MugaSofer comments on Mixed Reference: The Great Reductionist Project - Less Wrong

29 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 05 December 2012 12:26AM

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Comment author: aaronsw 04 January 2013 09:51:39PM *  0 points [-]

Beginning an argument for the existence of qualia with a bare assertion that they exist

Huh? This isn't an argument for the existence of qualia -- it's an attempt to figure out whether you believe in qualia or not. So I take it you disagree with step one, that qualia exists? Do you think you are a philosophical zombie?

I do think essentially the same argument goes through for free will, so I don't find your reductio at all convincing. There's no reason, however, to believe that "love" or "charity" is a basic fact of physics, since it's fairly obvious how to reduce these. Do you think you can reduce qualia?

I don't understand why you think this is a claim about my feelings.

Comment author: MugaSofer 04 January 2013 11:46:10PM *  -1 points [-]

I do think essentially the same argument goes through for free will

Could you expand on this point, please? It generally agreed* that "free will vs determinism" is a dilemma that we dissolved long ago. I can't see what else you could mean by this, so ...

[*EDIT: here, that is]

Comment author: aaronsw 05 January 2013 09:36:42PM 0 points [-]

I guess it really depends on what you mean by free will. If by free will, pjeby meant some kind of qualitative experience, then it strikes me that what he means by it is just a form of qualia and so of course the qualia argument goes through. If he means by it something more complicated, then I don't see how point one holds (we experience it), and the argument obviously doesn't go through.