Does sweetness exist, really, or does it only taste that way to us?

[Windfish]

This is not intended to be an evolution thread, but it has been suggested by Daniel Dennet, a “philosopher,” that characteristics like sweetness don’t really exist. Rather, our brains create the taste of sweetness because sugar is a source of energy. In this way, our brains “trick” us into eating sugar for energy.

What do you guys think? What philosophical implications, if any, does this have? I myself have never considered it that way before, and I’m not sure what to make of it philosophically.

youtube.com/watch?v=TzN-uIVkfjg&feature=related

 

[wanstronian]

Every sensation we feel is a constructed interpretation by the brain, of a set of chemical and/or electrical impulses resulting from our physical interaction with our environment.

 

[tonyrey]

This is not intended to be an evolution thread, but it has been suggested by Daniel Dennet, a “philosopher,” that characteristics like sweetness don’t really exist. Rather, our brains create the taste of sweetness because sugar is a source of energy. In this way, our brains “trick” us into eating sugar for energy.

What do you guys think? What philosophical implications, if any, does this have? I myself have never considered it that way before, and I’m not sure what to make of it philosophically.

Dennet’s explanation reveals the absurdity of materialism. He might as well as argue that our thoughts and feelings don’t really exist but are created by the brain. It is a magnificent example of the cart being put before the horse! Even though the brain exists the concept of the brain is created by our mind. All knowledge presupposes the mind and not the brain.

 

[JohnDamian]

This is the “Problem of Universals”.

It was largely left alone by philosophers after the middle ages, but at that time was a seat of major arguments both for and against.

The position Dennet offers is conceptualism. This point was argued heavily by people such as Ockham.

As you’ve probably heard his opinion I shall just jump straight into the contrary opinion; Scotist Formalism:

The general tennant of this is that properties inhere within an object; and that these properties have a real and distinct existence; but that their existence is also identical to their essence – insofar as there is no real distinction between these two; but instead only a formal distinction. Therein; the properties of sugar have a real existence identical to the sugar itself; in everything but a formal sense. Therefore;

Within Sugar there is something intrinsic that when combined with another particular agency or sense (viz. taste) elicits a reaction of pleasure. It is the combination of materials (atoms, chemicals etc.) within the sugar that leads it to react with our senses; which are a combination of both the sensory organ (tongue) and the processing organ (brain); insofar as to lead the productive reaction of these two organs to the material “sugar” to be a positive one.

It is because and precicely because there is certain materials (atoms, chemicals etc.) present in Sugar; within a certain form (small disolvable particles to put in tea/coffee; or otherwise edible shapes and forms; but also in a sense that is cleaned and stripped of general impurity ie; dirt) that the product sugar is a real thing.

When we refer to the product “sugar” we refer to something real; insofar as this occurs - the name of the product is irrelevant. The term “sugar” by definition reflects that which has the general properties of sugar; we do not refer to the plant of sugar; we tend to refer to Sucrose. There is little point divulging into pettifogging and semantics; as it is clear Dennet was refferring to the same type of sugar as I am.

Therein; the name “Sucrose” applies to a real; distinct; and proper form that is the combination of the materials (C12H22O11); and form of that which makes up “Sucrose”.

This real and distinct thing then elicits a reaction with other things when put into contact with them; for example when mixed with other compounds it changes them. When mixed with both the sensory organs and the processive organs it produces a reaction that is pleasurable in the processive organ. This is the result of the comination of mental processes and real and distinct properties.

This combination then; is called sweetness

Much like the combination of Carbon; and two Oxygen is called Carbon Dioxide.

 

[awatkins69]

Daniel Dennett is a bad philosopher. Sweetness exists. It is what is called a “quale” (plural “qualia”). Qualia include things like sweetness, greenness, hotness, balanced-ness, etc. The reason he denies the existence of sweetness is because this is a large problem for physicalists.

Consider this problem:

Suppose that Mary was born without the sense of taste. Mary went to school and learned every single fact about the body ever, including all the facts about the mouth, glands, taste buds, brain, etc. She could be able to tell you all about the way the saliva works, the way sugars react, neural reactions, etc etc. However, she would still be missing some knowledge, namely, that of the quale “sweetness”. She still would not have knowledge of “sweetness” per se, no matter how she explains it in terms of physical facts. The reason is because everything that can be known is not physical. There is knowledge that is not simply reducible to any physical facts.

