Qualia Blindness

[Dontaskme]

The 'hard problem' of consciousness is deeper than that - it is dealing with the question of how ANYTHING can be sensed consciously. The day you have fathomed that out - give Davo a call.

It can be sensed consciously because it is itself consciousness.

It's perfectly self evident, well said Alex, we can't know it because we are it.

But that's never enough for some.

Thanks for providing the only proof available (Direct first person Experience)

And for all the rest of you TAG, your it too.

.

[Brent.Allsop]

It can be sensed consciously because it is itself consciousness.

In this model, can one consciousness represent conscious knowledge of another's consciousness, with intrinsic qualities of conscious knowledge like redness and grenness inverted?

It's perfectly self evident, well said Alex, we can't know it because we are it.

If we simply define our terms, sufficiently, can't we "know it", or bridge the "explanatory gap" or eff the "ineffable?" An example effing statement being: "My redness is like your grenness, both of which we call red."

[Brent.Allsop]

I guess you honestly don't realize that this hasn't solved the Hard problem. It merely simplifies the problem: how or why is it possible that physical things and qualia are one and the same, and what does that mean, what are the implications? (Which leads to Advaita eventually, which is the Ockham's razor solution, and THEN we can dismiss the Hard problem.)

Impressive. Not only are you proving you understand, by repeating back in your own words what I’m trying to say, you appear to be taking me to where I haven’t yet been, and I’m having troubles keeping up. Let me see if I can do like you, and prove I understand at least some of what you are saying by repeating it back, before I ask for more detail.

You are asking the question: “Why is it possible that physical things and qualia are one and the same?” This seems to me, to be a different hard problem than the hard problem, which is bridging the explanatory gap, or effing the ineffable.

Is this different hard problem you are talking about like the fact that we know there is gravity, we just don’t know why there is gravity? Isn’t another way to illustrate this particular different ‘hard problem’ to ask: “Why is there something rather than nothing, even if this something is an Advaita that is everything?

Even with only this what you call a “simplification” of the hard problem, isn’t just isolating individual components of this Advaita like glutamate, and discovering that this is what has an intrinsic redness quality, won’t this enable us to do things like increase the resolution, and color depth of our knowledge, and computationally bind brains with Neural Ponytails? Sure, we don’t know why there is gravity, but doesn’t just knowing what gravity is allow us to dance in the heavens? Isn’t that the kind of ‘implication’ you are asking for?

How does Advaita resolve this different hard problem, and what additional “implications” does it provide beyond being able to do things like dance in the heavens? If “Substance Dualism” is experimentally verified, would that falsify Advaita, which is predicting that all things are one? Also, it seems to me that the entire Advaita idea is 'qualia blind' in that it fails to distinguish between reality and knowledge of reality (which may admittedly be a subset of that reality)?

[Atla]

Impressive. Not only are you proving you understand, by repeating back in your own words what I’m trying to say, you appear to be taking me to where I haven’t yet been, and I’m having troubles keeping up. Let me see if I can do like you, and prove I understand at least some of what you are saying by repeating it back, before I ask for more detail.

You are asking the question: “Why is it possible that physical things and qualia are one and the same?” This seems to me, to be a different hard problem than the hard problem, which is bridging the explanatory gap, or effing the ineffable.

Is this different hard problem you are talking about like the fact that we know there is gravity, we just don’t know why there is gravity? Isn’t another way to illustrate this particular different ‘hard problem’ to ask: “Why is there something rather than nothing, even if this something is an Advaita that is everything?

Even with only this what you call a “simplification” of the hard problem, isn’t just isolating individual components of this Advaita like glutamate, and discovering that this is what has an intrinsic redness quality, won’t this enable us to do things like increase the resolution, and color depth of our knowledge, and computationally bind brains with Neural Ponytails? Sure, we don’t know why there is gravity, but doesn’t just knowing what gravity is allow us to dance in the heavens? Isn’t that the kind of ‘implication’ you are asking for?

How does Advaita resolve this different hard problem, and what additional “implications” does it provide beyond being able to do things like dance in the heavens? If “Substance Dualism” is experimentally verified, would that falsify Advaita, which is predicting that all things are one? Also, it seems to me that the entire Advaita idea is 'qualia blind' in that it fails to distinguish between reality and knowledge of reality (which may admittedly be a subset of that reality)?

