Re: The difference between a 'chair' concept and a 'mathematical concept' ;)

From: David Nyman <david.nyman.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 00:23:30 -0000

On Oct 11, 11:17 pm, "1Z" <peterdjo....domain.name.hidden> wrote:

> > It may be impossible in principle (i.e. 1-person experience is
> > ex-hypothesi incommunicable) and we certainly don't know how > to.So if I see a square, I can't communicate it?

You know you can, of course. But what you are communicating is
information derived from your 'seeing a square' in order for others to
instantiate something analogous, as 1-person experiences of their own.
Your 1-person experience per se is incommunicable, and consequently you
have no direct evidence of (although you may be jusified in your
beliefs concerning) what others have instantiated as a result of your
communication.

David

> David Nyman wrote:
> > On Oct 11, 5:11 am, Brent Meeker <meeke....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> > > > But it isn't possible to determine by inspection that they are
> > > > conscious.Are you claiming it's impossible in principle, or just that we don't know how?
>
> > It may be impossible in principle (i.e. 1-person experience is
> > ex-hypothesi incommunicable) and we certainly don't know how to.So if I see a square, I can't communicate it?
>
> Colours and Shapes: Exactly What Qualifies as a Quale ?
> Because qualia are so often used to argue against physicalism (or at
> least physical communicability), it is often assumed that they must be
> mysterious by definition. However Lewis's original definition pins
> qualia to the way external objects appear, and it least some of those
> features are throughly unmysterious,such as the shapes of objects. A
> red square seems to divide into a mysterious redness and an
> unmysterious squareness. This does not by itself remove any of the
> problems associated with qualia; the problem is that some qualia are
> mysterious. not that some are not.. There is another, corresponding
> issue; not all mysterious, mental contents are the appearances of
> external objects. There a re "phenomenal feels" attached to emotions,
> sensations and so on. Indeed, we often use the perceived qualaities of
> objects as metaphors for them -- sharp pains, warm or cool feelings
> towards another person, and so on. The main effect of this issue on the
> argument is to hinder the physicalist project of reducing qualia to the
> phsycally-defined properties of external objects, since in the case of
> internal sensations and emotional feelings, there are not suitable
> external objects.


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Received on Thu Oct 12 2006 - 20:23:47 PDT

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