Eliminating Qualia

[untermensche]

It can't just be one thing. It can't just somehow "be" the activity, whatever the hell that even means.

Why not?

I've explained it many times. And you object but have no reasonable answer to it.

Experience is an interaction. It is one thing experiencing another thing.

It cannot just be the experiencer without something to experience. That is sleeping without dreaming.

And it cannot just be an experience without something to have the experience.

To have an experience you need more than one thing.

The activity of the brain produces things, like red and pain.

Really? Where? In little factories?

How the brain does what it does is a question for science.

Denying the brain does what it does is just uselessness.

Here's the thing: that production would have to come from some sort of plan

Of course.

You can't faithfully convert EM radiation that has absolutely nothing to do with color into the experience of color without a "plan". You have to know what you are dealing with and have a "plan", an existing mechanism, to convert it into something else.

Again a question for science.

The information that you would need to make a thing has to be enough information to be that thing

The brain does not make "things". It makes representations of things.

Don't you see that all this model of internal production and experience introduces is a second experiencer; the one experiencing the inner production.

No it introduces the only experiencer. The "thing" experiencing all inner productions. Thoughts, sounds, sights, emotions, sensations all experienced by the same thing. There is no other experiencer.

The body encounters the wall. The mind experiences it.

Thew brain encounters random stimulations from the world and the mind experiences what the brain makes out of it.

With it's "plans". It's preexisting mechanisms in other words.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Showing you had no point with your talk about art.

Wrong and what is your point in this thread? Brain activity generates what we call “mind.” And....?

Which means the mind is a distinct entity.

Define “entity”. Then tell us exactly where it exists, because if you are equivocating again and what you really mean here by “entity” is an abstraction, you’re using the wrong term.

It is something created by activity.

Art is something “created” by activity. Would you consider it a “distinct entity”? No, you would not, unless you imagine some esoteric definition of that phrase.

Here is something else “created by activity” that you should study:

 

[untermensche]

Yes the brain represents movement less than perfectly.

What is the point?

Two distinct things combined only in the mind by the spinning.

It merely shows the things in the mind are not real.

 

[ruby sparks]

It merely shows the things in the mind are not real.

What 'things'?

 

[untermensche]

Which means the mind is a distinct entity.

Define “entity”.

To have existence but to not be specifically defined because it is not understood.

The mind is something created in some way by some part or parts of some activity of the brain.

It is that "entity" that can experience.

An entity that can experience is needed to have experience.

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It merely shows the things in the mind are not real.

What 'things'?

"Things" like red.

 

[ruby sparks]

No it introduces the only experiencer. The "thing" experiencing all inner productions. Thoughts, sounds, sights, emotions, sensations all experienced by the same thing. There is no other experiencer.

The body encounters the wall. The mind experiences it.

What experiences mind then?

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"Things" like red.

So there are at least two types of mental 'thing'. Mind and qualia. Only one is real. Is that it? Now qualia are not a 'thing' created by the brain for mind to experience. This is new.

 

[untermensche]

No it introduces the only experiencer. The "thing" experiencing all inner productions. Thoughts, sounds, sights, emotions, sensations all experienced by the same thing. There is no other experiencer.

The body encounters the wall. The mind experiences it.

What experiences mind then?

There is no experience of mind.

The mind experiences memories and emotions and sensations and all things.

The other person experiences the products of a mind.

So there are at least two types of mental 'thing'. Mind and qualia. Only one is real. Is that it?

There is mind. The thing that experiences. And it can experience qualities.

Although I have a lot of hesitation with this concept of "qualia".

Experience varies. It is dependent on so many factors.

These variations of experience some call "qualia".

But they are just the way things are experienced by a human mind.

And a lot of the things people call "qualia" are things they add to an experience, like memories and emotions.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

What is the point?

What is your definition of an “entity”? This doesn’t cut it:

To have existence but to not be specifically defined because it is not understood.

I’m sure you can see why by the phrase “not be specifically defined.”

Two distinct things combined only in the mind by the spinning.

In the brain, remember? It is the brain that “transforms” (makes “presentations”) for the “mind” right? So the illusion that the bird is in the cage must come from the brain making that transformation (just like it transforms wavelength to “red”), right?

It merely shows the things in the mind are not real.

Nor the “mind.”

The illusion that the bird is in the cage comes as a result of brain activity, faulty at that. Two distinct things that only form an illusory third “thing” through activity. Stop spinning the placard and the illusion of a bird inside its cage instantly stops. But to argue that the bird inside the cage—the illusion—is its own “distinct entity” is unsupportable, unless you are talking about the phenomenon of how an illusion can be generated.

Besides, the best you could say about “mind” is that it is “watching” the illusion as a “presentation,” not creating it. According to you, the creating part is what the brain does.

 

[ruby sparks]

There is no experience of mind.

Then how do you know it's there?

These variations of experience some call "qualia".

But they are just the way things are experienced by a human mind.

Earlier in the thread you said this, about qualia:

To be experienced requires existing.

 

[untermensche]

It merely shows the things in the mind are not real.

Nor the “mind.”

That's a jump into left field.

What is experiencing what the brain is creating?

And knowing it is experiencing it.

 

[ruby sparks]

And knowing it is experiencing it.

Indeed. And you undeniably know you have a mind. So what is the knower?

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What is experiencing what the brain is creating?

One option for that is the brain. It is in fact the most widely accepted option.

 

[untermensche]

Then how do you know it's there?

If there is experience there must be something capable of having an experience.

And there must be things for it to experience.

I have a very robust experience of mind and self and I think almost everyone has.

You have that sense because the mind is the center of experience. All things are experienced by it.

Also because the mind is able to influence the brain. What we call the "will".

