Presuppositional Apologetics

[shunyadragon]

Well, since you can't formulate a response to arguments I put forth, I know that you are not serious about being a philosophical skeptic of all belief systems, save your own. Have a nice time. I will ignore you from now on as not worth engaging with. the rest of your response seems to think I should be able to read your mind about why you are not answering questions. This is why I left this place, a whole bunch of people who like to hear the sound of their own voice but lacking in any intellectual depth to know the issues.

[grmorton]

For those interested in examining this issue, I had an inadvertent case which illustrated the problem of objectively measuring anything in our qualia. I am on chemo, half way through and I am physically weak and tire easily. My son and I were doing some lifting and carrying of things. I mentioned that I was tiring out. He said he was tired too but not as tired as me. I laughed and said that he had provided a perfect example to this issue (I had discussed it with him). There is no way to measure who is tireder. Our soul, our qualia, can not be compared to the qualia others might or might not have. Yet what I feel is a real experience--it exists and in some ways is the most existent thing in this universe. But it isn't objective and is not subject to measurement.

One could try to measure the strength between my son and I but that isn't a measure of tiredness. Tiredness is an internal feeling not subject to measurement. Strength can be measured--how large a mass can I lift.

[shunyadragon]

For those interested in examining this issue, I had an inadvertent case which illustrated the problem of objectively measuring anything in our qualia. I am on chemo, half way through and I am physically weak and tire easily. My son and I were doing some lifting and carrying of things. I mentioned that I was tiring out. He said he was tired too but not as tired as me. I laughed and said that he had provided a perfect example to this issue (I had discussed it with him). There is no way to measure who is tireder. Our soul, our qualia, can not be compared to the qualia others might or might not have. Yet what I feel is a real experience--it exists and in some ways is the most existent thing in this universe. But it isn't objective and is not subject to measurement.

One could try to measure the strength between my son and I but that isn't a measure of tiredness. Tiredness is an internal feeling not subject to measurement. Strength can be measured--how large a mass can I lift.

The bottom line is that 'science need not measure' Qualia to determine the nature and origin of Qualia as naturally related to neurological activity of the brain.

[MaxVel]

The bottom line is that 'science need not measure' Qualia to determine the nature and origin of Qualia as naturally related to neurological activity of the brain.

Rubbish. Science can't even know if qualia (subjective experiences) are identical to brain states (objective states of brain chemistry and electrical activity that can be measured). That's what gmorton and element771 have been repeatedly pointing out to you. There's a gap between the subjective and objective that no possible advances in science can ever span. You might as well claim that 'one day' science will have advanced to the point where we can scientifically determine what the most delicious flavour is, or the most beautiful colour...

[seer]

Rubbish. Science can't even know if qualia (subjective experiences) are identical to brain states (objective states of brain chemistry and electrical activity that can be measured). That's what gmorton and element771 have been repeatedly pointing out to you. There's a gap between the subjective and objective that no possible advances in science can ever span. You might as well claim that 'one day' science will have advanced to the point where we can scientifically determine what the most delicious flavour is, or the most beautiful colour...

I don't know if the man is just dense or senile.

[shunyadragon]

Rubbish. Science can't even know if qualia (subjective experiences) are identical to brain states (objective states of brain chemistry and electrical activity that can be measured). That's what gmorton and element771 have been repeatedly pointing out to you. There's a gap between the subjective and objective that no possible advances in science can ever span. You might as well claim that 'one day' science will have advanced to the point where we can scientifically determine what the most delicious flavour is, or the most beautiful colour...

Ridicule and verbal assassination attempts do not change the fact that among scientists and philosophers there is indeed two sides of dialogue. Repeating pointing out one side of the dialogue makes it only a diatribe monologue.

A good discussion of two sides of the dialogue concerning the brain, mind, will and consciousness is the difference between Chalmers and Dennett, which is described in the following article. Chalmers view is similar to that of grmorton. I am actually not as optimistic as Dennett, but he is a good example of offering a contrasting view of two sides of the dialogue.

Part I

Source: https://thecentralsulcus.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/philosophers-corner-the-role-of-qualia-in-neuroscience/

© Copyright Original Source

More to follow . . .

[MaxVel]

Ridicule and verbal assassination attempts do not change the fact that among scientists and philosophers there is indeed two sides of dialogue. Repeating pointing out one side of the dialogue makes it only a monologue.

