Qualia and the Mystery of Colors

Thanks for the first positive thing you ever said about me. Yes, the NSDD needs to be devised. We know about consciousness now only from brain probes and brain disorders. Many are still looking for the image inside the computer without considering how the computer produces images. For those who claim to be something other than neurons can produce. there exists no quale, no “I”, without neuronal and genetic hardwire.

BTW, I created a DNA machine in my 1987 novel, “Atom and Eve”; the novel was not published. Readers claimed they could not understand it.

A quale is a quantum of sensation. It is a process that cannot be reduced to something other than its activity, from its formation from neurochemicals and neurons.

The problem of defining qualia comes fro seeing a process as an entity.

If we see a man running, “running” is the process, correct? However, we would see a man running, otherwise known as a runner. The point of the Mary Problem, is that she experiences something new, the color blue for the first time. That new experience is knowledge. The process has to work upon something though, mustn’t it? So we have to identify what the process is doing to things, and those things are elementary quale, aren’t they? Thoughts?

The problem is created by the degenerate tendency to reduce multiplicity (particulars) to singularity (one universal.)

For example, color and wave-length are two different objects neither of which can be reduced to the other for that would confuse, which is to say eliminate distinction between, the two. On the other hand, that does not mean there is no relation between the two. We know, for example, that there is a strong type of correlation between the two that we refer to as causation. We know that when wave-length changes that the color changes too.

There is nothing mysterious regarding qualia. What there is is an illusion of mystery created by the inability to comprehend that categories are man-made and that whether we are going to categorize some object of experience as physical or qualitative does not make that object any more or less mysterious.

The so-called “physical realm” is quite simply a category that includes some objects of experience and excludes others. In its most abstract from, it includes only formulas, viewing physical sensations as merely “subjective” (in other words, it puts them in a category that is called “subjective realm”.)

Someone may ask “if it doesn’t belong to physical realm then where does it belong?” And to be able to answer that question one would have to enumerate every known category and make sure that each one is sufficiently defined so that we can unambiguously determine whether any given object of experience belongs to it or not. Then, we would simply compare our non-physical object against the requirements of every category and note where it belongs, if it belongs anywhere. And what if it belongs nowhere? Then we would simply categorize it as “uncategorized”. Simple.

So, yes, qualitative objects such as color, smell, taste, etc do not belong to or exist in physical realm. No matter how deep you look into a physical brain or perform calculations in order to predict its behavior, you will never experience any colors, tastes, smells, etc. So where do they belong or exist? They belong to or exist in . . . qualitative realm. Realm being nothing but a fancy word for category, class, set and other container objects.

“Oh my god, that’s so deep!”

Yeah, it is deep as hell.

Qualitative objects such as color can have their physical correlates such as wavelength.

No need to confuse the two.
Everyone is happy.

You say that Dennett is correct in asserting that there is no “objective” evidence of qualia. This implies you know what kind of evidence he’s looking for. I, personally, do not, so I would appreciate it if you could help me. What kind of evidence is he asking for?

I would say qualia, e.g. colors, are evident. Whoever denies this, his intelligence must be questioned.

Is he saying that qualia must be something other than qualia in order to be able to accept them as evidently something other than qualia? Wouldn’t such a remark be irrelevant?

Or is he saying that qualia, in the form of qualia, cannot be evident?

Very bizarre.

A slight tangent on this if I may; Dennet is looking for ‘qualia’ when he could just say ‘what is [light and] color’. in other words he maybe looking for something that’s not there and not finding anything lol, but color is there and optical illusions reveal them to be changed perceptually. Ergo you have color as the mind sees it, and color as a camera sees it ~ but they are both the same thing, color. I doubt even Dennet would argue that ‘there is no color there’ or would he lol.
This just leaves us with the fact then, that there is color, and which exists perceptually and physically as light and yet one variant is not defined as being a property of light [the perceptual].

I think Dennett would say that color is not qualia but something within the brain, some neurochemical configuration. But this too would be a confusion, since qualitative object that is color is different from, is not the same as, neurochemical object that is . . . however you decide to call it. They are related but not the same.

Physical realm isn’t an all-encompassing category. It excludes certain objects – such as qualia. That, however, does not mean these excluded objects do not exist. You can say they don’t exist physically but not more than that.

The failure is saying that we see no evidence of qualia when we see evidence of qualia.
If a doctor scans a patient’s brain, saying “I see no evidence of qualia in the brain” this is a fallacy.
Because he is seeing Qualia, the photograph of the brain scan is a Qualia in his brain. Thus he sees evidence of qualia in the brain.

Thus we should reduce this convolution by talking about smells.
If a doctor scans a brain, and cannot smell the smell the patient is smelling, then it means that smell is something not apparent in the physical structure of the brain.

Thus we must ask…what about the brain is producing this essence of smell?

Brain is a category. That means it includes certain objects and excludes others. By definition, brain refers to neurochemical processes. Within these processes, there may be neurochemical correlates of qualia but qualia themselves are nowhere to be found. This is because the category brain, by definition, excludes these objects of experience.

In other words, the photograph of the brain scan we are looking at is NOT inside our brain. Its neurochemical correlate is – whatever it is, if it exists at all – but the photograph itself, as we see it, is not. You can say it is in our mind. Mind being a different category.

