From where I stand, phenomenal consciousness and qualia are not simply vague, they are hybrid concepts that flit between different incompatible meanings.
I think that it is possible to be much more specific about what is wrong with the concept of phenomenal consciousness. The fact that it is hopelessly vague is a problem, of course, but adding specificity does not so much revive it as put it out of its misery.
I am surprised these terms persists, and you do a good job of pointing out the dynamics that keep them in circulation.
That's a good way to put it, and I agree. We are dealing with a kind of flickering position that moves from one meaning to another, and is very hard to pin down. But it tends to take two forms:
(1) A clear target that we can take down
(2) An unclear target that's impossible to readily take down
It's a case of a motte-and-bailey, only there isn't a clear bailey. It's very, very strange.
What I find strange is the incuriosity among philosophers to recognize and appreciate the root causes of seemingly intractable problems. It's not I'm spotting anything new. The same kinds of issues were raised by philosophers from the inception of analytic philosophy, going back to the first pragmatists.
When I have asked for more rigour in online discussions, usually by just asking for a definition, I have usually been treated with just the attitude shown in your hypothetical flerp discussion.
There is huge resistance to definition, but I think it is also coupled with a genuine cognitive impasse that makes definition particularly challenging for this cluster of concepts. Once you have an entity "beyond the performance of functions", to use Chalmers' phrase, it is necessarily impossible to define it.
I think illusionists get some of the blame here. In many cases, they don't articulate what it is that they are denying, partly because language that is sufficiently precise just doesn't exist or doesn't rise above the babble.
I agree regarding illusionists. You and I might disagree on this (I don't know your stance on the matter) but I think illusionism arose within the analytic tradition and borrows much of its methods, ways of thinking and speaking, and its presuppositions. I think a view more circumspect towards the analytic project would have done better, though the kind of classical pragmatism I've come to favor of late seems to have few proponents.
I think Frankish illusionism, to some extent, consists of accepting the framing provided by qualia realists, vagueness and incoherence and all, and saying: I don't believe in that. Illusionism hasn't yet been able to articulate a different vision, and unfortunately the debate is still stuck with the faulty framing as the primary reference point.
phenomenal state and qualia are meaningful. phenomenal state is a state that is constituted by qualia. and qualia are such properties that constitute what it is like to have an experience. what-it-is-like is also meaningful. and to try to convey the concept or idea, i might ask...
when someone in pain or who is suffering would perhaps feel that their suffering is being undermined, they might say “you don’t know what’s like”. do you understand what that means?
I anticipate that you will respond, as you have done before, that
“I don’t think we can move from colloquial, ordinary uses of terms to the presumption that if the phrases in question are meaningful in those everyday contexts that therefore they’re meaningful in philosophical contexts”
and my answer here would just be: why the heck not? presumably there are many words, or set of words, you're using in colloquial contexts the same way in philosophical contexts, so then why can’t you do the same with ‘what-it-is-like’? how is it disanalogous?
"What-it-is-like" isn't an ordinary term. "What it's like" or "what it is like" in ordinary contexts are ordinary uses of the terms, but "what-it-is-like" in a philosophical context isn't. If philosophers think these phrases mean the same thing they're welcome do the work to figure out what is meant in the ordinary contexts and then see if that matches what is meant in the philosophical contexts.
I'm not going to just grant that if a philosopher uses a term it means the same thing as some other term. And if they're going to claim X means the same thing as Y, we're still going to have to figure out what Y means.
I'm not sure I grant the distinction between the ordinary and philosophical uses of the term "what-it's-like". The term is fairly ordinary to me outside of philosophical contexts. For instance, i remember one of my friends, who isn't interested in philosophy and isn't familiar with any of the litterature at all, once asked me "i wonder what it's like to be rasmus (me)". Thomas Nagel wondered what it's like to be a bat. It seems to me they were both wondering or asking what it's like from someone or something else's point of view. And it seems to me they were both talking about what it's like in the same sense. I think the same might be true when someone going through a tough time might say "you don't know what it's like".
Speaking of which, i noticed you didn't answer the question, but i am curious how you would answer: if someone going through a tough time would say "you don't know what it's like", do you have an understanding of what that means?
