Eliminative Materialism and Consciousness

[Febble]

Febble
Although Dennett had a damn good try (and succeeded, IMO).
Dennett's postion is that subjective experience doesn't really exist.

No it isn't.

[Garrett]

Febble
No it isn't.
Yes it is.

Wikipedia: The most common versions (of eliminative materialism) are eliminativism about propositional attitudes, as expressed by Paul and Patricia Churchland,[6] and eliminativism about qualia (subjective experience), as expressed by Daniel Dennett and Georges Rey.[2]

I've read him, and I agree with that - when he "explains" consciousness, he isn't talking about the consciousness that people subjectively experience. He justifies that by dismissing our feeling or understanding that we have subjective experiences as "folk psychology".

He is eliminative about subjective experience. He's pulled the wool over your eyes. :(

[Wordy]

He (Dennett) justifies that by dismissing our feeling or understanding that we have subjective experiences as "folk psychology".

He is eliminative about subjective experience.

Dismissing? He elevate it to Folk Psychology? Raise it, recognize it,
account for folk Psychology instead of to hide it in the dark.

Illuminate or enlight? Don't talk bad about Dennett. :)
Just kidding. Poor Wordy poor Lizzie we all have been had by the lever Dennett.
Garrett set us straight.

"He is eliminative about subjective experience."

Is that really a fair way of retelling it.

He recognize Folk Psychology for what it really does.
FP interpret subjective experiences and ascribe things
to them that have very little evidence for them.
So he eliminate the interpretations as not likely models.

Does he really eliminative subjective experience as phenomena,
is it not the interpretation he describe as typical Folk Psychology.

Maybe me picky in a confusing way.

I don't agree with all that Dennett say, I am skeptical to his
tolerance towards buddhist ideas if he has such. some of what
he writes give me that gut feeling that he secretly do such meditation.
I don't remember he ever have officially supported it but I would not
be surprised but feel sad though.

Paul and Patricia Churchland was very eager in supporting eliminativism
but have they not given up on that since long time? When did they defend
it in the same manner they did between 1980 to 1996?

the book on Empiricism and Van Fraasen was the last time they tried?

I could be wrong have not read lately.

[dug_down_deep]

Eliminative reductionism is a very interesting topic, possibly deserving of its own thread, but sort of OT here. Garrett, Lizzie, or Wordy, feel free to start a separate thread, or else I can start one with the posts from here if anyone's interested.

[Wordy]

I know too little about it to really be of much help in such a thread.

I just admired their courage to even take it up to debate.
I loved them from 1980 on. Very good people. Respect! :)

[Febble]

Febble
No it isn't.
Yes it is.

Wikipedia: The most common versions (of eliminative materialism) are eliminativism about propositional attitudes, as expressed by Paul and Patricia Churchland,[6] and eliminativism about qualia (subjective experience), as expressed by Daniel Dennett and Georges Rey.[2]

I've read him, and I agree with that - when he "explains" consciousness, he isn't talking about the consciousness that people subjectively experience. He justifies that by dismissing our feeling or understanding that we have subjective experiences as "folk psychology".

Well you have clearly misunderstood what he is saying. I challenge you to find a single quotation from Dennett in which he dismisses 'our feeling or understanding that we have subjective experiences as "folk psychology" '

Of course he is talking about "the consciousness that people subjectively experience" - how else would they experience it? What Dennett does do is to propose "heterophenomenology" as a method of studying subjective experience (phenomenology). But he'd scarcely be proposing a method of studying it if he didn't think it existed.

He is eliminative about subjective experience. He's pulled the wool over your eyes. :(

Well, it looks to me as though you are imagining things that aren't there. Find me that quote (not a Wiki summary, but an actual quotation of words written or spoken by Dennett).

cheers

Lizzie

[Garrett]

Febble

I think its a good idea to split the posts about eliminative reductionism into a new thread. Doug, please?

I've given my view, and backed it up. Febble's request is reasonable, but I have no access to Dennett books right now, and not much desire to wade through looking for quotes. We do have "Consciousness Explained" at our local library, I've read it before, and I'll check it out again when I get a chance.

What Dennett does do is to propose "heterophenomenology" as a method of studying subjective experience (phenomenology). But he'd scarcely be proposing a method of studying it if he didn't think it existed.
Lizzie, his eliminativism is rather subtle perhaps, but exists nonetheless. His "heterophenomenology" specifically removes first-person experience from that which can be - or needs to be - known about the mind (Wiki).

[Quizalufagus]

This discussion was split off from Beam me up, Scotty! (http://talkrational.org/showthread.php?t=1064)

[His Noodly Appendage]

The funniest part is that the hover-preview in the thread list doesn't include quotes.

So I mouse over ":D Eliminative reductionism" and see "No it isn't."

...okay, well I found it funny...

[Febble]

Febble

I think its a good idea to split the posts about eliminative reductionism into a new thread. Doug, please?

I've given my view, and backed it up. Febble's request is reasonable, but I have no access to Dennett books right now, and not much desire to wade through looking for quotes. We do have "Consciousness Explained" at our local library, I've read it before, and I'll check it out again when I get a chance.

What Dennett does do is to propose "heterophenomenology" as a method of studying subjective experience (phenomenology). But he'd scarcely be proposing a method of studying it if he didn't think it existed.
Lizzie, his eliminativism is rather subtle perhaps, but exists nonetheless. His "heterophenomenology" specifically removes first-person experience from that which can be - or needs to be - known about the mind (Wiki).

Well, what he eliminates is the woo thing - the homunculus sitting in the Cartesian Theatre - as he should. That doesn't mean there is no subjective experience- it means that subjective experience is generated as part of what the brain does.

But I'll be interested in what you find in the library :D

[Wordy]

" Eliminative reductionism" churchland


Put these words in that order in google and the first ten result shows that the title more likely is a kind of smear word combination from social science critics of materialism and not what those accused of it Paul and Patricia Churchland and Daniel Dennett uses as self identification.

[Wordy]

reductionism, eliminativism, Folk Psychology,

If one uses these words the results are somewhat more fair to the participants.

PhilSci Archive - Eliminativist Undercurrents in the New Wave ...
Keywords: Reductionism, Eliminativism, Folk Psychology, Theories. Subjects: General Issues: Reductionism/Holism · General Issues: Structure of Theories ...
philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000308

IngentaConnect 4. Reductionism and Eliminativism Reconsidered
Reductionism and Eliminativism Reconsidered. Author: Horst, Steven. Source: Beyond Reduction, October 2007 , pp. 67-83(17) ...
www.ingentaconnect.com/content/oso/2004077/2007/00000001/00000001/art00008

Consciousness in Philosophy and Cognitive Neuroscience
The basic question that is addressed is whether materialism in one of its versions is adequate - that is, whether behaviorism, reductionism, eliminativism, ...
www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-18391460.html

I suggest that the Moderators change the title of this thread to

reductionism, eliminativism, Folk Psychology,

In that way one are fair to both those involved and to us here. Not all of us are Dualists or Social Scientists or into Post-modernism who love to talk down materialist views.

[Rilx]

I'm just reading Consciousness Explained - about halfway now - and I don't see yet any sign that Dennett were even preparing to explain consciousness. So I think it won't happen. Garrett's view seems to support my conclusion.

With this little lack excluded, it is a good book. By heterophenomenology Dennett matches up lots of important research results to a consistent theory. Especially I like the elimination of central supervisor, or processor, or Cartesian homunculus, or ... hmm.. to say more I have to read more. But it is all about physical mechanical functionality.

This is also my opinion about Dennett's "explanation of consciousness":
That doesn't mean there is no subjective experience- it means that subjective experience is generated as part of what the brain does.
Yes, it is generated, but what it is? Equally we can say that language is but generated speech.

I've ordered Strange Loop and expect to receive it next week. Maybe it goes half a step farther. But if someone had really explained consciousness we all knowed it, didn't we? ;)

[trendkill]

Possibly Dennett's paper Who's On First? Heterophenomenology Explained (http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/JCSarticle.pdf) may help. I'm reading it now, and although it isn't blindingly clear on this question one way or the other so far, I think Lizzie's right; Garrett is assuming too much. Consider this quotation from page 3: In the quest for primary data, Levine wants to go all the way to (a) conscious experiences themselves, instead of stopping with (b) subjects’ beliefs about their experiences, but this is not a good idea. If (a) outruns (b)—if you have conscious experiences you don’t believe you have—those extraconscious experiences are just as inaccessible to you as to the external observers. So Levine’s proposed alternative garners you no more usable data than hetero-phenomenology does. Moreover, if (b) outruns (a) — if you believe you have conscious experiences that you don’t in fact have —then it is your beliefs that we need to explain, not the non-existent experiences! Sticking to the heterophenomenological standard, then, and treating (b) as the maximal set of primary data, is the way to avoid any commitment to spurious data.It does seem as if he's treating first-person experience as being real here, if for no other reason than that he distinguishes between a conscious experience you really have and a "nonexistent" conscious experience that you don't have.

It appears that he is arguing for nothing more than the analysis of all available data, and no spurious data. I agree with Dennett when he says of the "Mary's room" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary's_room) thought experiment that Mary gains no new information about the experience of red when she actually sees something red, and I do not deny the existence of subjective experience, so I think I can see where he's coming from. The experience of red is not information about the experience of red; it is the very thing the information is about. To say that the scientist logically has to have the experience of red in her brain in order to understand all there is to know about it, to me, is much like claiming that in order to learn everything about a particular rock, a geologist would have to have that rock actually embedded in his brain; that is to say, he would have to know the rock itself, and not just know information about the rock. When it comes to subjective experience, it seems fairly common for people to confuse the object of study "x" with "knowledge about x"; to think of x itself as an extra bit of knowledge about x that the data doesn't contain. Thus, when Dennett says things that imply "everything we can possibly know about x is contained in the data about x", they parse this as "Dennett denies the existence of x".

[Wordy]

Yes, it is generated, but what it is? Equally we can say that language is but generated speech.


Rilx I don't want to nit pick at all. Just to help me understand what you intented to write? To say!

If I re-arrange your words they make more sense to me.

"Yes, it is generated, but what is it?


"Equally we can say that language is but generated speech. "

Do I understand you to give an example of reductionism going too far in your opinion?

I would have written something like this: Language could be reduced to nothing but executed motor circuits that fire vocal output from non accessable mentalese that we only after hearing them accept as what we wanted or intended to say.

