On 3/20/2013 4:51 PM, Tom Bayley wrote:
There is not a "direct link" between the light switch and the light going
on either,
the closing of the light switch just caused a current to flow in the wire,
the
current flow didn't cause the light either it just caused the filament in
the light
bulb to get hot, it was the hot electrons in the filament that caused the
electromagnetic waves to be produced.
I think explanations are important to prove causation ;-) and it's interesting that you
can break this example down. Each explanatory step is materially plausible (it has a
satisfactory public explanation), right up to the perception of the light. But the
qualia (qualium?) itself doesn't have a public description, and there isn't any sense of
satisfaction that it has been explained. It's tempting to believe that's because it's a
complicated step, but there seems no obvious way to reduce it. So as far as I can see it
is still only an assumption, with the hope/faith that some plausible explanation will
one day be found. I'm not sure there are many other widely-held scientific explanations
like this one?
I don't think you have considered carefully enough explanations that you do think are
plausible: Did Newton explain gravity? Did Gell-Mann explain quarks. Is life explained by
chemistry? An explanation is satisfying when we can used it to predict or manipulate.
When we can build robots that act just like people and report their qualia to us - then
we'll think we've explained qualia, and questions like "Yes, but what is it really?" will
seem anachronistic.
Brent
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