I gotta wonder if qualia are unique to organisms with nerves or are they more intrinsic than that?
Looking at it scientifically, it appears that we should be meat robots. Walking around and doing human things, but not having consciousness of it. Why are we conscious, and where do qualia come from?
A qualia is that which you can't describe even if you have all of the relevant information pertaining to it. For example, I cannot explain to a person blind from birth what red looks like. I can tell them which wavelength of light makes red, and I can explain to them how eyes work and how the brain processes visual signals. But still, I can't give them information that'll allow them to experience the color red.
Many, many, many qualia are what come together and make up our subjective experience. They are the reason we are conscious and are able to feel all the different aspects of the world.
But the question remains is why are we able to "feel" them? Why doesn't my body just detect the wavelength of light corresponding to red and react accordingly as the brain computes a response like a computer? Why do I actually experience the qualia of red? As far as I know, neural science doesn't really have an answer for this.
Panpsychism seems like the most appealing option to me. The idea that qualia is just a fundamental property of matter, and everything has a subjective experience. Every atom, every molecule, every object, every system of objects, every cell, every organism composed of cells, and every organism with a complex nervous system.
Maybe it's the complexity of the system of matter that determines the detail and complexity of the subjective experience by having many, many qualia instead of just a few. We have extremely complex brains composed of systems of neurons, and thus we have a complex consciousness or subjective experience composed of many qualia interacting with one another.
Further down the scale of complexity you come to the simplest and most fundamental pieces of matter, subatomic particles. Perhaps the subjective experience of an electron is just one lone qualia that represents essentially what being an electron feels like.
Idk, take everything I said with a grain of salt because I myself haven't studied any of this deeply enough to have confidence in what I am saying. I'm just putting my thoughts "on paper" so to speak to better understand them.
I got a blind guy to figure out what 'red' was once. I pointed at red stuff and yelled 'red...RED!' super loud until he said he understood. For some reason I was assigned more community service instead of less after
Couldnt qualia be part of the calculation done by our brain? I think red in this case is just an arbitrary way our brain represents that particular wavelength for itself
I think qualia is independent of the calculation done by our brain. Think of the brain like an enormously powerful and complex computer. It has a camera that can detect light. Those visual signals are then processed, and a response is outputted. A computer can process the visual signal without having a subjective experience of it, after all we don't normally think of computers as being conscious. So why is the brain special? It should be able to do the same and render us meat robots.
But we're not meat robots. We each know we're not because we know we have a subjective experience. That we have a subjective experience is the one thing we can know for certain. Since consciousness is totally superfluous to our existence, it must be attributable to something else. The idea that it's just a property of matter like spin or charge makes the most sense to me.
When computer processes external signals it needs to somehow represent the signal to themselves, it doesnt matter what the particular representation is, it just matters that it is and is consistent. For example it doesnt matter if computer represents lack of light as 1 and presence of light as 0 or the other way around it just matters that there is a representation and computer can recognize what 0 and 1 means. I think that is qualia, a particular way our brain represents external signals in its calculations and thats why it cant be explained to someone else because its something arbitrarly assumed in our brains
But that representation by the computer can be conveyed in quantitative terms. We can look at the code it runs on and the circuitry that executes that code and see that the presence of light is represented by a 0. That is a quantitative description, not a qualitative one. It's not analogous to a subjective experience.
In the human brain we'd be looking at which group of neurons in the visual cortex fire when the optic nerve sends in a signal from a cone cell struck by a red photon. That is the physical representation analogous to the 0 in the computer.
Knowing that brings us no closer to feeling for ourselves the sensation of red. By definition, a qualia is something that can't be quantitatively described, so it isn't something that can be represented within the structure of the brain.
I think its a quantitive description for us because we precisely know how a computer functions but from the perspective of a computer it is qualitative since it just knows what the 0 and 1 mean but doesnt know how it knows this.
Similarly for us we dont know how we know what red means, we just know, and also similarly since we understand how computers function we can quantitatively describe 0 and 1 once we precisely understand how human brains function we will be able to quantitatively describe red
Panpsychism makes sense at first glance but you're still denying qualia any causal efficacy, which makes it extremely unlikely to have evolved in the way it did: https://iai.tv/articles/consciousness-cannot-have-evolved-auid-1302
Also panpsychism is in any case makes more sense than reductive materialism / identity theory / eliminativism and similar mental contortions.