That maybe is too redcutionistic but could be true nevertheless.

Am I too far out?

[dug_down_deep]

The basic question that is addressed is whether materialism in one of its versions is adequate - that is, whether behaviorism, reductionism, eliminativism, ...
www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-18391460.html

I suggest that the Moderators change the title of this thread to

reductionism, eliminativism, Folk Psychology,

In that way one are fair to both those involved and to us here. Not all of us are Dualists or Social Scientists or into Post-modernism who love to talk down materialist views.
I checked with the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and changed the title to match the standard terminology.

[Wordy]

It maybe fits the terminology of those that are opposed to eliminativism but that is not fair to use. didn't my googing show what was the better approach.

I trust you did a good job. Mine by accident was even better than yours.
I suggest you change it to my proposed one.

[Febble]

I'm just reading Consciousness Explained - about halfway now - and I don't see yet any sign that Dennett were even preparing to explain consciousness. So I think it won't happen. Garrett's view seems to support my conclusion.

Well, keep going. One thing he does, of course, is to cut the problem into doable bits. And I'd say his point is that consciousness can be explained in doable bits. There isn't some special stuff or process called "consciousness" but that consciousness consists in being conscious OF things. Better viewed as a verb than a noun. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, any more than viewing running as something that legs do means that running doesn't exist.

With this little lack excluded, it is a good book. By heterophenomenology Dennett matches up lots of important research results to a consistent theory. Especially I like the elimination of central supervisor, or processor, or Cartesian homunculus, or ... hmm.. to say more I have to read more. But it is all about physical mechanical functionality.

And about how all that functionality contributes to what we refer to as "consciousness" to an extent that it doesn't actually leave a Hard problem to solve.

This is also my opinion about Dennett's "explanation of consciousness":
That doesn't mean there is no subjective experience- it means that subjective experience is generated as part of what the brain does.
Yes, it is generated, but what it is? Equally we can say that language is but generated speech.

I've ordered Strange Loop and expect to receive it next week. Maybe it goes half a step farther. But if someone had really explained consciousness we all knowed it, didn't we? ;)

I think Hofstadter does a nice complementary job!

[clivedurdle]

Is not the whole point of freedom evolves that consciousness is an emergent thingy?

[Wordy]

I guess that is a fair retelling? Has anybody question that that is so?

[dug_down_deep]

It maybe fits the terminology of those that are opposed to eliminativism but that is not fair to use. didn't my googing show what was the better approach.

I trust you did a good job. Mine by accident was even better than yours.
I suggest you change it to my proposed one.
I disagree, Wordy. Please cite your source and I'll be happy to compare, but for right now, I'm going with these:


Eliminative Materialism on SEP (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative/)
Paul Churchland on Eliminative Materialism (http://maverickphilosopher.powerblogs.com/posts/1143758604.shtml)



What is the difference, to you, between "Eliminativism" and "Eliminative Materialism"? I guess I just don't see what the problem is, but you're welcome to raise the issue again, here or in the In Confidence (http://talkrational.org/forumdisplay.php?f=27) forum.

HTH

[Wordy]

That is better than the first title I reacted to. I settle for that one then
I don't want you to see me as a trouble maker.

I bought the first edition of this book when it came out around 1981
Churchland, Paul. M. (1988). Matter and Consciousness, Revised Edition. Cambrigdge, MA: MIT Press.

In it he described his view as Scientific Realism. I don't remember he ever described it as
"Eliminative Reductionism". I think that term was invented by critics of Scientific Realism.

But I could be wrong, I don't have read the revised edition of the book.

I've read Churchland, Patricia.S. (1986). Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind/Brain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

I don'tremembe her to describe her view as Eliminative Reductionism either.

Both your links seems to be by critics of Eliminativism. Could you cite something that indicate that they author of these texts is a supporter of it?

do you see why I asked for a fair title and not from the nasty critics.

[Rilx]

Yes, it is generated, but what it is? Equally we can say that language is but generated speech.


Rilx I don't want to nit pick at all. Just to help me understand what you intented to write? To say!

If I re-arrange your words they make more sense to me.

"Yes, it is generated, but what is it?
I think you understood it right. Subjective experience is generated by certain brain processes but what means to be conscious of such experience?
"Equally we can say that language is but generated speech. "

Do I understand you to give an example of reductionism going too far in your opinion?Right again.

I would have written something like this: Language could be reduced to nothing but executed motor circuits that fire vocal output from non accessable mentalese that we only after hearing them accept as what we wanted or intended to say.

No - you are describing a machine which mechanically as a computer converts thoughts to language. It is a reductive model, but it is not so.

Noam Chomsky has shown that we create grammatically new language, sentences which have never existed grammatically before. Which means that our language producing machine develops itself continuously. Speaking a sentence changes the machine, its circuits are different before and after, which makes it impossible ever to "push the sentence backwards" and reduce it to the original thought.

I hope you get what I meaned. If not, it's not your fault, it's the irreducible nature of our language. :D

[dug_down_deep]

That is better than the first title I reacted to. I settle for that one then I don't want you to see me as a trouble maker.
I don't see you as a trouble maker. I was just trying to understand why you found the revised title objectionable. I really don't mind making it what you said either. I would just like to know why I am doing so.

I bought the first edition of this book
Churchland, Paul. M. (1988). Matter and Consciousness, Revised Edition. Cambrigdge, MA: MIT Press.

In it he described his view as Scientific Realism. I don't remember he ever described it as
"Eliminative Reductionism". I think that term was invented by critics of Scientific Realism.
I agreed with you that 'eliminative reductionism' was a misnomer. That's why I changed the title the first time.

Both your links seems to be by critics of Eliminativism. Could you cite something that indicate that they author of these texts is a supporter of it?
The Churchland link contains an excerpt from an article by Paul Churchland, wherein he uses the term 'eliminative materialism' in a positive sense as a position to defend. That's why I thought it was relevant. The SEP is presumably being viewed by a large number of physicalist-minded philosophers, who would, I have no doubt, demand correction of any sort of inflammatory usage.

do you see why I asked for a fair title and not from the nasty critics.
Of course. But you used the term 'eliminativism', and I cannot see how that is not the same sort of term as 'eliminative materialism'. And I've certainly seen Daniel Dennett asserting his materialism proudly.

[Wordy]

Your the Mod, I let you win.
Didn't Febble found a quote where Dennett says he explains Hetero ... something.
I'm not really into phil so I fail to remember such words.

If Daniel Dennett ever reads the following I hope he could forgive me,

My worst fear about him is that after his severe stroke that his body convert him to a version of Buddhism. I see such sentiments in some of his writing. I am very skeptical to such so I prefer to live without philosophy. I don't even trust Churchlands to be immune to such. The intellectual climate in US could be so fierce that it is impossible to stand outside of the contempory ZeitGeist .

I have put trust in people like Pascal Boyer and others like him.
Frans de Waal, "Survival of the Kindest: Of Selfish Genes and Unselfish Dogs
http://wp.rutgers.edu/courses/101/link_o_mat/waal.html

by studying the compassionate and altruistic behavior of the bonobo and the other great apes that we can gain access "to a side of ourselves that the textbooks have put under the table."

such research to me looks much more promising then philosophical arm chair speculation on Ethical dilemmas.

[Garrett]

Dennett's book is no longer available at my library. But we have a new acquisition: Hofstadter's "I am a strange loop", so I'm happy enough!

[Garrett]

Febble
Well, what he eliminates is the woo thing - the homunculus sitting in the Cartesian Theatre - as he should. That doesn't mean there is no subjective experience- it means that subjective experience is generated as part of what the brain does.
With that idea in mind, address the last paragraph of post 7.

Since subjective experience is generated as part of what the brain does, then why isn't it included in his heterophenomenology?

[The AntiChris]

Since subjective experience is generated as part of what the brain does, then why isn't it included in his heterophenomenology?It is.

From Dennett's Who’s On First? Heterophenomenology Explained (http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/JCSarticle.pdf):

Most of the method is so obvious and uncontroversial that some scientists are baffled that I would even call it a method: basically, you have to take the vocal sounds emanating from the subjects’ mouths (and your own mouth) and interpret them! Well of course. What else could you do? Those sounds aren’t just belches and moans; they’re speech acts, reporting, questioning, correcting, requesting, and so forth. Using such standard speech acts, other events such as buttonpresses can be set up to be interpreted as speech acts as well, with highly specific meanings and fine temporal resolution. What this interpersonal communication enables you, the investigator, to do is to compose a catalogue of what the subject believes to be true about his or her conscious experience. This catalogue of beliefs fleshes out the subject’s heterophenomenological world, the world according to S—the subjective world of one subject—not to be confused with the real world. The total set of details of heterophenomenology, plus all the data we can gather about concurrent events in the brains of subjects and in the surrounding environment, comprise the total data set for a theory of human consciousness. It leaves out no objective phenomena and no subjective phenomena of consciousness.

Chris

[Febble]

What Dennett does do is to propose "heterophenomenology" as a method of studying subjective experience (phenomenology). But he'd scarcely be proposing a method of studying it if he didn't think it existed.
Lizzie, his eliminativism is rather subtle perhaps, but exists nonetheless. His "heterophenomenology" specifically removes first-person experience from that which can be - or needs to be - known about the mind (Wiki).

Febble
Well, what he eliminates is the woo thing - the homunculus sitting in the Cartesian Theatre - as he should. That doesn't mean there is no subjective experience- it means that subjective experience is generated as part of what the brain does.
With that idea in mind, address the last paragraph of post 7.

Since subjective experience is generated as part of what the brain does, then why isn't it included in his heterophenomenology?

See Chris's quotation in the post above. i.e. it is.

[Wordy]

Chris, that was a really helpful quote and it supports my take that it is the critics of Dennett that attribute views upon him he himself says he has not.

I know it is kind of ironic but critics always think they know better than the criticised what goes in the others head.

I behave like that too. some of the things humans do seems to be in relation to others so if they hadn't attributed views on him he maybe had used other words.

One need to read his words as a comment to the ongoing debate he is engaged in at the time of writing. sorry if i come though as if I know. I only think aloud. Could be more directed towards myself to remind me.

Reductionism to me is more like a tool and not a school of thought.

The contempory ??? consensus seems to be that the tool to use is named
methodological naturalism. Outside of that is metaphysical speculations?

when one do guessing that are not directly supported by evidence?

