When you perceive a color, is it not self-evident that the color “looks” a certain way? There is no one doing the looking; it just looks. Color and disvalue are properties of conscious experience, and they are real parts of the world. I would say our subjective experience is in fact the “realest” part of the world because there can be no doubt about its existence, whereas we cannot ever be sure what is really “out there” that we are interpreting.
If no property of (dis)value existed and couldn’t ever exist, then I think it would make no difference at all which outcome is brought about. I could just go chop my arm off and it wouldn’t matter. The fact that I wouldn’t want to do this would be irrelevant, because the wanting wouldn’t by itself translate into any value. “I” am just a flow or sequence of experiences, and wanting is just a kind of experience with no intrinsic value.
The motivational salience you speak of in one of your posts may be a necessary condition for suffering (in humans), but the disvalue is exclusively in the distinct way the experience feels.
When you perceive a color, is it not self-evident that the color “looks” a certain way? There is no one doing the looking; it just looks. Color and disvalue are properties of conscious experience, and they are real parts of the world. I would say our subjective experience is in fact the “realest” part of the world because there can be no doubt about its existence, whereas we cannot ever be sure what is really “out there” that we are interpreting.
I’m sympathetic to illusionism about phenomenal properties (illusionism about phenomenal consciousness), i.e. I don’t believe consciousness is phenomenal, ineffable, intrinsic, qualitative, etc.. People often mean phenomenal properties or qualia when they talk about things just looking a certain way. This might cut against your claims here.
However, I suspect there are ways to interpret your statements that are compatible with illusionism. Maybe something like your brain is undergoing specific patterns of reactions and discriminations to inputs, and these are distinctive for distinctive colours. What it means to “look” or “feel” a certain way is to just undergo particular patterns of reactions. And it’s wired in or cognitively impenetrable: you don’t have direct introspective access to the processes responsible for these patterns of reactions, only their effects on you.
Furthermore, everything we respond to and are aware of is filtered through these processes, so “we cannot ever be sure what is really “out there” that we are interpreting”.
there can be no doubt about its existence
I’m not sure about this. I’d probably want to see a deductive argument for this.
If no property of (dis)value existed and couldn’t ever exist, then I think it would make no difference at all which outcome is brought about.
I’m not saying values don’t exist, I just think they are projected, rather than intrinsic. It can still matter to whatever’s doing the projection.
The motivational salience you speak of in one of your posts may be a necessary condition for suffering (in humans), but the disvalue is exclusively in the distinct way the experience feels.
This seems to me to be separating the apparent disvalue from one of the crucial mechanisms responsible for (a large share of) the apparent disvalue. Motivational salience is what gives suffering its apparent urgency, and (I think) a big part of what makes suffering feel the way it does. If you got rid of its motivational salience, it would feel very different.
I don’t think I properly understand your position. You are not sure that you are currently having an experience? Because if you are having an experience, then the experience necessarily exists, otherwise you can’t be having it.
When you perceive a color, is it not self-evident that the color “looks” a certain way? There is no one doing the looking; it just looks. Color and disvalue are properties of conscious experience, and they are real parts of the world. I would say our subjective experience is in fact the “realest” part of the world because there can be no doubt about its existence, whereas we cannot ever be sure what is really “out there” that we are interpreting.
If no property of (dis)value existed and couldn’t ever exist, then I think it would make no difference at all which outcome is brought about. I could just go chop my arm off and it wouldn’t matter. The fact that I wouldn’t want to do this would be irrelevant, because the wanting wouldn’t by itself translate into any value. “I” am just a flow or sequence of experiences, and wanting is just a kind of experience with no intrinsic value.
The motivational salience you speak of in one of your posts may be a necessary condition for suffering (in humans), but the disvalue is exclusively in the distinct way the experience feels.
I’m sympathetic to illusionism about phenomenal properties (illusionism about phenomenal consciousness), i.e. I don’t believe consciousness is phenomenal, ineffable, intrinsic, qualitative, etc.. People often mean phenomenal properties or qualia when they talk about things just looking a certain way. This might cut against your claims here.
However, I suspect there are ways to interpret your statements that are compatible with illusionism. Maybe something like your brain is undergoing specific patterns of reactions and discriminations to inputs, and these are distinctive for distinctive colours. What it means to “look” or “feel” a certain way is to just undergo particular patterns of reactions. And it’s wired in or cognitively impenetrable: you don’t have direct introspective access to the processes responsible for these patterns of reactions, only their effects on you.
Furthermore, everything we respond to and are aware of is filtered through these processes, so “we cannot ever be sure what is really “out there” that we are interpreting”.
I’m not sure about this. I’d probably want to see a deductive argument for this.
I’m not saying values don’t exist, I just think they are projected, rather than intrinsic. It can still matter to whatever’s doing the projection.
This seems to me to be separating the apparent disvalue from one of the crucial mechanisms responsible for (a large share of) the apparent disvalue. Motivational salience is what gives suffering its apparent urgency, and (I think) a big part of what makes suffering feel the way it does. If you got rid of its motivational salience, it would feel very different.
I don’t think I properly understand your position. You are not sure that you are currently having an experience? Because if you are having an experience, then the experience necessarily exists, otherwise you can’t be having it.