I can't help feeling we're begging the question a bit with qualia. Yes, I have experiences. Yes, there's "something it feels like" for me to see red, or stub my toe, or whatever. But there's no reason to believe that that feeling is in any way portable to anywhere outside my own head. I don't see why "I perceive a thing and I perceive myself perceiving the thing" is so universally accepted to be something special or surprising.
As best I understand it, our "consciousness" that "feels" things is basically an overblown condition monitoring system bolted onto the top of a highly effective correlation/prediction engine attached to a whole lot of sensory nerves. Sure, a signal goes from the senses into the middle bit and the result feeds into the consciousness bit which cross-checks everything including its own responses, but that's a control system, not a 'soul'. Or conversely, you could say the spectrum of "error term is saturated negative" through to "error term is saturated positive" is a range of qualia "felt" by a PID loop.
> I can't help feeling we're begging the question a bit with qualia
Exactly, it's kind of like how the debate about "free will" is being handled, either you use a definition of free will that makes it trivially true, but useless, or you use a definition of free will that requires you to literally believe in magic
It's just materialism taken to its logical conclusion. We're just a bunch of atoms bumping into each other in a way that fools ourselves into believing that we're a cohesive entity.
Ever been tired and run on autopilot? Our experience of ourselves vary in strength all the time. If I'm really really honest with myself, I don't actually have the experience of qualia all the time
What's your solution to finding medium term (5-10 years) motivation?
The more I read on cognitive science (Strange Loop was the first and then you understand what was behind GEB) the more I concur with your view. It is depressing though.
For short term daily tasks, one can depend on routines.
For longer planning the implications are horrifying if there is no qualia in the sense that we think of it.
It's just like with nihilism, it might be "true" but it is not very productive.
At best it leads to Vito Corleone type of ethics, ie tribalism, I'll take care of my family/village, but woe to the outside world.
At worst it leads to Michael Corleone actions, ie screw everyone besides yourself.
Where do you get joy in life if Dennett turns out to be right?
I can only speak for myself, but I find joy in living vicariously through others who don't contemplate existential issues. Sometimes I can spend a day just hanging out with my cat watching him do random things with sincerity. Sometimes I envy him.
As far as medium term motivation, guilt, fear and debt seems to work for most people regardless of philosophical disposition.
As best I understand it, our "consciousness" that "feels" things is basically an overblown condition monitoring system bolted onto the top of a highly effective correlation/prediction engine attached to a whole lot of sensory nerves. Sure, a signal goes from the senses into the middle bit and the result feeds into the consciousness bit which cross-checks everything including its own responses, but that's a control system, not a 'soul'. Or conversely, you could say the spectrum of "error term is saturated negative" through to "error term is saturated positive" is a range of qualia "felt" by a PID loop.