From owner-cse575-fa07-list@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Wed Oct 31 10:48:01 2007 Received: from ares.cse.buffalo.edu (ares.cse.buffalo.edu [128.205.32.79]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l9VEluNQ011987 for ; Wed, 31 Oct 2007 10:47:56 -0400 (EDT) Received: from front1.acsu.buffalo.edu (upfront.acsu.buffalo.edu [128.205.4.140]) by ares.cse.buffalo.edu (8.13.8/8.13.6) with SMTP id l9VElgWc071771 for ; Wed, 31 Oct 2007 10:47:42 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 6547 invoked from network); 31 Oct 2007 14:47:37 -0000 Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) by front1.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 31 Oct 2007 14:47:37 -0000 Received: (qmail 26562 invoked from network); 31 Oct 2007 14:47:28 -0000 Received: from listserv.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 31 Oct 2007 14:47:28 -0000 Received: by LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 14.5) with spool id 3873247 for CSE575-FA07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Wed, 31 Oct 2007 10:47:28 -0400 Delivered-To: cse575-fa07-list@listserv.buffalo.edu Received: (qmail 1012 invoked from network); 31 Oct 2007 14:47:19 -0000 Received: from mailscan1.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.133) by listserv.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 31 Oct 2007 14:47:19 -0000 Received: (qmail 7305 invoked from network); 31 Oct 2007 14:47:13 -0000 Received: from castor.cse.buffalo.edu (128.205.32.14) by smtp1.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 31 Oct 2007 14:47:13 -0000 Received: from castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (rapaport@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l9VElC8g011939; Wed, 31 Oct 2007 10:47:12 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from rapaport@localhost) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.9/Submit) id l9VElCiX011938; Wed, 31 Oct 2007 10:47:12 -0400 (EDT) X-UB-Relay: (castor.cse.buffalo.edu) X-PM-EL-Spam-Prob: : 7% Message-ID: <200710311447.l9VElCiX011938@castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU> Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 10:47:12 -0400 Reply-To: "William J. Rapaport" Sender: Introduction to Cognitive Science From: "William J. Rapaport" Subject: Are absent qualia are just one kind of qualia? Comments: cc: ag33@cse.Buffalo.EDU To: CSE575-FA07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Precedence: list List-Help: , List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Owner: List-Archive: X-DCC-dcc.uncw.edu-Metrics: ares.cse.buffalo.edu 1201; Body=0 Fuz1=0 Fuz2=0 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.4 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,FUZZY_VLIUM autolearn=no version=3.1.8 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.8 (2007-02-13) on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.91.2/4647/Wed Oct 31 08:43:08 2007 on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Status: Clean Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: $NotJunk NotJunk X-UID: 247 Content-Length: 4104 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: Are absent qualia are just one kind of qualia? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ My Ph.D. student Albert Goldfain asked me to post this for him: | From albertgoldfain@gmail.com Tue Oct 30 15:40:16 2007 | | I very much enjoyed your lecture on qualia and consciousness in cog sci | lecture today (sorry I could only stay for the first hour of it). I have | some issues with Block's phenomenal consciousness/access consciousness | distinction...maybe you could clear these up. | | Setup: | If I remember elementary school correctly, statements of the form "A is like | B" are called similes. For a discussion of qualia, a relevant form of | similes is when A and B are experiences: "Experience A is like experience | B". Based on what you said, I would claim that if it is like something to | experience something then we have "satisfied the simile" (i.e., we have | found an experience for the variables A and B). | | So absent qualia, under this characterization would be of the form "There is | no experience B such that experience A is like experience B" (i.e., an | "unsatisfiable" simile). | | Ok...now a thought experiment: | | Lets say E1 is the experience of getting a tooth drilled without anesthesia | Lets say E2 is the experience of getting a tooth drilled with anesthesia | (say novocaine) | | E1 is not an absent qualia (for me :-)) because: | | E1 is like the experience of chewing on a sharp bone. Very painful! | | Some might want to say that E2 is an absent qualia, because all of the (very | painful) features of E1 have been removed...indeed, it is a very useful | partial zombiehood. [I am, of course, taking for granted that numbness is | the absence of a certain kind of experience]. But as such, it is like very | many experiences! | | E2 is like the experience of holding your mouth open [just mouth novocaine] | E2 is like the experience of dreamless sleeping [full body novocaine] | etc. | | So my point is that it is always possible to satisfy the simile EVEN IF THE | "WHAT IT"S LIKE" IS LIKE NOTHING. Because an experience being like nothing | is being like something (namely nothing :-)). This would seem to imply that | there is no A-consciousness without P-consciousness. | | Hamlet even wants to satisfy the simile for the experience of death :-) "to | die...to sleep"...but no matter what dreams may come or if none come at all, | there is no qualia lost. | | What do you think? | Albert Here's my reply; others should feel free to join in: I'm not sure that the "like" of "what it's like" is the "like" of similes. A simile "like" says that one thing is like (is similar to) another thing. But to say that there is something it is like to experience Q (where Q is some qualium) doesn't seem to me to be comparing two things. Rather, it seems to be a sort of "base case" of merely saying how something "feels". Nevertheless, the idea is worth pursuing. (E.g., read Nagel's famous bat-paper with the simile sense of "like" in mind, and see if it makes sense.) A link to the paper is at: http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F07/consciousness.html#nagel74 Finally, to say that being like nothing is being like something, namely, like nothing, seems to be a bit of a stretch. It could lead you down a slippery slope to the claim that everything always has qualia, even if the qualium is absent, so that even a rock has feelings. I'm not saying that I disagree with that, but lots of people would find it hard to accept. (The idea that even rocks have (very minimal) minds is called "panpsychism". Chalmers defends it in his book http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/575/F07/consciousness.html#chalmers96 and I discuss it in: Rapaport, William J. (2005), "Implementation Is Semantic Interpretation: Further Thoughts", Special Issue on Theoretical Cognitive Science, Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence 17(4; December): 385-417. http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/Papers/jetai05.pdf