> What is corresponding to the physical pattern in your brain? What word would you use to describe that thing that is corresponding to the physical event?
This presupposes something else exists, beyond the pattern itself. I might give the pattern a label, which is in itself a pattern of its own. But that label is just a convenience, something that is useful to categorize the world into more easily managed pieces, and something that is a practical necessity because I don't have the biological ability to observe the pattern directly, to describe it in more detail including how it physically maps onto the world. Because I don't have that mapping (though it could, in principle, be determined in the laboratory with sufficient effort), it's essentially an abstract symbol and I can give it any label I like. But even without knowing the underlying pattern, I know, by inferring from our understanding of biology, that any label has some such pattern, which is its ultimate ground truth.
> All of these things are part of the same group, which is why we find a word to describe them useful.
That seems perfectly reasonable. I'm very much in favor of useful abstractions and categories. What I'm not quite clear on is why such abstractions should be peculiarly unique to humans.
> As a potential other argument, lets say qualia do not exist, and only physical states exist. If I were then to inflict pain, would that be wrong? I would simply be causing certain chemical and electrical pathways in a humans body, which doesn't seem to have any moral quandries.
I think morality is ultimately an arbitrary choice. We might be guided by moral principles or adhere to some ethical system, but even if we chose what principles we adhered to according to other principles, eventually you end up at an arbitrary choice.
So, you can't ask the question of whether it is wrong in an absolute sense. Rather, it is or is not wrong with respect to some moral framework, and you can choose to adhere to a framework in which it is wrong if you like.
This presupposes something else exists, beyond the pattern itself. I might give the pattern a label, which is in itself a pattern of its own. But that label is just a convenience, something that is useful to categorize the world into more easily managed pieces, and something that is a practical necessity because I don't have the biological ability to observe the pattern directly, to describe it in more detail including how it physically maps onto the world. Because I don't have that mapping (though it could, in principle, be determined in the laboratory with sufficient effort), it's essentially an abstract symbol and I can give it any label I like. But even without knowing the underlying pattern, I know, by inferring from our understanding of biology, that any label has some such pattern, which is its ultimate ground truth.
> All of these things are part of the same group, which is why we find a word to describe them useful.
That seems perfectly reasonable. I'm very much in favor of useful abstractions and categories. What I'm not quite clear on is why such abstractions should be peculiarly unique to humans.
> As a potential other argument, lets say qualia do not exist, and only physical states exist. If I were then to inflict pain, would that be wrong? I would simply be causing certain chemical and electrical pathways in a humans body, which doesn't seem to have any moral quandries.
I think morality is ultimately an arbitrary choice. We might be guided by moral principles or adhere to some ethical system, but even if we chose what principles we adhered to according to other principles, eventually you end up at an arbitrary choice.
So, you can't ask the question of whether it is wrong in an absolute sense. Rather, it is or is not wrong with respect to some moral framework, and you can choose to adhere to a framework in which it is wrong if you like.