Just because two objects are correlated does not mean they are one and the same object.

Is light bulb the same as light switch?
Simply because they are correlated?

And is light bulb an illusion simply because it is passive in relation to light switch?

I agree with Magnus that color in the mind is different to color in the thing ~ that is, the light reflecting off a thing. Same with smell or anything that’s a representative of something out there I.e. sensory and memory information.

The photograph will only reveal physical tissue ~ the light reflecting off it. A deep scan would reveal something more psychedelic. …but we still have the fact that something is given color, or smells. Far simpler organisms still get the smells for example, so this is not a ‘lost in the complexity’ issue.

The qualia is most likely the reflection of a thing upon the observers eye. There is something about the act of observing which yields info about something. But more, that info makes the color happen ~ the quality of the thing exist. A quality must be ‘real’ such to be passed around by particles, that is how a photo and ‘you’ [an observer] can observe the properties of color. I don’t see how we can say the quality of red is one of mind, especially when it is also a property of light and photo-cells, which are not of mind.

Sounds like there must be observers in all things. You can probably build a human/oid from the ground up, switch it on, and there will be an experienced observing individual there, just like we are. No difference between the photo and the red flower, and the minds vision of that, nature is doing the same thing all round.

hmm, or maybe I just contradicted myself, lol. is there color in the given physical thing the same as in us, or is that property different in a brain somehow?
what is ‘the other thing’ to the physics occurring here?

A deep scan would, at most, display identical imagery of the mind as in the brain.

And that is why the phenomenon of smell is so important.
Visual phenomenon, can be explained by A=A, it is what it is.

But with smell phenomenon, there is clearly a transforming going on.
Elecritical signals, manefesting as smell phenomenon for consciousness.

In terms of awareness, would building a synthetic human guarantee Sentience in the form?
No it would not.
We are actually uncertain there is Sentience in other beings.
Sentience can only be verified by local-sentience.

Very strange conclusion.

Light isn’t color. Neurochemicals aren’t color. Color is color. Once again tautology saves the day.

Light and neurochemicals are correlated with color in the same way light switch is correlated with light bulb.

There is no redness in light and I’m sure no redness in neurochemicals either unless we are speaking of their visual form, seeing them with our eyes, instead of simply representing them mathematically, but then that redness is not redness they are correlated with in the manner that we’re speaking of here.

What we cannot see, is hidden from us, we interpret. Using induction. Such as analogical induction. If things are observed to have a lot of similarities, we assume they have some more. That’s how it works. I cannot make an attempt to immerse myself in your consciousness. Thus I cannot see for myself whether you do or do not have consciousness. But because you show many traits I possess that are tightly related to consciousness, I assume you also possess consciousness.

they are what happens when info interacts, if you could make a count it would be of the physical objects - the info. but this does not deny that there is the quality of that, e.g. color, e.g. red. mary would see red just like a camera would, the whole argument is ridiculous.

Not sure, smells can be made to happen with tech which yields the same electrical impulses, so is also a 1:1 thing. For me the smell is real, and the physical information is transitory. So why do they say that physics are more real or the only real, when clearly the quality is at least as real?

[quote="Amorphos
Not sure, smells can be made to happen with tech which yields the same electrical impulses, so is also a 1:1 thing. For me the smell is real, and the physical information is transitory. So why do they say that physics are more real or the only real, when clearly the quality is at least as real?[/quote]
Hello Amorphos,

I don’t quite understand your criticism so far. Where does the Mary argument fall short for you in that Mary finding new information out when she finally enters into the sunlight world seeing red for the first time? Let’s stick with vision for your rebuttle, ill be able to follow more easily if you don’t mind. Do you think a camera would be able to experience a quale (the color red) in the same regard as a human being does? When I dilate on this issue i think where the camera and the human part is where consciousness pick up. I think an intereting question is if to ask ourselves if zombies can experience qualia. Philosophical zombies have no consciousness, they just take in information like a like a camera does and lives a life of an AI unconsciously.

What do you think?

Because she will see red just like a camera would, given that red is a quality and her brain the instrument observing it. red is observed or is in the object [transparent photons].

I think it digitally or chemically copies the color red yes. Equally I think that in optical illusions, the inquirer is shown some color, but the brain inputs the color it expects to see. so when the object with the color is moved to an area which is another color, it is revealed that the object is indeed that color. This says to me that the brain composes color perhaps not unlike a camcorder can ~ the brain can do graphics. The problem with qualia then, is that you get red when it isn’t there physically in the light info.

The philosophical zombie is all of the above, what it means; that the human machine will do what cameras can do. Even with mental qualia.

I saw a documentary where a scientist made a blind man see [very blurred though] by re-routing info from his tongue [thus acting like eyes], so it appears that the brain just needs enough info to say something is e.g. red, and there will be the quality red.

  • it all means that qualities [red] are a fundamental element of the real world - but are not physical.

I don’t see how any of that suggests that qualities are the fundamental element of the world and I don’t even know what “the fundamental element” means.

The dog doesn’t see any color.
Some people see a little color.
Some people see a lot of color.

How much color was there before they looked?