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Psychohistorian comments on ESR's New Take on Qualia - Less Wrong
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One such point of view is that currently all existing explanations for qualia - even the ones that try to be materialistic - are actually dualist. For instance, suppose we have a materialist-computational explanation of the brain, which explains how each neuron performs a certain type of computation, and how certain activity patterns in the neurons correspond to specific mental states. We find the model to be good and to accurately predict what people will do. So far, so good.
Yet here we run into a problem - we can now fully explain the brain and one's doings in terms of the computational model, without needing to include actual qualia or subjective feelings in the explanation at all. The model works just as well regardless of whether or not we experience phenomenal consciousness, or are p-zombies. In trying to explain mental states, we have actually explained them away and created a theory that has no need for them.
Therefore, the argument goes, assuming we don't deny the existence of qualia entirely, we must dualists. After all, we now have two models, one physical model which doesn't include qualia, and one which assumes their existence but provides no physical explanation.
No. We can now assume that we can fully explain the brain without qualia. If qualia are in fact reductionist, any full understanding of the brain will show how they exist and what causes them. "Assume we have a perfect model of how the brain works that doesn't imply qualia" is no different from asking, "Assume that qualia are essentially dualist." If you can actually generate this model, you have an overwhelming counterargument. But we can't just suppose we have a perfect model of the brain without qualia, because whether such is actually possible is the exact question we are trying to answer.
To foresee a counterargument, this statement quoted (if I'm reading it correctly) also assumes that accurately predicting what people do is the same thing as fully explaining the brain. This creates the possibility that qualia exist, but if they are an effect of behaviour rather than a direct, independent cause, you can pretend they don't by assumption. I think a full explanation of the brain needs to explain everything the brain actually does, rather than merely predicting behaviour. I'm not arguing that qualia have no causal effect; I think the word "cause" gets too muddied to break down at this point, given current science. Only that if they did not have a clear effect that is not explained by another proxy, you could exclude by definition and they could still very much exist.