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Romashka comments on Open thread, Feb. 16 - Feb. 22, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Does anyone else find that the problem of qualia seems like more of a problem for some senses than others? For example, my sense of sight versus my sense of hearing. When I look at the color red, I perceive some fundamentally different sensation than when I look at blue. Though they are both caused by looking at different frequencies of light, there is something "over and above" the frequencies that is difficult to explain, and has caused so much ink to be spilled in the philosophy of consciousness.
However, when I hear something, I just hear frequencies. This is whether I am listening to a symphony or a single sine wave, white noise, or the person currently shoveling snow outside. There isn't anything "over and above" the sounds; they are all obviously the same "kind" of thing to me. I can categorize the individual frequencies if it is a simple enough sound, and more complicated sounds, while I can't categorize them, don't feel like they are anything different than just combinations of simple frequencies.
None of the sound frequencies are fundamentally different in the way that red and blue are. An oboe and a violin may have different profiles of overtones when played, but they aren't different experiences like color. I don't get the impression of fundamentally different qualities when I listen to them.
The difference between these two senses is so strong that I think if I had been born blind (and also without taste or smell, which are even MORE qualia-like and problematic), or at least born with black-and-white vision, I would never understand what the problem with qualia is. There wouldn't be any internal experience that would seem unknowable to others. When I looked at something there would just be "I am experiencing a light intensity of 75% maximum", just as when I hear something there's just "I am experiencing a certain combination of frequencies".
Why does light have "metadata" associated with each frequency in my mind, while sound does not?
EDIT: By qualia I am not referring to sensory perception in general, but to the ineffable and incommunicable experiences like the redness of an apple. I can't tell if someone else sees what I would call blue when they look at an object I would call red. Sound doesn't have that for me, as far as I can tell.
If I tell you about a 'dry, purple bass of the highway', what do you feel? What do you imagine? (Sorry if this is irrelevant.)
Initially I think of a dessicated purple fish lying on a desert highway, but that's just because my brain went for what I assume is not the version of "bass" you meant. If I try thinking about it in the intended sense, I see a highway through a purple filter, the purple getting stronger towards the edges of my vision. The image is wavering in time to thumping dubstep. An interesting image, even if it is irrelevant.
Arrgh, that is translation for you. I myself see a highway dipping slightly and then rising and somewhat hazy because of hot air. It's just, have you ever felt that singleness of imagery as a combination of traits, that do not necessary include colour? Does not curved/straight line seem to add more meaning to some descriptions than it strictly should, for example? Here some other (mangled) translations, hopefully showing what I mean (from the poetry of Ондо Линде):
tongue's restive lightning
Speech is a stone shearing the river's ripples, reflection running along rejections
cavernous between-the-lines
plaintains' ballroom skirts
the votive candles' slumber of little birds
etc. It seems to me that there is a perception of objects at rest, objects rushing by and objects caught in a moment of movement, weightless, that can occupy more attention than colour in a description. (Is this what you meant by qualia?)
I think of the sound of cars hissing along the highway, possibly at dusk.
And yet it is a single image, is it not?
Yes, though I'm not sure why that's important.
I'm a reader who's relatively willing to cooperate with the writer-- unless I'm sure the writer is speaking nonsense about facts, I'll go with "what might that mean"? When Lovecraft talks about unspeakable horrors, I'll reflexively try to create a (toned down) reaction of unspeakable horror rather than thinking "if you aren't going to describe it, why should I bother scaring myself when you aren't giving me anything to work with?".
I was just saying that for me, at least, color is not the only qualia (?) that has an unparalleled vividness, I also have this impression from depth/vastness/enclosedness/... and from stillness/continuing movement/..., and it doesn't have to be activated through vision.