Sure. You mentioned in your post that it's possible to imagine a world where humans are just meat bags devoid of any qualia but still act like they usually would. You solved it by introducing panpsychism, but what I'm saying is it doesn't really solve the problem. You still essentially have only matter and nothing else interacting with itself and qualia are just a byproduct of that. You could still conceivably have just meat sacks talking to each other but not feeling anything. The qualia themselves don't have any causal efficacy in panpsychism, they are still just a byproduct of matter interacting. Saying that consciousness lives inside the atom doesn't really say much at all.
This is where the article I linked comes into play: if qualia have no causal efficacy they couldn't have evolved in the way they did unless you assume a miraculous coincidence.
The problem as I understand it, and as stated in the article, is that there can be no quantitative description of qualia, and as a result they have no causal efficacy. This rules out consciousness being a result of evolution, and therefore strictly materialist explanations of why we do, in fact, have a subjective experience fail.
The article states:
Phenomenal consciousness cannot have evolved. It can only have been there from the beginning as an intrinsic, irreducible fact of nature
Is this not what I was saying?
Also, I wasn't saying that consciousness is stored in the balls atom. I was just using it as an example to show that in panpsychism everything experiences qualia, including wacky things like atoms because consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe.
Alright I guess I misunderstood you, panpsycism isn't a well defined term. Usually when people talk about panpsychism they're talking about materialism but with consciousness stored in the balls matter but yeah Kastrup's idealism is also technically panpsychism.
I figured there was a misunderstanding because everything in the article seemed to line up with what I was trying to convey earlier.
But I'm still confused on one point, what is the difference between saying qualia is a fundamental property of matter, and saying qualia is a fundamental property of the universe? I noticed I was saying the former earlier, and that is probably the source of the confusion here. When I talk about this subject, I tend to use the two interchangeably, but it seems you would say that those are two different statements.
The difference is causal efficacy. If you say consciousness is a property of matter you're not allowing qualia in of themselves any causal efficacy because (presumably) you don't conceive of qualia manipulating matter in any way because there's no such thing in our current understanding of physics. On the other hand when you say it's a property of the universe you open up to the possibility of consciousness existing independently of matter and possibly exerting some kind of influence on the material world, probably through some quantum effects.
I gotta wonder if qualia are unique to organisms with nerves or are they more intrinsic than that?
Looking at it scientifically, it appears that we should be meat robots. Walking around and doing human things, but not having consciousness of it. Why are we conscious, and where do qualia come from?
A qualia is that which you can't describe even if you have all of the relevant information pertaining to it. For example, I cannot explain to a person blind from birth what red looks like. I can tell them which wavelength of light makes red, and I can explain to them how eyes work and how the brain processes visual signals. But still, I can't give them information that'll allow them to experience the color red.
Many, many, many qualia are what come together and make up our subjective experience. They are the reason we are conscious and are able to feel all the different aspects of the world.
But the question remains is why are we able to "feel" them? Why doesn't my body just detect the wavelength of light corresponding to red and react accordingly as the brain computes a response like a computer? Why do I actually experience the qualia of red? As far as I know, neural science doesn't really have an answer for this.
Panpsychism seems like the most appealing option to me. The idea that qualia is just a fundamental property of matter, and everything has a subjective experience. Every atom, every molecule, every object, every system of objects, every cell, every organism composed of cells, and every organism with a complex nervous system.
Maybe it's the complexity of the system of matter that determines the detail and complexity of the subjective experience by having many, many qualia instead of just a few. We have extremely complex brains composed of systems of neurons, and thus we have a complex consciousness or subjective experience composed of many qualia interacting with one another.
Further down the scale of complexity you come to the simplest and most fundamental pieces of matter, subatomic particles. Perhaps the subjective experience of an electron is just one lone qualia that represents essentially what being an electron feels like.
Idk, take everything I said with a grain of salt because I myself haven't studied any of this deeply enough to have confidence in what I am saying. I'm just putting my thoughts "on paper" so to speak to better understand them.
Anyway, yeah existence seems pretty sus
I got a blind guy to figure out what 'red' was once. I pointed at red stuff and yelled 'red...RED!' super loud until he said he understood. For some reason I was assigned more community service instead of less after
deleted by creator
If panpsychism is true then why can't you answer the combination problem?
Lib.
Panpsychist gang rise up
Couldnt qualia be part of the calculation done by our brain? I think red in this case is just an arbitrary way our brain represents that particular wavelength for itself
I think qualia is independent of the calculation done by our brain. Think of the brain like an enormously powerful and complex computer. It has a camera that can detect light. Those visual signals are then processed, and a response is outputted. A computer can process the visual signal without having a subjective experience of it, after all we don't normally think of computers as being conscious. So why is the brain special? It should be able to do the same and render us meat robots.
