I think you’re emphasizing how qualia reports are not always exactly corresponding to qualia and can’t always be taken at face value, and I’m emphasizing that it’s incoherent to say that qualia exist but there’s absolutely no causal connection whatsoever going from an experienced qualia to a sincere qualia report. Both of those can be true!
The first is like saying “if someone says “I see a rock”, we shouldn’t immediately conclude that there was a rock in this person’s field-of-view. It’s a hypothesis we should consider, but not proven.” That’s totally true.
The second is like disputing the claim: “If you describe the complete chain of events leading to someone reporting “I see a rock”, nowhere in that chain of events is there ever an actual rock (with photons bouncing off it), not for anyone ever—oh and there are in fact rocks in the world, and when people talk about rocks they’re describing them correctly, it’s just that they came to have knowledge of rocks through some path that had nothing to do with the existence of actual rocks.” That’s what I would disagree with.
So if you have a complete and correct description of the chain of events that leads someone to say they have qualia, and nowhere in that description is anything that looks just like our intuitive notion of qualia, I think the correct conclusion is “there is nothing in the world that looks just like our intuitive notion of qualia”, not “there’s a thing in the world that’s just like our intuitive notion of qualia, but it’s causally disconnected from our talking about it”.
(I do in fact think “there’s nothing in the world that looks just like our intuitive notion of qualia”. I think this is an area where our perceptions are not neutrally and accurately conveying what’s going on; more like our perception of an optical illusion than our perception of a rock.)
Hi, sorry for the very delayed reply. I think one thing I didn’t mention in the chain of comments above is that I think it’s more plausible that there are interventions that change qualia reports without much changing (morally important) qualia than the reverse: changing important qualia without changing qualia reports. And I gave examples of changing qualia reports without (much) changing qualia, whereas the linked report talks more about changing qualia without substantively changing qualia reports.
I can conceive of examples where qualia interventions change qualia but not qualia reports (eg painkillers for extreme pain that humans naturally forget/round down), but they seem more like edge cases than the examples I gave.
I agree that there are both interventions that change qualia reports without much changing (morally important) qualia and interventions that change qualia without much changing qualia reports, and that we should keep both these possibilities in mind when evaluating interventions.
Thanks!
I think you’re emphasizing how qualia reports are not always exactly corresponding to qualia and can’t always be taken at face value, and I’m emphasizing that it’s incoherent to say that qualia exist but there’s absolutely no causal connection whatsoever going from an experienced qualia to a sincere qualia report. Both of those can be true!
The first is like saying “if someone says “I see a rock”, we shouldn’t immediately conclude that there was a rock in this person’s field-of-view. It’s a hypothesis we should consider, but not proven.” That’s totally true.
The second is like disputing the claim: “If you describe the complete chain of events leading to someone reporting “I see a rock”, nowhere in that chain of events is there ever an actual rock (with photons bouncing off it), not for anyone ever—oh and there are in fact rocks in the world, and when people talk about rocks they’re describing them correctly, it’s just that they came to have knowledge of rocks through some path that had nothing to do with the existence of actual rocks.” That’s what I would disagree with.
So if you have a complete and correct description of the chain of events that leads someone to say they have qualia, and nowhere in that description is anything that looks just like our intuitive notion of qualia, I think the correct conclusion is “there is nothing in the world that looks just like our intuitive notion of qualia”, not “there’s a thing in the world that’s just like our intuitive notion of qualia, but it’s causally disconnected from our talking about it”.
(I do in fact think “there’s nothing in the world that looks just like our intuitive notion of qualia”. I think this is an area where our perceptions are not neutrally and accurately conveying what’s going on; more like our perception of an optical illusion than our perception of a rock.)
Hi, sorry for the very delayed reply. I think one thing I didn’t mention in the chain of comments above is that I think it’s more plausible that there are interventions that change qualia reports without much changing (morally important) qualia than the reverse: changing important qualia without changing qualia reports. And I gave examples of changing qualia reports without (much) changing qualia, whereas the linked report talks more about changing qualia without substantively changing qualia reports.
I can conceive of examples where qualia interventions change qualia but not qualia reports (eg painkillers for extreme pain that humans naturally forget/round down), but they seem more like edge cases than the examples I gave.
I agree that there are both interventions that change qualia reports without much changing (morally important) qualia and interventions that change qualia without much changing qualia reports, and that we should keep both these possibilities in mind when evaluating interventions.