'Zombie' writes:
On Chalmers' view, wherein the 'psychophysical laws' are contingent, it seems that across possible worlds most brains like ours will be zombies or at least have 'associated' qualia that don't 'match' the information processing in the brain. So sophisticated brains proceeding according to ordinary standards of rationality should zombie-conclude that they probably are not conscious (as they don't have access to any non-material qualia), despite their zombie-perceptions of being conscious (shared by both zombie and non-zombie brains). Yet Chalmers thinks that in our actual world the psychophysical laws lead to conscious experience mirroring the information processing in the brain. So, upon hearing the argument, shouldn't Chalmers' brain zombie-conclude that it is probably a zombie brain, and 'phenomenal Chalmers' consciously think the same?
No. Conclusions are drawn by people, not brains. Standards of rationality likewise apply to agents and their beliefs, not to their physical components (brains and neural states) in isolation.
On my view, beliefs are partly constituted by phenomenal properties -- that's what gives them their representational content. Zombies don't have beliefs like we do. They exhibit all the same behaviour, and make all the same noises, but there's no meaning in it. It's not really about anything.
One might define a 'z-belief' as the functional (physical, dispositional) component of a belief. It's not so clear how to assign pseudo-contents to these z-beliefs, but I guess a reductionist may offer a stipulation of some kind: S has a z-belief that P iff S has such-and-such physical dispositions [e.g. 'S behaves as though P were true', or 'S has a brain state which covaries with evidence of P', or some such. See my essay 'What Behaviour is About' for a more sophisticated empirical approach to attributing "content".]
Presumably we're to suppose that whenever I really have the belief that P, my brain has the z-belief that P. But I doubt whether any such reduction can be given that perfectly mirrors my actual belief contents. (If epiphenomenalism is true, and qualia are partly determinative of belief content, then the physical facts underdetermine what it is that I believe. My inverted-spectrum duplicate has the same brain -- hence z-beliefs -- as me, but our phenomenal beliefs are very different. My 'red' is his 'blue', or whatever.)
There's a more fundamental problem, even if we grant the reductionist his impossibly fine-grained z-content. Let's grant - per impossibile - that my brain (and zombie twin) "z-believes that P" iff I believe that P. However, my brain (understood as a purely physical system, i.e. excluding its phenomenal properties) is in possession of only a subset of my total evidence. Qualia - the contents of experience - are among my evidence if anything is. But these phenomenal properties are not causally accessible to my neural processes. So the conclusion 'I am conscious' follows from my evidence, but not from the "information" available to my brain. One can be a rational person, or have a "rational" brain, but not both.
Now, it's pretty obvious that being a rational person is better than having a "rational brain" (insofar as the latter attribution is even meaningful). Brains are parts of people, and like any body part we really only care about it for how it can serve the whole person. If quick feet didn't make for a quick person, we wouldn't much care for the former. Similarly, a rationally desirable brain is one that makes for a rational person, with justified beliefs.
One could imagine a brain that is instead built in such a way that it tends to produce "z-justified" z-beliefs. What this means is that it tends to end up in physical states such that a conscious person in that physical state would have beliefs in line with the physically accessible subset of their evidence. When put like that, it becomes clearer that what we've really described here is a defective brain. Let's call it "z-rational", and reserve the term 'rational' for brains that give rise to rational people -- people whose beliefs are in line with their total evidence.
Here are two implications:
(1) A z-rational brain can be expected to have more true z-beliefs (across all possible worlds).
(2) A rational brain can be expected to yield more true beliefs.
Fortunately, my brain is rational rather than z-rational. Hopefully yours is too (otherwise, you're a defective agent). One might try to argue that there's something "wrong" with a brain that isn't z-rational, but I don't think that'll work. For one thing, since you're really just describing a physical state it's not clear that brains or z-beliefs are even open to this sort of normative assessment. Norms apply primarily to people, and to our organs only derivatively. What a well-functioning agent really needs is a brain that will make them rational, not z-rational. As suggested above, a z-rational brain is defective from the standpoint of contributing to the functioning of the whole person (which is the relevant standpoint against which to assess brains). Further, when you stop to think about what it really means to have 'z-rational z-beliefs', you see that there's not really anything significant (worth caring about) there.