But we're not meat robots. We each know we're not because we know we have a subjective experience. That we have a subjective experience is the one thing we can know for certain. Since consciousness is totally superfluous to our existence, it must be attributable to something else. The idea that it's just a property of matter like spin or charge makes the most sense to me.
When computer processes external signals it needs to somehow represent the signal to themselves, it doesnt matter what the particular representation is, it just matters that it is and is consistent. For example it doesnt matter if computer represents lack of light as 1 and presence of light as 0 or the other way around it just matters that there is a representation and computer can recognize what 0 and 1 means. I think that is qualia, a particular way our brain represents external signals in its calculations and thats why it cant be explained to someone else because its something arbitrarly assumed in our brains
But that representation by the computer can be conveyed in quantitative terms. We can look at the code it runs on and the circuitry that executes that code and see that the presence of light is represented by a 0. That is a quantitative description, not a qualitative one. It's not analogous to a subjective experience.
In the human brain we'd be looking at which group of neurons in the visual cortex fire when the optic nerve sends in a signal from a cone cell struck by a red photon. That is the physical representation analogous to the 0 in the computer.
Knowing that brings us no closer to feeling for ourselves the sensation of red. By definition, a qualia is something that can't be quantitatively described, so it isn't something that can be represented within the structure of the brain.
I think its a quantitive description for us because we precisely know how a computer functions but from the perspective of a computer it is qualitative since it just knows what the 0 and 1 mean but doesnt know how it knows this. Similarly for us we dont know how we know what red means, we just know, and also similarly since we understand how computers function we can quantitatively describe 0 and 1 once we precisely understand how human brains function we will be able to quantitatively describe red
Panpsychism makes sense at first glance but you're still denying qualia any causal efficacy, which makes it extremely unlikely to have evolved in the way it did: https://iai.tv/articles/consciousness-cannot-have-evolved-auid-1302
Also panpsychism is in any case makes more sense than reductive materialism / identity theory / eliminativism and similar mental contortions.
Thanks for the article, it was a good read. I feel like that is also where I am at personally with regards to how I think of consciousness.
I'm having trouble understanding what you mean in that first sentence, though. Could you rephrase that?
Sure. You mentioned in your post that it's possible to imagine a world where humans are just meat bags devoid of any qualia but still act like they usually would. You solved it by introducing panpsychism, but what I'm saying is it doesn't really solve the problem. You still essentially have only matter and nothing else interacting with itself and qualia are just a byproduct of that. You could still conceivably have just meat sacks talking to each other but not feeling anything. The qualia themselves don't have any causal efficacy in panpsychism, they are still just a byproduct of matter interacting. Saying that consciousness lives inside the atom doesn't really say much at all.
This is where the article I linked comes into play: if qualia have no causal efficacy they couldn't have evolved in the way they did unless you assume a miraculous coincidence.
The problem as I understand it, and as stated in the article, is that there can be no quantitative description of qualia, and as a result they have no causal efficacy. This rules out consciousness being a result of evolution, and therefore strictly materialist explanations of why we do, in fact, have a subjective experience fail.
The article states:
Is this not what I was saying?
Also, I wasn't saying that consciousness is stored in the
ballsatom. I was just using it as an example to show that in panpsychism everything experiences qualia, including wacky things like atoms because consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe.Alright I guess I misunderstood you, panpsycism isn't a well defined term. Usually when people talk about panpsychism they're talking about materialism but with consciousness stored in
the ballsmatter but yeah Kastrup's idealism is also technically panpsychism.I figured there was a misunderstanding because everything in the article seemed to line up with what I was trying to convey earlier.
But I'm still confused on one point, what is the difference between saying qualia is a fundamental property of matter, and saying qualia is a fundamental property of the universe? I noticed I was saying the former earlier, and that is probably the source of the confusion here. When I talk about this subject, I tend to use the two interchangeably, but it seems you would say that those are two different statements.
The difference is causal efficacy. If you say consciousness is a property of matter you're not allowing qualia in of themselves any causal efficacy because (presumably) you don't conceive of qualia manipulating matter in any way because there's no such thing in our current understanding of physics. On the other hand when you say it's a property of the universe you open up to the possibility of consciousness existing independently of matter and possibly exerting some kind of influence on the material world, probably through some quantum effects.
What is the problem with qualia having no causal efficacy?