[Serious Phil] Rejecting the Hypothesis of Phenomenal Information

[Joseph Polanik]

larry_tapper wrote:

 >Peter D wrote:

 >>You doubt that your pains hurt? I want an unloaded definition. And I
 >>have one. So my interlocutors cannot doubt they have qualia.

 >All right, let's say I can't doubt that I have pain-qualia.

 >In that case, I'm asking the same question: when you demand an
 >explanation of pain-qualia, what are you asking?

 >We've established that we don't disagree about the possibility of
 >explaining the existence of the phenomenal aspect of pain
 >scientifically. Also we agree that the question, why does pain feel
 >this way and not that way, is not necessarily beyond reach. So what
 >might we be disagreeing about?

there might be disagreement as to what counts as a scientific
explanation. must we be satisfied with a description of brain activity
(psychophysical parallelism), is a claim of brain/experience identity an
explanation, do we get an explanation of HOW in terms of causal events
where the cause is physical and the effect is qualial?

in particular, with regard to the Ability Hypothesis, there might be
disagreements as to whether pain qualia play a role in explaining my
ability to report "I am in pain".

Joe


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Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware

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