But this is a problem for Dennett. The problem for materialists like him is that everything should be able to be reduced to the physical. If there is some knowledge which is immaterial, it basically leads to the immateriality of the mind, and thus the soul’s existence. And for these atheists and materialists that’s a big no-no. Because of this they deny the existence of qualia, which is absurd.

 

[inocente]

Another example to go with sweetness is that light does not come in colors but in a continuum of wavelengths. We see light at a wavelength of 570–580 nm as yellow, but also see a mix of light in the red and green wavelengths as yellow.

Birds have better sensors in their eyes and can distinguish between these two types of yellow. The color that birds see for the red/green mix is essentially beyond our imagination.

Some people used to think that white light is pure, but now we know that it is a mix of wavelengths. Computer monitors produce white by combining red, green and blue wavelengths.

 

[wanstronian]

Suppose that Mary was born without the sense of taste. Mary went to school and learned every single fact about the body ever, including all the facts about the mouth, glands, taste buds, brain, etc. She could be able to tell you all about the way the saliva works, the way sugars react, neural reactions, etc etc. However, she would still be missing some knowledge, namely, that of the quale “sweetness”. She still would not have knowledge of “sweetness” per se, no matter how she explains it in terms of physical facts. The reason is because everything that can be known is not physical. There is knowledge that is not simply reducible to any physical facts.

I think this is something of a non sequitur. You’re arguing that if a physical process, that generally results in the experience of a sensation, becomes non-functional in some way, that means that the now-denied sensation is a non-physical phenomenen.

What you’re saying is this:

1. Chemical processes are physical.
2. Mary can describe, in intimate detail, the physical (chemical) process of taste.
3. Mary has no sense of taste.
4. Therefore, the experience of taste is non-physical

This seems to be an example of the Undistributed Middle Fallacy:

1. p is physical
2. q is not p
3. Therefore q is not physical.

The experience of the sensation is due to the pattern of synaptic firings in the brain. If this physical process is blocked, the sensation does not occur. That doesn’t in any way make the sensation a non-physical phenomenen.

You’re right to say that intimate knowledge of a sense process is not the same as experiencing that sense being stimulated. That doesn’t mean that just because a process can be described physically, the resultant experience is non-physical just because it’s not the process.

 

[Windfish]

Every sensation we feel is a constructed interpretation by the brain, of a set of chemical and/or electrical impulses resulting from our physical interaction with our environment.

This would mean, I think, that the sensation we feel isn’t really real, as it could possibly have been constructed very differently had we, uh, “developed” differently. An alien that comes to our planet and eats a slice of chocolate cake could possibly find it very bitter, not sweet like it tastes to us (unless we’re talking about dark chocolate). What does this mean about sweetness - does it exist?

If true, I think this has implications for both the atheist and theist’s ability to discern knowledge. In particular, we Catholics often speak about objective truth and so on, and I think this point of view makes quite clear that truth is only relative to the species we’re talking about. If a sexy, beautiful woman really is sexy and beautiful, why don’t other animals find her attractive?

As an aside, I am always suspicious of appealing to evolution. People do it all the time very uncritically. “We evolved x because y and z.” What??? How do you know it went down like that? Shouldn’t you make clear that you’re being very, very, VERY circumstantial and theoretical?

 

[JohnDamian]

This would mean, I think, that the sensation we feel isn’t really real, as it could possibly have been constructed very differently had we, uh, “developed” differently. An alien that comes to our planet and eats a slice of chocolate cake could possibly find it very bitter, not sweet like it tastes to us (unless we’re talking about dark chocolate). What does this mean about sweetness - does it exist?

Think of it this way;

The color red is percieved as red by a healthy person; and percieved differently by a color blind person.

Does that mean that there is no such thing as redness?

No.

This only means that a certain thing has a real property (ie; formulation) that when percieved by a different entity is seen as different.

The physical properties that make red red are identical and are unchanged by mental formulation; they are a real and universal thing.

The experience of “redness” is a real thing; but is percieved as the combination of sensory perception and a real thing; this combination may through deficiency, abnormality or different perception to be experienced in a different manner; nonetheless; the experience of “redness” is a real experience; insofar as a healthy person will always percieve red as red; and a colorblind person will percieve it as they do; and etc. The perception; or degraded perception has no effect upon the actual nature and properties that lead an object to be percieved in a different context.

Likewise; sweetness would always be sweetness when the healthy functioning human encounters Sucrose (or otherwise produces this effect); the fact that - or possibility that a defective perception may occur does not change the fact that “healthy taste + Sucrose = sweet”.

 

[awatkins69]

I think this is something of a non sequitur. You’re arguing that if a physical process, that generally results in the experience of a sensation, becomes non-functional in some way, that means that the now-denied sensation is a non-physical phenomenen.

