Jef wrote: > On Saturday 06 September 2003 20:45, Jef Allbright wrote: >> Of course the strong sense of immediacy and directness trumps >> logical and philosophical arguments. In a very circular (and >> conventionally correct way) we certainly are our feelings. And in >> the bigger picture, that self is an illusion -- scary (or >> liberating, depending on your viewpoint.) >> >> Again and again, clarity is gained by broadening the context.
Arnoud wrote: > Yes, but what you do is sweep the problem of qualia under the > carpet. Of course an illusion represents nothing or represents > falsely, by definition, but that does not mean the illusion itself > does not exist, actually the illusion itself must exist to be an illusion > like also for example a tiger must exist for it to be a tiger. Qualia > give the illusion of there being things in the world with properties > they describe, e.g. a black book that smells old etc etc. With > our modern scientific world view we know this naive realism is > false. The book is made out of atoms with electrons, which don't > have properties like color, smell etc. So qualia are unreal? Well, > in some sense yes, but not completely, they are real illusions, > real seemings. To deny the existence of qualia, like Dennett, is > making it yourself very easy, but you don't get the full ontological > picture. (And there is a solution to fit qualia in a physicalistic world > view) Arnoud, it appears there is agreement that qualia exist -- as a very real illusion. The "problem" of qualia, however, seems to be the question of how to represent/implement qualia in a thinking machine (assuming this must be designed-in for true and full consciousness.) The misconception seems to go back at least as far as Descarte making the fundamental error of "Cogito, ergo sum", and thereby based an entire ontology on separation between the observer and the observed. Following Descartes for centuries now, many philosophers have assumed that "internal experience" is naturally more pure and direct than "external experience", which is degraded by the limitations of sensory apparatus. This way of thinking implicity assumes the existence of an observer, who must be sending and receiving signals with the outside world. Given such a observer, then it seems it should be possible to monitor (or model) the incoming signals and gain a full understanding of the nature of qualia. The paradox disappears if the view is widened to see that there is no independent self to do the observing. There are many processes occurring within the brain, the body, and even extending outside the body, that together form the experience of self. Studies have shown there is no single mind "driving" the human vehicle, in fact very often the internal voice identified as our concious self is rationalizing (explaining in a very creative way) actions already performed by other processes within the brain and after the fact playing catch-up and saying "*I* did that." No matter how this system of interacting processes is queried about what it thinks is going on, the "self" is going to report that it "experiences" qualia. That's what it is built to do. From its limited point of view, it is perfectly correct. From a wider point of view the qualia are only an emergent property of a multitude of separate but interconnected processes. - Jef ------- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
