Gav,
There are some big issues here, which may not be what you wanted to get
into, but they are important to me. For the record, "qualia" as a
philosophical concept goes back quite a ways, I think to Locke (though
I'm not sure when the term "qualia" was first used. Locke called them
"qualities").
I would agree that there is something irreducible about qualia, but I
think Chalmers' whole attitude is faulty from the beginning (as is the
case with those, like Dennett, who dismiss the importance of qualia).
That fault is to assume that consciousness is something "to be
explained" or that it is something to have a theory of. This, to my
mind, is the biggest platypus resulting from SOM there is.
If one is to explain consciousness, then that assumes you are going to
explain it in terms of that which is not consciousness. That is, to
explain the S of SOM in terms of the O. In other words, to explain away
consciousness, just leaving the O. What SOM-ites don't seem to
appreciate, though, is that the very object-ness of an object is a
quale.
So I would agree that the existence of qualia is the "hardest problem"
only because one is stuck in SOM. But to say that the MOQ overcomes
this, is to ignore some further implications that are required to see
*how* it is overcome.
Instead, I think that everything, both S and O, is to be explained in
terms of consciousness. In support of this opinion, there is the work
of those who have actually studied consciousness empirically for
millenia, namely Hindu and Buddhist philosopher/mystics, whose work
people like Chalmers or Dennett just ignore, since it doesn't fit in
with their presuppositions.
Or, to put it differently, I would say that Quality and (non-dualistic)
Consciousness are two names of the same non-thing, since we can say of
either that they create subject/object duality.
- Scott
gavin gee-clough wrote:
>
> hello all,
>
> david chalmers, an australian philosopher who lives in arizona, works
> in consciousness research. chalmers' work has been an intractable
> problem for materialists who wish to reduce consciousness to the
> electrochemistry of the brain. this is because chalmers points out
> that, for instance, the experience of seeing the colour green and a
> particular wavelength of electromagnetic radiation that corresponds to
> 'green' in the visual spectrum are not the same thing; nor is a
> particular pattern of neural firing in the visual cortex the same as
> the sensation of 'greenness'. although this sounds like stating the
> bleeding obvious, chalmers point - that the felt experience of
> something is not the same as a physical explanation of how the brain
> and sense organs functioned during that experience - is now known as
> 'the hard problem of consciousness'. (of course it isn't a problem at
> all; rather it is a very nice example of MoQ in action.) chalmers
> labels these immediate, irreducible ! experiences 'qualia' - the
> quality of the experience. is this not a perfect fit? - a nice entry
> point for the MoQ into academic philosophy perhaps.
>
> anyone else have thoughts on this?
>
> gav
>
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