On Wednesday 25 March 2009, Dan Asimov wrote:
Ever since I learned from Dennett's "Understanding Consciousness" that he does not believe in the existence of qualia (aka conscious experience*), I have seriously wondered whether it's worth the trouble to read anything else he wrote.
1. Do you mean "Consciousness Explained"? 2. Dennett (in that book, and in the much shorter piece "Quining qualia" which you cite) is at pains to say that he doesn't disbelieve in conscious experience even though he doesn't believe in qualia. (He thinks that the common idea that conscious experience == qualia is wrong.) Do you think he's lying, or that the identification conscious experience == qualia is so obviously right that someone who says otherwise isn't worth paying any attention to, even if (say) he happens to be a professional philosopher specializing in consciousness? (For the avoidance of doubt: I do not profess to know whether Dennett is right about qualia, and in particular I am not claiming that the fact that he's a professional philosopher specializing in consciousness guarantees that he is. There are p.p.s.i.c. who disagree with him strongly.) -- g