Timeline for answer to Is Daniel Dennett's argument against qualia valid? by Dcleve
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| Mar 30, 2025 at 16:49 | comment | added | Dcleve | @benxyzzy You may also be interested in this answer: philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/123826/29339 | |
| Mar 30, 2025 at 16:49 | comment | added | Dcleve | @keshlam You may be interested in my answer to Starkman's question about non-reductive physicalism. The links he dug up were particularly good for articulating what non-reductive physicalism is postulating. I had reached the same conclusions myself, but had not seen any professional philosophers spell the thinking out. philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/123826/29339 | |
| Mar 30, 2025 at 16:41 | comment | added | keshlam | @benxyzzy: Dcleve has argued in the past that causality can be used as an argument against physicalism. See my Question of today. I agree with you, but I don't think they are arguing from within the limits of science; they are arguing from a dualist stance, which science has no grip upon. | |
| Mar 30, 2025 at 16:03 | comment | added | benxyzzy | @keshlam I am confused, isn't Dennett's causality argument i.e. "assumption (3)" in the answer, an argument in favor of physicalism? He's refuting the hard problem by denying that qualia are causal. I'm inclined to agree with that I think (not swam in this tar pit for many years). I only mentioned ipseity because of your pivot from perception and agency (causality of qualia) to talk of identity and self-consistency. It seems a relevant concept to me although coming from different traditions: the "pro-hard-problem" folk seem to be elevating their own ipseity beyond the limits of science | |
| Mar 30, 2025 at 14:34 | history | edited | Dcleve | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Mar 30, 2025 at 14:25 | history | edited | Dcleve | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Mar 30, 2025 at 13:25 | comment | added | keshlam | @benxyzzy: Not especially concerned about it. But it seems entangled with the assertion that the mind cannot be located (fully) in the brain. I believe I am describing a model that addresses the causality argument against physicalism. I am not demanding that anyone accept this model, but if there's a reason I shouldn't proceed with it, I have yet to hear it. There may be other objections to physicalism, but I don't think the causality argument is a strong one. | |
| Mar 30, 2025 at 9:40 | comment | added | benxyzzy | @keshlam you seem to be concerned with "ipseity" - perhaps googling around that would be helpful | |
| Mar 29, 2025 at 19:00 | comment | added | keshlam | I contain multitudes. Sometimes they cooperate, sometimes they operate independently, sometimes they conflict. Sometimes they communicate with each other, sometimes they don't. They are all still part of my identity. | |
| Mar 29, 2025 at 18:52 | comment | added | keshlam | @dcleve: I do not see how you get a violation from that, but I suspect this is a matter of different interpretations. Consciousness can be emergent and yet be causal, if you don't insist that it is a sole cause. Unless I am misunderstanding the word causal. | |
| Mar 29, 2025 at 17:45 | comment | added | Dcleve | @keshlam I did not discuss the alternative models to Dennett's. Most physicalists are identity theorists. However, in Blackmore's book, she details how all reductive identity theories end up with falsifying test cases. See amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/… The primary alternative among physicalists is emergence theories -- where consciousness is an emergent property, and is causal. That violates point 1 above. Kahneman and Eagleman do not specify their model, but it likely is emergent physicalism, with point 1 not absolute. | |
| Mar 29, 2025 at 17:35 | comment | added | Dcleve | @benxyzzy -- I elaborated on the evidences for causal consciousness and qualia. | |
| Mar 29, 2025 at 17:34 | history | edited | Dcleve | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Mar 29, 2025 at 14:09 | comment | added | keshlam | If you prefer the quale model, you're entitled to. But it isn't a slam dunk, and causality doesn't get it there. | |
| Mar 29, 2025 at 14:07 | comment | added | keshlam | @benxyzzy: The alternatives also sounds like classic god of the gaps; mine is researchable, and is starting to have significant research evidence, with more expected as our tools improve. Independent of that, I have come out of sleep with the solution to a complex programming problem or, twice, a fairly reasonable short story that I was able to transcribe directly to paper . And your observations about sleepwalkers fit perfectly well with my model of subprocesses that can run in parallel with consciousness; we don't have to think out every step when walking even when we are awake. | |
| Mar 29, 2025 at 9:59 | comment | added | benxyzzy | @keshlam Consciousness here is starting to sound like a "God of the gaps". I believe we're agreed that it's neither necessary (see blind sight) nor sufficient for behavior - unlike say those other processes running in our heads which automatically mediate motor control etc. I guess what we need is positive evidence that consciousness/qualia are anything more than epiphenomena. It's noteworthy that sleepwalkers etc. typically enact only very rote if not "primitive" behaviors like eating - people don't come round from ambien to discover they've unconsciously completed their tax returns | |
| Mar 29, 2025 at 8:58 | comment | added | keshlam | @benxyzzy: "Blind sight" can be explained as disconnection between parts of the brain; consciousness is not the only process running in our heads, it is just a supervisory one. Ditto for most of your other examples. If that is your definition, then I agree that consciousness is not solely/essentially causal... But I don't know of anything that has only one cause, so I don't find that definition a useful one; it demands an oversimplification. | |
| Mar 29, 2025 at 7:59 | comment | added | benxyzzy | @keshlam consider "philosophical zombies", which like today's AI chatbots are supposed to reproduce human-like behavior without conscious awareness. Or "blind sight" neurological patients, who are able to direct their behavior using visual information that they have no conscious awareness of (no qualia). Or the behavior of those in fugue states, sleepwalking, drugged by rohypnol or ambien etc. Or just routine absent-minded "autopilot", like completing a very well-traveled commute without much recollection. If large swathes of behavior can happen with or without awareness/qualia, it'snot causal | |
| Mar 29, 2025 at 5:11 | comment | added | keshlam | It sounds like I agree with his (1) and (2). But either I am using a different definition of causality (wouldn't surprise me), or don't see how he gets to "not causally relevant." Certainly in the chain of causality, though not the ultimate cause -- then again, nothing is ever the ultimate cause until you invoke a creator, and then you get people asking what caused that. | |
| Mar 29, 2025 at 3:24 | history | edited | Dcleve | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Mar 29, 2025 at 2:53 | comment | added | g s | "Identity of consciousness/experience with some physical future" Is future a typo? | |
| Mar 29, 2025 at 2:26 | history | answered | Dcleve | CC BY-SA 4.0 |