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Some People Might Not Have Conscious Experiences


SteveKlinko

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Some People Might Not Have Conscious Experiences

I have always assumed that all normally functioning Human Minds would have at least similar kinds of Conscious Experiences. I have thought this for decades. But after many years of discussions about this with people it has finally become clear to me that some people actually must not have Conscious Experiences or Qualia. I limit this observation to things like the Experience of Redness, the Standard A Tone, the Salty Taste and so on. The Experience of Colors and especially the Experience of Redness has been a major target for my discussions with people on the various Philosophy of Mind and Consciousness Forums. There are people that flat out deny the Existence of the Experience of Redness. I think they give it their best shot at understanding it but they always fall back to just dismissing the Experience of something like Redness as pure Fantasy, Superstition, Magic, and Illusion. I have become convinced that their denials of Conscious Experience, their very words, show that they truly and simply do not perceive Redness as a kind of Experience. There is no Redness Experience. They are not Color blind so they can Detect Red in their Visual Field in some way but it seems to be more at the level of the Neural Activity. They can somehow sense that their Neurons are Firing for Red and indicate that there is Red in their Field of View but there seems to be no Experience of Redness in their Field of View. They deny any such extra Consciousness Phenomenon is happening. I used to think they were just messing with me, and I was hoping that after all these years that they would get tired of continuing their Fraud. But they are not messing with me, they truly do not have Conscious Experiences or Qualia. In fact they say that Qualia was invented by Idiot Philosophers. They are usually nasty and arrogant like that and I wonder if that is a symptom of their lack of Qualia. It is interesting that their lack of Qualia would make them living examples of the P-Zombies from Philosophy. One thing I can say is that if they really never have had an Experience of something like Redness then I can completely understand how they would think it was something Magical, and Illusory. These people simply deny the Existence of Qualia and are completely stymied by talk of Qualia.

 

I have been astounded by the possibility that some people (mostly the Physicalists) actually might not Experience the Color Qualia. It is a mystery to me what their Inner Experience of Color could be like. I have always tried to use the Experience of Redness as a discussion point for talking about Conscious Experiences. These people literally will say that there is no such thing as Redness and they always try to compare descriptions of Experiences of Redness to Religious Experiences. I have tried for a long time to get them to describe what the Experience of Redness means to them. After receiving mostly insults, one of them gave me a description of what the Experience of Redness was from their own point of view. He dismissively said that his Experience was the same as everybody else. He described the multitude of Emotions and Memories that were Experienced while Seeing Red. He went on to describe particular Emotions and Memories. I noticed that there was no recognition of the Experience of the Redness itself, but rather it seemed like his Experience of Redness wholly consisted of Associations to other things. This seemed a little odd, but telling. So I then asked him to strip away all the Emotions, Memories, and other Associations from his Experience of Redness and tell me if there was anything still remaining in the Experience. Here is his reply: "How the {!#%@} would I know? It isn't possible for me to 'strip out all the Emotions, Memories, and any other Associations'. Further, I don't believe for a moment that you can either, Steve. This is navel-gazing, pure and simple." This person obviously does not Experience the Redness, but rather Experiences all these other things in place of the Redness Experience. He literally can not figure out what I am talking about. Notice the reference to Navel-Gazing. He still thinks that the Redness is a Religious Experience.

 

After some further conversations I now understand what an Experience of Redness is for these Physicalists. When they think about Experiencing Redness they always branch off into talking about Emotions and Memories. For them, it appears that the actual Experience of Redness is an Experience of Emotions and an Experience of Memories. That is the Experience for them and there is nothing else for them to report. This is of course why they hate the word Qualia, because it does indeed imply that there is something else happening with the Experience of Redness. I can fully see how they would think that the concept of Qualia is Redundant to their Experience. I can fully now understand why they would think that Qualia and the Experience of Redness are different things. For the Physicalists the Experience of Redness is not what I expected. It is something different than my Experience of Redness. I Experience Redness as a Quale and they Experience Redness as associated Emotions and Memories. In fact I can say I really don't even Experience Redness as Emotions and Memories at all. I just simply Experience Redness as a Thing In Itself.

 

Another discussion thread I have participated in where the people denied the Existence of Qualia was one where the people were convinced that we cannot see a Color until we have a Word for the Color. This seems like a very strange thing to believe. I tried in vain to convince them that the Word for the Color does not make the Color real but that the direct Experience of the Color is real. They could not understand what I was talking about. This can only make sense if you consider that they might never have Experienced a Color Quale. They instead receive some kind of Signals from their Neurons that gives them some type Indication of the different Colors but without an actual Conscious Experience of the Colors. I can see how the Words might be of prime importance to them.

 

But yet another example of People that probably have no Conscious Experiences or Qualia are the people that don't understand the difference between a Computer detecting Red and a Human detecting Red. They probably also just Detect Red in some way but have never had an actual Experience of Redness.

 

The evidence for this lack of Conscious Experience in some people is continuing to grow. It explains the endless arguments about Conscious Experience and Qualia. These people simply do not have Qualia. The Lights are out in their Minds.

 

It occurred to me that the people who claim they have no Qualia or Conscious Experiences like Redness, Standard A Toneness, or Salty Tasteness are actually not even Sentient Beings. Machines can Detect Red Electromagnetic Waves , or Detect a 440Hz Tone, or Detect the presence of Salt, but a Machine is not a Sentient Being. Likewise, the Physicalists on the Forum are technically not Sentient Beings if their claim about not having Qualia is true.

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18 minutes ago, SteveKlinko said:

It occurred to me that the people who claim they have no Qualia or Conscious Experiences like Redness, Standard A Toneness, or Salty Tasteness are actually not even Sentient Beings.

No one claimed that they do not have conscious experiences, that would be bizarre.  Now you are claiming people may not be sentient.  Are you trying to look ridiculous?  If so you are succeeding.

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