What you’re saying is this:

1. Chemical processes are physical.
2. Mary can describe, in intimate detail, the physical (chemical) process of taste.
3. Mary has no sense of taste.
4. Therefore, the experience of taste is non-physical

This seems to be an example of the Undistributed Middle Fallacy:

1. p is physical
2. q is not p
3. Therefore q is not physical.

The experience of the sensation is due to the pattern of synaptic firings in the brain. If this physical process is blocked, the sensation does not occur. That doesn’t in any way make the sensation a non-physical phenomenen.

You’re right to say that intimate knowledge of a sense process is not the same as experiencing that sense being stimulated. That doesn’t mean that just because a process can be described physically, the resultant experience is non-physical just because it’s not the process.

That’s not my argument at all. This is the argument:

1. If materialism is true then all knowledge should be equivalent to the totality of physical facts.
2. Mary knows all physical facts, but is missing knowledge.
3. Ergo, there is non-physical knowledge and materialism is false.

The fact is, if materialism is true, then she should know everything there is to know about sweetness by describing it in materialistic terms. Her impediment to actually experiencing sweetness should not be an impediment to having all knowledge of sweetness. Even people like Dennett admit this, and they have to come up with strange arguments.

 

[Windfish]

My philosophical ignorance is showing. I am going to take this slowly and read over your guys’ post very slowly since I freely confess that much of it is going over my head. Hopefully, I’ll have some feedback and questions for you.

 

[tonyrey]

My philosophical ignorance is showing. I am going to take this slowly and read over your guys’ post very slowly since I freely confess that much of it is going over my head. Hopefully, I’ll have some feedback and questions for you.

Let me try to simplify:

Thomas Nagel, Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University is well known for his critique of reductionist accounts of the mind in his essay “What Is it Like to Be a Bat?” (1974). He argues that sweetness can be analysed but not fully explained by physics and chemistry because it is subjective, i.e. what a subject (person or animal) experiences. Nagel is not a physicalist because he realises there is a gap between our perceptions and what causes our perceptions.

We perceive the qualities of sugar - like its colour and sweetness - but we do not perceive the sugar itself. David Hume thought things are just “bundles of perceptions” but he didn’t explain what binds the perceptions together. A thing is more than a collection of qualities - just as our mind is more than a collection of thoughts, feelings, sensations and decisions. Our mind is an intangible entity not just a list of tangible features.

No two persons perceive the same things in exactly the same way. So we cannot know what the outer world is really like. Our inner experience is unique and cannot be explained scientifically. In short a person cannot be identified with a body. So sweetness is as real as sugar even though you and I perceive it and react to it differently. In fact sweetness is more real for us than the cause of the sweetness because we have direct experience of it. We have only a concept or image of the sugar based on the stimuli we receive from a mysterious outer world.

Charity begins (or should begin) at home and so does knowledge. Without a mind we wouldn’t know that our brain exists. That is why all the most important things in life are intangible. It is better to be brainless rather than mindless, i.e. out of our mind!

 

[Touchstone]

This is not intended to be an evolution thread, but it has been suggested by Daniel Dennet, a “philosopher,” that characteristics like sweetness don’t really exist. Rather, our brains create the taste of sweetness because sugar is a source of energy. In this way, our brains “trick” us into eating sugar for energy.

Yes, and we’re the better for it, such a trick. That’s one reason we are still around the planet, talking about stuff. But I note that Dennett did not say sweetness doesn’t really exist as a cognitive artifact; manifestly it does, and if you read any of his books, this is not a controversial subject for Dennett.

Rather, Dennett is pointing out that there is nothing inherently “sweet” in sugar, in some intrinsic, qualitative sense. That’s why he says "you could examine the molecule until you go blind and not find the ‘sweetness’.

Put another way, if a compound we currently find repulsive bitter was as important and usable and high-energy as a food source for humans, in that scenario, we would find this bitter substance “sweet”, “desirable”, “yummy”, etc. “Sweet” is just whatever-happens-to-be-checmically-desirable, no matter what the molecular formulas are.

This still affirms the reality of “sweet” as a cognitive response. The neurons and synapses are perfectly really and firing away accordingly. It’s a construct (a real one) that the mind generates as a way to prioritize our preference in survival-aiding ways.

What do you guys think? What philosophical implications, if any, does this have? I myself have never considered it that way before, and I’m not sure what to make of it philosophically.

youtube.com/watch?v=TzN-uIVkfjg&feature=related

It’s well grounded in our science. That’s more than we can say for “sweetness is a cosmic value” or “sweetness is chemically intrinsic to a sugar molecule”.