A good discussion of two sides of the dialogue concerning the brain, mind, will and consciousness is the difference between Chalmers and Dennett, which is described in the following article. Chalmers view is similar to that of grmorton. I am actually not as optimistic as Dennett, but he is a good example of offering a contrasting view of two sides of the dialogue.

Part I

Source: https://thecentralsulcus.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/philosophers-corner-the-role-of-qualia-in-neuroscience/

© Copyright Original Source

More to follow . . .

Stop arguing by weblink. Address what I said. There is no conceivable way that science can bridge the subjective - objective gap.

[shunyadragon]

Part II

Source: https://thecentralsulcus.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/philosophers-corner-the-role-of-qualia-in-neuroscience/

http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/f...ntries/qualia/http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...kening/309188/.

Bubl, E., et al. (2010). Seeing Gray When Feeling Blue? Depression Can Be Measured in the Eye of the Diseased. Biol. Psychiatry 68: 205-208. DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2010.02.009.

© Copyright Original Source

[MaxVel]

Shunya, you failed to address the question. At all. But since you like this sort of thing, here you go... (just remember, you started it!)

To answer the title question we need to know what we mean by 'explain' and how it differs from 'explain away.'

1. An obvious point to start with is that only that which exists, or that which is the case, can be explained. One who explains the phenomenon of the tides in terms of the gravitational effect of the moon presupposes that the phenomenon of the tides is a genuine phenomenon. One cannot explain the nonexistent for the simple reason that it is not there to be explained. One cannot explain why unicorns run faster that gazelles for the simple reason that there is no such explanandum. So if consciousness is to be explained, it must exist.

2. A second point, equal in obviousness unto the first, is that a decent explanation cannot issue in the elimination of the explanandum, that which is to be explained. You cannot explain beliefs and desires by saying that there are no beliefs and desires. A successful explanation cannot be eliminativist. It cannot 'explain away' the explanandum. To explain is not to explain away.

3. Summing up (1) and (2): the very project of explanation presupposes the existence of the explanandum, and success in explanation cannot result in the elimination of the explanandum.

4. Daniel Dennett points out that there can be no explanation without a certain 'leaving out': "Leaving something out is not a feature of failed explanations, but of successful explanations." (Consciousness Explained, 1991, p. 454.) Thus if I explain lightning as an atmospheric electrical discharge, I leave out the appearing of the lightning to lay bare its reality. That lightning appears in such-and-such a way is irrelevant: I want to know what it is in reality, what it is in nature apart from any observer. The scientist aims to get beyond the phenomenology to the underlying reality.

5. It follows that if consciousness is to be explained, it must be reduced to, or identified with, something else that is observer-independent. Dennett puts this by saying that "Only a theory that explained conscious events in terms of unconscious events could explain consciousness at all." (454) For example, if your explanation of pain in terms of C-fibers and Delta A-fibers (or whatever) still contains the unreduced term 'pain,' then no satisfactory explanation has been achieved. There cannot be a "magic moment" in the explanation when a "miracle occurs" and unconscious events become conscious. (455)

6. Now if a successful explanation must explain conscious events in terms of unconscious events, then I hope I will be forgiven for concluding that consciousness CANNOT be explained. For, as I made clear in #2 above, a successful explanation cannot issue in the elimination of that which is to be explained. In the case of the lightning, there is a reduction but not an elimination: lightning is reduced to its observer-independent reality as electrical discharge.

Now suppose you try the same operation with the sensory qualia experienced when one observes lightning: the FLASH, the JAGGED LINE in the sky, followed by the CLAP of thunder, etc. You try to separate the subjective appearance from the observer-independent reality. But then you notice something: reality and appearance of a sensory quale coincide. Esse est percipi. The being of the quale is identical to its appearing. This is what John Searle means when he speaks of the "first person ontology" of mental data.

7. It follows from #6 that if one were to explain the conscious event in terms of unconscious events as Dennett recommends, the explanation would fail: it would violate the strictures laid down in #2 above. The upshot would be an elimination of the datum to be explained rather than an explanation of it. To reiterate the obvious, a successful explanation cannot consign the explanandum to oblivion. It must explain it, not explain it away.

