You are quite right. I no longer debate with those who deny their own conscious experience, assuming they are not liars, if the say they do not see any colors, hear any sounds, feel anything, smell anything or taste anything, I take their word for it.SteveKlinko wrote: ↑Sun Mar 29, 2020 9:26 pm I have always assumed that all normally functioning Human Minds would have at least similar kinds of Conscious Experiences. I have thought this for decades. But after many years of discussions about this with people it has finally become clear to me that some people actually must not have Conscious Experiences or Qualia. I limit this observation to things like the Experience of Redness, the Standard A Tone, the Salty Taste and so on. The Experience of Colors and especially the Experience of Redness has been a major target for my discussions with people on the various Philosophy of Mind and Consciousness Forums. There are people that flat out deny the Existence of the Experience of Redness. I think they give it their best shot at understanding it but they always fall back to just dismissing the Experience of something like Redness as pure Fantasy, Superstition, Magic, and Illusion. I have become convinced that their denials of Conscious Experience, their very words, show that they truly and simply do not Experience Redness as a kind of Experience. They are not Color blind so they can Detect Red in their Visual Field in some way but it seems to be more at the level of the Neural Activity. They can somehow sense that their Neurons are Firing for Red and indicate that there is Red in their Field of View but there seems to be no Experience of Redness in their Field of View. They deny any such extra Consciousness Phenomenon is happening. I used to think they were just messing with me, and I was hoping that after all these years that they would get tired of continuing their Fraud. But they are not messing with me, they truly do not have Conscious Experiences or Qualia. In fact they say that Qualia was invented by Idiot Philosophers. They are usually nasty and arrogant like that and I wonder if that is a symptom of their lack of Qualia. Interesting that their lack of Qualia would make them living examples of the P-Zombies from Philosophy. One thing I can say is that if they really never have had an Experience of something like Redness then I can completely understand how they would think it was something Magical, and Illusory. These people simply deny the Existence of Qualia and are completely stymied by talk of Qualia.
Another discussion thread I have participated in where the people denied the Existence of Qualia was one where the people were convinced that we cannot see a Color until we have a Word for the Color. This seems like a very strange thing to believe. I tried in vain to convince them that the Word for the Color does not make the Color real but that the direct Experience of the Color is real. They could not understand what I was talking about. This can only make sense if you consider that they might never have Experienced a Color Quale. They instead receive some kind of Signals from their Neurons that gives them some type Indication of the different Colors but without an actual Conscious Experience of the Colors. I can see how the Words might be of prime importance to them.
But yet another example of People that probably have no Conscious Experiences or Qualia are the people that don't understand the difference between a Computer detecting Red and a Human detecting Red. They probably also just Detect Red in some way but have never had an actual Experience of Redness.
The evidence for this lack of Conscious Experience in some people is continuing to grow. It Explains the endless arguments about Conscious Experience and Qualia. These people simply do not have Qualia. The Lights are out in their Minds.
I have also come to the conclusion that those who deny there is any real knowledge are telling the truth--for themselves, and that they truly do not know anything. The same for those who claim nothing can be proved or known to be true, or that conscious choice is not possible and that human behavior is determined by physical laws, or evolved conditions of the brain, or their DNA, or chemicals in the brain, or their subconscious, or their genes, or their feelings, desires, sentiments, or their culture or education, or anything except their own conscious choice, I believe them.
There are apparently those walking among us who are human to all appearances but who have not fully evolved, are not fully rational, intellectual, volitional beings, but chimeras, part animal and part human, according to their own testimony.