"Terms like phenomenal state and qualia, when used to reference the sorts of things illusionists deny, aren’t even meaningful."
i would want to know how a claim like that could be demonstrated or justified. there are terms or utterances that dont make any sense to me. but i dont claim they aren't meaningful. i would just say i doubt they are meaningful, and if they are meaningful, i have no idea what they're supposed to mean. but this is not what you do. or is that what you mean to do? or do you mean to make the stronger claim that phenomenal state and qualia don't mean anything?
What do you mean by "irreducible"? And things seem irreducible to who? To you specifically? Transitivity doesn't seem "irreducible" to me. It's a rule we invented for certain kinds of logic and we use it or don't use it as we see fit. It makes about as much sense to me to say that transitivity is irreducible as it does to say that "Bishops move diagonally across the board" in chess is "irreducible."
Transitivity does not "seem foundational" to me. I am not sure what that experience would be like or why I would think that, but I don't experience the rules of logic that way, nor do I think it's true that it is irreducible or foundational.
I don't think there even is a concept of qualia that is inexplicable. I think it's inexplicability is a clue that it isn't even a meaningful idea in the first place.
I wrote this a while ago so I don't really remember everything I said. You say:
"In the beginning of the article you complain that critics of illusionism act incredulous whenever people claim that they don't believe in qualia, phenomenal consciousness, etc. rather than giving an argument to demonstrate their existence."
...Can you remind me of where specifically I said that?
The incredulity has to do with them, not me. As in, they are incredulous that we don't share their intuitions or beliefs. I'm not sure how that relates to your earlier remarks so perhaps you could clarify.
Regarding the remark: I'm specifically talking about the lack of good objections to illusionism. That's not identical to positive arguments for phenomenal states or qualia, since illusionism isn't the only position that rejects qualia (indeed, I don't think there are qualia, I am not even an illusionist!).
//Given that the way we know about qualia is (or by your lights, supposedly is) simply by direct experience, how are we supposed to argue for their existence other than just appealing to the direct experience of having them?//
I'm specifically talking about the lack of good arguments against illusionism, not so much arguments for qualia. But I can still address this: If the purported means by which you acquire knowledge that you have qualia isn't something, on your own view, that you could argue for, that's hardly a reason for me to shrug and let them off the hook for the lack of good arguments. Suppose someone:
(1) Holds the view that X is true.
(2) Holds the view that they have a special power to immediately know X is true, and therefore don't need any arguments for X. They just immediately know it's true!
If I object that I have no good reason to think X is true because they haven't given any good arguments for it, appealing to (2) is a bit of a weird move. The view is *internally* self-reinforcing. Sure, okay, so on their view X is true *and* they don't have to present any arguments for why X is true because they immediately know it.
Fine: then why should I believe (1) and (2) are both true? Why think you have a special power to immediately know X is true? What's the argument for that?
They can, at this point, say:
(3) It's self-evident I have this power because I'm aware of the fact that I am using it, so I don't need to argue for (2).
This can be repeated ad infinitum. Anyone, at any time, can give themselves an epistemic get-out-of-jail-free card, but that doesn't mean I or anyone else has to take them seriously.
If you disagree, consider this:
I have a special faculty that gives me direct acquaintance with the truth. I am directly acquainted with the fact that I am right about everything I said in this post and all of the comments in this post, and I am directly acquainted with the fact that you are wrong. I am further acquainted with the fact that I don't have to argue for any of this. You're just wrong if you disagree.
Would you take this to be a reasonable or philosophically engaging or satisfying thing for me to say? I sure hope not.
//Given that the way we know about qualia is (or by your lights, supposedly is) simply by direct experience, how are we supposed to argue for their existence other than just appealing to the direct experience of having them? Likewise, how are we supposed to define what they are other than just pointing to examples with a demonstrative (i.e., "You know what it's like to see the color red? That's a qualia.").//
I don't think you can argue for the view or explain what it means. I don't think you can define what they are by pointing to examples of them. These are some of my main problems with the view that we have qualia! Nobody can clearly say what they are, point to them, or provide arguments for them.
