From: Menno Rubingh (rubingh@delftnet.nl)
Date: Mon Dec 20 1999 - 16:43:41 MST
On Mon, 20 Dec 1999, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
> This is interesting, because it implies having qualia, at least at
> the level where it gets interesting, implies that you have to have
> words to relate the experience. [...]
>
> Just as we have programming languages that are able to accurately
> and concisely express specific concepts and methods, it would seem
> that one needs a "language" that would be used to talk about
> qualia ranging from those have physical sources to those that
> occur only within the realm of ideas or relationships.
I think that "qualia" are *exactly* the same kind of arbitrary, personal
''experiences'' as the sometimes very different things different people
express in words and expressions in languages. If you grow up in a
culture where people think they experience a qualium X, then they will
invent a word for it. I think all groups of people have already invented
words for all qualia they ''feel''.
The fact that the words (= concepts expressed in words) used in different
languages sometimes form significantly different, non-overlapping, sets of
concepts as regards their meaning, just demonstrates (to my mind) the fact
that "qualia" are arbitrary. ("Qualia" are just memes belonging to a culture,
and all these stupid people really think these arbitrary,
evolutionarily-grown, cultural items, are something they really directly
Experience, the poor brutes... .)
For example, I've heard someone say recently that there are a lot more words
for all kinds of nuances and types of different 'feeling' in Arabic than there
are in "Western" languages: if that is correct, then I think that this
demonstrates that Arabs probably simply do *experience* these different
'qualia' regarding these 'feelings' where we Westerners do NOT. (Which would
imply that an Arab would regard a Westerner as an emotional Zombie.) Going in
the other direction, it might even be true to say that learning a new language
with a different set of words, i.e., picking out a different set of meanings
and distinctions, one automatically also absorbs in a small way the faculty of
''thinking'' in the "qualia" belonging inside that culture, that is, one also
*learns* to ''experience'' these qualia (!!). Myself, I think that I tend to
''think'' in subtly different concepts when writing in English compared with
when writing in Dutch.
( Idea for a fiction story: An eskimo and a Brazilian encountering each other
and each thinking the other is a totally weird zombie, totally incapable of
''feeling'' the 'qualia' the other regards as Obvious and without being
capable of grasping that another intelligent person could exist who does NOT
''think'' in exactly these 'qualia' or concepts. )
Greetings, Menno (rubingh@delftnet.nl)
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