Originally Posted by Toch
If we truly understood how the system works, and if we truly understood what we meant by "perception" (awareness, qualia, subjectivity, what-have-you), then we would find it impossible to coherently conceptualize one without the other. It is only our limited knowledge that makes it seem that a "philosophical zombie" is a conceivable thing, in much the same way as you might initially think that a "2-dimensional planar map that cannot be colored with fewer than 5 colors" is a conceivable thing (which, we now know, it isn't). Now, we do not yet understand consciousness to the point where the contradiction becomes obvious, but there is no reason to suppose that we won't in the future.
Very eloquently put, though I am not sure it's correct. After all, there are many things which we can recognise as inconceivable; for instance, we know you will never be able to fill up a square by drawing circles of various sizes. We know this because at each stage, whatever shape we have drawn, it'll have edges of a rounded character, not straight.
Is it not legitimate, in the same way, to say that given any causal system, we will be able to envisage it functioning without percepts attached, because it'll have the character of falling dominoes?
I just read Dianeva's response after writing this and they're extremely similar by the way; we even used analogous analogies.
Originally Posted by Dianeva
You've learned what yellowness looks like for the first time, knowledge that was missing before experiencing it, even though every bit of the brain was understood.
Originally Posted by stormcrow
This thought experiment draws attention to the idea that materialism does not adequately describe the raw subjective experiences (qualia) we have. This problem has some very heavy epistemological (I guess that is obvious) aspects to it, namely the problem arises as to what meets the criteria for acquiring the knowledge of the color red? Does measuring the wavelengths or examining the cone and rod cells in the retina give us knowledge of the color red? Or does the immediate experience or sensation of the color red meet the criteria for knowledge? This distinction was made by the phenomenologist’s like Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, arguing that consciousness must be examined from within experience not external to it.
Personally I believe that it is fallacious to state that it has to be one or the other, not both. We can have knowledge of the color red that is derived from sensation that is not necessarily entailed in the wavelength measurements. Likewise we can also have knowledge of the color red from neuroscience and biology that is not entailed in the mere subjective sensation of red. With the scientific method we can examine the structure of the experience of red. Both methods are indispensible to our knowledge of “red”.
Here's the rub though: I think it's fair to characterise the new knowledge as 'being able to recognise the quale attached to red the next time you see it'. In other words, it's a kind of memory (what knowledge isn't?). So, it's physically embodied somehow in the physical synapses of your brain (to deny this would be to be very much a dualist; if I were to ask you if you have new knowledge, you'd say 'yes', yet this action is clearly a physical one that can be traced back to your neurons). Now ask the question: how did it come to be there? Surely it's just the causal result of the experience, tracing it back, and not a distinct thing, as you say.
Originally Posted by Pensive Patrick
As for the nature of perception, I personally believe that consciousness and perception are just phenomena of the physical brain. Not immaterial in any way, just a subjective result of the material brain. That seems like the simplest explanation to me anyway.
Consider this: wetness is not objectively real, in the following sense: you can explain it in terms of the constituent molecules adhering and the like. It isn't a 'fundamental thing'. Where does the concept of wetness exist? Well, it's a subjective result of the material brain, to use your phrase; it can be said to exist in the sense that it's the objective pattern of motions of some molecules in your brain, representing the concept. This seems to be a satisfying and complete answer.
But I think there's a problem: describing the subjective experience in terms of an objective pattern of motions is basically the same issue as describing wetness as an objective pattern of motions. So what have we really achieved? And crucially: if we justify the objective existence of emergent phenomena in terms of an objective mind (patterns in matter), what do we use to justify the objective existence of the mind, which is itself an emergent phenomenon? If we pull the same trick don't we have a cyclical fallacy?
A tangential (?) point: why do we consider molecules to be objective but wetness to be subjective; that is to say, why do we give special treatment to molecules?
Originally Posted by tommo
Well that explains why you think you're more aware than anyone of this fact.
Que?
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