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Perplexed comments on Three consistent positions for computationalists - Less Wrong
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Comments (176)
I wonder if I'm a qualia skeptic. I think that qualia are Humean impressions, the most "forceful and vivacious" contents of the mind. Dan Dennett has recently revived this view (without sufficiently crediting Hume, sadly); at one point he calls it the fame model of consciousness. What makes a thought conscious is that it does a lot; it has a very rich variety of interactions with other things going on in the mind.
This explains why there can be perception without consciousness; the much discussed (by philosophers) case of blindsight is an example where visual perception has a much more limited impact than usual, and so doesn't have enough force and vivacity (or fame or clout if you prefer Dennett's terminology, or whatever you want to call it) to feel conscious. And that's why something like the David Lewis "mad pain" case is probably possible; the range of different interactions a conscious experience has is sufficiently great that even something lacking one of the core functions of experiences of a certain type could still probably feel pretty much like that experience if it had enough of the right secondary connections.
I think I'm talking about qualia when I talk about these Hume/Dennett items. But I'm talking about things with certain kinds of functionally defined inputs and outputs, a certain kind of computations, in fact. Does this mean I am not talking about qualia as you mean them? If not, then I stand with perplexed; references to qualia should be committed to the flames, for they can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.
Commit the references to the flames, but not the referees? You are no fun! :) Though since you have invited Hume to join us, I suppose I am satisfied.
Your mention of qualia and functionality in the same paragraph caught my attention. Yes, indeed. If qualia were not functional, then they could hardly be intersubjective. And if they are functional, why the instinctive appeal of the idea that the inimitable 'essence' of qualia can not be generated by a simulation?
I don't understand you comment about intersubjectivity. Qualia surely are not intersubjective in the sense of being publically accessible. If you just mean that qualia are broadly the same between people under she same circumstances, then that is given by supervenience, which AFAICS has nothing to do with functionalism.
I am philosophically unschooled, so I may misunderstand "supervenience". I will take it to mean, roughly, that distinct instances of the same phenomenon will have features in common. Yes, but how do we know we are talking about different instances of the same phenomenon unless they have the same function. Cartoon dialog:
Joe: I feel something.
Mary: I feel something too.
Joe and Mary: We both feel the same way.
One doesn't have to be a very strong skeptic to suspect that that third step was something of a leap. But perhaps less of a leap if what they feel is nausea after eating at the same restaurant.
We can say that the qualia will be the same if their supervenience bases are the same, and we can say that if they have the same properties. Non functional things like blobs of chewing gum still have properties.
Yes, and we determine those properties using senses that exist because, in other contexts, their use is functional. Do we have a 'sense' that detects the presence of qualia and apprehends their properties? If we do have such a sense organ, would you care to speculate on its function or lack of function?
I'm using functional to mean "something that has inputs, outputs, and internal workings", not to mean "something that does something somehow".
I don't think we have such a sense. More importantly, nothing I have said implies it.
Ah! I was using it in the biological sense. As roughly the same as "purpose". (You are, of course, welcome to add as many additional scare quotes as you think necessary to immunize us from the taint of teleology.)
It appears we have been talking past each other. This may be a good place to stop.