This is starting to degrade and we're talking about too many things at once. I'm going to see if we can focus on a few points and move from there.
Canute said:
In my view it is utterly oxymoronic to say that we can believe that we are having an experiences we are not having. If you think that this is possible then we do not mean the same thing by term 'experience' or 'believe'. On zombies, I believe that it is possible to hypothesise the existence of beings who act like us but are not conscious, and that it is a useful thought experiment since it shows that we are not zombies. However I do not believe any such thing can actually exist.
Then you don't believe the Zombic Hunch. If you don't think it's possible for an entity to believe it is having experiences when in fact it is not, the whole zombie argument should be utterly useless to you. Since it is this argument that underpins the objections to heterophenomenology typically given by contemporary philosophers, I'm just going to assume that you don't fall into their camp and you're coming at this from a different angle.
If we cannot know that an experience exists unless it is reported, and an unconscious experience cannot be reported, then how can we claim that we have experiences that we do not experience? It makes no sense at all.
I know it doesn't make any sense. You've studied modern science to some extent. A good deal of it doesn't make a whole lot of sense; fortunately, the threshold conditions for whether or not a given hypothesis can be true does not include it making sense to Canute. Let's go back to the demo that Dennett gave at the debate. The colors changed with each flash, but the audience didn't begin to notice the change until (I don't remember this exactly, but for the sake of argument let's just say) the 12th flash. So the question was raised as the whether or not they experienced the other 11 flashes? According to their reports, they did not, but we know the visual information was there and received by their eyes. So we have two competing hypotheses that might explain this. The Stalinistic hypothesis says that they did not experience the first 11 flashes. In fact, the visual information was altered somewhere along the route from the retinae to the visual cortex. The Orwellian hypothesis says that they did in fact experience the flashes, but the information was altered somewhere along the route from the visual cortex to the memory center in the hippocampus. To the first-person observer, these two situations would be indistinguishable and there is no way of knowing which hypothesis is correct. Fortunately, you are wrong to say that the heterophenomenologist can only study reports - reports are quite useless at this point. In fact, the heterophenomenologist has all the tools of science available to him. This includes the potential ability to track the visual signals as they move from the retinae to the visual cortex and then to the memory-center. As of right now, there exists no way to test these hypotheses and they will have to remain equally probable, but the heterophenomenologist will be able to determine which is correct once he has the proper tools.
Of course, as Dennett points out, a good feature of any scientific conjecture is the ability to predict certain effects. In fact, his multiple drafts model did predict this very effect (Rensink's change blindness) before it was ever found to occur.
If the person did not experience seeing something then they did not experience seeing something. How can this not be true? The fact that some inputs from our senses are received subliminally has no bearing on anything. The fact is that the person did not have the experience of seeing. Quite obviously it is impossible to have an experience that we are not having.
Well, jeez, you just solved one of the great mysteries of neurology. Would you care to submit your findings to the New England Journal of Medicine?
Fine. What follows from this?
It's not entirely certain what follows from this. Just so you're clear on what I'm talking about, this is regarding hemispheric separation. There are actually two hypotheses that can explain this as well. The first would say that the left hemisphere, the hemisphere responsible for verbal reports, is the only hemisphere that actually experiences anything. The reason for guessing this is that the subject speaks using the left hemisphere, so when the subject what he experienced, he will answer that he experienced all of the information that was processed by the left hemisphere. The other hypothesis is that both hemispheres experience equally, but that their experiences are separate from one another; that is, neither hemisphere has access to the experiences of the other. The evidence for this is that the right hemisphere reports all of the information processed by it just as well as the left hemisphere; it just doesn't report it verbally. It seems rather arbitrary to suggest that your true 'self' is simply the part of you that can give verbal reports and that the other 'self' is simply a subliminal zombie.
As of right now, I can't even think of any way to test which of these two hypotheses is correct, so by default it seems that we must grant status to the second, simply because it seems intellectually dishonest to grant privileged status to the part of our brain responsible for verbal reports. I know this is highly counterintuitive and suggests that we may not be a 'self' at all, but rather a collection of separate experiencing parts that simply share information with one another. It's kind of like the double-slit experiment. Is the electron a particle or a wave? There is no way to know. Perhaps the question is absurd and our ideas of "particle" and "wave" are simply not equipped to describe reality. Perhaps our idea of "self" is similar.
