> lets say we locate the entire source code to windows 2000. does that
> disprove the existance of windows 2000? heh wtf. pardon my ignorance, but:
> i lurked the entire first battle of the qualia war, and it still seems to
> me that to use the terms "experience" and "Experience" supports a
> meaningless distinction. it seems to me that, if the
> "experience"/"Experience" distinction is to hold, we should call dim light
> "light" and bright light "Light."
As, I believe, I am the originator of the "experience"/Experience
distinction, I want to provide some defense for it. I hope at the same
time to show that no argument which does not beg the question can prove
the existence of qualia, and why not assuming the existence of qualia from
the outset, in an important sense, begs the question against qualia.
When I say Experience, in capital letters, I mean the Feelings you get
when you have sensory impressions. In that respect, whenever something
Appears to you to be anything, you are, by definition, having an
Experience of it. Thus, the very fact that something Appears to you to be
anything at all demonstrates that you are having Experiences.
When I say "experience," in lower case and in quotes, I simply mean a
certain type of behavior or physical state. You can check whether someone
is having an "experience" by looking purely at their outsides; if they act
in just the right sort of way, they are having an "experience," else,
they're not. In Waiting for Zed, Clark uses the word "intelligence" to
represent a certain set of behaviors and capacities which are purely
physical and causal. In this use of "experience" and "intelligence," it
doesn't make sense to "appear" to be having "experiences" or to "appear"
to be "intelligent" without actually being "intelligent" or without
actually having "experiences;" since the appearance of being intelligent
and the "appearance" of having "experiences" is just what we mean by those
terms.
Early on in the previous qualia war, I raised the following skeptical
concern: How do you Know that you're having Experiences? The obvious but
clearly unsatisfactory answer is: "Well, it Appears to me that I'm having
Experiences, and that alone is sufficient to show that I AM having
Experiences." "How do you know that it even Appears to you that you're
having Experiences?" the skeptic might reply. "Well, it Appears to me that
it Appears to me that I'm having Experiences, and THAT is sufficient to
show that I'm having Experiences."
This is begging the question against the skeptical argument, however.
The skeptical question should, in point of fact, be phrased: How do you
know that you're having Experiences, or that you Appear to be having
Experiences, or that you Appear to Appear to be having Experiences, or
that you Appear to Appear to Appear to be having Experiences, etc.? How
do you know ANY of these?
In light of THIS skeptical concern, simply appealing to Appearances again
misses the point. However, as with most difficult skeptical problems, the
obvious answer is to shake one's head and say "Well, listen, I can't PROVE
to you that all of these are true, but it's an axiom. I have to assume
that it's true." (If you haven't yet found the need to do this in the
face of some skeptical concern, I reccomend that you do some more
philosophy, especially in the study of logic/math or in epistemology.)
So the existence of qualia is not derivable from an axiom set which does
not beg the question. But who cares? That's why we have axioms, after
all: some things are true but not derivable from an axiom set which
doesn't assume their truth.
Well, we next point out that from this smaller axiom set, not only is the
existence of qualia non-derivable, but the NON-existence of qualia "seems"
quite likely. We could, the argument goes, ALL be zombies, all just be
simple information processors with no internal Experiences whatsoever.
We might be influenced to claim that we have Experiences by some other
physical cause, but there might not be any actual Experiences at all. And,
when we actually get into the brain and start studying it, it "appears" to
me that there really IS no non-physical mechanism at work in the brain,
and therefore no Mental mechanism at work in our behavior. So when we do
the science at look at the brain, it "appears" to me that everything can
be explained without invoking qualia, that is, we have no need of that
hypothesis.
"I have no need of that hypothesis" is what Kepler is said to have claimed
when he argued for his planetary orbit theory over the prevailing theory,
which involved angels moving the heavenly bodies directly. ("Where is God
in your model of the universe?" they might have asked him.) It's a code
phrase for the application of Occam's Razor. When you have no need of the
hypothesis, so the saying goes, you ought not make the hypothesis.
So it "appears" to us that we have no need of that hypothesis, and
therefore, when we do not assume that qualia exist, it is quite likely
that they don't.
[Personal pet peeve: Whenever I use the terms without quotes or capitals,
I use the term according to the sense of the word in quotes, not in the
sense of the term in capitals. Yet whenever I leave off the quotes, and
say things like 'It appears that qualia do not exist,' people take great
pleasure in pointing out that I used the word 'appears,' thus proving that
their argument is correct after all. They would have no motivation to
make this argument if I'd said: 'It "appears" that qualia do not exist,'
and time and time again I insist that THIS is the sense in which I use the
word, not in the sense of Appearance. You watch, someone will try to use
this argument again, and, I assure you, it will really "piss me off."]
So now we're in quite a bind, because the acceptance of a qualia axiom
offers us a one-line proof, and many people are quite motivated to accept
this axiom on account of the fact that it may line up well with how they
currently view the world. However, the NON-acceptance of a qualia axiom
leads one to conclude that we should reject qualia, and therefore, of
course, we should reject a qualia axiom.
So on what grounds should we accept a qualia axiom? On what grounds
should we reject it? Can any account of qualia be given which does not
beg the question against a qualia skeptic? The skepticism alone has not
convinced the believers, and the axiom, naturally, hasn't convinced very
many non-believers. How can debate move forward from this point?
It's difficult to imagine.
-Dan
-unless you love someone-
-nothing else makes any sense-
e.e. cummings
PS On an unrelated point, I do not think that anyone should quit debating
the matter for my sake. Kill files work, if you insist, but I don't use a
kill file: the delete key ALSO works. It is a weird kind of arrogance to
think that everyone else on a list ought to shut up about a topic which
interests them, simply because someone finds it boring.
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