Talk:Qualia

Talk archive
Almost all entries on the talk page were discussions of the qualia concept, not discussion about improving this article. Look at the header for this talk page: don't do that. I archived the entire talk page using the manual method outlined in Help:Archiving a talk page. Its most recent entry was from 2015. -Arch dude (talk) 01:07, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Citation convention
This article appears to primarily place citations in footnotes, but with a sprinkling of attempts at "Harvard" citations, done in a non-standard manner. I converted one "Harvard" ref to a footnote ref while removng a "pagenumber needed" template, but the whole article is a mess in this regard. The Wikipedia manual of style permits any of several citation conventins, but an article is supposed to use exactly one style, not a mix. If anyone strongly prefers "Harvard" style, then th entire article should be fixed up. Otherwise, we should convert all of them to footnote style. -Arch dude (talk) 01:14, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

This sentence doesn't mean anything
"The inverted spectrum thought experiment, originally developed by John Locke invites us to imagine that we wake up one morning and find that for some unknown reason all the colors in the world have been inverted."

The reason this sentence does not mean anything is that the reference to "inverted colors" doesn't mean anything (at least to 99.99% of all English speakers).

So if whoever wrote that would like people to understand what they are talking about, they will have to use language that people will understand. Like "Everything that used to look red now looks green," or something that communicates an idea instead of being meaningless.2600:1700:E1C0:F340:15C5:97ED:7A4:E9F2 (talk) 22:22, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Good call. The references describe "inverted qualia" as a 180º shift in a color wheel, so I'll add that as a clarification (here and at Inverted spectrum). Diego (talk) 08:43, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

I propose we replace the current image, with this improved one, so everyone can know what this sentence means, and so everyone can know that the objectively detectable different intrinsic physical qualities of our knowledge we can directly apprehend, or 'qualia' have nothing to do with the light spectrum. If I get a supportive second, I will make this change. If you are still having troubles understanding all this see: Consciousness: Not a Hard Problem, Just a Color Problem. Brent.Allsop (talk) 12:42, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Non sequitur
"the zombie can only exist if subjective consciousness is causally separate from the physical brain."

I don't understand how this statement relates to the rest of the article. It seems to rely on the premise that "subjective consciousness is causally separate from the physical brain" in order to conflate "A does not give rise to B" with "A and B are mutually independent". Regardless of which definition of p-zombie or whose brain, this seems like circular logic? I think that this only applies to solipsism and atemporal reality. I prefer the case where a person is taught to believe they possess qualia thus by definition their corresponding p-zombie is taught to believe they possess qualia. This is the absurdism counter-argument. Yet I believe that the concept of p-zombies becomes less absurd by our ability to conceptualize the, because it follows that if we can conceptualize p-zombies then our corresponding p-zombie can conceptualize its own existence! At this point, the p-zombie could assert that it is self-aware of its own existence. And if that's not sufficient criterion for consciousness then the p-zombie can invoke positive-nihilism to self-validate existentialism in order to define its own traits as personhood. Like dualism, a person and their corresponding p-zombie can conceptualize that people and p-zombies are equivalent. For example, a p-zombie lacking qualia can by definition conceptualize that having qualia and lacking qualia are equivalent. I'll also mention some opinions: that neural networks are observable, that some organisms can process stimuli without a neural network, and that p-zombies have thoughts and beliefs and can philosophize about themselves. FakerFangirl (talk) 01:59, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Erwin Schrödinger in the "analytical philosophers" section
Hello

Reading the article, I was a bit surprised to find Schrödinger listed in the "analytical philosophers" section. Does anyone know what motivated this decision (I didn't find it in the archive talk) ? It's not about knowing if he was for or against the qualia or if he could qualified as a philosopher (which he could very well be) but more specifically why as an analytical philosopher ? I know little about his philosophical work, but from what I read, I see little to link him with this precise movement/group of philosophers. Thank you if you have elements pointing toward this, otherwise I would suggest to remove him from the section. Alexandriasecretary (talk) 09:45, 12 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I don't see why "analytical" needs to be specified, for that matter, and the division into pro and anti sections is against wikipedia practice. 1Z (talk) 13:52, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