I've never thought about that. It seems hard to imagine why any such event should be ineffable, but perhaps. It would piss off neuroscientists, but it may be possible. I can't see the relevance of this point though.
Why would it piss off neuroscientists? There are plenty of objects that are the subject of study by science but which cannot be given a qualitative description. The aforementioned electron, for example. The relevance of this point is that you seemed to be saying if an experience is ineffable, then it cannot be a brain event. I wasn't sure how the consequent followed from the antecendent, so I asked why and you replied that maybe a brain event could be ineffable. Am I to conclude that you take back your earlier conclusion?
The fact that we have experiences at the time that we have them is one of the main reasons that heterophenomenology is useless as a means of studying experiences. All it can study is post-event reports on beliefs. Is watching a foorball game the same as having someone report the game to you?
It just might very well be, if we accept the second hypothesis to explain the hemispheric separation. It might very well be that watching a football game is simply the equivalent of my retinae sharing its reports with my visual cortex, which shares its reports with my memory banks and with the various faculties of my brain responsible for forming different reports, which can then be shared with other brains, either through visual or auditory receptors.
Have you ever tried studying the experiences themselves, as they happen? It can be quite rewarding.
How do you know? As soon as have the experience, it is gone, and you are left with memory. Given that this occurs in a split microsecond, unless you are capable of stopping time, I'm not sure what you mean when you refer to study the "experiences themselves" rather than your memory. In fact, the multiple drafts model (which has made correct predictions, might I add one more time) suggests that it is meaningless to even speak of experiences as discrete, unitary events, that what we term "experiences" are in fact constantly changing and evolving, both in the memory and in other parts of the brain.
Quite so. From a scientific perspective this is true. However it is not true. It is perfectly possible to study experiences, despite the fact that it is not possible to do it scientifically. This is known by everyone. After all, if this were not possible then science would have no reason to conclude that there is any such thing as experiences.
I'm not entirely certain science (and I'm completely certain that not "everyone") has come to the conclusion that there is such a thing as experiences in the sense that you seem to be using the term. If by "experience," you mean a discrete quanta of qualitative content that can be taken out of the river of time and looked at distinctly and clearly, then no, I'm not certain such a thing does exist.
Heterophenomenology therefore cannot study experiences, only reports and beliefs.
You seem to misunderstand the concept of what it means to study something. Let's go back to the quantum physicist example, the double slit experiment. The physicist is studying the electron. His data, however, does not include the electron itself, as it is not possible to directly view an electron with any equipment that he has available to him. His data instead includes such things as diffraction patterns on radiosensitive film and such. But he is still studying the experience. By the same token, the heterophenomenologist cannot directly record "experiences," because there is no such device that is capable of doing that. He has as his raw the reports, both verbal and otherwise, along with any neural information he can get from the subject at the time of the report-making. Using this data, he can indirectly study the experiences themselves, which is ultimately what he hopes to explain.
If we define consciousness as 'what it is like' then whatever an experience is like is what the experience is. So Dennett cannot argue that we are not an authority on what an experience is like, since what it is like is all that the experience is.
Actually, Dennett grants full authority over 'what it is like' and says as much in the debate with Chalmers (which you again seem to have misread - his exact words are that he will grant dictatorial authority over 'what it is like'). He is just not so quick to give that simplistic and quite probably incorrect definition of what consciousness is. After all, if all we can say that we experience is 'what it is like' for the verbal reporting part of our brain, what about the other parts? What about the right hemisphere? Are you so quick to arbitrarily declare that there is no such thing as 'what it is like' to be the separated right hemisphere? Why? What about the other parts of your brain that you now call "subliminal?" Are they not conscious simply because they cannot tell us 'what it is like?' If by 'what it is like,' you in fact mean 'what it is like' for every part of your brain, whether you consider it a part of your self or not, how do you then study that, when the part of you that you call "you" apparently doesn't have access to all of the information? What about when what you call "you" becomes two parts, as in the case of hemispheric separation? Was the right hemisphere previously a part of the subject's 'self' and now is not? Is it possible that maybe there never was a self? And perhaps there is no such thing as 'what it is like' to be Canute? Let me guess: none of this makes sense to you, so it must be incorrect.