//Likewise, how are we supposed to prove to you that a term is meaningful other than by noting that we personally understand what it means, and that there is a community of experts who communicate using the term and are able to formulate arguments with it that other experts understand? //
I don't grant that you're "noting" that you understand. That implies you do understand. But I'm not granting that. From my perspective, you are *claiming* to understand, but that has yet to be demonstrated.
Suppose someone told you they understand how cars work. Would you take them at their word, if you had no evidence about this person's education, experience, or abilities? You might. But suppose you asked them to demonstrate that they understood how cars worked, and the only thing they could do was assure you that they understood how they worked, verbally.
I wouldn't believe them. I'd expect them to demonstrate their understanding of cars. Now, either proponents of qualia can demonstrate by some means that they understand what qualia are, or they can't. If they can, let them demonstrate. If they can't, well, why should I even think there is any notion to be understood in the first place?
I don't grant that there are a community of experts who communicate using the term. I grant that there are a bunch of academics who use the term, but what, exactly, are they experts in or about that would make their claims about "qualia" credible?
Again, go back to a person who claims to understand how cars work. Expert car mechanics can demonstrate their expertise. You can give them broken cars and they can fix them. When and how did philosophers demonstrate that they were "experts" when it comes to questions of consciousness or qualia?
//Even when we define it in terms of colloquialisms, you still insist that that doesn't prove it means anything. //
Not quite sure what you mean here.
//So what exactly do you want?//
For proponents of qualia to communicate what "qualia" are. I don't think they've done this. If they think they can, let them do it. If they think they can't, we can move to the next step: why should I believe there are ineffable, incommunicable concepts? I am not obligated to grant this at the outset of inquiry. I am challenging whether there are such concepts. Why do people feel entitled to help themselves to claiming that they "have" concepts the meaning of which they can't communicate? How do you know how you have the concept? And why should I believe you?
Consider this scenario: a group of people claim to have a concept, "glorp." None can explain what it means. But they all claim to be experts in "glorpism." How would you react? What would you do in response? I don't think there are no good answers here. I think there are good answers. I just think that those answers don't result in a flattering depiction of what proponents of qualia are up to.
Compare, instead, to people who claim that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. There are a variety of means they could use to demonstrate this, and people have. No similar tests exist for "qualia." Their putative existence does no empirical work, bakes no bread, and achieves nothing. One can insist that despite their superfluity they are nevertheless real, but why should I think that?
//How would you prove to someone that a word is meaningful if they rejected any appeal to usage or your own understanding of the word//
I don't reject ANY appeal to usage. I reject viciously circular, technical appeals to usage. Lots of ways of using terms readily demonstrate the meaningfulness of the terms being used.
If I'm challenging whether the concept is meaningful, I take meaningfulness to be a precondition for it to be "understood." You can't understand something that isn't meaningful! So people appealing to the "fact" that they "understand" the concepts consists of nothing more than the assertion that I'm wrong. This isn't good evidence that they understand. Evidence is public. If, for instance, I saw Bigfoot, the fact that I saw Bigfoot isn't good evidence for you that I did. You may take my testimony as some evidence, but it wouldn't be good evidence. So I take people claiming to understand the concepts in question to be some evidence that they have the concepts they claim to have, but it isn't good enough evidence, and I don't think you should think this.
If you disagree, you'd be left in a position of granting that all that's required as decisive evidence of meaningfulness is if a person or enough people claim to understand the concept. I think this is inadequate and I'd wonder why anyone would disagree.
wouldn't accept you pointing to examples to illustrate the concept, and every time you tried to define it in terms of other words, they either asked for the meaning of those words until you went in a circle or denied that the definition you gave is correct based on the common meaning of the words?
//wouldn't accept you pointing to examples to illustrate the concept//
I'd certainly accept instances of people pointing to examples that illustrate the concept. I just don't think anyone has done so.
Ambiguity is typically resolved in its contexts of usage; whether or not and to what extent any of those remarks would be ambiguous would depend on the contexts in which they're used.
Great piece.
From where I stand, phenomenal consciousness and qualia are not simply vague, they are hybrid concepts that flit between different incompatible meanings.
I think that it is possible to be much more specific about what is wrong with the concept of phenomenal consciousness. The fact that it is hopelessly vague is a problem, of course, but adding specificity does not so much revive it as put it out of its misery.