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My brain ... is in possession of only a subset of my total evidence. What we've really described here is a defective brain. Let's ... reserve the term 'rational' for brains that give rise to rational people -- people whose beliefs are in line with their total evidence.
But by assumption this subset must be sufficient to produce all of the beliefs that the brain might physically express, such as in words or writing.
Hmm.. If Qualia don't effect the universe then how can qualia be used as evidence?
I.e. zombie Richard is 'right now' arguing that qualia are, if anything, part of his evidence that he is not a zombie.
If they have no causal relationship to the words coming out of your mouth or mine, or for that matter on the concept of qualia which we share (as a zombie would mean* qualia) then it pretty much by definition is an irrational position (which may happen to be correct).
*Mean is a neutered concept here - but not too neutered. Zombie richard can explain to me in detail philosophy and also the concept of qualia and what they are like. So he has a structure in his head that defines the term.
and I guess I'm repeating things here but it is a little surprising that real Richard might have an experience additional to zombie Richard that is not in anyway recorded even in the most obscure form in his brain.
Two questions :
a) first, it would be helpful if you could clarify the above point Genius makes. In a universe identical to this, but without qualia would Richard2 belief that he is a Zombie? As far as I can follow your reasoning, he would act in every way as the original Richard would, writing the exact same post as above, but all this philosophy talk would now be meaningless (I shall resist the urge to make a cruel joke ;) ), as as a Zombie he can't believe anything?
And whether something is meaningful or not, has absolutely no effect on the rest of the physical universe, or else its not epiphenomenal, right?
(Strictly speaking, if whether we have qualia or not has no effect on the rest of the universe, doesn't that imply even if this debate is one day concluded it'll make absolutely no difference to anything else... )
b) I read your other post again, and I still don't see why beliefs need phenomenal content - could you clarify, provide some arguments for this position?
YMMV on this point - I would be prepared to say that my computer has a belief, say, that I have 10 emails unread. It has something real, encoded into information, and it uses that information to make useful and accurate preditions and actions affecting the real world. I'm not sure what more you want in a belief?
Richard,
1. If you remove possibility of z-beliefs or something of a sort (mental pattern), there would be no explanation about why you behave as you behave. (I guess as epiphenomenalist you agree that you your behavior should be fully accounted for in physical terms?)
2.I mentioned something about this in the discussion on your other post (and wrote more on it here ), but epiphenomenalist should have account for this z-epiphenomenalist behavior and those z-beliefs. You said that you are not in worse position at all than physicalists, but you are as they have abstract entity in their physical world, that you don't - the awareness that one is conscious. Epiphenomenalists push that one outside of the physical world, so they should provide different explanation for z-epiphenomenalist-behavior, and z-epiphenomenalist-beliefs.
2. Wouldn't z-beliefs (or other NCCs), actually give rise to the beliefs, given the psycho-physical laws? If that is so, in the actual world, such things as inverted qualia can't happen, and you can't use the inverted-qualia example to argue that given same z-beliefs (or something of a kind) you could have different beliefs. It would so appear, that whatever you mean by "partially constituted", it is fully determined by a)physical world and b)psychophysical world, so the beliefs are fully dependent on z-beliefs or something of a kind.
Right, I'm perfectly happy to grant some kind of z-belief/ pseudocontent for its explanatory/predictive power (see my linked essay, which is very empirically oriented). I just don't think such empirically attributable contents can be so fine-grained as real mental content (as the inverted qualia case demonstrates -- N.B. the nomological impossibility of inverts and zombies is irrelevant to this point).
Jonathan - my acquaintance with meaning, like my acquaintance with qualia, is essentially first-personal. I see them as bound very closely together. I know what it is for me to have a thought that is about something, and part of this (it seems to me) comes from the phenomenal feel of my thoughts. Strip away my qualia, and you've also taken away my thoughts in the fully-fledged sense. Cognitive processing would continue to occur, of course, and outsiders could tell no difference -- my mere z-beliefs suffice for their purposes -- but 'from the inside' things are very different.
(I don't expect hardened materialists to be persuaded by any of this. My argument is more defensive: assuming epiphenomenalism, these other views may reasonably be held, which in turn show why various materialist objections are not insuperable for the epiphenomenalist.)