Isn't terms like reductionism taken over by the holisticists to more be a smear word to describe what they don't want to support. The few people who declare themselves to be Reductionists do it in relation to these Holists?

Had there not been any Holists they had no need to contrast themselves in relation to them.

I see reductionists as similar to atheists. They say no to all the claims from the Holists.

when Paul Churchland used the word Eliminativism around 1979 to 1981 was that not as a reaction against the Folk Psychology about consciousness.

I have not read Rei but is this word Eliminativism at all a live issue?

I know me have not catched up on latest texts but I have the impression that the debate has dwindled down to only be some Holists still wanting to condemn the damn Eliminativists. Does the Churchlands stills in any active way promote these ideas?

I could be wrong but I guess they know that we have to do neuro science and that philosophy has nothing to contribute. Only natural science research has something to contribute to new knowledge.

[dug_down_deep]

It appears to me that Dennett substitutes properties of belief reports for properties of subjective experience. He is providing an eliminative reduction of subjective experience to verbal reports. How does he factor in the simple fact that observations of verbal reports are also verbal reports of subjective experience? I don't see how you can have your cake and eat it too.

[Febble]

It appears to me that Dennett substitutes properties of belief reports for properties of subjective experience.

In what way? Can you give an example?

He is providing an eliminative reduction of subjective experience to verbal reports.

No, I don't think so. He is regarding the verbal report of a subjective experience as valid evidence of a subjective experience. That isn't an "eliminative reduction" of subjective experience, simply a way of getting at the data. When we infer a planet from the trajectory of other objects, we are not reducing the existence of that planet to its effect on those trajectories. We are inferring its existence from its effect. Similarly, Dennett is inferring the existence of subjective experience from an objective observation of the subject's reports.

How does he factor in the simple fact that observations of verbal reports are also verbal reports of subjective experience? I don't see how you can have your cake and eat it too.

Well, the observation of a report is not the same thing as the report itself. So I'm not sure what cake it is you want to have/eat.

[The AntiChris]

It appears to me that Dennett substitutes properties of belief reports for properties of subjective experience. He is providing an eliminative reduction of subjective experience to verbal reports. How does he factor in the simple fact that observations of verbal reports are also verbal reports of subjective experience? I don't see how you can have your cake and eat it too.
Bearing in mind heterophenomenology is a proposed methodology for studying conscious experience, what is it you think is missing? What would Dennett need to include to avoid your criticism? :dunno:

Chris

[Preno]

It appears to me that Dennett substitutes properties of belief reports for properties of subjective experience. He is providing an eliminative reduction of subjective experience to verbal reports. How does he factor in the simple fact that observations of verbal reports are also verbal reports of subjective experience? I don't see how you can have your cake and eat it too.They are reports of me seeing a table or me feeling dizzy. They are not reports of me feeling this or that "quale". So they are, trivially, subjective in the sense that I am seeing the table, not you, but not in the sense that you could not see the same table. It makes sense to talk of seeing the same table, it doesn't make sense to talk of experiencing the same "seeing" in some non-sensical quale sense.

They must be reports of states that are in some sense shared between the spakers, because otherwise we could not make sense of what the other person is saying. That idea is neither controversial nor new.

As for eliminative reduction, what's the difference between eliminative and non-eliminative reduction?

[dug_down_deep]

Bearing in mind heterophenomenology is a proposed methodology for studying conscious experience, what is it you think is missing? What would Dennett need to include to avoid your criticism?
I have no strong criticism at the moment for any serious researcher's methodology in studying consciousness. It seems a tough nut to crack, and all attempts are welcome. The only thing I object to is the ontological assumption, that there is no need to speak of correlations between experiences and material systems, since the experiences are nothing more than the systems. My weak criticism of the methodology (which I admittedly have only a light knowledge of), is that it may overlook a critical gap between verbal reports and actual experiences. There is no guarantee that what comes out of someone's mouth corresponds to what is going on in their head, to put it crudely.

[Febble]

There is no guarantee that what comes out of someone's mouth corresponds to what is going on in their head, to put it crudely.

No guarantee, certainly, but plenty of ways of correlating the two and finding that, indeed, they correlate.

[dug_down_deep]

They are reports of me seeing a table or me feeling dizzy. They are not reports of me feeling this or that "quale". So they are, trivially, subjective in the sense that I am seeing the table, not you, but not in the sense that you could not see the same table. It makes sense to talk of seeing the same table, it doesn't make sense to talk of experiencing the same "seeing" in some non-sensical quale sense.

They must be reports of states that are in some sense shared between the spakers, because otherwise we could not make sense of what the other person is saying. That idea is neither controversial nor new.
I don't disagree with anything in those two paragraphs. Did you think I did? Why?

As for eliminative reduction, what's the difference between eliminative and non-eliminative reduction?
Eliminative reduction eliminates the original theory, replacing it with a wholly new theory. Non-eliminative reduction provides a theory that underlies the reduced theory, but does not necessarily replace it. That is my understanding, mostly based on something Pat Churchland wrote.

[dug_down_deep]

There is no guarantee that what comes out of someone's mouth corresponds to what is going on in their head, to put it crudely.

No guarantee, certainly, but plenty of ways of correlating the two and finding that, indeed, they correlate.
Yeah, nothing's perfect. But it's critical to understand where the errors might occur. If one makes the assumption that there is no meaningful gap between experience and verbal reports then one may allow those errors to occur unnoticed.

[Wordy]

As far as I know from reading Gazzaniga and many others it is huge differences between what the body register and what the executive circuits give output as the view of the person.

One researcher here in Sweden working at the Karolinska Institutet he concluded that

as "persons" we only know after we heard ourselves saying something that we know what we had to say on something so "we" don't know either what is really going on within us.

It seems at times that after the fact that our body have said something we have to either retract and say: Oups that was not what I meant to say. I intended to say:::

Or to bit the sour grape and say. Hm I stand by that but have no good argueing for it.

I doubt we really know what within us that decides on things,. At times it seems to be an AutoPilot just doing AdHoc things without asking our conscious consideration.

[dug_down_deep]

It appears to me that Dennett substitutes properties of belief reports for properties of subjective experience.

In what way? Can you give an example?
I was responding to the quoted piece in post #28. That is the only example I can provide without going exploring. It seems clear that Dennett is proposing that the only real stuff on view is the content of verbal reports, not the subject's beliefs about experience, or presumably the experience itself.

He is providing an eliminative reduction of subjective experience to verbal reports.

No, I don't think so. He is regarding the verbal report of a subjective experience as valid evidence of a subjective experience. That isn't an "eliminative reduction" of subjective experience, simply a way of getting at the data. When we infer a planet from the trajectory of other objects, we are not reducing the existence of that planet to its effect on those trajectories. We are inferring its existence from its effect. Similarly, Dennett is inferring the existence of subjective experience from an objective observation of the subject's reports.
I disagree. I don't think he's regarding verbal reports of subjective experience as evidence of subjective experience. I think he's regarding verbal reports of subjective experience as evidence of beliefs about subjective experiences.

How does he factor in the simple fact that observations of verbal reports are also verbal reports of subjective experience? I don't see how you can have your cake and eat it too.
Well, the observation of a report is not the same thing as the report itself. So I'm not sure what cake it is you want to have/eat.
The observation of the report of an observation is the same thing as an observation of the report of a subjective experience, though. The belief in a phenomenal experience of a colored spot of light is not in any way I can see any different from the belief in the phenomenal experience of observing a subject observing a colored spot of light. So why dismiss the properties of the colored light experience while fully accepting the properties of the experiment experience? That's what I mean.

I do feel I'm flying a bit wildly with my hands off the rudder, though, since I've never made it through an entire monograph by Dennett. So take my criticisms of him in particular with a grain of salt. (As I'm sure you were already doing.;))

[The AntiChris]

The only thing I object to is the ontological assumption, that there is no need to speak of correlations between experiences and material systems, since the experiences are nothing more than the systems. But Dennett's heterophenomenology makes no assumptions.
My weak criticism of the methodology (which I admittedly have only a light knowledge of), is that it may overlook a critical gap between verbal reports and actual experiences. There is no guarantee that what comes out of someone's mouth corresponds to what is going on in their head, to put it crudely.Dennett clearly states that his methodology does not rely on verbal reports alone. He clearly says: "plus all the data we can gather about concurrent events in the brains of subjects and in the surrounding environment, comprise the total data set for a theory of human consciousness.". You appear to be implying that Dennett is omitting something vital from his proposed methodology, although quite what you think is missing is not clear. :dunno:

Chris

[dug_down_deep]

Dennett clearly states that his methodology does not rely on verbal reports alone. He clearly says: "plus all the data we can gather about concurrent events in the brains of subjects and in the surrounding environment, comprise the total data set for a theory of human consciousness.". You appear to be implying that Dennett is omitting something vital from his proposed methodology, although quite what you think is missing is not clear. :dunno:
What is missing are the qualities of the phenomenal experience itself.

[His Noodly Appendage]

Is Eliminative Materialism code for 'shit happens'?

[The AntiChris]

Dennett clearly states that his methodology does not rely on verbal reports alone. He clearly says: "plus all the data we can gather about concurrent events in the brains of subjects and in the surrounding environment, comprise the total data set for a theory of human consciousness.". You appear to be implying that Dennett is omitting something vital from his proposed methodology, although quite what you think is missing is not clear. :dunno:
What is missing are the qualities of the phenomenal experience itself.Can you propose a method by which the "the phenomenal experience itself" can be studied? What else is there that should be studied?

Chris

[dug_down_deep]

Is Eliminative Materialism code for 'shit happens'?I feel compelled to make a tubgirl reference here, but I'll decline to do so.

(Oops. Looks like I did it anyway.)

[dug_down_deep]

Can you propose a method by which the "the phenomenal experience itself" can be studied?
Got one right here in my pocket. Only cost ya 5 dollars to see it.

No, seriously, how do you expect me to respond to this? Obviously the people actually doing this work have a lot more knowledge of what works and what doesn't than I do. I'm not strongly criticizing the methodology, as I mentioned before. It just makes me nervous to see people building in ontological assumptions that are still highly controversial. Doesn't that make you nervous?