8. I conclude that consciousness cannot be explained, given Dennett's demand that a successful explanation of consciousness must be in terms of unconscious events. What he wants is a reduction to the physical. He wants that because he is convinced that only the physical exists. But in the case of consciousness, such a reduction must needs be an elimination.

9. To my claim that consciousness cannot be explained, Dennett has a response: "But why should consciousness be the only thing that cannot be explained? Solids and liquids and gases can be explained in terms of things that are not solids, and liquids, and gases. . . . The illusion that consciousness is the exception comes about, I suspect, because of a failure to understand this general feature of successful explanation." (455)

Dennett's reasoning here is astonishingly weak because blatantly question-begging. He is arguing:

A. It is a general feature of all successful explanations that F items be explained in terms of non-F items
B. Conscious items can be explained
Ergo
C. Conscious items can be explained in terms of nonconscious items.

(B) cannot be asserted given what I said in #6 and #7. I run the argument in reverse, arguing from the negation of (C) to the negation of (B): conscious items such as pains are irreducible.

10. Recall from #4 that Dennett said that successful explanations must leave something out. But in the case of a conscious item like a pain, what is left out when we explain it is precisely what we needed to explain! For what is left out is precisely the sensory quale, the felt pain, the Feiglian "raw feel,' the Nagelian "what it is like."

11. Amazingly, on p. 455 he retracts what he said on the previous page about successful explanations having to leave something out. He now writes:

Thinking, mistakenly, that the explanation leaves something out, we
think to save what otherwise would be lost by putting it back into
the observer as a quale -- or some other "intrinsically" wonderful
property. The psyche becomes the protective skirt under which all
those beloved kittens can hide. There may be motives for thinking
that consciousness cannot be explained, but, I hope I have shown,
there are good reasons for thinking it can. (455)

Do you see how Dennett is contradicting himself? On p. 454 he states that a successful explanation must leave something out, which seems plausible enough. Then he half-realizes that this spells trouble for his explanation of consciousness -- since what is left out when we explain consciousness in unconscious terms is precisely the explanandum, consciousness itself! So he backpedals and implies that nothing has been left out, and suggests that someone who affirms the irreducibility of qualia is like a lady who hides her 'kwalia kitties' under her skirt where no mean neuroscientist dare stick his nose.

The whole passage is a tissue of confusion wrapped in a rhetorical trick. And that is the way his big book ends: on a contradictory note. A big fat load of scientistic sophistry.

12. To sum up. A successful explanation cannot eliminate the explanandum. That is nonnegotiable. So if we agree with Dennett that a successful explanation must leave something out, namely, our epistemic access to what is to be explained, then we ought to conclude that consciousness cannot be explained.

More to come...

[MaxVel]

Part II

[MaxVel]

Part III

[shunyadragon]

Part II

The only thing you have demonstrated, as I have, that is there are indeed two sides of the problem. You have not conclusively proven your side is the only explanation. Yes, there are many unanswered questions, but I do not believe that the nature of the relationship can be considered unknowable in the future. Unanswered questions should not be considered unanswerable in the future.

What question have I not answered?

More to follow . . .

[element771]

Stop arguing by weblink. Address what I said. There is no conceivable way that science can bridge the subjective - objective gap.

That is the only way he can argue because he doesn't understand the topics at hand with any depth. If he did, he would not need to continue to put up walls of text....he could just answer using his own words.

[element771]

Yes, there are many unanswered questions, but I do not believe that the nature of the relationship can be considered unknowable in the future. Unanswered questions should not be considered unanswerable in the future.

What question have I not answered?

No one is referring to the relationship. How many times does this need to be said?!?!

As MaxVel said, how can you know if subjective experiences are identical for identical brain states?

Simple answer, you can't because they are subjective experiences that are experienced by individuals. Science cannot measure subject experiences.

[shunyadragon]

No one is referring to the relationship. How many times does this need to be said?!?!

the relationship is the issue that is subject of this discussion.

As MaxVel said, how can you know if subjective experiences are identical for identical brain states?

It is not simple, but equating neurological activity with subjective experiences is the present direction scientists are taking. It is also not necessarily the issue of what scientists 'know now,' but what science is capable of knowing in the future.

Simple answer, you can't because they are subjective experiences that are experienced by individuals. Science cannot measure subject experiences.

The answers are not that simple as .

Measuring the subjective experiences is not necessary to understanding the relationship of subjective experiences with neurological activity of the brain.