[extropy-chat] Creating software with qualia

[Samantha Atkins]

On Nov 30, 2005, at 1:08 PM, Brent Allsop wrote:

>
>
> Hal,
>
>
>> As to when the robot achieved his consciousness, I suspect that it  
>> also
>> goes back to that original model.  Once he had to deal with a  
>> world that
>> was part physical and part mental, where he was able to make  
>> effective
>> plans and evaluate them, he already had the differentiation in place
>> that we experience between our mental lives and the physical world.
>>
>
> No, you're categorically talking about something completely  
> different here
> that has nothing to do with qualia.

I think it has [most] everything to do with explaining what so-called  
"qualia" are.

>
> When you talk about the knowledge these robots have - whether it is  
> of the
> "physical" or "mental" they are still represented by abstract  
> information
> fundamentally based on only arbitrary causal representations.
>

So is everything in your brain's physical structure.  It is a meat  
computational/sensing device.

> We do very similar thinking things with similar different kinds of  
> models as
> what you describe these software robots doing.  The critical  
> difference is -
> all of our conscious knowledge or models are represented with qualia -
> rather than abstract information represented by arbitrary causal  
> properties.

Says you.  Please explain the difference.  It looks pretty empty to me.

- samantha