What else is there that should be studied?
The qualities of the phenomenal experience itself. If it is invisible to the experimenter and measuring devices, then the methodology must reveal its properties indirectly, as Lizzie mentioned earlier. But to assume that it doesn't actually exist (not part of the entire data set) is an assumption that will eventually lead to something like a behavioral theory with neural imaging tacked on. If that works, then fine. But it doesn't mean there isn't something further to study, it just means you've learned to dance with a mysterious stranger.

Everything important can be viewed from the outside, is the claim I see being made by Dennett. I don't know about that. Maybe. Maybe not.

[kennethamy]

He (Dennett) justifies that by dismissing our feeling or understanding that we have subjective experiences as "folk psychology".

He is eliminative about subjective experience.

Dismissing? He elevate it to Folk Psychology? Raise it, recognize it,
account for folk Psychology instead of to hide it in the dark.

Illuminate or enlight? Don't talk bad about Dennett. :)
Just kidding. Poor Wordy poor Lizzie we all have been had by the lever Dennett.
Garrett set us straight.

"He is eliminative about subjective experience."

Is that really a fair way of retelling it.

He recognize Folk Psychology for what it really does.
FP

Could someone tell me what makes folk psychology folk psychology?

[The AntiChris]

Can you propose a method by which the "the phenomenal experience itself" can be studied?
Got one right here in my pocket. Only cost ya 5 dollars to see it.

No, seriously, how do you expect me to respond to this? Obviously the people actually doing this work have a lot more knowledge of what works and what doesn't than I do. I'm not strongly criticizing the methodology, as I mentioned before. It just makes me nervous to see people building in ontological assumptions that are still highly controversial. Doesn't that make you nervous?

What else is there that should be studied?
The qualities of the phenomenal experience itself. If it is invisible to the experimenter and measuring devices, then the methodology must reveal its properties indirectly, as Lizzie mentioned earlier. But to assume that it doesn't actually exist (not part of the entire data set) is an assumption that will eventually lead to something like a behavioral theory with neural imaging tacked on. If that works, then fine. But it doesn't mean there isn't something further to study, it just means you've learned to dance with a mysterious stranger.

Everything important can be viewed from the outside, is the claim I see being made by Dennett. I don't know about that. Maybe. Maybe not.(my emphasis)

I don't think you're justified in accusing Dennett of making assumptions (not as far as his heterophenomenology is concerned - I fully accept that he does have quite firm opinions regarding qualia and the nature of conscious experience, but that's quite separate from his proposed heterophenomenology).

As far as I can tell, all he's doing is being completely open and up front about what's actually available to us for study. :dunno:

Chris

[Wordy]

What is missing are the qualities of the phenomenal experience itself.
D_D_D,

Are you talking about what Chalnmers and others name Qualia?
Then we have to either try to figure out what these words refer to
or to agree upon that it is up to those who have these views to suggest
such things. Many of those who have these views are employed at Universities
so if they find a good way of describing how it could be tested then maybe those donating money could feel for sponsoring such research?

I come to think of people like Pendleton who are interesting these thing it seems.

Kennethamy
Folk in folk psychology? Doesn't wikipedia or Stanford Philosophy have text the that explains it?

that the Earth is flat maybe is such a folkish view? Just kidding.

look here
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/folkpsych-theory/

Many philosophers and cognitive scientists claim that our everyday or "folk" understanding of mental states constitutes a theory of mind.

That theory is widely called "folk psychology" (sometimes "commonsense" psychology).

The terms in which folk psychology is couched are the familiar ones of "belief" and "desire", "hunger", "pain" and so forth.

According to many theorists, folk psychology plays a central role in our capacity to predict and explain the behavior of ourselves and others.

Basically it helps us survive. But it goes wrong when taken too literally without consideration.
Risk behavior seems to go very wrong when relying on folkish views on risk management.

[Wordy]

I don't want to go off topic or to derail but is it fair to say that what I refer to as "religious" feelings that is also part of Qualia or how it feels to feel? the quality of feeling?
The qualities of the phenomenal experience itself.

D_D_D, what do you refer to when you use these words.

When I got upset over how Ian Nerr wrote. Was that a Qualia or a clear example or "The qualities of the phenomenal experience itself."

I felt very upset and angry and betrayed and felt had and a lot of other feelings.
my body reacted very strongly.

What in it was the "quality" in it. The feeling of anger. The way the anger felt. The intensity of the anger.

But is not all such a form of interpretation. Qualia is what the body does. Perception and interpretation and expression and so on. Qualia as such is a reference to that process. Qualia as such most likely only exists as a concept. How it feels to be alive and have experiences .

I fail to get what is not explained or not counted or reckon or taken into account or considerations and so on.

I think it is a kind of relic from back when we knew very little of how our brain works.

Qualia to me is a typical example of mistaken interpretation on what is really going on in the brain.

A bit like asking where the music is if nobody is playing it.

My best example is reading or recitation from the Koran? To the faithful Muslim that is reading and not singing. It is not music cause to them music is something potentionally sinful or not a pure thing to do. Reading the proper way is very pure to them.

So how do they solve that mystery that it sounds exactly like music and singing and they claim it none of that. They have melody and a kind of Rhythm and they sing on tune too and still it is forbidden to see it a music cause music could be a very non pure thing to express and to listen to. Music could come between you and Allah while reading the text in the proper way make you come nearer to Allah.

Qualia is how one interpret what the body does. One interpretation says it is singing and melody and rhythm and thus music while another sanctioned interpretation says it has nothing to do with sinful music and instead are sacred recitation.

Qualia is like beauty, it is in the eye of the beholder. something one does.

[Wordy]

D_D_D Oh you mean how is it at all possible to have such experiences as being angry? We are physical automatons and should not feel anything at all? Is that what you ask?

[dug_down_deep]

What is missing are the qualities of the phenomenal experience itself.
D_D_D,

Are you talking about what Chalnmers and others name Qualia?
I'm talking about the qualities of the experience of the subject being observed. I think adding this other term 'qualia' suggests that there is something in addition to experience that is being referred to. There isn't.

What I'm really saying is that the subject's actual experience, as opposed to the experimenter's clues about that experience, is not nonexistent. In fact it's absurd to think that it is, since the experimenter is measuring the qualities of her own experience as she is observing. So you take one person's experience into account in your data set, and that person isn't even the subject of the experiment!

I mean maybe we're stuck with that methodology, since we can't crawl inside each other's heads, but if anyone suggests that the experimenter's experience is more important than the experience of the subject, then there's a pretty serious misconception here, wouldn't you agree?

[dug_down_deep]

D_D_D Oh you mean how is it at all possible to have such experiences as being angry? We are physical automatons and should not feel anything at all? Is that what you ask?
Not at all. That is what I personally refer to as the technical hard problem: What sort of system/structure/process produces consciousness? I expect that to be solved. And it's not relevant to anything I've been talking about so far, as far as I can tell.

[Ian Nerr]

What I'm really saying is that the subject's actual experience, as opposed to the experimenter's clues about that experience, is not nonexistent. In fact it's absurd to think that it is, since the experimenter is measuring the qualities of her own experience as she is observing. So you take one person's experience into account in your data set, and that person isn't even the subject of the experiment!

Are you saying you think people try to study something they don't think exists? This is a weird idea. I don't think anyone claims experience is nonexistent.

[Quizalufagus]

What I'm really saying is that the subject's actual experience, as opposed to the experimenter's clues about that experience, is not nonexistent. In fact it's absurd to think that it is, since the experimenter is measuring the qualities of her own experience as she is observing. So you take one person's experience into account in your data set, and that person isn't even the subject of the experiment!

What constitutes the subject's actual experience, though? I think you're falling into a trap whereby you assume talking about X is different from talking about the methods we use to know about X, and that strikes me as hopelessly anti-empiricist.

I mean maybe we're stuck with that methodology, since we can't crawl inside each other's heads, but if anyone suggests that the experimenter's experience is more important than the experience of the subject, then there's a pretty serious misconception here, wouldn't you agree?

The experimenter's experience is more important than the experiences of the subject at least insofar as the experiences of the subject aren't directly knowable. Surely we can't discuss the experiences of the subject without discussing our own pertinent secondary experiences, no?

[Preno]

I don't disagree with anything in those two paragraphs. Did you think I did? Why?How so? You are talking about "the qualities of the phenomenal experience itself". How can you agree that it does not make sense to speak of qualia but that it makes sense to speak of "the qualities of the phenomenal experience itself"? I certainly don't think that there
As for eliminative reduction, what's the difference between eliminative and non-eliminative reduction?Eliminative reduction eliminates the original theory, replacing it with a wholly new theory. Non-eliminative reduction provides a theory that underlies the reduced theory, but does not necessarily replace it. That is my understanding, mostly based on something Pat Churchland wrote.Replace it in what sense? What would count as non-eliminative reduction? I'm not necessarily attacking the idea, it's just that it seems a bit vague to me.
What I'm really saying is that the subject's actual experience, as opposed to the experimenter's clues about that experience, is not nonexistent. In fact it's absurd to think that it is, since the experimenter is measuring the qualities of her own experience as she is observing.Of course that the subject's actual experience is not non-existent. But there is nothing more to it than what we may infer from observing it. (How could we otherwise meaningfully talk about such experiences?)

[dug_down_deep]

What constitutes the subject's actual experience, though? I think you're falling into a trap whereby you assume talking about X is different from talking about the methods we use to know about X, and that strikes me as hopelessly anti-empiricist.

The experimenter's experience is more important than the experiences of the subject at least insofar as the experiences of the subject aren't directly knowable. Surely we can't discuss the experiences of the subject without discussing our own pertinent secondary experiences, no?
It seems to me that the subject must be a participant in the experiment, as an observer, not just a subject of observation. The subject's experiences are knowable by the subject. I do not believe that a subject telling the truth can be wrong about the qualities of that experience, which is something it appears Dennett believes. This is not anti-empiricist, though verification is challenging.

[dug_down_deep]

Ian and Preno: I'll respond to your posts after I read one of Dennett's articles. I don't want to falsely attribute beliefs to him. I may have done that already.

[Ian Nerr]

What constitutes the subject's actual experience, though? I think you're falling into a trap whereby you assume talking about X is different from talking about the methods we use to know about X, and that strikes me as hopelessly anti-empiricist.

The experimenter's experience is more important than the experiences of the subject at least insofar as the experiences of the subject aren't directly knowable. Surely we can't discuss the experiences of the subject without discussing our own pertinent secondary experiences, no?
It seems to me that the subject must be a participant in the experiment, as an observer, not just a subject of observation. The subject's experiences are knowable by the subject. I do not believe that a subject telling the truth can be wrong about the qualities of that experience, which is something it appears Dennett believes. This is not anti-empiricist, though verification is challenging.

