It appears as if Zeb Haradon <zharadon@inconnect.com> wrote:
|
[...]
|The question is this: do you deny that there is a difference between YOUR
|subjective experience of red, and the objective movements of matter which
|constitute detection of the red-wavelength of light? If you say no, you must
|be fundementally different from me. If you say yes, then you're admitting
|qualia (as I define the term) exist. Your next line of argumentation might
|be to say that they don't exist, that they're just an illusion of some
|sort - that's fine.. I'd personally say that being an illusion constitutes
|existing, but that's just a semantic difference. The path from here is not
|to cop out like Dennett has, but to really try to explain how matter and
|energy result in this particular illusion we call qualia. I wan an
|explanation as precise as the one explaining why lasers refelcted in a
|certain way result in perception of holograms.
Most humans filter their sense data through several layers of brain circuits into brain data, using both verbalization and emotionalization of the data as equivalent to the original sense data.
Your term ``qualia'' appears to point at the original sense data, as opposed to the manipulated brain data derived from such sense data.
E.g. the sense data from the eye units which, among other data, contain data on the wave length of the photons detected, would be converted into instances of the concept ``red'' when the received data correspond to certain wave lengths, as defined by previously stored memory information on eye sense data transformation learned by the human at an early age.
I have encountered states without verbalization and concepts like ``red'' disappeared in a puff of logic. I did not see ``red'' but zillions of colours, all different. The sense data from the eye units did not change, however; only the interpretation of the sense data.
I would argue that if one accepts that the sense data actually comes from a world outside one's own mind, then one would become compelled to accept the sense data as real.
So the question ``boils down'' to what you mean when you use the words "subjective experience of red".
Do you mean
(a) ``I experience these eye sense data, and my decision algorithms define the wave length part of the data as instances of a concept which I call "red", being a subconcept of the concept "colour". I identify the resulting verbal brain data as my "subjective experience of red".'', (b) ``I experience these eye sense data, and my decision algorithms define the wave length part of the data as instances of a concept which I call "red", being a subconcept of the concept "colour". I identify the corresponding emotional brain data as my "subjective experience of red".'', (c) ``I experience these eye sense data, and my decision algorithms define the wave length part of the data as instances of a concept which I call "red", being a subconcept of the concept "colour". My associate memory units access the resulting verbal brain data and I identify the resulting verbal brain data as my "subjective experience of red".'', (d) ``I experience these eye sense data, and my decision algorithms define the wave length part of the data as instances of a concept which I call "red", being a subconcept of the concept "colour". My associate memory units access the resulting emotional brain data and I identify the resulting emotional brain data as my "subjective experience of red".'', (e) ``I experience these eye sense data, and my decision algorithms define the wave length part of the data as instances of a concept which I call "red", being a subconcept of the concept "colour". I identify these sense data as my "subjective experience of red".'',or
(f) something else?
Personally, I use the (a) definition in my communication protocols.