I was really unsure if I'd like this article. I'm still not sure if I do. It's about how a teacher motivates his students (science can help his son), but the way it's framed is very grating.
There's this wrong idea out there, that you run into everywhere, that love is independent of physics. That a simulation of a human, grounded in rules of reality, wouldn't tend to its children. It grates me.
A good analogy is: would you take an article about the fun of skydiving and title it "Can falling trump physics?"?
Falling can be described in terms of physics, but the rush you get from it can't be. Not with today's machinery. The model we call physics may be so off-base as to be inapplicable at that stage.
I see what you're saying, but he's talking about 'the meaning of it all', which doesn't feel like a scientific thing.
Perhaps I'm missing your point. The rush you get from skydiving _is_ explainable by physics. The human fight-or-flight response induces the adrenal gland to release epinephrine, which causes a raised heart rate, excitement, etc. Even complex feelings like "yearning to find the meaning of it all" and "loving your disabled son" have a biological basis.
(Disclaimer: I get my science facts from Wikipedia and xkcd)
There are biological causes, but that doesn't explain much of anything at all. You could even look at it purely mathematically, but math alone will never manifest anything.
What you are talking about are data points relevant to different fields of study. Are you asking me to believe that's all there is just because that is all science has seen?
That would be foolish. As I've mentioned, it doesn't feel like a scientific subject. Science is a philosophical subject, not the other way around.
> Are you asking me to believe that's all there is just because that is all science has seen?
No, I object to the use of past tense there. I believe that "all there is" that is observable could eventually be explained by science. Of course, science in its current state is insufficient to explain all there is, as evidenced by all the things we can't explain. But nothing will remain inexplicable forever.
> Science is a philosophical subject, not the other way around.
That's reasonable. Really I'm just using science here as shorthand for "obtaining knowledge". If philosophers can come up with a good explanation of qualia and consciousness etc, without the use of test tubes or brain surgery, that will be fine with me.
I believe that "all there is" that is observable could eventually be explained by science.
I have no reason to believe it. That is why I used the past tense, in fact. People often say "oh it's just X" where X has a lot of gaps and there is a tacit assumption they can and will be filled in some way that satisfies the question. I object to that. Often, what we calls physics today we often call fiction tomorrow. It even happens to Einstein and Hawking.
If philosophers can come up with a good explanation of qualia and consciousness etc
You have missed my point. It's not the explanation that I'm looking at. I'm looking at the subjective meaning a person finds in things. This is not a scientific question. If all there was to life is all things scientific I wouldn't care to be (or about being) alive.
But there is an understanding there that we can't model in physics or biology and may never. We can't model it in psychology to my satisfaction, a field meant to be on that very level. But in a subjective way, we do model it. We poke at it and get the answers we're talking about. It's so isolated to the inside that we find a lot more nuance in it than we have words to describe.
I suggest you also use Wikipedia to get some philosophy: Look up "Qualia". Science is wholly incapable of explaining just exactly why feelings feel the way they do. "Adrenal gland releases epinephrine" is the trigger but it is not sufficient to describe the experience of a conscious person.
Qualia follow rules. They interact with the world. For example, the air vibrates one way instead of another when we talk about them. That's all that's required for something to be explored and understood, at least partially, with the tool of science.
> Why postulate an extramaterial soul, and then postulate that the soul has no effect on the physical world, and then postulate a mysterious unknown material process that causes your internal narrative to talk about conscious experience?
Most Qualia are rather well understood an example taken from wikipedia "the perceived redness of an evening sky".
You can talk about why they sky has 'redness' but subjectively what's important is the sensors in your eye, and how what happens to the signal. If you look at the research, people have tracked what causes each receptor to fire and then followed colors back though the optic nerve. So, really the subjective feeling is a signal we have tracked what more do you want?
Often when people say science can't explain X, really what they mean is they can't follow the explanation.
I'd just like to point out that by definition, that's not qualia. You're talking about something else—which is fine. You can deny the existence of qualia all you like, and many people do.
Dennett has made a very good case for the term being so abused as to be useless. He argues against its existence and seemingly the existence of anything like it. I don't really agree with him in this extended sense but I can't define exactly what it is I do agree with, so for now I can only say that there is a lot more to learn about consciousness and related phenomena.
Feel free to edit wikipedia, Qualia: individual instances of subjective, conscious experience ... Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, or the perceived redness of an evening sky.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia But, I think you might be thinking of something else.
Some people object to saying Subjective Experience the same thing as Brain State. But, I have never seen an argument that does not at some point presuppose the difference. AKA assume a p-zombie exists...
PS: The Chinese room is a thought experiment is a great analogy for consciousness, they only reason to suppose the room is not intelligent is if you presupposes requirements that's the vary existence of such a room disproves. A computer or person following the instructions may not understand Chinese without the instructions but by following them they create something which does understand Chinese. Just as neurons are not by themselves conscious, but together and in the correct arrangement they can create consciousness.
Go back to the 'definitions' section. Dennett went by this (and similar formulations), and made a compelling argument. I would advise reading Quining Qualia if you are interested. I believe that is where he made the case so well. (You can probably find it on the web.)
The Chinese room is a frustrating argument, and I essentially agree with you on that.
however there's no reason to believe 'qualia' aren't explainable. for example, if "consciousness" is a thing, it may be some kind of system or structural artifact induced by the underlying neurology
qualia then would be properly described by their manifestation in that induced system
that doesn't mean that the descriptions of these sorts of things would resemble anything we refer to as "mathematics" or "engineering" or even "science" today. for example, there's no reason to expect that these things are "computable" or decomposable in any sense
however there's no reason to believe 'qualia' aren't explainable
I think there is. 'Qualia' is, in my opinion, a useless term. Even if something is going on of that sort, many of the points in the common definitions distance it from science. The only connection with the outside world people seem to admit is that we are individually aware of it. I'm okay with the possibility that there is something removed from access like that, but I think something very different is going on, which we have a lot of misconceptions about.
To phrase it another way, the bonds between people are more important than the fruit of peoples' labour. Without collaboration, we wouldn't have all of this technology or knowledge in the first place.
There's this wrong idea out there, that you run into everywhere, that love is independent of physics. That a simulation of a human, grounded in rules of reality, wouldn't tend to its children. It grates me.
A good analogy is: would you take an article about the fun of skydiving and title it "Can falling trump physics?"?