Yep, I think almost everyone agrees with that.

and the only way to claim this thing can be experienced by non-biological objects is by a blind faith.

But not that. If you admittedly can’t explain the phenomenon in the first place, how can you have any confidence in that assertion? You’re trying to have it both ways.

“Nobody can understand it, but I just know that it doesn’t work and definitely can’t work in the way you’re suggesting.”

To claim that non biological things certainly experience qualia is... A statement of faith.

I have not said they don't.

My statement is simply that we've never had any evidence they do.

My statement (the equivalent of agnosticism) is observational.

The other (that non biologic things are equally capable of qualia) is a faith based statement.

It's like me saying 'only biological things experience qualia because God made it so'.

- "Qualia" are subjective conscious experiences; you know they're real because you experience them yourself.

- We all assume that other people have them too (ignoring abstract philosophical debates around "zombies").

- Sounds like you assume dogs have them too -- because dogs act as if they're conscious, right?

- However, some people assert that computers cannot have qualia, by the "Chinese Room" argument.

My position is that the "Chinese Room" argument is meaningless if we don't understand anything about the basis of qualia in the first place -- and we don't. Where does the "only biological entities" requirement come from? Do bacteria have consciousness? Where do you draw the line?

In contrast, "if it acts as if it's conscious, maybe it is conscious" at least seems logically consistent. It looks pretty likely that computers could act as if they're conscious, if AI continues to advance. Maybe they would really be conscious and maybe they wouldn't, who knows? But I haven't seen any convincing argument to rule it out.

To repeat, the only direct confirmation of qualia we have is our own subjective experiences. Everything else is guesswork.

Although not everyone feels that way and many believe only humans have qualia.

More to the point though... It's a hard stretch convincing me that matrix multiplications lead to qualia. At which point in the multiplication is sensation felt?

Whereas a dog and a human presumably operate on principles we still don't understand, so there is room in this unknown space for qualia to exist.

Downvotes are specifically for things that do not support productive discussion, so downvote + response makes no sense.

EDIT: If HN had a private message facility, I can somewhat see a case for private feedback with downvotes, though I suspect that would also end up unworkable.

(but i'm not downvoting your idea, to your point!)

For any entity with qualia, of which only one certainly exists from the perspective of any given observer, this is more accurately stated as “any other entity than the self” rather than “non-biological objects”.

Qualia inherently is not observable externally, so it is impossible to build a body of evidence which would support associating it with observable traits like “being a biological object”.

For example, many children upon reaching the age of reason (usually somewhere around 7) will ask questions like 'how do I know my blue is the same as yours?' which is evidence they experience qualia.

Current computer AI attempts don't count because they've been exposed to large corpi of philosophy

Sure, but the exact same argument could be made about everyone who isn't you, couldn't it? You only have two pieces of evidence to support the idea that other people feel anything:

- you feel things, other people are made of the same meat stuff as you so maybe it's a safe assumption that other people feel things in the same way you do (aside: this does pose a bit of a problem for those of us who eat animal products)

- other people tell you they feel things

Could I not say that you're relying on blind faith in assuming that I feel things just because you do?

Also, how do you know you feel things? How do you know you have free will? How do you know you're conscious? The only answer anyone can honestly give to any of those questions is "because I feel like I do".

We could say "well, it'll be magic then", but that's not particularly satisfying. To be fair you did say it's magic "for lack of a better word", however there is a better word: unknown.