can you tell that there is an objective physical triangle?
.

That is an argument against materialism!

[Wyman]

If I am actually seeing a physical triangle (suppose I am looking at a pyramid in Egypt from a certain perspective ) there is an objective physical triangle. ...

But all you are 'seeing' is the pattern produced by your neurons? As such how can you tell that there is an objective physical triangle?
.

That is an argument against materialism!

No, it's an argument against duality. It's either all physical or all mental - can't have it both ways.

[Ginkgo]

No, it's an argument against duality. It's either all physical or all mental - can't have it both ways.

Yes, and the bottom line is materialism,physicalism,neuroscience and science in general will not entertain any dualistic theory of mind. Qualia is a dualistic theory.

[hammock]

1. It is self evident that one can visualize a triangle.
2. The visualized triangle has no physicality. The neurons are not firing in a triangular shape etc. There is not a physical triangle in a person's brain when he/she visualizes one.
Note that saying that the brain has no physical triangle but facilitates it misses the point. It is similar to saying that holding a CD of Mozart's music is equivalent to hearing his music. While holding the CD there is no music. While visualizing the triangle there is no physical triangle.
3. Materialists believe that only the physical exists.
4. The triangle has no physicality.
5. Therefore, for the materialist there is no visualized triangle. ....

What you apparently mean by "physical triangle" is a public triangle that would manifest to others if they could inspect that brain at all levels, not just privately manifest for the brain/body imagining it. But an exhibited triangle in even such a private context could still also be judged "physical" by virtue of having spatial form and persisting over time. Usually, however, physical is indeed employed as an adjective synonym for "having both spatiotemporal form and being publicly accessible to others (i.e., intersubjective or objective)".

Thus any materialism that rejects a priori that corporeal affairs can have dual appearances (the extrinsic appearance of only being neural structure / activity while simultaneously having the intrinsic appearance of being something else like the image of a triangle) may eventually incline itself toward rejecting that there are any such private or intrinsic appearances. [The scene on a television screen may have a very different appearance on an optic disc, but the two are safely separated and not conflated as the same item in the everyday, sensible world.]

Accordingly, in a dogmatic materialism with such pre-conditioned biases, your claim that an imagined, manifested triangle is "self-evident" becomes merely a hypothesis grounded in belief of self / subjectivity and private experiences, which its eventual bent toward a particular brand of eliminative materialism considers folk psychology. One then awaits the next cycle in a ceaseless merry-go-round to begin, where it is pointed-out that the extrospective or public appearances of objects likewise correlate to the alternative appearance of operating brain structures. Although the public stuff is by definition accessible to others, these shared extrospective or environmental phenomena nevertheless seem to be of an intrinsic status similar to the imagined, hallucinated, dreamed affairs.

The detoured quibbling over a "subjective" modifier or a self-ownership being to attached to experience does not make the manifestations disappear and does nothing to explain how ANY manifestations [introspective/private or extrospective/public] would fall out of what's on the table of chemistry and physics [organisms, computers, etc must likewise fall out of the latter; the biological and artificial world does not float on its own]. This is what Chalmers called bait-and-switch, where a philosopher seems to start out proposing either a solution to or a way to discard the problem of experience, and later it is realized they actually rolled-off into some other area of consciousness, hoping that the departure to elsewhere will remain obscured.

[raw_thought]

“But all you are 'seeing' is the pattern produced by your neurons? As such how can you tell that there is an objective physical triangle?”

Arising-UK


“That is an argument against materialism!”
ME

No, it's an argument against duality. It's either all physical or all mental - can't have it both ways.

Wyman

……………………..

How can a materialist know that anything is objective?
Arising-UK’s objection does not work against a person that believes in feelings (qualia). However, it destroys the materialist’s claim that he knows what is objective.

Either everything in the universe is physical or everything is mental? I disagree.