I am not sure if I define qualia exactly the same way as Dennett or not; that would take some thought to figure out...
However, I think it's clear that qualia -- examples thereof, though perhaps not the abstract concept -- are found useful by people in conducting conversations about their own experiences. If I say, "To me, the color of that shirt and the color of that wall look exactly the same" but my son says "To me, the shirt looks darker", then in effect we're talking in terms of qualia. You could rephrase this mechanistically as "verbally_identify_color_output_visual_cortex(that shirt, my brain) = verbally_identify_color_output_visual_cortex(that wall, my brain)" versus " darkness ( verbally_identify_color_output_visual_cortex(that shirt, my brain) ) > darkness( verbally_identify_color_output_visual_cortex(that wall, my brain) ) " which is a very similar mechanistic story. The question is whether the qualia story is in some way conceptually simpler and more easily cognitively workable than the similar mechanistic story. Does it come along with better cognitive heuristics for guiding thinking. If so, then qualia have a pragmatic role. It seems to me that, in fact "qualia stories" that we tell each other and ourselves have a lot of heuristic value for explaining our lives. Even though the things they explain could often be explained just as well by more complex mechanistic theories. In this sense, perhaps, qualia have a kind of pragmatic reality.... For after all, the mechanistic explanations are not an absolute reality either, they are only parts of an explanation of experience that our science has constructed... -- Ben G > > This is not just a quibble, it's a relevant issue. Even if > mechanisms give > > a complete explanation of a system's behavior, qualia could still be > > relevant if they give a simpler explanation of aspects of the system's > > behavior. Which *does* appear to be the case... > > First of all, the qualia the way they are defined as 'raw > ineffable non-causal > experiential qualities' are not capable of playing any causal rol > (Dennett's > 'quining qualia'). 'But they are there, can't you see?' The existence of > qualia need not be inferred, the evidence is direct. That is what makes > qualia so impossible to handle, and what makes Dennett to protest against > them. Because when all of the brain's functioning were completely > explained > to the last detail, according to the believers in qualia > something is still > left out. (Of course there are people like Searle who think that > this total > explanation of the brain's functioning is impossible without qualia. Owen > Flanagan protests again the ineffability non-causal definition of > qualia (but > then we get a sort of mind-body interactionistic dualism, not?)) > The second, related, point is that in mentalistic terms > (believes, desires...) > one can get a very simple effective model of a person (an intentional > system), but that model is never complete (for complete explanation). A > physicalistic model of a person would be (I extrapolate the successes of > neurocognitive science). Ockham's rule says to be parsimonous, > but it is only > applicable in the case of equal explanatory power of theories. > > But maybe you define qualia differently???? > > Bye, > Arnoud > > ------- > To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate > your subscription, > please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED] > ------- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