If you read Conscious Explained (which I highly recommend), you will find some very interesting examples of ways that we are wrong about our experiences, but I agree with you (as does Dennett) that someone can't really be mistaken about how something seems to them.

[Garrett]

The AntiChris
It is.
No it isn't. Phenomology accepts first-person experience, while heterophenomology specifically excludes it.

Phenomology does accept first-person reports, and that is what is fooling you good people. My computer can give first-person reports, even though it isn't conscious!

Wikipedia: In other words, heterophenomenology requires us to listen to the subject and take what they say seriously, but to also look at everything else available to us, including the subject's brain, and be ready to sometimes conclude that the subject is wrong even about their own mind. For example, we could determine that the subject is hungry even though they don't recognize it themselves.

But "hungry" is a subjective experience, and so Dennett is wrong. If it seems to me that I'm not hungry, then I am actually not hungry, regardless of "everything else available" to you when you try to determine whether I'm hungry or not.

Dennett's heterophenomoly is very good except for one fatal flaw: he claims it defines all that can be - or needs to be - known about the mind. It includes "the subject's self-reports with all other available evidence to determine their mental state", but specifically excludes first-person experience, which is not available as evidence in the third-person!

Do you really believe that you cannot - and need not - know your own first-person experience in order to understand the nature of mind?

His eliminativism is subtle, but it does exist. You folks have been fooled by his language. There is no actual difference between Dennett's view and the view that subjective experience does not actually exist.

The existence of subjective experience is not part of his heterophenomology, and he claims his heterophenomology is all that can or should be known about the mind. Dennett is eliminativist about the existence of subjective experience.

[Garrett]

Ian Nerr
Are you saying you think people try to study something they don't think exists? This is a weird idea. I don't think anyone claims experience is nonexistent.
That's why Dennett's theory fools many smart people. He sticks a foot across the explanatory gap just long enough for lip service, so to speak, gaining credibility by not outright denying the existence of subjective experience, and then withdraws it and essentially denies the gap exists when he formulates his theory.

For a limited analogy, the wife-beater says he loves his wife, and then beats her again. Maybe he does love her, but what he calls "love" is not what we call "love".

For Dennett, subjective experience is nothing more than the produced first-person reports. But we can have experiences which we are unable to express fully in first-person reports! There is more to subjective experience than just what can be expressed! When I say I have a particular feeling, I don't mean I feel what I can say to you about that feeling.

[RexT]

If you read Conscious Explained (which I highly recommend), you will find some very interesting examples of ways that we are wrong about our experiences, but I agree with you (as does Dennett) that someone can't really be mistaken about how something seems to them.Don't you mean that how something seems might not be how something really is? Because if for example something seems heavy to me, even if I were lifting a feather, I cannot be wrong about how it seems to me, even though feathers are light. Or perhaps something might seem near yet is actually far away. Still, if it seems near then I am not wrong that it seems near but wrong that it actually is near.

Personal experience cannot be wrong because whatever I experience I actually experience.

[Garrett]

Ian Nerr
If you read Conscious Explained (which I highly recommend), you will find some very interesting examples of ways that we are wrong about our experiences,
I recommend the book also - but bring your skepticism. The book needs proper salting.

We are never wrong about our experiences - we can only be wrong about our interpretations of our experiences. Which is why is not sufficient to only accept reports of first-person experience, we must also accept the existence of our first person experiences!

[RexT]

For Dennett, subjective experience is nothing more than the produced first-person reports. But we can have experiences which we are unable to express fully in first-person reports! There is more to subjective experience than just what can be expressed! When I say I have a particular feeling, I don't mean I feel what I can say to you about that feeling.Well, if that is Dennett's theory then I'd agree with you that he is wrong. I've had experiences throughout my life, meaningful experiences, and I could never report these to anyone in a way that would convey their meaning. So what does Dennett say about this? Does he deny that I have such experiences?

[trendkill]

The AntiChris
It is.
No it isn't. Phenomology accepts first-person experience, while heterophenomology specifically excludes it.

Phenomology does accept first-person reports, and that is what is fooling you good people. My computer can give first-person reports, even though it isn't conscious!

Wikipedia: In other words, heterophenomenology requires us to listen to the subject and take what they say seriously, but to also look at everything else available to us, including the subject's brain, and be ready to sometimes conclude that the subject is wrong even about their own mind. For example, we could determine that the subject is hungry even though they don't recognize it themselves.

But "hungry" is a subjective experience, and so Dennett is wrong. If it seems to me that I'm not hungry, then I am actually not hungry, regardless of "everything else available" to you when you try to determine whether I'm hungry or not.I think it's revealing that we are quoting Dennett and you are quoting Wikipedia. What do you have to say to Dennett's actual arguments? E.g. how do you dispute his analysis of experience outrunning beliefs/beliefs outrunning experiences in the Who's On First paper?


Dennett's heterophenomoly is very good except for one fatal flaw: he claims it defines all that can be - or needs to be - known about the mind. It includes "the subject's self-reports with all other available evidence to determine their mental state", but specifically excludes first-person experience, which is not available as evidence in the third-person!First-person experience is not so much evidence in this context as it is the thing being evidenced. As I explained in detail earlier, this seems to be what's confusing you (and many others).

His eliminativism is subtle, but it does exist. You folks have been fooled by his language.Seems to me more like you've ignoring his language and getting fooled by other peoples' language about him.

[Wordy]

Do you really believe that you cannot - and need not - know your own first-person experience in order to understand the nature of mind?

His eliminativism is subtle, but it does exist. You folks have been fooled by his language. There is no actual difference between Dennett's view and the view that subjective experience does not actually exist.


I failed to get what you meant using the word "know" and the word "exists" but reading this helped
For Dennett, subjective experience is nothing more than the produced first-person reports. But we can have experiences which we are unable to express fully in first-person reports! There is more to subjective experience than just what can be expressed! When I say I have a particular feeling, I don't mean I feel what I can say to you about that feeling.

But I am still unsure of what you really mean here. What is it you know if you have no words for it?

You have a feeling that you are aware but there are no words that seems to communicate that feeling in a satisfying way. But the nyou don't know.

then you are aware of that you don't know but wish you knew how to express
what you don't know but just feel? Sorry not sure how to say it. On the tip of my tongue so to say.

Does Dennett really deny we have such feelings?

All this reminds me of debate about ethical issues. To be fair, just, reliable, trust-worthy ...

My take on it is that critics of Paul and Pat Churchland and Daniel Dennett seems to accuse them of not being fair, just, reliable, trust-worthy to how it feels to feel?

A to me kind of moral criticism. Accusation of not telling it like it is.

That PPC and DD take away something that is vital.

Heheheh, very similar criticism me have to my fellow atheists. Most atheists deny that maybe a great portion of humans do have religious feelings. maybe 5 or 10 or 20 percent has the capacity to have these feelings but that the fact they don't refer to something outside of ourselves makes many reluctant to see value in them. Just what goes on in the mind of the believer. To me that is why they are of value. They actually are going on in the mind and that is why they have political power and to dismiss them is an error many atheists do. What goes on in peoples mind is much more important than what it first looks like. Cause it motivates people to act on the message in that which goes on within them. The actions they do are no illusion or delusion. They actually do blow up buildings. Real enough for me.

Garrett what are you trying to say? Friendly question. Just me curious. Not an attack.

I find it likely that Trendkill has a point here
Seems to me more like you've ignoring his language and getting fooled by other peoples' language about him.

[Febble]

Ian Nerr
If you read Conscious Explained (which I highly recommend), you will find some very interesting examples of ways that we are wrong about our experiences,
I recommend the book also - but bring your skepticism. The book needs proper salting.

We are never wrong about our experiences - we can only be wrong about our interpretations of our experiences. Which is why is not sufficient to only accept reports of first-person experience, we must also accept the existence of our first person experiences!

I have read nothing in Dennett's books, including the above, that suggests that he does not accept the existence of first person experience.

I recommend that you re-read his book, find the part where he seems to be saying that, in your view, and cite it. I think you will find that you have misunderstood him.

[Febble]

For Dennett, subjective experience is nothing more than the produced first-person reports. But we can have experiences which we are unable to express fully in first-person reports! There is more to subjective experience than just what can be expressed! When I say I have a particular feeling, I don't mean I feel what I can say to you about that feeling.Well, if that is Dennett's theory then I'd agree with you that he is wrong. I've had experiences throughout my life, meaningful experiences, and I could never report these to anyone in a way that would convey their meaning. So what does Dennett say about this? Does he deny that I have such experiences?

No, he doesn't.

[Rilx]

The experimenter's experience is more important than the experiences of the subject at least insofar as the experiences of the subject aren't directly knowable. Surely we can't discuss the experiences of the subject without discussing our own pertinent secondary experiences, no?
It seems to me that the subject must be a participant in the experiment, as an observer, not just a subject of observation. The subject's experiences are knowable by the subject. I do not believe that a subject telling the truth can be wrong about the qualities of that experience, which is something it appears Dennett believes. This is not anti-empiricist, though verification is challenging.
IOW: The subject is conscious of her experiences. That's what Dennett seems to leave out, because his reductive model can't handle self-reference. I think his deduction why "qualia" are evolved is good but he seems to embed the how in the same deduction though it needed a different explanation.

[Febble]

The subject is conscious of her experiences.[/I][/B] That's what Dennett seems to leave out, because his reductive model can't handle self-reference. I think his deduction why "qualia" are evolved is good but he seems to embed the how in the same deduction though it needed a different explanation.

What makes you think that Dennett's model leaves out self-reference? He has entire chapters devoted to self-reference. His close collaborator, Hofstadter has an entire book devoted to self-reference (I am a Strange Loop), which incorporates a lengthy email exchange between the two of them.

I'd say self-reference is absolutely central to the Dennett-Hofstadter model.

And note that Dennett's heterophenomenology is a method, not a model.

[Wordy]

I put Churchlands highest on my list.
Daniel Dennett second so I am biased positively to him obviously.

But even if I had him way down on my list I would prefer direct quotes from him.

To read him and interpret him to be reductionistic could be an attributing to him views he doesn't intended to say.

So all of you who see him as reductionistic do make relevant citations.

