Johnston Mark  Qualia Not Mental  16 Mar 2012

intro by Paul Skokowski,  head of CEC...

Mark is a prof at Princeton Dept of Philos and did his dissert. under Saul Kripke

his title:  Why Qualia are not Mental

this is the last in the series of the Geballe  lectures  (this was a wonderful series)

Frank Heile sits to my R;  Brad Cottel is to my L;
John Perry, Donovan Wishon also here;  audience of perhaps 30;

it was at noon on Friday in Barwise;

START OF TALK:

Qualia are not mental and they are not properties... his claims

1st sl: = slide

his point of inspiration:  Leo Hurvich

he opens with a  para from Hurvich

"stare at  500 nano  green then look at achromat bkgrnd and see red after-image...

then look back (i missed it)  and see a supernatural  green...  (ie a green not present  "out there")

so,  what is the status of qualia?

sl:   physicalism  vs  anti-physicalism

he commends helen steward's book on that topic.

see also heidegger or ryle discussiions

next point:  there r no selves,  only minded animals

...  there r no minds.. he wll argue

there r no  qualia nor mental objects... 

there is a mental-making relation..

(i missed the rest of the list)

key Q... is there a physicalistically  acceptable reduction of the mental-making realization?

he says he is an antiphysicalist...

his claims... there are no minds  and there are no qualia, no mental objects...

how about PAIN?
how abt after-images, auras, diaphanous fingers 
(he's inter in these cuz  they do not occur outside the indiv- out there)

sl  Physicalism and Qualia

if they r not mental, what r they?
they r topic neutral, neither mental nor physical...

(not sure what he means by topic neutral;  John Perry also questions him on his usage of this)

the old australian phsyicalist view...  proponet is Armstrong...

todays Q .. is it a choice btwn phsyicalism and scientism?

qualities are neither mental nor physical

qualities:  colors  and shades

eg  surface color of sarah janes hair = red17  sarah jane = SJ

the thing fred is now feeling in his leg = pain5

they must have opposites  (says aristotle)

in Edwin Land's sense...  there should be a triple of designators  assoc with
SJ's hair color, eg   =  <d8  d2 d13>

fred weighs  15  stone

these can enter into  numerical relationships

consider the famous MARY problem and suppose that Mary does not know abt imaginary numbers...

sl  Why the qualities are NOT  properties...

red is the color of my true love's hair (true)

being red is the color of my true loves hair  (false)  (ie the object itself is not  red17)

M's intelligence is even more impressive than M's beauty  (could be true)

consider  orange has red and yellow in it...
but properties  do NOT have props in them in this way.

compare  an object that weighs 5 kgs;
one can imagine dividing 5 kgs into two pieces  

sl:  a decisive consideration
consider pardigm qualities:  the colors  (cannot divide it up into 2 pieces)

if red is a prop, so is red17  (say, eg, some claret red)
but there is no utterly determinate property...

but  red17  cud be a surface color or a volume color
how abt  radiant objects...

so,   red 17 is not BEING RED17  and RED is not BEING RED...

there are 2 quite difft ontological questions...
what red17 is and what it is to BE red-17  

sl  consider pain... there is no candidate to be the relevant property...

consider Galilean argument:  there are no colors...
only surface reflectances...  (or  volume properties and light surfaces)

its not just that surfaces and  volumes and light sources r NOT colored,
there simply is NO property of being red707...

mistakes in the philos of color
confusing  RED and   Being RED...

sl  colors are neither subjective or mental...

subjective  accounts of salmon red  (like his jacket)

why r the colors themselves not subjective or mental

(he discusses the color cone... and supersaturated colors)

(what is topic neutral  ???  )

he says  qualities r neither physical nor mental...

what it is like to see red... looking at a red sweater  etc.

how about PAIN?

pain qualia...

sl  his opponents calim that there is a range of determinate  qualities  that charcterize pain...
he wants to argue that those properties are not mental

being IN PAIN is a mental state invovling awareness ofone or another pain quality

there is no unfelt pain...  .. so pain intrinsically has  intensity 

pains r found only ibn the mind,  spec in the body field

and a quality only found in the mind deserves to be considered mental...

1)  unfelt pains...

world of pain might have limits or gaps...
but how abt the pains that exist in the gaps or beyond the limits of human experience
(eg outside the color cone)

2)  diff btwn appearance and reality...

appearance and reality are equal
so, pain qualities are mental

"revelation" holds forf them...
ie an experience of a pain quality displays its full intrinsic character...

3)   only found in the mind... and therefore mental...

Q  i ask him to clarify  his thesis...
he does and occas. i think i understand...
however,  I stated, in clarification  if you're saying its all mental, I agree.
However, it says that is not what he is saying.

Q  john perry...   asks him to clarify topic neutral...
his usage appears to be idiosycratic.

physicalism is the view that everything is physical  (absolutely not the case)

(say as distinct from the apparatus of predication  or numbers, eg...)

scientism...  ultimate science will deliver an ultimate account of everything, including
the subjective...  and all the qualia...   he also rejects that claim...

hard problem is an illusion created by a category mistake... he claims

pleasure...  how the pleasure i take in squash or in straight pool may be characterized
there is no cone of pleasure that would be  perhaps analogous  to a (3 dimensional) color cone....

afterward, I continue to press Mark for clarification.