I am surprised these terms persists, and you do a good job of pointing out the dynamics that keep them in circulation.
That's a good way to put it, and I agree. We are dealing with a kind of flickering position that moves from one meaning to another, and is very hard to pin down. But it tends to take two forms:
(1) A clear target that we can take down
(2) An unclear target that's impossible to readily take down
It's a case of a motte-and-bailey, only there isn't a clear bailey. It's very, very strange.
What I find strange is the incuriosity among philosophers to recognize and appreciate the root causes of seemingly intractable problems. It's not I'm spotting anything new. The same kinds of issues were raised by philosophers from the inception of analytic philosophy, going back to the first pragmatists.
When I have asked for more rigour in online discussions, usually by just asking for a definition, I have usually been treated with just the attitude shown in your hypothetical flerp discussion.
There is huge resistance to definition, but I think it is also coupled with a genuine cognitive impasse that makes definition particularly challenging for this cluster of concepts. Once you have an entity "beyond the performance of functions", to use Chalmers' phrase, it is necessarily impossible to define it.
I think illusionists get some of the blame here. In many cases, they don't articulate what it is that they are denying, partly because language that is sufficiently precise just doesn't exist or doesn't rise above the babble.
I agree regarding illusionists. You and I might disagree on this (I don't know your stance on the matter) but I think illusionism arose within the analytic tradition and borrows much of its methods, ways of thinking and speaking, and its presuppositions. I think a view more circumspect towards the analytic project would have done better, though the kind of classical pragmatism I've come to favor of late seems to have few proponents.
I think Frankish illusionism, to some extent, consists of accepting the framing provided by qualia realists, vagueness and incoherence and all, and saying: I don't believe in that. Illusionism hasn't yet been able to articulate a different vision, and unfortunately the debate is still stuck with the faulty framing as the primary reference point.
I have a bias against physicalism. And this writing prompted me to wonder whether I could ever be convinced that physicalism was true. So I pondered this issue and wrote about my ponderings. Here is that writing: https://sufferingthinkers.blogspot.com/2024/01/physicalisms-ambiguity-problem.html
Cool I'll check it out. I'm not a physicalist FWIW.
phenomenal state and qualia are meaningful. phenomenal state is a state that is constituted by qualia. and qualia are such properties that constitute what it is like to have an experience. what-it-is-like is also meaningful. and to try to convey the concept or idea, i might ask...
when someone in pain or who is suffering would perhaps feel that their suffering is being undermined, they might say “you don’t know what’s like”. do you understand what that means?
I anticipate that you will respond, as you have done before, that
“I don’t think we can move from colloquial, ordinary uses of terms to the presumption that if the phrases in question are meaningful in those everyday contexts that therefore they’re meaningful in philosophical contexts”
and my answer here would just be: why the heck not? presumably there are many words, or set of words, you're using in colloquial contexts the same way in philosophical contexts, so then why can’t you do the same with ‘what-it-is-like’? how is it disanalogous?
"What-it-is-like" isn't an ordinary term. "What it's like" or "what it is like" in ordinary contexts are ordinary uses of the terms, but "what-it-is-like" in a philosophical context isn't. If philosophers think these phrases mean the same thing they're welcome do the work to figure out what is meant in the ordinary contexts and then see if that matches what is meant in the philosophical contexts.
I'm not going to just grant that if a philosopher uses a term it means the same thing as some other term. And if they're going to claim X means the same thing as Y, we're still going to have to figure out what Y means.
I appreciate the reply.
I'm not sure I grant the distinction between the ordinary and philosophical uses of the term "what-it's-like". The term is fairly ordinary to me outside of philosophical contexts. For instance, i remember one of my friends, who isn't interested in philosophy and isn't familiar with any of the litterature at all, once asked me "i wonder what it's like to be rasmus (me)". Thomas Nagel wondered what it's like to be a bat. It seems to me they were both wondering or asking what it's like from someone or something else's point of view. And it seems to me they were both talking about what it's like in the same sense. I think the same might be true when someone going through a tough time might say "you don't know what it's like".