You must have a strange sense of existence if your experiences are all in the past. Do you have none in the present?
What exactly is the present? I'm not able to quantize and isolate discrete moments in time to analyze them, if that's what you mean.
As for incorrigibilty it is clear that I know precisely at any moment what experience I am having.
This is another example of:
Vast amounts of experimental and clinical data suggest x.
y, however, makes more sense to Canute.
Therefore, y must be correct.
Are you still under the impression that this is a valid argument form? Does it even make a difference to you?
This is why we cannot be sure that we all see the same thing when we see 'green'. This seems obvious and uncontentious.
Perhaps with 'green,' but with 'triangle,' I think the opposite is true. It is quite uncontentious that when you say you experience seeing a triangle, you are having exactly the same experience as me. Perhaps you cannot describe the surroundings equally well, but you can very well describe the triangle. There is nothing ineffable about 'triangleness.' It is simply any three-sided figure, the interior angles of which add up to 180.
It's no good just giving up and saying we cannot do this because they are not inter-subjective. It's a refusal to face the facts.
Nobody says don't study x because it isn't intersubjective. We say don't study x because x cannot be directly apprehended. My guess is that, in most cases, our beliefs about our experiences are mostly correct. We should, however, reserve judgement because we cannot know for certain, especially in light of all the data that suggests we use many illusory concepts when we communicate and think about our consciousness. In light of the fact that you seem completely unwilling to accept any experimental or clinical data that runs counter to your intuition, is it really fair for you to suggest that heterophenomenologists are the ones refusing to face the facts?
If you want an in depth explanation I'd suggest reading 'Abhidhamma Studies' by the Venerable Nyananponika Thera. It's heavy going but if you can handle Rosenberg's book then you'll catch the gist of it. It is an explanation of the nature of consciousness and a detailed analysis of its causes and constituents, without a single mention of beliefs and reports.
Does the Venerable tackle any of the issues raised by the experimental and clinical data that has been brought to light by the heterophenomenologists or such models as the tensor network and multiple drafts?
As to qualia I feel that we already have a perfectly good definition, which is why the term is widely used.
What is the definition you use, then? When you use the term "qualia," what is it that you referring to?
To get started I'd suggest the one that Descartes used. Or stick a pin in your foot.
That isn't exactly what I meant by demonstration. What I meant was is there any way you think of to demonstrate to me that you are conscious. I don't question that fact, but still. Although, given that you think zombies are impossible, and could not believe they were having experiences unless they actually were, then the fact that you believe and report to me that you have experiences should suffice as proof for you.
I did not say this. I said that it was not the aim of heterophenomenology to explain experiences.
This is a blatantly, factually incorrect statement. In light of the many quotations I have provided in which Dennett says that it is his aim (and the aim of heterophenomenology) to explain experiences, why do you insist that the opposite is true? I can see how you might claim that the heterophenomenologist
cannot explain experiences, but to continue to say at this point that such a pursuit is not his aim is to just flat out lie.
Well, Dennett does say this. He says we must start from reports and work backwards from there to beliefs.
God, Canute, do you read these passages at all? Dennett says that we work to beliefs as the primary
pretheoretical data. The ultimate knowledge sought, the
post-theoretical data, are the experiences themselves. If you don't think he can get there, fine. But don't lie to us and pretend that he makes no attempt.
Perhaps also you might explain why a zombie would report experiences that by definition it has never had, and what sort of form these reports might take. Btw the zombie argument should not be used as if zombies can exist, that is to misunderstand their legitimate use in certain thought experiments and arguments.
Oh god. Is this another "It's logically possible but not empirically possible" deals? Kind of like 'Last Thursdayism' is logically possible, so evolution by natural selection has some serious explaining to do. Or what about this one: It is logically possible that no human being but me has a head. I could, in fact, be deceived by all of my senses into believing that other humans have heads, but in fact, they do not. Therefore, human anatomy as we know it is an imcomplete science because it cannot demonstrate that humans actually do have heads.
Let's be clear on this. If you think it is empirically impossible for an entity to be physically indentical to you, and behave in exactly the same way, express all of the same beliefs, but not have experiences, then you think there is nothing to experience but physicality.