You say... "I just don't think such empirically attributable contents [let's call them EAC] can be so fine-grained as real mental content."
But different mental content (in epiphenomenalist view) will be result of different EAC, no? So you have to have as fine grained EAC as fine grained your phenomenology is for this to happen.
So to say, if we see psycho-physical laws as function, that take the physical state, and return the mental state - the function's domain needs to be as fine grained as its range.
Different mental content will be a result of different EAC plus the psychophysical bridging laws. EAC alone does not determine mental content, because there is a possible (invert) world where the EAC is the same but the mental content differs. EAC alone is thus coarser grained.
It seems to me not entirely natural that one could deny that a zombie perspective exists. I don't have any major issues with a table perspective existing or a 'richard&elizer' perspective or a 'american' perspective existing.
So it seems to be zombies would have a perspective no matter what you do - and if that is an intelligence empowered perspective (like a human) your getting close to being a human even if you strip out all particular qualia.
Also just thinking... I wonder if one could chop qualia into sub parts. For example red - and cut it down into a thousand parts none of which having any meaning by themselves (but still have something special to them) but all of which remaining epiphenomenal - as a way to study them.
Okay, so it sounds like your view of beliefs is roughly what I mean by belief with the addition of qualia. belief = z-belief + qualia. Is that fair?
If so, how does the phenomenal aspect have any affect on our rational calculation? I'm just not sure what rational / informational content qualia have - in fact of course, they can't have effect or else we would no longer be in epiphenomalist territory. They're purely a bonus, a free gift on top as it were.
I must admit, I think I've got a bit confused somewhere along the line with your exact point. When you talk about a person being rational, rather than just a brain, you seem to be implying that there's something else doing the rational stuff, thinking or whatever, other than just the brain. If you're not saying that, I'm not sure why you're saying that the brain in itself isn't rational. But if you are saying that, the thinking needs to take place somewhere. So you're explicitly arguing for the existence of (for the lack of a better word) a soul then?
Jonathan - I granted for sake of argument that z-belief = belief - qualia, but this isn't really possible: empirically attributed content won't always correspond to mental content for reasons explained above.
"If so, how does the phenomenal aspect have any affect on our rational calculation? I'm just not sure what rational / informational content qualia have"
I have no idea what you're asking here. Qualia don't influence how our brain functions ('calculates'), if that's what you mean. But since they are partly determinative of what it is that we believe or conclude in our reasoning (and also feature in our evidence), they thereby affect the normative fact whether the conclusion of our reasoning is rationally supported by our evidence.
I'm not sure but you may be surrendering what I thought was protecting you from Eliezer...
If the brain isn't rational on its own, and qualia can't affect the brain (epiphenomenalism), then there must be something more than the brain which makes the 'person' as a whole rational.
I guess all I'm saying is that I hadn't realised propery dualism in this sense also commits you to a more traditional dualism in the sense that you need to introduce some sort of soul. It tends not to get mentioned very much in the debates.
Have I misunderstood?
In the wider scheme of things - it seems to me like most of these debates end with some loose ends you haven't dealt with and you being able to say 'I still have an escape route', the other party seems the party of ideas as they say.... hmm... anyway... redoing the above...
what would it be like to be a zombie in a zombie world? I'm suggesting that it isn't conceivable that the answer to that is 'nothing' because the perspective exists - there must be something to being any perspective that exists.
and if you cant conceive of what it is like from any perspective, including that of the zombie, them you have a concievability issue.
Jonathan - I'm really not following you here. On the property dualist view, there's the physical brain + its phenomenal properties. That's all. What settles the question whether a person is rational is their beliefs, etc., and these are constituted by the physical brain + its phenomenal properties. No further 'soul', whatever that's supposed to be.
Genius - the 'something it is like' is, by definition, a phenomenal property. An entity (like zombies) without phenomenal properties has no "perspective", no 'thing it is like' to be them. If you think even tables etc. have perspectives then you're some kind of panpsychist. (Or else you're using your words differently from me, so I don't know what you mean. Or you're contradicting yourself.)
We also have very different views of the "wider scheme of things", but trading insults won't accomplish anything, so let's skip the disagreeable meta-commentary and stick to the substance, please.
