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Basically, I’ve talked to quite a lot of people on reddit, mostly on religious debate subs, who will argue that all experience is „just neurons firing“ or „just neurological metadata,“ etc. They don’t seem to be merely claiming that subjective experience can’t exist without a physical body; that much I would understand. I get how within physicalism, consciousness can be seen as emerging from physical processes. But it seems to go deeper than that.

Time and again, when I try to distinguish between sensation and perception, or when I even bring up the word qualia, I find that some people on here are deeply skeptical, or even seem to find the idea laughable. I can’t understand how anybody could reject these concepts unless they were either an automaton or live in a deep state of dissociation. It seems self-evident to me, like „cogito ergo sum.“ I know experience exists, because I have direct evidence of it.

I’ve read Daniel Dennett’s criticism of qualia and honestly I didn’t understand it, it seemed unintuitive and left me wondering if I misunderstand what the word „qualia“ even means. But even if there is some complicated argument you could make for this position, it doesn’t explain the sheer number of redditors I’ve talked to who use phrases like „no you’re just talking about neurons firing“ as though it’s common sense.

Is there something I’m missing?