On Dec 24, 11:00 am, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: > On 23 Dec 2011, at 23:37, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > On Dec 22, 7:18 am, alexalex <alexmka...@yahoo.com> wrote: > >> Hello, Everythinglisters! > > >> The below text is a philosophical essay on what qualia may represent. > >> I doubt you'll manage to finish reading it (it's kind of long, and > >> translated from anoter language), but if you do I'll be happy to hear > >> your opinion about what it says. > > >> Thanks! > > >> <<<A simpler model of the world with different points of view>>> > > >> It can often get quite amusing watching qualophiles' self-confidence, > >> mutual assurance and agreement when they talk about something a > >> priori > >> defined as inherently private and un-accessible to third-party > >> analysis (i.e. qualia), so they say, but they somehow agree on what > >> they're discussing > > > I feel the same way about quantophiles' confidence in theoretical > > abstraction and endless capacity to deny the existence of the very > > subjectivity that they use to deny it with. > > You are quite unfair. the whole point of the UDA (and MGA) consists in > taking as important, and even fundamental (in the sense of "key", not > in the sense of "primary") the first person experience, and thus > consciousness.
That's true, although UDA is not typical of computationalism. I actually wasn't thinking of your work here which to me is more of a arithmetic theology than a Dennett style quantitative mechanism. > > > Agreement is not a > > contradiction to the privacy of qualia because the privacy of qualia > > is specific to groups of subjects as well as individuals. Human beings > > experience universal levels of qualia (physics, chemistry), organic > > levels (biology, zoology, neurology), anthropomorphic levels > > (psychology, sociology), and individual levels which are relatively > > unique or idiosyncratic. > > But this, on the contrary, is only a succession of Aristotelian dogma. > In my opinion biology is more universal than physics. Interesting. How so? If something dies, it still survives as a physical process. Certainly the universe is filled with inorganic matter while biological cells represent a small fraction of it. Physics seems to predate biology, at least on Earth by four billion years, right? > psychology (of > numbers) is more universal than biology. I was talking specifically about the extensive elaboration of vertebrate cognition in hominids. I would call the qualia of numbers an aspect of psychology while that which numbers represent are quantitative archetypes that have no agency, psychology, or qualia of their own (just as Bugs Bunny is a cartoon celebrity who has experiences independently of the audience's projected qualia). > The picture is rational and > almost upside down with aristotle ontology. > > > We are both human so we share the broader > > levels, but begin to diverge in the biochemical level as we have > > different DNA. That divergence grows as the scope of the qualia > > narrows and deepens toward individuality. > > >> about even though as far as I've been able to > >> understand they don't display the slightest scant of evidence which > >> would show that they believe there will ever be a theory that could > >> bridge the gap between the ineffable what-it-is-likeness (WIIL) of > >> personal experience and the scientific, objective descriptions of > >> reality. They don’t even try to brainstorm ideas about such a theory. > > > My hypothesis tries to do exactly that. Check it out sometime if you > > have a chance:http://s33light.org/SEEES > > >> How are we to explain this what-it-is-likeness (WIIL) if we can't > >> subject it to what science has been and will always be? > > > By expanding science so that it is more scientific and not shivering > > in a cave of pseudo-certainty and throwing rocks at people who ask > > about subjectivity. > > >> Third-party analysis. > > > If science will always be limited to third-party analysis, then it > > will never be possible for it to address subjectivity, since it is by > > definition subjective. > > This is wrong. > The discourse of science is methodologically (and wisely so, I would > add) limited to third person parties. > But the object of science is everything including consciousness, > qualia, private lives, hallucination, angel, gods, etc. > It is up to us to find proposition on which we agree, use them as > axioms of some sort, and derive propositions from them. > We can use our person stuff as data, not as argument. It is wise for science to employ third person methodologies of course, I'm just pointing out that there is no such thing as third person subjectivity. The only way we can address consciousness scientifically is, as you say, to find agreements based on first person accounts, or, I think even better, by figuring out how to join multiple nervous systems experimentally. That way first person accounts can become as discrete and unambiguous as third person data but without being flattened by externalization. > > > Since the nature of subjectivity cannot change, > > science must adapt to fit the reality of the universe. > > Science is born doing that, a long time ago. Current practice, since > about 1500 years put the mind-body problem under the rug. There are > reason for that. It will still take time before theology, the science, > will come back to academy and peer reviewed literature (real peers, > not member of some club). > We agree. It's surprising though that people's main criticism of my ideas are that 'science doesn't work that way'. They seem to have no opinion about whether or not my view correctly redefines cosmology, physics, biology, and consciousness, but strenuously oppose any suggestion that the way I'm trying to do it could be called science. It's ironic since so many of the greatest scientific revelations are born out of thought experiments and not academic training. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
