Philosophy of Mind - The Hard Problem of Consciousness

[bill456]

I think the hard problem of consciousness is one of the most interesting issues I have come across.

So I have started this poll to get the opinions of people in this forum. Do you think that there is a hard problem of consciousness? Please also post your reasoning of how you came to your conclusion.

Before voting and discussing I strongly recommend that you read the following two articles to fully understand the issues. Please do not vote or discuss unless you have read these articles.

Chalmers (1995) - http://www.imprint.co.uk/chalmers.html

Dennett (1995) - http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/chalmers.htm

[bill456]

I have voted for Chalmers because I think that Dennett's argument essentially amounts to the claim that qualia don't exist. I find this to be self evidently ridiculous. However I admit that I cannot actually prove that qualia exist.

[bill456]

Either people on this forum are really boring and can't be bothered to read a couple of journal articles or this forum is really quiet! Either way I guess the prospects of a decent discussion on this issue are slim.

[rlrose328]

I think you are jumping to conclusions.  I've posted stuff here and gotten no response as well.  In my case, it means I don't really understand the topic and the articles didn't really help me.  I'm not so much into the philosophy thing (made my head hurt in college and it has never gotten any better) so to have a discourse on the topic in a public forum is not my cup of tea.  Doesn't mean I'm boring, just that I wouldn't provide much useful discussion in this particular area.  Perhaps others are the same?

Sorry I can't add more to the topic at hand.

[jcm]

I too do not believe in qualia. There is nothing about red that make it red. Red is red in our mind because we have evolved to the point where we can distinguish this hue from other hues. Red is long wavelength so it would naturally be associated with heat. A hot body would also carry the characteristics of motion and pain. The opposite of this would be blue which is shorter in wavelength and would carry the feeling of cold and stillness. There is a Darwinian reason for this. Our bodies have evolved to perceive this small range of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Let me ask you this, what “color” comes to mind when you think of radio waves, x-rays, or gamma rays? What hue is associated with these wavelengths? These wavelengths of light are meaningless to me, but that does not mean that they do not have a quality. The qualities of color and anything else are based on our ability to see and experience them.  

To me red, blue, or green are placeholders for our mind to distinguish them. If they didn't look the way they do, then they would look different. If green was red and blue was orange, then it would only be weird to those who saw them different before.

If hot bodies emitted my perception of blue in your mind's eye then you would associate my version of blue with heat, motion and pain. However, we would both name this quality red.

[Martian]

I also don't believe in qualia. Though, I must point out that experience has nothing to do with the wavelength of light that interacts with the eyes. Rather, experience is situated within the brain. Theoretically, I could entirely bipass the eyes and stimuate the parts of the brain that are responsible for the the representation of red to bring about the experience. People with damage in the occiptal lobes can't see, though their eyes are fully functional. Sometimes they can see some things but not others. Experience is all about the mechanics and functionality of the brain.

I agree with Dan Dennett. I expect the "hard problems" to be done away with when the "easy problems" are solved. If qualia is actually something that exists, it must come back to effect the system. At the taste of dirt, does the experience determine what you're going to do next? If qualia is an actual thing, it must be there to cause the system to do something based on the experience. Namely, we would see the physics of the brain matter being violated to cause the follow-up actions. Conversely, if we look into the brain and don't discover a "qualia force", then we must conclude that the physical functioning of the brain is all there is to create that experience.

I personally think that experiences arrise based upon the way that information in the brain relates to each other. Though, I don't think we're at the stage where we can make a strong enough hypothesis. We need a lot more data.

What do you think about this tough issue, bill456?

[Amor Fati]

Damn, an actual discussion of Dennett's philosophy and I missed it.  

Back in 2002 when I was interested in philosophy of mind at OSU, I consumed everything he had to say on the subject, as well that of most of his detractors.  At the time I understood him as an eliminative  materialist, but now I believe that Dennett is really a closeted or unwitting pragmatist, fitting in well with Evan Thompson (Color Vision: A study in cognitive science and the philosophy of perception).

[LARA]

I think qualia has to do with memory, like jcm said, they act as placeholders.  Also I'm pretty sure I fall pretty hard into the materialist/behaviorist category.  

If I perceive a stimulus I can react, ignore, remember, or any combination of these things. If I remember the stimulus, I somehow record the sensory pattern it induced perhaps, and my experience can be recalled later.  The stimulus is recalled in a manner that is relevant to me.  I have a gut hypothesis that my memory all links together with metaphors probably understandable only to myself.   As I become more sophisticated through time, my new stimuli are compared to older experiences more quickly and I can learn, understand and draw conclusions from them by recognizing the self-relevant patterns they carry.  

I would say experience isn't part of the stimulus, experience is the pattern we record from the initial stimulus in order to later recall the stimulus and learn from it.

From this, I still can't say if I agree with Dennet or Chalmers entirely since I think the entire argument has become rather convoluted by their far superior linguistic abilities. I don't really see what the problem is, so I think I drift toward Dennet's mode of thinking.

[LARA]

I thought these somewhat relevant links would be an interesting addition to the topic.  I hope bill456 makes it back sometime to see that his thread is still alive.

http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2 ... king_a.php

http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/05/ ... ddhism.php

Enjoy.