[Rilx]

What makes you think that Dennett's model leaves out self-reference? He has entire chapters devoted to self-reference. His close collaborator, Hofstadter has an entire book devoted to self-reference (I am a Strange Loop), which incorporates a lengthy email exchange between the two of them.

I'd say self-reference is absolutely central to the Dennett-Hofstadter model.

And note that Dennett's heterophenomenology is a method, not a model.
By model I mean Dennett's assumption (or hypothesis becoming a theory) concerning the nature of consciousness. That I'm reading Consciousness Explained makes me think what I think about Dennett. (I won't quote Dennett because I'm reading a Finnish translation.) Generally I agree Dug's and Garrett's view.

Heterophenomenology is a good method, I don't think it as a model. Dennett's problem is that he builds the model of consciousness bottom-up, beginning from details (even evolutionary predecessors) and assuming that the built-up result - sum of details - must necessarily be "consciousness". Because it is all that the chosen method can produce.

He don't hypothesize or try to analyze and define consciousness itself, he don't begin to explain consciousness as a phenomenon, don't model it top-down. IMO both top-down and bottom-up theories are needed, and when they meet the Hard Problem of Consciousness is solved.

Self-reference is central to consciousness - of course it must be included in any serious model. I'm waiting to receive Hofstadter next week.

[Febble]

What makes you think that Dennett's model leaves out self-reference? He has entire chapters devoted to self-reference. His close collaborator, Hofstadter has an entire book devoted to self-reference (I am a Strange Loop), which incorporates a lengthy email exchange between the two of them.

I'd say self-reference is absolutely central to the Dennett-Hofstadter model.

And note that Dennett's heterophenomenology is a method, not a model.
By model I mean Dennett's assumption (or hypothesis becoming a theory) concerning the nature of consciousness. That I'm reading Consciousness Explained makes me think what I think about Dennett. (I won't quote Dennett because I'm reading a Finnish translation.) Generally I agree Dug's and Garrett's view.

Well, how would you describe his model? And do you mean that you share Dug's and Garrett's view as to what that model is? Because it seems very odd to me that someone can read what seems to me to be a model based on self-reference and conclude that the model can't handle self-reference.

I'd be grateful if you could summarise what you think Dennett's model actually is.

Heterophenomenology is a good method, I don't think it as a model. Dennett's problem is that he builds the model of consciousness bottom-up, beginning from details (even evolutionary predecessors) and assuming that the built-up result - sum of details - must necessarily be "consciousness". Because it is all that the chosen method can produce.

I think Dennett is doing what I do, which is to consider "consciousness" as a set of processes, rather than as a phenomenon. We are conscious OF things, ideas, being alive, etc. His model explains different examples of those processes - e.g. how it is that an entity represents itself as the subject of experience.

I don't see that more is required to explain "consciousness". Nor do I see that this is the same as saying that consciousness or subjective experience doesn't exist. Consciousness, as I see it, is the representation by an entity of itself in relation to its interactions with its environment.

He don't hypothesize or try to analyze and define consciousness itself, he don't begin to explain consciousness as a phenomenon, don't model it top-down. IMO both top-down and bottom-up theories are needed, and when they meet the Hard Problem of Consciousness is solved.

Of course both top-down and bottom-up theories are needed, and both kinds of processes interact. We know a great deal about how they interact. In fact I just wrote an abstract for a conference about how they interact. But they are misleading metaphors - I prefer "endogenous" and "exogenous", because it is BECAUSE they interact that they form a loop . Consciousness emerges from the loop. It isn't the wee guy at the "top".

Self-reference is central to consciousness - of course it must be included in any serious model. I'm waiting to receive Hofstadter next week.

I hope you enjoy it!

[Garrett]

trendkill
I think it's revealing that we are quoting Dennett and you are quoting Wikipedia.
I don't think either method is inappropriate in any way. Book reviews are rarely written by the book author, for good reason.

What do you have to say to Dennett's actual arguments? E.g. how do you dispute his analysis of experience outrunning beliefs/beliefs outrunning experiences in the Who's On First paper?
Much of what he says makes sense to me. His eliminativism isn't a blatant "subjective experience doesn't exist". It's more subtle than that. Basically he eliminates subjective experience from what can be studied by science, and claims nothing but what can be so studied is relevant in any way.

Again: The existence of subjective experience is not part of his heterophenomology, and he claims his heterophenomology is all that can or should be known about the mind. The result is indistiguishable from claiming that subjective experience doesn't exist. Do you really believe that the existence of subjective experience is irrelevant to the study of consciousness?

For an example from the paper you mention, page 3 in my PDF, he talks about the problem of categorizing conscious experiences, and builds a small hierarchal chart:

(Dennett, Who's On First?)
(a) 'conscious experiences themselves'
(b) beliefs about these experiences
(c) 'verbal judgments' expressing those beliefs
(d) utterances of one sort or another

What are the 'primary data'? For heterophenominologists, the primary data are the utterances, the raw, uninterpreted data.

He has a good point - that's the first level where we have access to the experiences of others. His heterophenomology accepts that data, along with brain studies, which is okay - but also he claims it defines all that can be - or needs to be - known about the mind.

He eliminates completely the first three levels! His heterophenomology claims that the first three levels neither can be nor needs to be considered in order to understand conscious experience.

When he attacks Levine's quest to mine the other levels for primary data, thats when he comes up with the "outruns" idea - such as when someone has conscious experiences but doesn't believe he has them, or believes he has conscious experiences which he doesn't - so that when Levine tries to pull up data from one level he actually pulls up data from another.

Well, to this layman, Dennett's analysis confuses that person's interpretations of his conscious experiences for the conscious experiences themselves - as confirmed by his settling on the utterances for the raw data!

That the data from the more primary levels is hard to pull up isn't reason to eliminate those more primary levels from scientific investigation!

Levels a, b, and c exist, and are a more primary source of data than the utterances. But getting at that data involves the explanatory gap. Dennett tries to solve that problem by waving it away.

edit: And the utterances are, after all, merely interpretations - so he ends up discarding even level d when it suits his purposes - see the 'hungry' example mentioned previously.

First-person experience is not so much evidence in this context as it is the thing being evidenced.
I agree. That's why we shouldn't claim that the utterances are the primary data - they are merely the most accessible to outside observers.

As I explained in detail earlier, this seems to be what's confusing you (and many others).
But his heterophenomology eliminates "the thing being evidenced" as something which cannot and should not be studied!

Seems to me more like you've ignoring his language and getting fooled by other peoples' language about him.
No, I've read his book, and my opinion was developed by reading his own words. The Wiki quotes merely confirm my belief (or serve as confirmation bias :)).

Here's some more Wiki stuff showing what I mean.

Dennett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett), in Consciousness Explained, argues against qualia.

Qualia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia) can be defined as qualities or sensations, like redness or pain, as considered independently of their effects on behavior and from whatever physical circumstances give rise to them.

In a word (so to speak), qualia is subjective experience or the ways things seem to us.

Dennett argues against subjective experience! No wonder he eliminated it from his heterophenemology!

Again: it's not that he outright claims subjective experience doesn't exist - he claims, paraphrase, that it is unimportant, irrelevant, and cannot and should not be a subject of scientific study.

[Ian Nerr]

Qualia can be defined as qualities or sensations, like redness or pain, as considered independently of their effects on behavior and from whatever physical circumstances give rise to them.

What else do you think should be considered?

[Garrett]

Febble
No, he doesn't.
True. He gives it lip service before he eliminates it.

Let's say for a moment that subjective experience doesn't exist. How would he heterophenomology be any different as a result?

I hope you enjoy it!
I bet he does. It's a very good book so far - I'm up to chapter four. My only issue so far is his belief in reductionism, but he puts worthwhile effort into explaining why he doesn't actually use it.

I'm a bit leary about the way chapter four starts, though. He seems to making a jump from (paraphrase) feedback occurs to therefore subjective experience occurs, but perhaps I'm being too hasty.

But it is a good, entertaining, surprising, and enlightening read.

[Garrett]

Ian Nerr
What else do you think should be considered?
Besides subjective experience? For a rough estimate, everything studied by cognitive science.

[Febble]

Febble
No, he doesn't.
True. He gives it lip service before he eliminates it.

And yet you still won't give me a citations for these assertions about Dennett's position*.

Let's say for a moment that subjective experience doesn't exist. How would he heterophenomology be any different as a result?


You mean how would the data acquired via the heterophenomenological method be different?

It would be vastly different. It would supply us with no evidence that people are aware, whereas in fact it does.

Yes, I know you will consider that I have begged your question, but I consider that your question contains an inherent beggarment.

ETA: just noticed your response to trendkill. Will respond shortly.

[Febble]

Much of what he says makes sense to me. His eliminativism isn't a blatant "subjective experience doesn't exist". It's more subtle than that. Basically he eliminates subjective experience from what can be studied by science, and claims nothing but what can be so studied is relevant in any way.

No, he does not "basically" say that. By definition, subjective experience can only be studied scientifically objective method, because that is what scientific methodology is - an objective methodology. But that doesn't eliminate it from study. It simply means that we need a proxy measure, just as we need a proxy measure for, say "intelligence" which we cannot observe directly. Very little science is based on direct measurement, and ALL science has to account for "measurement error" in some way.

Again: The existence of subjective experience is not part of his heterophenomology, and he claims his heterophenomology is all that can or should be known about the mind. The result is indistiguishable from claiming that subjective experience doesn't exist. Do you really believe that the existence of subjective experience is irrelevant to the study of consciousness?

No, and I do not see from what you are inferring that Dennett does.

For an example from the paper you mention, page 3 in my PDF, he talks about the problem of categorizing conscious experiences, and builds a small hierarchal chart:

[QUOTE] (Dennett, Who's On First?)
(a) 'conscious experiences themselves'
(b) beliefs about these experiences
(c) 'verbal judgments' expressing those beliefs
(d) utterances of one sort or another

What are the 'primary data'? For heterophenominologists, the primary data are the utterances, the raw, uninterpreted data.
He has a good point - that's the first level where we have access to the experiences of others. His heterophenomology accepts that data, along with brain studies, which is okay - but also he claims it defines all that can be - or needs to be - known about the mind.

He eliminates completely the first three levels! His heterophenomology claims that the first three levels neither can be nor needs to be considered in order to understand conscious experience.