Speaking of which, i noticed you didn't answer the question, but i am curious how you would answer: if someone going through a tough time would say "you don't know what it's like", do you have an understanding of what that means?
"Terms like phenomenal state and qualia, when used to reference the sorts of things illusionists deny, aren’t even meaningful."
i would want to know how a claim like that could be demonstrated or justified. there are terms or utterances that dont make any sense to me. but i dont claim they aren't meaningful. i would just say i doubt they are meaningful, and if they are meaningful, i have no idea what they're supposed to mean. but this is not what you do. or is that what you mean to do? or do you mean to make the stronger claim that phenomenal state and qualia don't mean anything?
I'm making the stronger claim that they don't mean anything.
Well, i'd be interested to know how you justify that claim.
What do you mean by "irreducible"? And things seem irreducible to who? To you specifically? Transitivity doesn't seem "irreducible" to me. It's a rule we invented for certain kinds of logic and we use it or don't use it as we see fit. It makes about as much sense to me to say that transitivity is irreducible as it does to say that "Bishops move diagonally across the board" in chess is "irreducible."
Transitivity does not "seem foundational" to me. I am not sure what that experience would be like or why I would think that, but I don't experience the rules of logic that way, nor do I think it's true that it is irreducible or foundational.
I don't think there even is a concept of qualia that is inexplicable. I think it's inexplicability is a clue that it isn't even a meaningful idea in the first place.
I wrote this a while ago so I don't really remember everything I said. You say:
"In the beginning of the article you complain that critics of illusionism act incredulous whenever people claim that they don't believe in qualia, phenomenal consciousness, etc. rather than giving an argument to demonstrate their existence."
...Can you remind me of where specifically I said that?
The incredulity has to do with them, not me. As in, they are incredulous that we don't share their intuitions or beliefs. I'm not sure how that relates to your earlier remarks so perhaps you could clarify.
Regarding the remark: I'm specifically talking about the lack of good objections to illusionism. That's not identical to positive arguments for phenomenal states or qualia, since illusionism isn't the only position that rejects qualia (indeed, I don't think there are qualia, I am not even an illusionist!).
//Given that the way we know about qualia is (or by your lights, supposedly is) simply by direct experience, how are we supposed to argue for their existence other than just appealing to the direct experience of having them?//
I'm specifically talking about the lack of good arguments against illusionism, not so much arguments for qualia. But I can still address this: If the purported means by which you acquire knowledge that you have qualia isn't something, on your own view, that you could argue for, that's hardly a reason for me to shrug and let them off the hook for the lack of good arguments. Suppose someone:
(1) Holds the view that X is true.
(2) Holds the view that they have a special power to immediately know X is true, and therefore don't need any arguments for X. They just immediately know it's true!
If I object that I have no good reason to think X is true because they haven't given any good arguments for it, appealing to (2) is a bit of a weird move. The view is *internally* self-reinforcing. Sure, okay, so on their view X is true *and* they don't have to present any arguments for why X is true because they immediately know it.
Fine: then why should I believe (1) and (2) are both true? Why think you have a special power to immediately know X is true? What's the argument for that?
They can, at this point, say:
(3) It's self-evident I have this power because I'm aware of the fact that I am using it, so I don't need to argue for (2).
This can be repeated ad infinitum. Anyone, at any time, can give themselves an epistemic get-out-of-jail-free card, but that doesn't mean I or anyone else has to take them seriously.
If you disagree, consider this:
I have a special faculty that gives me direct acquaintance with the truth. I am directly acquainted with the fact that I am right about everything I said in this post and all of the comments in this post, and I am directly acquainted with the fact that you are wrong. I am further acquainted with the fact that I don't have to argue for any of this. You're just wrong if you disagree.
Would you take this to be a reasonable or philosophically engaging or satisfying thing for me to say? I sure hope not.
//Given that the way we know about qualia is (or by your lights, supposedly is) simply by direct experience, how are we supposed to argue for their existence other than just appealing to the direct experience of having them? Likewise, how are we supposed to define what they are other than just pointing to examples with a demonstrative (i.e., "You know what it's like to see the color red? That's a qualia.").//
I don't think you can argue for the view or explain what it means. I don't think you can define what they are by pointing to examples of them. These are some of my main problems with the view that we have qualia! Nobody can clearly say what they are, point to them, or provide arguments for them.