Dennet’s explanation reveals the absurdity of materialism.

I know this is said with a straight face, but if I didn’t, I’d say this was a nice caricature of the “inversion of reason” dude (MacKenzie) in the linked video. “Absolute ignorance is the artificer” (!).

He might as well as argue that our thoughts and feelings don’t really exist but are created by the brain.

“created by the brain” does not mean “doesn’t really exist”. Look at the terms you used – “created”. It’s a thing-created. It’s real, it’s just not rooted in the sugar itself – our intuitions fail us again – but in that-which-it-behooves-us-to-prize. A function of our evolutionary biology. This is cool because it is a measure of understanding the self, a look into why we behave and interpret things the way we do.

It is a magnificent example of the cart being put before the horse! Even though the brain exists the concept of the brain is created by our mind. All knowledge presupposes the mind and not the brain.

Dennett has so nailed it on this one, as this bit shows. The “inversion of reason”, indeed. The mind is a creation of the brain – you can even watch the brain form before there is any mind, cognition, or electrical activity in the cerebral cortex.

To presuppose the mind is NOT to deny the unity of brain and mind.

-TS

 

[Windfish]

Sorry, guys, I am really having a hard time understanding you. I have only ever taken one class in philosophy, and the professor was not very instructive.

My first question is this: doesn’t this view undermine the notion of knowledge and truth? eg:

Touchstone:

Rather, Dennett is pointing out that there is nothing inherently “sweet” in sugar, in some intrinsic, qualitative sense. That’s why he says "you could examine the molecule until you go blind and not find the ‘sweetness’.

I think this would also undermine traditional Aristotelian (Catholic?) philosophy. Well, does it?

 

[Touchstone]

Sorry, guys, I am really having a hard time understanding you. I have only ever taken one class in philosophy, and the professor was not very instructive.

My first question is this: doesn’t this view undermine the notion of knowledge and truth? eg:

Think of it as similar to the discovery that the earth is actually orbiting the sun, rather than the other way around, as was thought by many previous to that discovery. Did heliocentric astronomy undermine knowledge and truth? I think we can say it was an advance for both.

But previous understandings were overturned in the process. This is the nature of discovery.

In this case, biology is turning things around based on the evidence, and against some of our traditional intuitions; humans don’t prefer certain foods because they are sweet, but rather, survival favors high-energy food sources, and so tends to reward sugar-eating humans with survival and fecundity.

We didn’t choose sugar from the environment, the environ chose sugar for us, in other words, and “sweet” is the cumulative effect of that choosing for us – we are honed by evolution to prize food types that are high-energy fuels, and “sweet” is the psychological draw and reward driving that beneficial predilection.

I think this would also undermine traditional Aristotelian (Catholic?) philosophy. Well, does it?

Not really. I think science just can’t be bothered with all that. It’s not undermining it here so much as just leaving it sit on the shelf getting dusty.

-TS

 

[The_Exodus]

In this case, biology is turning things around based on the evidence, and against some of our traditional intuitions; humans don’t prefer certain foods because they are sweet, but rather, survival favors high-energy food sources, and so tends to reward sugar-eating humans with survival and fecundity.

We didn’t choose sugar from the environment, the environ chose sugar for us, in other words, and “sweet” is the cumulative effect of that choosing for us – we are honed by evolution to prize food types that are high-energy fuels, and “sweet” is the psychological draw and reward driving that beneficial predilection.

This is a primary problem in holding a purely materialistic account of the universe. I.e. if our perceptions are predicated, not on truth, but on survival value, it seems highly unlikely that most of our knowledge is true. The reason we obtain what is in our mind would be driven by a pragmatic necessity without relation to what is true, except coincidentally or on accident.

Concerning Dennett’s example: it is the case that the interaction between subject (the knower) and object (sugar) is itself what gives rise to the particular knowledge of sweetness. Indeed, all knowledge whatsoever is only knowledge insofar as it is in a knower. Now, sweetness cannot be known in sugar itself. I.e. sugar, since it lacks intellect, cannot know itself to be sweet. Rather, sweetness, as a phenomenon of taste experience, can only be known in a being with sense perception and an intellect.

Now, if Dennett wants to maintain that sweetness doesn’t exist, we may ask him what he means. If he means that *knowledge *of sweetness doesn’t exist independent of a *knower *capable of experiencing sweetness, we would agree. But it seems he is trying to imply that, since, outside the knower (us humans who taste), sweetness is not known in itself, it cannot be known *at all *. He therefore concludes that it does not exist at all.