Which is NOT the same as saying that conscious experience does not exist, or cannot be studied!

When he attacks Levine's quest to mine the other levels for primary data, thats when he comes up with the "outruns" idea - such as when someone has conscious experiences but doesn't believe he has them, or believes he has conscious experiences which he doesn't - so that when Levine tries to pull up data from one level he actually pulls up data from another.

Well, to this layman, Dennett's analysis confuses that person's interpretations of his conscious experiences for the conscious experiences themselves - as confirmed by his settling on the utterances for the raw data!

I don't think so. Here is Dennett in Chapter 4 of Consciousness Explained:

Still, what of the objection that heterophenomenology, by starting out from the third-person point of view, leaves the real problems of consciousness untouched? Nagel, as we saw, insists on this, and so does the philosopher John Searle, who has explicitly warned against my approach: "Remember," he admonishes, "in these discussions, always insist on the first person point of view. The first step in the operationalist sleight of hand occurs when we try to figure out how we would know what it would be like for others". But this is not what happens. Notice that when you are put in the heterophenomenologists's clutches, you get the last word. You get to edit, revise, and disavow ad lib, and so long as you avoid presumptuous theorizing about the causes or the metaphysical status of the items you report, whatever you insist upon is granted constitutive authority to determine what happens in your heterophenomenological world. You're the novelist, and what you say goes. What more could you want?


If you want us to believe everything you say about your phenomenology, you are asking not just to be taken seriously but to be granted papal infallibility, and that is asking too much. You are not authoritative about what is happening in you, but only about what seems to be happening in you, and we are giving you total, dictatorial authority over the account of how it seems to you, about what it is like to be you. And if you complain that some part of how it seems to you are ineffable, we heterophenomenologists will grant that too. What better grounds could we have for believing that you are unable to describe something than that (1)you don't describe it, and (2) confess that you cannot? of course, you might be lying, but we'll give you the benefit of the doubt. If you retort, "I'm not just saying that I can't describe it; I'm saying it's indescribable!" we heterophenomenologists will note that at least you can't describe it now, and since you're the only one in a positioin to describe it, it is at this time indescribable. Later, perhaps, you will come to be able to describe it, but of course at that time t it will be something different, something describable.


No, I've read his book, and my opinion was developed by reading his own words. The Wiki quotes merely confirm my belief (or serve as confirmation bias :)).

Here's some more Wiki stuff showing what I mean.

Dennett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett), in Consciousness Explained, argues against qualia.

Qualia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia) can be defined as qualities or sensations, like redness or pain, as considered independently of their effects on behavior and from whatever physical circumstances give rise to them.

In a word (so to speak), qualia is subjective experience or the ways things seem to us.

Dennett argues against subjective experience! No wonder he eliminated it from his heterophenemology!

Arguing against the notion of qualia is not the same as arguing that subjective experience does not exist. Or rather, if qualia are simply objective experience, then there is nothing particularly hard about explaining them. But people who use the term insist that qualia are something else - that they consist in some form of knowledge that only the subject can have access to.

Again: it's not that he outright claims subjective experience doesn't exist - he claims, paraphrase, that it is unimportant, irrelevant, and cannot and should not be a subject of scientific study.

I think what has happened here is that you have your own idea of what quale are, and because Dennett dismisses the notion of qualia, you assume that he dismisses the notion that subjective experience exists. This is not the case. Dennett's argument is that there is nothing in principle "ineffable" about subjective experience, although, in practice, it may be impossible to transmit to another person. Hence his take on Mary the Colour Scientist. Dennett is perfectly happy with the notion that Mary has subjective experience. What he queries (rightly, in my view) is the idea that if Mary could know everything about colour and simultaneously not know what it was like to see colour.

In other words, it's not the existence of subjective experience he rejects (he clearly does not) but the idea that subjective experience includes some kind of knowledge that is different in kind from other common-or-garden kinds of knowledge. The "redness" of red, to take the usual example.

[Wordy]

I think what has happened here is that you have your own idea of what quale are, and because Dennett dismisses the notion of qualia, you assume that he dismisses the notion that subjective experience exists.

This is not the case.

Dennett's argument is that there is nothing in principle "ineffable" about subjective experience, although, in practice, it may be impossible to transmit to another person.

...

In other words, it's not the existence of subjective experience he rejects (he clearly does not) but the idea that subjective experience includes some kind of knowledge that is different in kind from other common-or-garden kinds of knowledge.

The "redness" of red, to take the usual example.


Lizzie, I wish me could write such stuff myself. I see it like you describe here but I have no capacity to makes such descriptions left to my own knowledge but I have read Daniel Dennett since his first book came out and that is how I read him to say during all those years too.

[Garrett]

Febble
And yet you still won't give me a citations for these assertions about Dennett's position*.
What? Yes I did. Just Wiki, but that's not nothing. I also gave a segment from Dennett's work showing my case.

You mean how would the data acquired via the heterophenomenological method be different?
No. I mean Let's say for a moment that subjective experience doesn't exist. How would he heterophenomology be any different as a result?

It would be vastly different. It would supply us with no evidence that people are aware, whereas in fact it does.
Since you mention it, we could apply his method to the study of digital computers. Would we then be studying the subjective experiences of computers? Of course not.

Heterophenomology specifically eliminates subjective experiences from what is studied by heterophenomology! So what makes you think it provides evidence for subjective experience?

Yes, I know you will consider that I have begged your question, but I consider that your question contains an inherent beggarment.
You are missing the point. I claim there is no relevant difference between Dennett's view that subjective experience neither can nor should be studied, and the view that subjective experience doesn't exist. I was asking you to show some relevant difference.

[trendkill]

trendkill
I think it's revealing that we are quoting Dennett and you are quoting Wikipedia.
I don't think either method is inappropriate in any way. Book reviews are rarely written by the book author, for good reason.But book reviews shouldn't be based on other book reviews. :P

Much of what he says makes sense to me. His eliminativism isn't a blatant "subjective experience doesn't exist". It's more subtle than that. Basically he eliminates subjective experience from what can be studied by science, and claims nothing but what can be so studied is relevant in any way.By the way, what exactly do you think is the purpose of this little game you think Dennett's playing, pretending to believe in something while arguing against it?

Again: The existence of subjective experience is not part of his heterophenomology, and he claims his heterophenomology is all that can or should be known about the mind. The result is indistiguishable from claiming that subjective experience doesn't exist. Do you really believe that the existence of subjective experience is irrelevant to the study of consciousness?I don't see where you get the idea that the existence of subjective experience isn't part of heterophenomenology in the first place. Heterophenomenology is supposed to be a method of studying conscious experience, a method with which to engage in "taking human subjectivity seriously", as he says on page 2 of "Who's On First". If we assume there is no such thing as human subjective experience, then there is no need to come up with a method for studying it, and heterophenomenology becomes entirely pointless. So no, I think the existence of subjective experience is absolutely essential to heterophenomenology.

It seems to me that the whole thing falls apart if there's no such thing as subjective experience to tie it all together--surely you don't think what Dennett describes is meant as a research program for studying verbal reports, for instance. He's not after an explanation for speech, he's after an explanation for experience.

He has a good point - that's the first level where we have access to the experiences of others. His heterophenomology accepts that data, along with brain studies, which is okay - but also he claims it defines all that can be - or needs to be - known about the mind.When in fact there is also...what? The thing being studied itself? But then we get geologists with rocks in their heads, per my first post. Information is all that can be known about the subject.

When he attacks Levine's quest to mine the other levels for primary data, thats when he comes up with the "outruns" idea - such as when someone has conscious experiences but doesn't believe he has them, or believes he has conscious experiences which he doesn't - so that when Levine tries to pull up data from one level he actually pulls up data from another.From the Levine quote he attacks, I think you could make a better case that Levine wants to study "conscious experiences themselves", bypassing the data entirely. Dennett says how he's going to get the data from the higher levels.

Well, to this layman, Dennett's analysis confuses that person's interpretations of his conscious experiences for the conscious experiences themselves
A catalogue of beliefs about experience is not the same as a catalogue of experiences themselves,

That the data from the more primary levels is hard to pull up isn't reason to eliminate those more primary levels from scientific investigation!Which he doesn't do. The only level he eliminates is the top one, which is not really a level at all but a misconception where people want to study "things in themselves" rather than information about those things.

edit: And the utterances are, after all, merely interpretations -No, utterances are raw data. Interpretation is how we get the higher levels. Dennett says all this in the paper, btw.

No, I've read his book, and my opinion was developed by reading his own words. The Wiki quotes merely confirm my belief (or serve as confirmation bias :)).Okay.

Dennett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett), in [i]Consciousness Explained, argues against qualia.

Qualia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia) can be defined as qualities or sensations, like redness or pain, as considered independently of their effects on behavior and from whatever physical circumstances give rise to them.

I haven't read any of his books, but in his fascinating paper "Quining Qualia (http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/quinqual.htm)" Dennett sets out in great detail why he thinks the term "qualia" is a confused and erroneous one and that qualia do not exist as such. This paper also states
Everything real has properties, and since I don't deny the reality of conscious experience, I grant that conscious experience has properties. I grant moreover that each person's states of consciousness have properties in virtue of which those states have the experiential content that they do.As far as I can understand it (which granted isn't as far as I'd like to be able to), he never contradicts this, either implicitly or explicitly. His very problem with qualia seems to be that he's afraid the concept will hold back the study of first-person experience.

[Ian Nerr]

You are missing the point. I claim there is no relevant difference between Dennett's view that subjective experience neither can nor should be studied, and the view that subjective experience doesn't exist. I was asking you to show some relevant difference.

How would you study subjective experience other than through people's descriptions of it? What alternative is there? Why do you think Dennett thinks subjective experience can't be studied?

[Garrett]

Febble
No, he does not "basically" say that.
Yes he does. You even go on to reprint his quote I provided, entirely missing that he confirms my claim.

By definition, subjective experience can only be studied scientifically objective method, because that is what scientific methodology is - an objective methodology. But that doesn't eliminate it from study.
I agree. Now explain that to Dennett.

No, and I do not see from what you are inferring that Dennett does.
Then go correct the Wiki article.

Which is NOT the same as saying that conscious experience does not exist, or cannot be studied!
That's your response to the Dennett quote I provided. I have said several times that he doesn't deny that conscious experience exists, so why are you telling me that?

