[ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA conference

[William Flynn Wallace]

One side of this debate says that subjective experiences are metaphysical.
So I have two comments:

1 - How does one go about proving the existence of something metaphysical?
By proving that physical causes don't exist for that experience?  Isn't
that trying to prove a negative?

2 - Since nothing has ever been shown to be metaphysical (no way to measure
it), why would one ever start from that as an assumption?  Why, in fact,
believe in anything at all metaphysical, in the most literal sense?  Demons
and angels?  Ghosts?  (It does seem that many people will believe in these
things rather than what science says.  If anyone has any doubt that we are
an intellectually flawed species, just look at that fact.)

In short, there seems to me to be no way to establish that metaphysical
causes exists for anything.  At least, no scientific way.  Playing with
words, thought experiments, and just sheer sophistry don't do the job.

And I just don't understand questions like why 650 nM is seen as red.  It's
like asking why hitting yourself in the head with a hammer causes pain.

bill w
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