madness said:
I don't get your point about the same doubt applying to everything. Physical phenomena are explained in terms of physical interactions. But even if I had a full explanation of what happens in the brain when I am perceiving the colour red, I would not find the experience of redness (qualia) anywhere in that explanation. .
The basic question here is what would be a scientific explanation of consciousness?
Science is about the modelling of reality. There are a well understood set of epistemological issues such as the epistemic cut that needs to be made between the observer and the observed - especially a problem if the observer is the observed! And what we require is a brand of modelling that can then apply consistently across all modelling efforts.
I say this quickly to jump the discussion up to where things might get interesting. You can piddle about forever discussing Descartes and Berkeley, or you can join things in the 21st century.
Now think about this expectation of yours that a theory of mind would deliver to you a feeling of "what it is like" to be experiencing some particular mental state. This is to misunderstand what modelling is about. Do you expect good and useful physical theory to give you a "what it is actually like" experience of photons and quarks?
Yes, you may get some sort of mental imagery from explanations in terms of little balls, little waves, or whatever. But you are fooling yourself if you then think you are experiencing what it is actually like to "observe" reality at that scale.
Actual theory of physical reality is instead a bunch of formal apparatus that allows predictions - control over measurements, control over outcomes. It is all very utilitarian. And good theory is actually about the reduction of information - simplifying by getting rid of the complexity that is reality and imagining instead in terms of balls and waves, or even better, points and paths.
So now what should a theory of mind look like if it was also scientific, consistent with the general way things are done?
Well you would want to be getting away from particulars, such as some particular mental reponse like seeing red, and moving towards the most general or universal principles - a model of mindfulness, rather than a model of mind.
And there are various related mathematical approaches along these lines - pansemiosis, systems science, hierarchy theory, complex adaptive systems, second order cybernetics, autopoiesis, etc.
Rather a rag bag of approaches at the moment. But in various ways, they are trying to model the essence of mindfulness. Knowing form. Anticipatory systems. Holistic organisation.
So then to get back to your demand/expectation that a good theory of mind would have to deliver up a sense of "what it is like" to experience redness. Perhaps you can see that first, this would not be the prime direction in which modelling would develop. Modelling would head towards the general by moving away from such specifics. That is the way modelling operates, by shedding local particulars to gain global "truths".
However, models can then generate useful predictions - they construct local specifics. So now you might say I want a general model that can predict when some system is experiencing red. Or even a good enough model so I know how to build some machine that will experience red.
Say that is just too difficult a job, Would that invalidate some more general model of mindfulness which did successfully give you more general levels of predictive control over reality? We don't say physics fails because we only have these obvious mental constructs like waves and balls, not yet a view of the thing in itself. So where is the justification for imposing a priori failure on theories of consciousness that are "only" more general theories of mindfulness.
So yes, it does seem hard to imagine that an abstract body of theory will deliver to us a subjective impression of something as it really is. But we never actually see things "as they are". Either fundamental particles or even our own mental states.
You think you know what it is to "see red"? Well that is already a theoretically constructed experience you are having. It is not in fact the thing in itself but a way you have culturally learned to frame an experience. You will see it as a qualia - an isolated and distinct mental response. You will say red is red, something naked and pure, not in-betweeny like pink, orange or puce. You will be able to imagine matching your sense of red with my sense of red as if we each had a secret set of crayons that could be objectively compared for tone. There is a bunch of hidden assumptions which are modelling rather than naked experience.
Of course there is some core mental response to cling on to as explanandum. But to flourish "seeing redness" as an obvious hurdle too high for "materialist" theory is both to mistake the nature of modelling (gaining general principles by shedding local particulars) and also the nature of subjective awareness (that it is naked and uncontexted pixels of raw experiencing). Both the method and the target.
Finally, you probably have to study visual neuropsychology before you completely dismiss progress towards theories of redness. For instance, tetrachromacy throws an interesting light on what it is like. As does color-opponent channels.
Or take the experience of seeing brown. Why does it not look like blackish yellow (which it is) when I can see that forest green is blackish green, scarlet is blackish red and navy is blackish blue? I can actually see black in three colours yet not the fourth. Yet well understood materialistic accounts in terms of the processing paths explain exactly why I have this particular subjective response.
Now I do not yet feel satisfied that theory delivers and understanding of why brown looks like brown. But I do feel happy about the reason I don't experience it as yellow tinted black.
And if my goal was to produce a colour experiencing machine, I would have an idea how to build the same "glitch" into the system. Or instead remove that problem.
(BTW: The reason is to do with the way yellow experience is manufactured as a "virtual" colour opponent channel to blue).
Anyway, perhaps you can see why seeing red makes me see red! It is what philosophical bumpkins like Chalmers like to throw up as obvious and unarguable hurdles to theories of mind. But these guys haven't actually made much effort to master the scientific understanding that already exists.
