Personally I think it’s silly as hell. Qualia is obviously a biological component of experience… Not some weird thing that science will never be able to put in to words.
I’ve been listening to a lot of psychology podcasts lately and for some reason people seem obsessed with the idea despite you needing to make the same logical leaps to believe it as any sort of mysticism… Maybe I am just tripping idk
So you wouldn’t consider it a bad thing if I tortured you to death? After all, you’re just chemicals, no different than a rock or a river or a printer.
Yes, I think causing suffering is bad. Why do you think its bad to torture someone to death, some non material “thing”?
I am an intelligent creature capable of suffering.
Also, not evidence of anything outside of the material. Just wishes.
Sorry. What is “suffering?” How can a certain set of physical forces operating on a collection of cellular matter have a moral valence?
What do you mean? We’re just talking about a grouping of elementary particles responding to the laws of physics in a deterministic manner. Exactly the same as a rock, river, or printer. How can electricity and soup have any kind of subjective or moral properties?
Really? Because you seem to be assertion the existence of some non-material dynamic that makes certain collections of particles qualitatively different from others.
The state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship.
I, the inhabitant of this flesh suit, find it unpleasant. I value the experience of other fleshy bags of meat. Its just a choice. If you wanted different morality you could find it. I think my morality is pretty good though, I think it’d work out for a lot of us fleshy meat bags. Might be good for our collective experiences idk.
I am giving you my best explanation of the evidence I have seen. If you have evidence we are more then electricity and soup by all means, share with the class. I honestly don’t care to argue morality back and forth, as I said earlier in the thread I’m more interested in science. There’s loads of evidence both chemical soup and electricity plays a significant role in me living and my inner experiences. I’ve taken drugs that bind to different neurotransmitters that make me feel different kinds of ways, I also had ECT done where they sent a lil shock through my brain to help me feel differently. Where is the evidence something non material impacts my thoughts, my subjective experience? Some soul, or whatever you are getting at.
Just because we do not know something does not mean we should fill in the gaps. I am open to a non material explanation for my inner world, by all means where’s the evidence? Until then I’m sticking with what we have evidence for. The evidence has only ever pointed to materialism.
I am qualitatively, materially different from a rock. There is no evidence a rock can think, can suffer, can anything.
Sorry, what are those? What particles mediate them? I do not know of any mechanical process called “pain”
I thought you said it was all just biological soup and electricity. Now you’re claiming there’s some kind of ghost “inhabiting” it?
How can a cloud of particles and forces have values or experiences? And if you do, why do you value some fleshy bags of meat but not others?
A choice? How can a deterministic set of mechanical interactions have a choice? It just responds to cause and effect according to the laws of physics.
Who’s this “I” and what does “pretty good” mean? It’s all just physics and chemistry right?
Sorry, what’s an “experience”? And why would your arbitrary designation of some physical systems as having a valence be “good”
You have it the wrong way around; you’re the one asserting things beyond electrity and meat: things like “suffering”, “experiences”, “good and bad”, “‘inhabitants’ of the ‘flesh suits’”.
I suspect you would change that tone pretty quickly if someone decided to take seriously your assertion that people are just meat and decided to dissect you.
“Significant role” is very different from “there is only meat and electricity.”
Read this again and try to find the contradiction.
I’m not. You are
No. You aren’t. You are made up of exactly the same three particles, subject to the exact same physical forces.
There’s no evidence you can either: all we have is stimulus and response via physical mechanism. A mousetrap does that too
Since you want to pick apart my view and clearly do not agree, I am curious about yours. You seem to think there’s more to a person then chemicals, what else do you think there is? What is missing?
What really made me want to engage with you was this:
And it seems pretty obvious to me you disagree with this view, that you are saying it in a sarcastic or mocking way. You’ve done you’re bit, I see that either my view is incomplete or I am not explaining myself properly. Maybe both, I am not a philosophy person. So could you please explain, even a hint, of what you think I’m missing so I can improve?
Read Wittgenstein Private experience vs Public Language. Pain isn’t a thing in the universe like an atom, its a label we came up with to describe a biological AND behavioural phenomenon that we all experience subjectively. Unless you’re Plato, I guess.
Look up the definition of I. Biological soup and electricity can have first person experience.
Eyeballs. Ears. Electricity. You say “cloud of particles” as if its a reified thing, but from your perspective it ought not be. The organization of stimuli is how a cloud of particles has experience.
vegan. jainist. “efilist”. plenty of types of people out there don’t value themselves over others. We evolved affect for each other because it was biologically useful.
Wow you’re discovering why the agent exists. Crazy. We’re a deterministic set of actions that has to weigh several external and internal factors, which cannot happen instantaneously, so we are presented with the illusion of choice. Using brain scan technology scientists are able to detect what you choose before you detect what you choose, because its all shit done in the brain. This is all happening behind the scenes but choice is a real thing that evaluates over time. Time being the key factor in why it seems so odd.
Experience is the public word for our subjective processes. The designations are not arbitrary, but biological. What we deem good is socially useful and feeds back into our internal reward system because it benefits our survival.
Actually not really. Meat and electricity play THE most significant role. The only role. Matter. Again, semantic confusion, not an actual argument.
you’re referencing/quoting a different poster just for the record