So when I say "If the brain isn't rational on its own, and qualia can't affect the brain (epiphenomenalism), then there must be something more than the brain which makes the 'person' as a whole rational."
you disagree becausse beliefs are "constituted by the physical brain + its phenomenal properties" - where do these phenomenal properties rest / afffect the person then?
If you don't think its in the brain, you don't think its in the soul, where?
(and I might add: who? how? :) )
Qualia can't just be floating out in the world, they have to get to 'me' somehow.
Or do you think qualia affect the physical brain?
That's where I'm confused.
if that was an insult it wasn't intended to be - are meta comments out of bounds? Sometimes they are the whole substance of the debate...
> the 'something it is like' is, by definition, a phenomenal property.
a table has a perspective it is just by its nature one with no interest (so its not panpsychist and if you take it to be that you've assume I'm arguing on the assumption of qualia which doesn't make sense if I'm arguing against it, I'm tempted to make a meta comment). I.e. there is no interesting processing goes on in a table.
I would have thought its just standard logic for anyone who doesn't believe in qualia. they have to justify that they exist and deny themselves a magical special status.
Jonathan - phenomenal properties are instantiated by the brain (I assume). It's just that in earlier contexts we were talking about the brain as a "purely physical system", i.e. the brain minus its phenomenal properties.
"Or do you think qualia affect the physical brain?"
What do you mean? They obviously don't have physical effects. They do make a mental difference (e.g. on what it is that you believe). I'm not sure what you're confused about. Are you illicitly assuming that all consequences must be physical consequences, or some such? I don't know what questions you have that weren't already answered in my 8:44 comment upthread.
I guess not really interested in "the normative fact whether the conclusion of our reasoning is rationally supported by our evidence" because that seems to depend on whose definiton of meaning you're going by, what assumptions you're making about rationality which the two sides conflict upon on, and so on. At any rate, I think I understand your position on that, its the below that's confusing me.
You agree that there is a mental difference caused that isn't physical. So there's part of the brain / the mind that isn't physical. I'm just at a bit of a loss why you refuse to call that a soul. Something non physical involved in thought, in feeling, that makes up the person - sounds like the very definition of a soul.
What would you call the non physical part of the brain then, if not the soul?
That's my only question. Thanks.
Jonathan -
is the question still something like 'do the mental effects caused by qualia have physical effects and is your position on qualia (as imprinted in your brain and espoused in text here) a justified belief due to the evidence of your qualia?'
If so - yeah I am also confused...
anyway back to my pet argument :)
Richard (or nobody is fine too, mwahaha),
Lets take the analogy of photography. you can take a photo from anywhere in a room - it is conceivable to do so. So there is meaning to 'what does the world look like', from any perspective. that holds across other similar concepts.
I have no need to ascribe strong nessecities to any perspective not existing in this theory or take a strong position on the existance or non existence of qualia as a 'magical property' for want of a better word. or the existance or behaviour of a bridging law, but if I have one it is probably the simplest possible one. And it fits with modern understanding of psychology (wherein you'd need some very odd bridging laws of they don't work the way I am describing here).*
Now to show this works lets take a random scenario. Lets say a perfect island because you mentioned it once. Now lets say (hypothetically) that a perfect island is concievable (somehow we agree on what it is). Now it conceivable from the point of view of a god (the usual perspective), and similarly the same perfect island is conceivable from man on the island, in fact it is conceivable from the perspective of anything that exists in that world.
I suggest anything (maybe there is an exception?) that is conceivable is also conceivable from every perspective.
So we now say a zombies has a perspective - there is such a thing as being a zombie OR your zombie world becomes inconceivable (or you need to gerrymander the definition of conceivable).
Otherwise we seem to need to place an arbitrary rule that the contradiciton is permitted (which I guess I can live with but I don't think the zombie hypothesis can).
So I propose in some sense the world must look like something from the zombies perspective (if thats a contradiction the debate ends there). Now we can still continue to argue and say yes it does seem like something but its somehow not 'real'. So we get how many people might see your zombie hypothesis - a set of people living colorless zombie lives (which the physicalists also think is impossible for all the standard reasons).