This, however, begs the question. No one maintains that knowledge of sweetness can be had outside a knower in which sweetness is possible. Indeed, knowledge of a thing requires a knower. However, it does not therefore follow that the mere existenceof a thing requires a knower. It only follows that *knowledge *of existence requires a knower.

Hence sweetness can exist and not be known. Or it can exist and be known. In either case, if it is known, it cannot be the case that it does not exist, since knowing is just such an interaction between subject (knower) and object (in this case, sugar,)

 

[wanstronian]

That’s not my argument at all. This is the argument:

1. If materialism is true then all knowledge should be equivalent to the totality of physical facts.
2. Mary knows all physical facts, but is missing knowledge.
3. Ergo, there is non-physical knowledge and materialism is false.

The fact is, if materialism is true, then she should know everything there is to know about sweetness by describing it in materialistic terms. Her impediment to actually experiencing sweetness should not be an impediment to having all knowledge of sweetness. Even people like Dennett admit this, and they have to come up with strange arguments.

I think this is a misrepresentation - or misunderstanding - of materialism, then. Materialism still allows for experiential knowledge, which is, or may be, unachievable by procedural knowledge.

From the OED:

1. Philos. The doctrine that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications. Also, the doctrine that consciousness and will are wholly due to the operation of material agencies.

Nothing about that definition puts the quale of sweetness outside materialism.

Your first premise is incorrect.

 

[awatkins69]

Right. You didn’t present me with anything I didn’t already know, my friend. So, if “consciousness and will are **wholly **due to the operation of material agencies” then the experiential knowledge should be able to be explained wholly in material terms. Thus, the first premise still stands.

I’d just like to note: If you want to argue that material agency can cause the emergence of spiritual effects, you are in the land of property dualism, which is sort of compatible with materialism. Most serious materialist philosophers are turning to property dualism. And at that point, the argument turns from materialism vs dualism to property dualism vs hylomorphic vs substance dualism. The main thing interesting to me is that they realize that only dualism is coherent with reality and the facts. The mechanism and reductionism of people like Dennett is quickly becoming antiquated and abandoned for at least more intellectually honest solutions to the mind-body problem.

 

[tonyrey]

We didn’t choose sugar from the environment, the environ chose sugar for us, in other words, and “sweet” is the cumulative effect of that choosing for us – we are honed by evolution to prize food types that are high-energy fuels, and “sweet” is the psychological draw and reward driving that beneficial predilection.

According to that argument we are just cogs in the machine of nature. All our choices are caused by physical events - including what we choose to think. So your theory that we didn’t choose sugar turns out to be self-destructive. If we can’t choose what to think what are our thoughts worth?

I think science just can’t be bothered with all that. It’s not undermining it here so much as just leaving it sit on the shelf getting dusty.

It’s not science that can’t be bothered with all that but a certain brand of scientist who assumes science can explain all human activity - a materialist, to be precise. Yet materialism is not based on science but on the assumption that everything originates in matter. There is no possible way in which that assumption can be justified.

Logical positivism became extinct precisely because it is impossible to verify the verification principle - if verification is restricted to what we can see, hear, taste, smell and touch. There is far more in life than biological machinery! Materialism is literally a soul-destroying view of reality that leads inexorably to nihilism. If nothing exists but matter nothing matters…

 

[wanstronian]

Right. You didn’t present me with anything I didn’t already know, my friend. So, if “consciousness and will are **wholly **due to the operation of material agencies” then the experiential knowledge should be able to be explained wholly in material terms.

Not at all. Being able to describe a physical process is not the same as undergoing the physical process. You’re putting 2 and 2 together and making 7.

Thus, the first premise still stands.

Nope. It doesn’t.

I’d just like to note: If you want to argue that material agency can cause the emergence of spiritual effects, you are in the land of property dualism, which is compatible with materialism.

Are you equating spiritual with experiential? Then yes, that is what I’m saying.

Most serious materialist philosophers are turning to property dualism. And at that point, the argument turns from materialism vs dualism to property dualism vs hylomorphic vs substance dualism. The main thing interesting to me is that they realize that only dualism is coherent with reality and the facts. The mechanism and reductionism of people like Dennett is quickly becoming antiquated and abandoned for at least more intellectually honest solutions to the mind-body problem.

Fair enough - I haven’t read him so I can’t comment. Your complaint about him seems to be outside the scope of this thread though.