//Likewise, how are we supposed to prove to you that a term is meaningful other than by noting that we personally understand what it means, and that there is a community of experts who communicate using the term and are able to formulate arguments with it that other experts understand? //
I don't grant that you're "noting" that you understand. That implies you do understand. But I'm not granting that. From my perspective, you are *claiming* to understand, but that has yet to be demonstrated.
Suppose someone told you they understand how cars work. Would you take them at their word, if you had no evidence about this person's education, experience, or abilities? You might. But suppose you asked them to demonstrate that they understood how cars worked, and the only thing they could do was assure you that they understood how they worked, verbally.
I wouldn't believe them. I'd expect them to demonstrate their understanding of cars. Now, either proponents of qualia can demonstrate by some means that they understand what qualia are, or they can't. If they can, let them demonstrate. If they can't, well, why should I even think there is any notion to be understood in the first place?
I don't grant that there are a community of experts who communicate using the term. I grant that there are a bunch of academics who use the term, but what, exactly, are they experts in or about that would make their claims about "qualia" credible?
Again, go back to a person who claims to understand how cars work. Expert car mechanics can demonstrate their expertise. You can give them broken cars and they can fix them. When and how did philosophers demonstrate that they were "experts" when it comes to questions of consciousness or qualia?
//Even when we define it in terms of colloquialisms, you still insist that that doesn't prove it means anything. //
Not quite sure what you mean here.
//So what exactly do you want?//
For proponents of qualia to communicate what "qualia" are. I don't think they've done this. If they think they can, let them do it. If they think they can't, we can move to the next step: why should I believe there are ineffable, incommunicable concepts? I am not obligated to grant this at the outset of inquiry. I am challenging whether there are such concepts. Why do people feel entitled to help themselves to claiming that they "have" concepts the meaning of which they can't communicate? How do you know how you have the concept? And why should I believe you?
Consider this scenario: a group of people claim to have a concept, "glorp." None can explain what it means. But they all claim to be experts in "glorpism." How would you react? What would you do in response? I don't think there are no good answers here. I think there are good answers. I just think that those answers don't result in a flattering depiction of what proponents of qualia are up to.
Compare, instead, to people who claim that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. There are a variety of means they could use to demonstrate this, and people have. No similar tests exist for "qualia." Their putative existence does no empirical work, bakes no bread, and achieves nothing. One can insist that despite their superfluity they are nevertheless real, but why should I think that?
//How would you prove to someone that a word is meaningful if they rejected any appeal to usage or your own understanding of the word//
I don't reject ANY appeal to usage. I reject viciously circular, technical appeals to usage. Lots of ways of using terms readily demonstrate the meaningfulness of the terms being used.
If I'm challenging whether the concept is meaningful, I take meaningfulness to be a precondition for it to be "understood." You can't understand something that isn't meaningful! So people appealing to the "fact" that they "understand" the concepts consists of nothing more than the assertion that I'm wrong. This isn't good evidence that they understand. Evidence is public. If, for instance, I saw Bigfoot, the fact that I saw Bigfoot isn't good evidence for you that I did. You may take my testimony as some evidence, but it wouldn't be good evidence. So I take people claiming to understand the concepts in question to be some evidence that they have the concepts they claim to have, but it isn't good enough evidence, and I don't think you should think this.
If you disagree, you'd be left in a position of granting that all that's required as decisive evidence of meaningfulness is if a person or enough people claim to understand the concept. I think this is inadequate and I'd wonder why anyone would disagree.
wouldn't accept you pointing to examples to illustrate the concept, and every time you tried to define it in terms of other words, they either asked for the meaning of those words until you went in a circle or denied that the definition you gave is correct based on the common meaning of the words?
//wouldn't accept you pointing to examples to illustrate the concept//
I'd certainly accept instances of people pointing to examples that illustrate the concept. I just don't think anyone has done so.
Failing to disambiguate claims to make clear and accurate criticisms is stupid.
Ambiguity is typically resolved in its contexts of usage; whether or not and to what extent any of those remarks would be ambiguous would depend on the contexts in which they're used.