For that I'll draw a parallel with the 'people of race X have no souls' argument.
*Ok you seem to think such things are no evidence on this debate but I think its another count for the model that it doesn't need to say that, and one never knows when you wil make a bolt for that side of the debate.
ahh ok maybe thats not the point you were mostly concerned about .. woops then :)
Soul... hmm maybe it's a baggage thing - it is easier to make up a new word or use a less established word and then you control the debate better.
Genius - yeah, I was more interested in wider issues earlier, but after this long have decided its just to focus down on something small, and save the rest of the battle as it were for another day.
That was my suspicion - 'soul' isn't a very philosophical or serious sounding word, at least these days. But then again, lets give the benefit of the doubt and Richard may mean something else entirely, completely different to a soul - be interested to hear what it is.
"What would you call the non physical part of the brain then, if not the soul?"
I don't think the brain has a non-physical "part" (if parts are substances, have locations, instantiate other properties, etc.). I think it has non-physical properties (qualia), i.e. phenomenal properties that do not affect its physical properties.
Of course, if this is all you mean by 'soul', then that's fine. I don't care for terminological disputes. (Though 'soul' is such a sloppy and unclear term, I can't imagine what non-rhetorical benefit could be gained by its employment.) My point is that I've exhaustively described my ontological commitments above (i.e. 'brain with phenomenal properties') so if you're trying to attribute to me some further fundamental commitment, I'm going to reject that.
G. - "do the mental effects caused by qualia have physical effects and is your position on qualia (as imprinted in your brain and espoused in text here) a justified belief due to the evidence of your qualia?"
No physical effects, yes beliefs about qualia may be justified by the evidence of those very qualia. (This requires us to reject causal theories of justification. It's not so problematic otherwise -- compare, for example, Knowledge as Sufficiently Safe Belief.)
Oh, Jonathan, I know what might help: see my post on The Problem of Other Minds -- there I contrast my view with substance dualism (as I understand it).
OK good, now I know in which direction is the bullet you are biting. But I am not sure how your link makes it any clearer. the link seems to be talking about where to place the standard, and that your standard might move.
maybe your point is simply for the purposes of this conversation (regarding a debate that is defined as having no useful evidence) we need to accept a standard of proof with no evidence?
Or do you have a link that explains it more clearly?
I'm interested to see a paper directly on
"rejecting causal theories of justification not being so problematic" that might be interesting.
So now we have
1) the above debate which seems a bit of a bullet to me. But not only that but I can now try to leverage against other things.
So...
2) I remember my debate with you regarding quantum immortality. your point was that causality was an important part of your continuality. If you were to take that position then there is an issue with how your attitudes have no concequences on this world - thus there is no causality relationship between the qualia (which I presume we take to be "you") and any other qualia. So are we willing to bite the continuality bullet?
3) a curious scenario
if you took a trip to zombie world, I presume you would die, and yet if you return you would remember being there in all the colour and meaning as if it wasn't zombie world. That implies that qualia is less like an image pulled into place by actions on earth and more like a force (like gravity) defined by the presence of the real world - note how gravity is generally best understood as a dent in space (hmm I'm doing that science as evidence thing again...).
4) and just to clarify positions...
what is life like if you walk into your universe crossing machine and stop in the doorway? half your head on one side half on the other.
5) remember elizers argument about catching yourself thinking which I see as a small subset of my wider "psychology matters" argument.
I presume the answer here is to relegate that to zombie thought - how much of our 'qualia (in the sense a normal person might interpret it) is relegated to zombie thought? Defining what qualia are and what their properties are (like with physical objects) would help to create a more valuable definition.
6) Occams razor argument (believing in invisibles) as per eliezer post indicating that the alternative to 'zombie logic' is more consistent with the standard methodology. Or is his logic flawed?
7) visuallising Epiphenomenalism we need(in the looser sense) to actualy put conciousness in the circle inside of the 'world' model. In the multi world model (whether this is possible or whatever) we have to define a unit we are duplicating and rules as to how they can intereact - generally we define 'the universe' and 'no interaction' in that model then the qualia world is inside the universe. If it is outside we need additional arbitrary rules to justify why it only relates to one world etc.