No, it's basically still the same hard problem, trying to bridge the explanatory gap between two (apparently) irreconcilable somethings.

I meant that we make it much simpler by discarding the dualistic interpretations of the Hard problem. Things like substance/property/aspect etc. dualisms, one can come up with infinitely many kinds of dualisms. Western "monisms" like physicalism or idealism, are also subtle forms of dualisms, but most Western philosophers aren't intelligent enough to see this.

The correct Hard problem is: in what sense are qualia and physical things identical, what does that mean?

-------------

The point here is nondual thinking, "nondual" in the Oriental sense. I'd say it's rather explicit in Advaita, and rather implicit in Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism, and maybe a few others. Maybe non-monistic Advaita and Zen Buddhism have nondual thinking in its purest form. Despite what many will claim, this kind of thinking seems to be simply missing from modern Western philosophy alltogether.

It's not about "what" to think, but about "how" to think. It's about thinking entirely without fundamental dichotomies. This is easier said than done, because some made-up dichotomies can be inherently part of our thinking since centuries/millennia, and we simply don't notice them. (It's also easy to fall into abstract vs concrete dichotomies. Also, men may have more trouble with dichotomies, because they have less connected hemispheres, and there may be a lot of jumping back and forth between them, so to speak.)

If “Substance Dualism” is experimentally verified, would that falsify Advaita, which is predicting that all things are one?

Yes, "substance dualism" would refute Advaita.

But Advaita is not quite predicting that all things are one. It does so from our Western perpsective, you can sort of think of it as a form of monistic panpsychism. In one sense all things are one (non-separate), in another sense non-separateness doesn't mean sameness.

That's why it says "not-two" instead of "one", it's difficult to explain. It's what lies "beyond" a monistic panpsychism, from a Western perspective.

(Note that I was trying to eff the ineffable here, I'm trying to express nondualism in language, where language is inherently dualistic. This is an inherent problem, it can't be avoided.)

[AlexW]

In this model, can one consciousness represent conscious knowledge of another's consciousness, with intrinsic qualities of conscious knowledge like redness and grenness inverted?

As I see it, there is only consciousness - there is no consciousness belonging to self and equally not many consciousnesses belonging to others.
Thought "breaks" (of course not literally) consciousness into litte, individual portions and awards them a self. But this conceptual self never has an experience, its rather the case that these conceptual selfs are concepts arising in non conceptual consciousness.

Equally, the experience of redness arises in/as consciousness - is pattern matched - receives attributes and properties - a name - and now its called "Redness" - but the experience itself is perfectly free of all relativistic/objective qualities.

When we agree on an experience being an experience of "redness", then this agreement is based on acquired/conditioned knowledge which makes it possible for us to agree on such a label - otherwise the experience would simply be unique (as there is no experience that is ever the same - no matter how close one redness seems to be to another - even when the light is being emitted from the same source, the redness is in fact different)

[AlexW]

But Advaita is not quite predicting that all things are one. It does so from our Western perpsective, you can sort of think of it as a form of monistic panpsychism. In one sense all things are one (non-separate), in another sense non-separateness doesn't mean sameness.

Yes, correct, diversity doesn't mean or create separation - but draw a line on a piece of paper and people see a border where there is actually only color...

[Skepdick]

As I see it, there is only consciousness

The moment you've given it a name you've dualised it. And now you have to "define" it.

- there is no consciousness belonging to self and equally not many consciousnesses belonging to others.
Thought "breaks" (of course not literally) consciousness into litte, individual portions and awards them a self. But this conceptual self never has an experience, its rather the case that these conceptual selfs are concepts arising in non conceptual consciousness.

And now you are trying to close Pandora's box, which you opened by mentioning "consciousness".

Equally, the experience of redness arises in/as consciousness - is pattern matched - receives attributes and properties - a name - and now its called "Redness" - but the experience itself is perfectly free of all relativistic/objective qualities.

It isn't free of relativism at all.

How many shades of red do you think there are? That is the same as asking "How many distinct experiences of redness do you know about?"

Try answering without Google.

Yes, correct, diversity doesn't mean or create separation - but draw a line on a piece of paper and people see a border where there is actually only color...

There is much irony in this statement. You see a border between red and green where there is none.

