I think the contemporary notion of qualia is helpful insight into the insufficiency of scientism. But that does not mean that its advocates have conceptualized it very well. Something to study more. Meanwhile, I note that Daniel Dennett, true blue reductionist that he is, argues that the notion of qualia is incoherent. The premise in this argument is the list of properties of properties that he kindly offers his reader: ineffable, subjective, intrinsic and private. By setting his argument this way at the beginning, he may be offering a straw man. I dunno: I haven't really surveyed what everyone out there thinks qualia are like. But in any case, later on in the argument on this topic that I listened to in Intuition Pumps, he seems to argue in a very clearly circular manner. I need to find where he does that and transcribe it here ... maybe later this week.
How about defining it as an instance of functional complexity? And treating the list of properties as following necessarily from this definition? Okay, this is very diamond-in-the-rough (or perhaps zirconium...) but here goes my thoughts on the matter: (Complexity) Many diverse parts (functional) acting for the sake of the whole I think I need to add something like "not as the instrument of another" or something like that. Given that they act together as one whole and given entropy, etc., the organism will need to posses more order than its surroundings (homeostasis). It will therefore need to take in energy (nutrition), which it will use to sustain its readiness to interact with its environment so as to preserve its own being (homeostasis again?), but which will eventually break down (death), so that in order for that life form to continue it will need to duplicate itself (reproduction), which, upon occurring, will involve both development (growth) to maturity and...
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