So its not so much a bridging law holding onto qualia but rather a exception law regarding properties of qualia (i.e. qualia have a special exemptions regarding normal laws as opposed to being beyond them).
"I don't think the brain has a non-physical "part" (if parts are substances, have locations, instantiate other properties, etc.). I think it has non-physical properties (qualia), i.e. phenomenal properties that do not affect its physical properties."
I don't understand how you have properties floating in mid air. They must be properties of something. Qualia aren't properties of the brain at any rate - they're properties of our experience. Something must be doing the experience.
So if there's no part of the brain or person that's non physical, that something must be the brain, and so therefore the qualia must be affecting the physical brain according to you?
That seems consistent, but I don't see why you call it ephiphenomenalism.
Jonathan,
I think Richard is OK there. Bottom like is qualia have no effect. But they are effected(experience).
we can go
Qualia-experience-thought-brain
or throw anything else we want in there.
All,
how about this
argument 10 - based on the free will argument
A) there is value in having beliefs that are true
B) if you have no free will then you cant change your belief
C) if you choose to believe in free will you can change yourself from wrong to right but never from right to wrong therefore increasing the truth probability of the statement
D) from above - you should believe in free will.
Qualia are in the same area as free will so how does it apply to that?
A) there is value in having beliefs that are true (possibly the only value?)
B) if you have Ep qualia then you can't change your belief based on them (there is no causal connection) so you can't increase the truth value. But if you don't then they can.
C) if you choose to believe in Ep qualia will you can change yourself from right to wrong but never from wrong to right therefore decreasing the truth probability of the statement
D) from above - you should not believe in ep qualia.
That leaves a believer in ep qualia needing to use other reasons for believing in it... whatever they might be?
(or the out that I use but that is one i doubt an ep qualia supporter would like)
Genius - your premise C is exactly backwards. Obviously it's possible to change yourself from wrong to right by choosing to believe in qualia -- all that requires is that qualia exist, which is surely possible! Further: without qualia, your brain states will not give rise to beliefs at all. So a brain increases its chances of forming true beliefs if it z-believes in qualia. (That is, it gets into a brain state such that, if you add qualia, then together they will constitute a belief that one has qualia.)
You cannot go wrong by choosing to believe in qualia. (Because if you're wrong, you don't have beliefs anyway.) So, you should believe in qualia, if you can.
Genius - I'm not sure I follow. What did you mean by "I think Richard is OK there. Bottom like is qualia have no effect. But they are effected(experience).
we can go"
Do you mean that by ephiphenomenalism Richard just means that qualia don't affect our actions, only our thoughts and experiences?
Richard:
"Further: without qualia, your brain states will not give rise to beliefs at all. So a brain increases its chances of forming true beliefs if it z-believes in qualia. (That is, it gets into a brain state such that, if you add qualia, then together they will constitute a belief that one has qualia.)
You cannot go wrong by choosing to believe in qualia. (Because if you're wrong, you don't have beliefs anyway.) So, you should believe in qualia, if you can."
Further: without a soul, your brain states will not give rise to beliefs at all. So a brain increases its chances of forming true beliefs if it z-believes in a soul. (That is, it gets into a brain state such that, if you add a soul, then together they will constitute a belief that one has a soul.)
You cannot go wrong by choosing to believe in a soul. (Because if you're wrong, you don't have beliefs anyway.) So, you should believe in a soul, if you can.
No?
> your premise C is exactly backwards.
first - you cant change your argument to right from wrong so it begs the question why you argue it (as opposed to quietly believing it).
Second - I propose that you can't have a complex thought in qualia world without the assistance of the real world and that would require the qualia -> world gap to be crossed - why not? well imagine the brain is constantly sending qualia signals to qualia world, red green, happy, sad, etc and these all in effect design a complex structure of belief (a religion a school of philosophy, etc). The qualia world is experiencing these - now you seem to be proposing that in between these you are having some sort of complex free thought where you compose logical arguments - but in any normal situation you would be blown off course by additional brain signals that are experimentally coming at you. Your brain would need to be pretty much dead to allow you to have coherent thought independent of it.
This goes together to an extent with the cartesian theartre argument where you can observe in your mind arguments and that making those arguments appears to be not a qualia function but a basic brain one.