It is that part of the mind that can influence the brain to do things. Move the arm. Search for a memory. Organize ideas.

Earlier in the thread you said this, about qualia:

To be experienced requires existing.

What you call "qualia" I call variation of experience.

Experience does vary.

But I don't make an entity out of the variation.

The experience is the "entity" and it is fleeting and complete.

 

[untermensche]

And knowing it is experiencing it.

Indeed. And you undeniably know you have a mind. So what is the knower?

You know you can experience. And you can move your arm within it's range of motion. At will.

What is experiencing what the brain is creating?

One option for that is the brain. It is in fact the most widely accepted option.

There is so much the brain is doing that the mind does not experience.

The mind is to begin, a subsection of brain activity.

And the production of red is for something to experience it that doesn't already know what it is.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

It merely shows the things in the mind are not real.

Nor the “mind.”

That's a jump into left field.

You may have missed my edited additions:

The illusion that the bird is in the cage comes as a result of brain activity, faulty at that. Two distinct things that only form an illusory third “thing” through activity. Stop spinning the placard and the illusion of a bird inside its cage instantly stops. But to argue that the bird inside the cage—the illusion—is its own “distinct entity” is unsupportable, unless you are talking about the phenomenon of how an illusion can be generated.

Besides, the best you could say about “mind” is that it is “watching” the illusion as a “presentation,” not creating it. According to you, the creating part is what the brain does.

Not so left. Just right.

What is experiencing what the brain is creating?

Ultimately, it’s the brain, of course since everything we’re talking about is all contained in the skull, but perhaps it would be better if you stopped using such higher category terms and instead focused on the parts of the brain you are talking about. What part of the brain is creating the “presentations” for example? Where is the “distinct entity” that you are calling “mind” being generated and how exactly is it watching these “presentations”?

It’s like saying, “The body eliminates toxins.” Well, yes, as a higher category description, but it is the liver that eliminates certain toxins and the kidney that eliminates other kinds of toxins and the white blood cells...etc., etc., etc. So as with what you’re talking about, specificity may help clarify your position.

And knowing it is experiencing it.

“Knowing” is another loaded word, especially when stuck in higher category terminology. Again, just use the term “body” (since it contains the brain as well). Thus, if I were to say, “it is the body that creates the activity that generates ‘mind’” I’m not wrong, just even less specific, because I’ve placed all the activity a body generates—including brain activity—into one higher order category (just as I did with “the body eliminates toxins”).

It’s not wrong, but it is also not helpful to clarify whatever point I’m trying to make.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

If there is experience there must be something capable of having an experience.

Well, once again, according to your own argument, it is the brain that generates the “something capable of having an experience” right? Thus the brain must know how to generate “something capable of having an experience.” Which necessarily means, it knows what it means to have an experience.

Where you keep getting hung up is in equivocation of terms. Try this: “The brain generates something capable of having particular kinds of experiences.”

But of course that renders brain primary, which you seem dead set against for some as yet unknown or not revealed reason.

And there must be things for it to experience.

Is the illusion of the bird in the cage included in the category of “things” you’re talking about, because if so, problem solved?

Plus, there is the whole motivation for the brain to generate this “thing capable of experiencing (particular kinds of experiences)”, which is, presumably, feedback, yes? Or are you asserting that the brain just does all of this activity—transforming information into “presentations” while at the same time creating this “distinct entity” that is blah blah blah—for no reason, because that would tend to contradict your oft-repeated point about the brain itself not wasting energy?

If it does all of this for that reason, then it is capable of experiencing; it can experience by creating a virtural analogue of itself, imbuing it with a sense of autonomy and then using its feedback—its “experience”—for its own purposes, correct? So how is that not ultimately the brain demonstrating its ability to experience, even by using your own constructs?

Again, if I am born without a right arm and I create a robotic right arm to experience what it means to have a functioning right arm (or a set of right and left arms, aka, “arm-ness”), then how is that not me demonstrating my ability to experience “arm-ness”? And while the robotic right arm is a “thing,” to say that “arm-ness” is a “distinct entity” generated by the activity of my brain in order to experience the robotic arm would be confusing to say the least.

 

[ruby sparks]

If there is experience there must be something capable of having an experience.

And there must be things for it to experience.

Ok, but then what knows there's a mind?

What you call "qualia" I call variation of experience.

Experience does vary.

But I don't make an entity out of the variation.

The experience is the "entity" and it is fleeting and complete.

It seems like you've shifted slightly on the 'thingness' of qualia. They exist, because they have to in order to be experienced, but they are 'entities' rather than entities. The experience is the qualia. I think more people would agree with you on something like that.

 

[ruby sparks]

You know you can experience.

But what is experiencing the mind? What knows there's a mind?

 

[Subsymbolic]

Why exactly are we all wasting so much effort here?

This chap is absolutely sure he’s right. I’ve been here a while now and he’s not given an inch to anyone on anything. No minds are going to get changed here, it’s old tedious ground and it’s a waste of time and effort that could be used on new ground that might get interesting...

 

[ruby sparks]

The mind is to begin, a subsection of brain activity.

A lot of people would go along with that.

 

[ruby sparks]

Why exactly are we all wasting so much effort here?

This chap is absolutely sure he’s right. I’ve been here a while now and he’s not given an inch to anyone on anything. No minds are going to get changed here, it’s old tedious ground and it’s a waste of time and effort that could be used on new ground that might get interesting...

We could do other stuff too.

On that, why don't you believe in beliefs? That's been something I've never quite understood you saying. And I think it's sort of on topic, or would be if beliefs were qualia (which I am going to assert).

So there's two possibilities. You can help me understand your thinking on beliefs and/or we can disagree on my assertion.