David Nyman wrote:
> 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.
I disagree. Squareness is fully expressible in language.
> Your 1-person experience per se is incommunicable,
That's just my point. It's not the fact that is
is an experience, or that it is had by a person that makes something
inexpressible.
> 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.
Squareness is fully expressinle, so instantiation
doesn't matter in that case.
> 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 - 20:52:30 PDT