He does eliminate subjective experience from study! He holds that data from subjective experiences are unnecessary! He argues against attempts to study them!

I don't think so. Here is Dennett in Chapter 4 of Consciousness Explained:
Confirming my view. I don't know why you think otherwise. He gives you authority "about what seems to be happening in you", right? How can you be fooled by that lip service, when in that Dennett quote I provided he then takes that authority back away from you? See the 'hungry' example again. If you don't feel hungry, and Dennett tells you, after rejecting your report based on, say, neurological evidence that brain systems which can trigger feelings of hunger are firing, are you really going to figure well you must be wrong about how you feel?

Arguing against the notion of qualia is not the same as arguing that subjective experience does not exist. Or rather, if qualia are simply objective experience, then there is nothing particularly hard about explaining them. But people who use the term insist that qualia are something else - that they consist in some form of knowledge that only the subject can have access to.
You lost me. Is that a typo ("qualia are simply objective experience")? What makes you think subjective experience is not particularly hard to explain? What, other than subjective experience, is qualia supposed to be? What makes you think that subjective experience isn't something that only the subject has access to? What are "forms of knowledge"?

Anyway, Dennett doesn't claim qualia don't exist - he gives them a useless definition then claims the definition is useless. Typical Dennett.

I think what has happened here is that you have your own idea of what quale are, and because Dennett dismisses the notion of qualia, you assume that he dismisses the notion that subjective experience exists.
I have no preconception about qualia, I've never used the concept. But I linked to the basic definition, and used it. That Dennett dismisses them is consistent with his eliminativism.

I have issues with the Mary experiment, but it's obvious to me that until she experiences color, she cannot know how the experience will feel. Dennett may be "happy" to admit she has experiences, but only as part of trying to explain why he eliminates them from his method. Hell, he figures experiences are of such little value, that experiences (say, of color) aren't even necessary in order to know how those experiences would feel!

In other words, it's not the existence of subjective experience he rejects (he clearly does not)
You should try wrap your mind around this: I'm claiming he is eliminative about subjective experience. That doesn't mean he must claim subjective experience doesn't exist.

the idea that subjective experience includes some kind of knowledge that is different in kind from other common-or-garden kinds of knowledge. The "redness" of red, to take the usual example.
That seems a confused jumble to me. All knowledge is experienced. Qualia are presumed basic types of subjective experiences, such as the perception of red. You can't know about the experience of redness, until you experience redness.

But the point here is that of course Dennett argues against Mary - that is consistent with his eliminativism about subjective experience.

[Garrett]

trendkill
But book reviews shouldn't be based on other book reviews.
If you think Wiki was wrong, go fix it!

By the way, what exactly do you think is the purpose of this little game you think Dennett's playing, pretending to believe in something while arguing against it?
Unless he's a pzombie, he isn't pretending to believe experience exists.

I don't see where you get the idea that the existence of subjective experience isn't part of heterophenomenology in the first place. Heterophenomenology is supposed to be a method of studying conscious experience, a method with which to engage in "taking human subjectivity seriously", as he says on page 2 of "Who's On First". If we assume there is no such thing as human subjective experience, then there is no need to come up with a method for studying it, and heterophenomenology becomes entirely pointless. So no, I think the existence of subjective experience is absolutely essential to heterophenomenology.
You are missing the point. I've explained as well as I know how. I even gave a Dennett quote showing what I've been talking about.

He admits subjective experience exists, but eliminates it from his proposed method. I didn't invent that. I saw it when I read him, had it confirmed by reading others including the links I provided, and confirmed by the Dennett quote I provided, which was just an example - his work abounds with further examples. I wouldn't expect you to agree - but keep it in mind while you read him, and maybe you'll start to see what I've been trying to say.

I thought the quote I provided was fairly clear. The primary data he accepts is utterances - which are interpretations only, and so can be dismissed when he wants. His method admits of no other primary data about subjective experiences! He not only eliminates your experiences from study, he reserves the right to eliminate your reports of your experiences!

Please look at the 'hungry' example. If you don't feel hungry, and Dennett tells you are wrong, are you okay with that? Do heterophenomologists know the contents of your mind better than you do?

It seems to me that the whole thing falls apart if there's no such thing as subjective experience to tie it all together--surely you don't think what Dennett describes is meant as a research program for studying verbal reports, for instance. He's not after an explanation for speech, he's after an explanation for experience.
I'm not alone in thinking his "Consciousness Explained" didn't explain consciousness at all - folks a lot smarter than me have described it as "explaining away" consciousness.

I don't know why people like Dennett think the way they do. I believe it's rooted in a deep belief in reductionism, and an inability to see how consciousness fits with a world that otherwise seems to conform to reductionism rather well. Basically, they need to explain minds in terms of brains. Since they can't cross the explanatory gap, they have to eliminate it.

When in fact there is also...what? The thing being studied itself?
Of course. Unless you deny that subjective experience exists! Other methods exist - phenemology, for example. Introspection. Psychology! Hell, in the "Who's On First" paper you mentioned, Dennett has to argue against other methods which actually mine raw data from the levels Dennett precludes from his method!

But then we get geologists with rocks in their heads, per my first post. Information is all that can be known about the subject.
That isn't a good analogy. My problem with Mary is if she knew everything about color, then she would know how red looks. By stating that she has never seen color, it follows that she doesn't know everything about color after all.

But if you've never seen color, then no amount of explanation could ever show you what color looks like. If you've never felt sensations from touching surfaces with your hands, then no amount of explanation could ever show you what granite feels like.

Thus, when Dennett says things that imply "everything we can possibly know about x is contained in the data about x", they parse this as "Dennett denies the existence of x".
No, that isn't what is going on here. Other researchers and philosophers aren't charged with eliminativism even though they too are forced to know about x by examining the data about x.

From the Levine quote he attacks, I think you could make a better case that Levine wants to study "conscious experiences themselves", bypassing the data entirely. Dennett says how he's going to get the data from the higher levels.
What I saw was Levine mining the other levels for data, and Dennett arguing against the attempt.

Which he doesn't do.
Yes he did. He specifically said so himself.

The only level he eliminates is the top one, which is not really a level at all but a misconception where people want to study "things in themselves" rather than information about those things.
It seems strange to call subjective experiences a "misconception". I'm wrong for thinking I have subjective experiences?

It's possible to introspect, for example, and extract data directly from subjective experience itself. I don't see your distinction as being very useful or realistic. The moon is a thing-in-itself, why can't we study the moon? That's how we get the information about it!

No, utterances are raw data. Interpretation is how we get the higher levels. Dennett says all this in the paper, btw.
He does call them the raw data. They are the subjects interpretations of the subjects subjective experiences!

I haven't read any of his books, but in his fascinating paper "Quining Qualia" Dennett sets out in great detail why he thinks the term "qualia" is a confused and erroneous one and that qualia do not exist as such.
Tell me why the basic definition from Wiki is "confused and erroneous".

Dennett says:
"My claim, then, is not just that the various technical or theoretical concepts of qualia are vague or equivocal, but that the source concept, the "pretheoretical" notion of which the former are presumed to be refinements, is so thoroughly confused that even if we undertook to salvage some "lowest common denominator" from the theoreticians' proposals, any acceptable version would have to be so radically unlike the ill-formed notions that are commonly appealed to that it would be tactically obtuse--not to say Pickwickian--to cling to the term. Far better, tactically, to declare that there simply are no qualia at all."

If qualia are "qualities or sensations, like redness or pain, as considered independently of their effects on behavior and from whatever physical circumstances give rise to them", then to argue against qualia is to argue that we don't experience sensations like redness or pain, there is only stimulus and response - no subjective experience.

If someone wasn't trying to eliminate subjective experience, then rather than arguing qualia doesn't exist based on some definition, the correct approach is to argue the definition is flawed and search for a better one! Seems to me.

As far as I can understand it (which granted isn't as far as I'd like to be able to), he never contradicts this, either implicitly or explicitly.
Now find where he explains what "states of consciousness" are. I bet they eventually turn out to be brain states rather than mental states.

His very problem with qualia seems to be that he's afraid the concept will hold back the study of first-person experience.
Well, he states his motive - he wants to overthrow the idea of qualia.

His second endnote, btw, admits that his view on qualia is an example of "eliminative materialism".

[Garrett]

Ian Nerr

Your questions are all answered in the thread. Your first question, btw, ignores the fact that I said his method was good except for a fatal flaw. What was that flaw?

[dug_down_deep]

"Philosophers have adopted various names for the things in the beholder (or properties of the beholder) that have been supposed to provide a safe home for the colors and the rest of the properties that have been banished from the external world by the triumphs of physics: raw feels, phenomenal qualities, intrinsic properties of conscious experiences, the qualitative content of mental states, and, of course, qualia, the term I use. There are subtle differences in how these terms have been defined, but I am going to ride roughshod over them. I deny that there are any such properties. But I agree wholeheartedly that there seem to be." (Dennett, 1994, p129)
What does he mean, then?

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"What science has actually shown us is just that light-reflecting properties of objects ... cause creatures to go into various discriminative states ... These discriminative states of observer's brains have various primary properties (their mechanistic properties due to their connections, the excitation states of their elements, and so forth), and in virtue of these primary properties, they ... have secondary, merely dispositional properties. In human creatures with language, for instance, these discriminative states often eventually dispose the creatures to express verbal judgements alluding to the color of various things. The semantics of these statements makes it clear what colors supposedly are: reflective properties of the surfaces of objects or of transparent volumes ... And that is just what colors are in fact ... Do not our internal discriminative states also have some special intrinsic properties, the subjective, private, ineffable properties that constitute the way things look to us (sound to us, smell to us, and so forth)? No. The dispositional properties of those discriminative states already suffice to explain all the effects: the effects on both peripheral behavior (saying "Red!", stepping on the brake, and so forth) and internal behavior (judging "Red!", seeing something as red, reacting with uneasiness or displeasure if red things upset one). Any additional qualitative properties or qualia would thus have no positive role to play in any explanations, nor are they somehow vouchsafed to us directly in intuition. Qualitative properties that are intrinsically conscious are a myth, an artifact of misguided theorizing, not anything given pretheoretically." (Ibid, p130).
If I am quote-mining, I apologize. But please refute with the actual context, if you will. Or accept the quote in toto and explain what he means.

[dug_down_deep]

"Nothing red, white, or blue happens in your brain when you conjure up an American flag, but no doubt something happens that has three phy