AT: "Isn't this mysterious inexplicability of feelings a direct consequence of an incoherent argument?"

SH: "I'm afraid not, Arnold. It's a direct consequence of the peculiar nature of feelings. That peculiar nature can of course be blithely disregarded, but only at the price of begging the question, insofar as the "hard problem" is concerned..."


Stevan, I don't doubt the peculiar nature of feelings. I believe, as you do, that feelings are very special aspects of our nature! But it doesn't advance our understanding to simply assert that feelings are inexplicable even though feelings are physical events caused by physical brain processes. What I would like to know is your principled reason for your claim that feelings are inexplicable. It won't do to simply say that feelings are inexplicable because feeling and function are incommensurable, because that is just another way to say that the systematic relationship between the brain function that causes feelings and the brain state that constitutes a feeling is inexplicable. Why, exactly, do you believe that the brain states that constitute our feelings can't ever be explained?


..AT