You see a border between light, heat and sound where there is none. The electro-magnetic spectrum is continuous, not discrete.

Your eyes handle light.
Your skin handles heat.
Your ears handle sound.

[AlexW]

The moment you've given it a name you've dualised it. And now you have to "define" it.

Yes, yes... the word is not the thing, especiually if its not even a "thing"
But to make you happy: consciousness = reality = direct experience = this here/now minus all conceptual interpretations

It isn't free of relativism at all.

It is according to my definition as all relativism is purely conceptual.

How many shades of red do you think there are?

As many as you can think about and label... an infinite amount if you have enough time to write them all down.

There is much irony in this statement. You see a border between red and green where there is none.

The light spectrum is continuous, not discrete.

Not sure what you mean with the above...
I don't ever "see (directly experience) a border" - nobody does - I simply see red next to green (and even these labels are concepts - but using language I cant get any closer to reality) - the border is imagined (a conceptual interpretation).

[Skepdick]

As many as you can think about and label... an infinite amount if you have enough time to write them all down.

It's not about thinking, it's about recognition/classification.

You can identify and label as many different shades of red as your "hardware" allows you to distinguish.

If you can't tell the difference between this shade of red and this shade of red you are going to label them as being "the same". If I can tell the difference between them, I'll label them differently.

And now we have a disagreement on the number of shades/labels.

I don't ever "see (directly experience) a border" - nobody does - I simply see red next to green - the border is imagined (a conceptual interpretation).

The "border" is your ability to tell the difference between them relative to each other.

You didn't see a difference (border?) between this shade of red and this shade of red, but I do.

[AlexW]

The "border" is your ability to tell the difference between them.

You didn't see a difference (border?) between this shade of red and this shade of red, but I do.

If with "border" you actually mean "diversity", then yes, I agree, there are diverse, different tones of red.
To me, a border is something that actually separates, not another word for diversity...

It's not about thinking, it's about recognition/classification.

I place both, recognition and classification, into the realm of mental processing / aka thinking.
The senses do not recognise or classify.

If you can't tell the difference between this shade of red and this shade of red you are going to label them as being "the same"

Sure, but this doesn't mean its the same experience.

[Skepdick]

If with "border" you actually mean "diversity", then yes, I agree, there are diverse, different tones of red.
To me, a border is something that actually separates, not another word for diversity...

I don't know what "diversity" means to you

What I mean is that there two distinct conceptual models for thinking about "redness and all of its shades"

Continuous and discrete

The senses do not recognise or classify.

They don't recognise (cognition does that) but they do classify.

To you heat, sound and light are different sensations. But they are just waves with different frequencies on the same continuous EM spectrum.

Sure, but this doesn't mean its the same experience.

It literally does.

Is your experience of THIS COLOR different to your experience of THIS COLOR ?

[AlexW]

Is your experience of THIS COLOR different to your experience of THIS COLOR ?

Yes, because an experience is never only of "one color" - that one could have an experience of "one color" is not more than a conceptual idea of how an extract of experience can be perceived.
Direct experience itself is not cut up into different colours, not even into the different sensations received from the 5 senses - its all one unbroken whole. One whole that is always different - thus never the same.

Its only our interpretation of experience which "converts" the continuous into a discrete experience (a bit like a conversion from analog to digital music) and allows us to extract certain parts and label them (e.g. redness).

But, yes, for our conceptual interpretation of (discrete parts of) experience, they seem to be the same "experience of color", but this is not how direct experience actually works (as, in reality, its "continuous").

[Skepdick]

Yes, because an experience is never only of "one color" - that one could have an experience of "one color" is not more than a conceptual idea of how an extract of experience can be perceived.

I asked you the question"ceteris paribus" and you are devolving into contrarianism.

Let me try again.

Exhibit A ------> RED
Exhibit B-------> RED

Is A the same "redness" as B? A yes/no answer will suffice.

[AlexW]

I asked you the question"ceteris paribus" and you are devolving into contrarianism.

Let me try again.

Exhibit A ------> RED
Exhibit B-------> RED

Is A the same "redness" as B? A yes/no answer will suffice.

Looks like it.

[Skepdick]

Looks like it.

And yet they are different shades of red. I know because I programmed them that way.

color=#FF0000
color=#FF1111