"Other issues" issues
The sections “Indeterminacy” and “Causal efficacy” have no citations at all, and “Epistemological issues” could really due with more references, especially more recent ones. Not only that, but the whole section seems like original research, or at least synthesis, and is incredibly unclear. Even after spending some time copy editing it, I can barely understand that last section, despite having actually studied this way back in my uni days. There’s no way it meets wiki clarity standards. Frankly I’m tempted to just delete the entire section since some of the citation needed tags have been there for 14 years. ~ Argenti Aertheri (Chat?) 16:56, 18 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I’ve gone digging in the article’s history and am fairly positive the section was initially the musings of one user. Since his logic is sound various well meaning editors have spent the last 17 years trying to massage it into being encyclopedic. I’ve spent a couple hours trying to find citations and everything loops back to Wikipedia or isn’t actually about (or related to) qualia. So I’m wiping the section and adding the most relevant concepts to the “see also”.
 * Evidence: before addition, after addition, user page. I’d reach out to him but that’s his user page before he wiped most of it and vanished. ~ Argenti Aertheri (Chat?) 06:25, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

@User:MisterCake - just so you know, I’ve been working on a major rewrite in my user space. I’d appreciate it if you give me a day or so to finish that section before you edit it further. I could use some help turning the neuroscientist quotes into prose though, if you maybe want to work on those? Thanks! ~ Argenti Aertheri (Chat?) 09:16, 23 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Ok, I think I got everything copied over, please take a look and make sure I didn’t accidentally write over any of your work in the process. ~ Argenti Aertheri (Chat?) 10:53, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

RFC: split off proponents and critics
This article is long and those sections are technical. The question already came up regarding for/against and WP:NPOV and while I do feel that those sections are pretty balanced now, it might make more sense to split them off and include a "brief history of" here. Options:  Leave it alone Split off with only minor changes Split into something resembling a timeline  For 2 or 3:  Add a brief history here Add only a link  ~ Argenti Aertheri (Chat?) 22:17, 24 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Oppose splitting off to a single article such as "Expert opinions on Qualia" - if this content should be moved anywhere then it should be moved to each of the individual philosophers' articles. Support cutting away these sections even if the content isn't moved though as excessive detail. A philosophy article should never go into detail on the opinions of every single philosopher who has published on the topic. Shapeyness (talk) 10:11, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I think I prefer Shapeyness's proposal. Change it to "Proponents like Chalmers blah blah and include others such as [litany]. Critics like Dennett blah blah and include others such as [litany]." Perhaps a sentence on neuroscience as well. One can then link to the relevant sections of the individual philosophers' articles.  Cake  (talk) 18:46, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the Definitions section could be retitled History? Then material from Proponents and Critics could be moved either to History or Arguments[...].
 * Anything left over probably does not need to be in this article (especially all the blockquotes and the mini-essay/summary of Dennett). If someone's views don't currently rise to the level of making the cut here or in an article of their own, we probably don't need to preserve them in a second Qualia article.
 * Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 20:13, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose splitting - this article needs a healthy dose of WP:OR-removal, scientists like Schrodinger shouldn't be stated as to having an opinion on a philosophical debate that mostly postdates them, especially with only primary sources cited. Once the original and otherwise dubious claims are purged, the whole article should probably be refactored to explain the concept and some common conceptions rather than presenting each philosopher's view in a doxographical manner. &#32;- car chasm (talk) 01:42, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Having looked closer at the article and removed a bit, I'm confident that once all of the non-encyclopedia and poorly sourced material is removed we will have a much more manageable article. &#32;- car chasm (talk) 01:56, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't have time to look at it now, but the Dennett section also probably needs to be trimmed down a lot. He certainly is one of the most prominent critics, but we can summarize his arguments in much less prose than is there now. &#32;- car chasm (talk) 02:01, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

So consensus is against splitting and in favor of serious pruning? ~ Argenti Aertheri (Chat?) 23:36, 27 July 2023 (UTC)


 * That's my vote. This is an important topic that poses many provocative philosophical questions. But I think all readers would be best served by just one accessibly good article. Those who want more can go procure their choice of books from the bibliography. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 23:42, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I've started a "draft" in my user space (it’s a subpage, with talk page in case anyone has any comments) ~ Argenti Aertheri (Chat?) 00:37, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

COI tag (July 2023)
Second highest contributor shares a name with one of the WP:UNDUE people heavily covered on this page &#32;- car chasm (talk) 01:52, 26 July 2023 (UTC)


 * All the time I spent chasing citations and I missed that  ~ Argenti Aertheri (Chat?) 05:09, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Separate this from Subjective Experiences
The term “subjective experience” redirects here. I would like to see separate article addressing subjective experience. For one thing, no one disputes the existence of subjective experience, yet the existence of qualia is disputed. Also, a description of subjective experience could be simpler than what appears here. Lbeaumont (talk) 22:04, 27 February 2024 (UTC)