Also you create a experimental scenario where you think of things but no brain activity occurs - if you accept anything with experimental consequences I'll take that as a win.
> without qualia, your brain states will not give rise to beliefs at all.
that's completely question begging. You should no better than to do that?
to be charitable that argument is a bit like "if god doesn't exist morality doesn't matter"
>by ephiphenomenalism Richard just means that qualia don't affect our actions, only our thoughts and experiences?
yes
So from another perspective (yeah I know I talk too much)
zombie me is a 'zombie-doubter' and zombie Richard is a 'zombie believer'. Zombie Richard has the raw data of the belief structure encoded that allows him to write a essay on qualia - just not the raw evidence. So First we seem OK with the physical world being able to encode the full set of logic for qualia etc (besides the experience itself - maybe).
On the other side of the ledger however I don't know of any thought regarding high level analysis that emerged from my mind and which I can't, if i try, use to effect reality - for example to write down.
If we invoke 'ep qualia me's ability to understand what qualia is and to understand and justify it's existance then one would expect a class of information to fall into the category where I couldn't effect reality with it in any way. basically while the qualia world can copy the physical world patterns the physical world can't tell what qualia world is doing so it can't copy anything not entirely emerging from the brain.
So best case scenario - you can imagine we have a 'zombie me' writing about not believing in zombie philosophy and a 'real me' writing about not believing in zombie philosophy but screaming out inside that he does believe in it, a recipe for insanity I suppose (although as I suggested earlier I don't think this scenario is plausible unless you are really a zombie anyway, e.g. if the bridging law doesn't exist). On the other hand I know that isn't the case, you'll just have to take my word for it.
"a 'real me' writing about not believing in zombie philosophy but screaming out inside that he does believe in it"
This is a common mistake. Remember, my view is that qualia arise from the physical configuration (according to the bridging laws). So if there's nothing in your brain to ground feelings of frustration, "that's not what I believe!", etc., then you won't experience that qualia either. It's a not an independently cognizing "soul" that's able to have completely different thoughts regardless of what's going on in your brain.
(That's part of the reason why I'm so baffled by Jonathan's comments.)
What I was doing there was adressing a potential out to the dilema which seems to logically follow from your position on the point I made.
If you don't take it (and apparently reject free floating qualia) you are left with the other issue i.e. that your believe in Epiphenomenalism must come from the physical world thus you slam straight into the 'its best to not believe argument'.
Note that if 'magical ep qualia' don't exist we have either normal dualist qualia or qualia in the scientific sense either of which can be true or false and can use data from qualia or nonqualia world. I'm not trying to use the argument to simultaneously disprove everything else.
If any two people are arguing and one wants to prove the other incorrect they need to locate at least two beliefs (probably much more) the other side has (which may be easy or difficult). they then leverage the first belief(or beliefs) to develop a logical conclusion based on them to disprove the other.
One can then argue from the first point to the second or from the second to the first, its not clear which one the person will reject (it could be bullet biting or surrendering the debate). Also since the proof from the first point is now moved into the domain of the second the closest belief to the argument would presumably be a contradiction of a belief that that person has previously stated - eliciting a 'you obviously don't understand'. Prior to assessing if there are logical flaws in the argument.
of course that may not apply entirely in this case - but it is how I presume a lot of logical debate works.
here is something interesting
http://philosophyhurtsyourhead.blogspot.com/2006/06/mind-and-meaning-sequel.html
can you have a 'meaning zombie'.
"A functional isomorph, but more than that, a copy that does have the same phenomenal qualities as myself, but is a Meaning Zombie. That is to say, he passes the usage tests, he has phenomenal experience, he has a mind etc, but, his words, even when they are the same as mine, have no meaning."
I'm thinking maybe that IS conceivable... or at least it should be defendable as a conceivable position.
Richard - I'm sorry I'm baffled you. I'm afraid I'm rather baffled myself, I'm not sure I have any idea what you believe any mroe.
Could you link me to a post of yours/ a paper or book by someone else that corresponds to your views, in which you set out exactly what you mean by ephiphenomenalism, why qualia are non physical, and preferably why a physical brain can interact with these non physical phenemons - with arguments towards this position from first principles, not relying on the zombie argument.
Thanks!
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