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Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos  Yes, but those "qualia as internally experienced" are simply a result of a physical process in the brain. Thus consciousness is part of the physically closed world.
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You really need to stop flipping from one position to another. You said before that qualia is the very same thing as some appropriate physical process. Thus they cannot be a result of a physical process. X can cause Y, but X cannot cause X.
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However bafflingly you disagree with this. So you must either be saying one of 2 things:
a) The quantifiable events of the externally perceived pain are not sufficient by themselves to provide a complete causal explanation for our reaction to the pain -- the inner experience itself plays at least a partial role. This option seems to flat out deny that the physical world is closed.
| Why? The inner experience is just an inner behavior that is more difficult to quantify objectively. But this does make it immaterial, nor does it mean we won't be able to quantify it someday.
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No! The "inner experience" is not a behaviour, that's what you would call the "outer experience" i.e the appropriate neurons firing. The "inner experience" is purely qualitative i.e it is not quantifiable or measurable.
If qualia/consciousness
is the only thing/process in the Universe which is not quantifiable/measurable, then in what sense could it be said to be material?
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For some reason, you have elevated the experiences going on in your head to a status that requires them to be ontologically different. I do not understand this.
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If my consciousness and, say a table, are not ontologically different, then you understand something different by the word "ontology" then I do. A table is simply an object of consciousness. Consciousness itself is characterised by a mental life full of emotions, hopes frustrations, desires. It is in no way comparable to a table or any other physical thing.