"Skewed views of science"

[bindeweede]

Another interesting little video from "Doug".



He has made 15 videos and the ones I've seen so far have been good.

http://www.youtube.com/user/QualiaSoup

[bruce]

Excellent :)
Can we make this compulsory viewing?

[bindeweede]

I was wondering where the word "Qualia" comes from. I came across this...

Neurological syndromes in which consciousness seems to malfunction, such as temporal lobe
epilepsy, visual scotomas, Charles Bonnet syndrome, and synesthesia offer valuable clues
about the normal functions of consciousness and ‘qualia’. An investigation into these syn-
dromes reveals, we argue, that qualia are different from other brain states in that they possess
three functional characteristics, which we state in the form of ‘three laws of qualia’ based on a
loose analogy with Newton’s three laws of classical mechanics. First, they are irrevocable: I
cannot simply decide to start seeing the sunset as green, or feel pain as if it were an itch; sec-
ond, qualia do not always produce the same behaviour: given a set of qualia, we can choose
from a potentially infinite set of possible behaviours to execute; and third, qualia endure in
short-term memory, as opposed to non-conscious brain states involved in the on-line guidance
of behaviour in real time. We suggest that qualia have evolved these and other attributes (e.g.
they are ‘filled in’) because of their role in facilitating non-automatic, decision-based action.
We also suggest that the apparent epistemic barrier to knowing what qualia another person is
experiencing can be overcome simply by using a ‘bridge’ of neurons; and we offer a hypothe-
sis about the relation between qualia and one’s sense of self

http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache...&ct=clnk&gl=uk

It is beyond me, but I am reading one of V.S. Ramachandran's books atm - "Phantoms in the brain". It is aimed at the layman, and I am so, so "lay".

But I am trying, ......... no doubt in more ways than one.

[Trinoc]

"Qualia" has always seemed to me to be a word made up by philosophers on the principle that "if you can't explain something, give it a fancy name and pretend that settles the matter". I think it basically means what the rest of us mean by "consciousness", which we don't understand either, so the existence of the word "qualia" doesn't seem to achieve anything at all.

[Lord Muck oGentry]

If you're a man of iron, here is a starting-point for the study of qualia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

Mind you, I suspect that the vast literature on this subject would have been pretty slender if the philosophers, before taking up their pens, had had to say what problem the notion of qualia is supposed to solve.

[bindeweede]

If you're a man of iron, here is a starting-point for the study of qualia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

Mind you, I suspect that the vast literature on this subject would have been pretty slender if the philosophers, before taking up their pens, had had to say what problem the notion of qualia is supposed to solve.

Lord Muck, thank you for the link. I think.

Seven paragraphs on defining it, followed by,

Since it is by definition difficult or impossible to convey qualia verbally, it is difficult to demonstrate them directly in an argument;

I don't think I'll be digging any deeper.

I just wondered why "Doug" used the word in the first place.