Certainly humans are not the only experiential and perceptive entities that have "qualia"? What is it like to be a bat? or a tiger? or anything for that matter?

My question is what exists outside of "qualia," if anything? We know that when a human dies, we live on, still seeing reality. But reality is utterly for each of us individually associated with qualia, with "consciousness." And yet we talk so freely about the world independent of consciousness, and this is probably because we know other humans die, and we remain. But who has seen the world when not alive? The world survives them, but in what way will it survive us? What could the world be in the absence of qualia ("consciousness")?
I feel that this is one of those awkward but fascinating questions. We are ultimately supposed to take it on faith that reality exists in some abstract way, despite the absence of qualia that are "reality" for living beings.

I don't think these criticisms are coming to terms with what your materialist philosophers of consciousness (Dennett in particular) is saying, though. They are interesting ideas in their own right, but they don't really address the issue which prompted the original notion of 'qualia', do they? They actually say there is no subjective experience, that subjectivity itself is illusory, don't they? Isn't that the viewpoint of 'eliminative materialism?' I don't think anyone here agrees with it, but I think we ought to get clear about what we are critiquing...

I don't think these criticisms are coming to terms with what your materialist philosophers of consciousness (Dennett in particular) is saying, though. They are interesting ideas in their own right, but they don't really address the issue which prompted the original notion of 'qualia', do they? They actually say there is no subjective experience, that subjectivity itself is illusory, don't they? Isn't that the viewpoint of 'eliminative materialism?' I don't think anyone here agrees with it, but I think we ought to get clear about what we are critiquing...

You know, I am one of those who would say that "consciousness is just high level integrated experience, a function of complex organism.

Experience on the other hand (not conscious experience but primitive experience) is a general or widespread feature of reality.
The same of perception (not sense perception) but prehension (primitive preception (non sensory awareness) of other actualites is widespread in nature.

Nature is fundamentally perceptive, experiential and responsive to its core, so the absence of humans has little effect on the overall experience of the universe. One conception of god is that god is the unified experience of the universe (takes in the experience of the universe) and provides new possiblities for creative advance against chaos and the formless void.

That mind, perception and experience all all illusions of a sort.It seems like a very odd thing for a high level conscious experiential being to assert. It seems like a denial of the most obvious fact of human experience and human consciousness. Also a denial of the very nature and the inherent limits of the scientific endeavor.

Just a little shy of suggesting a cosmic mind, spirit or consciousness.

First class!

The idea of 'species independent objectivity' or 'complete objectivity' is a myth. And no ultimate object has ever been found, nor will be.

I want to call "qualia" mysterious, but "mysterious" isn't the right word. In fact, no word seems like the right word.

Funnily enough, we have a word for things that can't be expressed, ineffable.

I think you have got to mean, "ineffable". We have another word for what cannot be expressed, "inexpressible".

effable. a. able to be expressed



Source: Dictionary of Difficult Words - effable

Premise 1: Functionalism is the view that mental states can be defined in terms of their causal role in the control of the organism.

Premise 2: Conscious mental states seem to have 3 properties

• its functional properties that form a part of our explanations of behaviour
  
• a material basis in the physio-chemistry of the brain
  
• Qualia, mental states that have phenomenological qualities, specific looks and feels of which the person experiencing them is aware.
  

Premise 3: The first and third properties are not equivalent.

Premise 4: The second and third properties are not equivalent because descriptions of qualia cannot be analysed in terms of descriptions of physio-chemical conditions.

Conclusion: Therefore functionalism is an incomplete theory of the mind, because it leaves out qualia. Why? Well, descriptions of brain activity record events that are publicly observable, and descriptions of qualia record events which are private and subjective. Thus, the two types of events have different properties. They are different types of statements which are both equally true. In this way, the statements describing one event are not logically equivalent to statements describing the other.

Qualia could be completely different. But it's not and there cannot be an explanation for that.

Why not?

There is an explanation for why water does not boil at a temperature of 112 C. isn't there?

Read the above post again. I already explained why.



Most physicists agree that there is nothing special about the structure of our universe. There could be a universe where water boils at any temperature you like. Are you saying there couldn't be? If so, why not?

Well I don't like 'qualia', although I applaud such people for taking on the blind materialists, however I simply must take you up on what you've just said.

How exactly is 'red' the property of an object? Surely even the most closed minded materialist would admit, that all that happens in the external world is light hits an object, and the surface of the object gives the light waves a certain frequency, which travels to the eye, but no where apart from the mind of the observer does there exist 'red'.

You don't really mean that physics doesn't know why water does not boil at 100 C do you?

You're missing the point as usual.

Do you think any physicist thinks there couldn't be a possible universe where water boils at any other temperature? There is nothing special about our universe. There is no explanation for why our universe is this way and not some other way. Apply the same logic to the question of qualia.

There is no reason why a lump of meat should give rise to consciousness anymore than water should boil at a certain temperature. It's just a contingent fact of the universe we find ourselves in.

Science does explain temperature, internal kinetic energy and phase change but it doesn't explain why the universe is the way it is rather than some other way or not at all.

Yes, if a substance could boil at 100 C. it would not be H20. There is no metaphysically possible world in which it is possible for water to boil at 100 C.

So, on either understanding of what it means for it not to be possible for water to boil at 100 C. you are wrong.

Wrong. You may buy Kripke's absurd philosophy but I don't. I don't think it's really relevant anyways though. You're just being pedantic as usual.



Wrong and you're still missing the point since that says nothing against what I'm claiming which is that explanations don't explain why our universe is the way it is rather than some other way. There could be a universe where water explodes when applying heat. You haven't come up with a cogent argument against my position yet.

The explanation of why water does not boil at 100 C. is supposed to be an explanation of why the universe is that way?