/lit/ - Literature

>>11225914
>mistakenly categorized as separate from one another
Yeah, that's what Ryle argued.
The university example is a good one.
There are physical components underlying the notion of "university," like buildings, or books.
And there's the abstract concept of "university," which isn't a physical object.
You would be making a category error by saying you've seen the buildings and the books, but haven't yet seen the university, because you'd be mistakenly treating the abstract concept of a university as though it were a physical object itself.
So the apply that distinction to qualia vs. brains and behavior.
There are physical components underlying "qualia," like brains, or outwardly observable behavior.
And there's the abstract concept of "qualia," which isn't a physical object.
You would be making a category error by saying you've seen a brain and behavior, but you haven't yet seen qualia, because you'd be mistakenly treating the abstract concept of qualia as though it were a physical object itself.
What "hearing noise" or "seeing imagery" really means in this interpretation is physical stimuli provoked physical behavior and this interaction is abstracted out into a convenient, fictional object ("noise" in the first case, "imagery" in the second).
Behavior in reference to fictional objects gives those objects a sense of pseudo-reality to them, like how money (as in the concept of currency itself, not the paper representing it) isn't a real world thing but our behavior around it gives it a ghostly existence as something often treated more seriously than literally real objects like dirt.
Or language, numbers, and the concept of a "center of gravity," none of which are physical objects but all of which take on life of their own by pretend-inverting the negative space into positive space like pic related. The positive space of the situation is our behavior (which is physical and observable), while the negative space is the implied object this behavior gives a sense of reality to like with pic related.