[extropy-chat] Creating software with qualia

Acy Stapp acy.stapp at gmail.com
Thu Dec 1 23:49:32 UTC 2005


To clarify my position, a quale is a neural spike in the reflective
component of the brain representing a sense impression and is
fundamentally no different than any other mental concept. If I see a
black door, there are some neurons firing that are the qualia of
"blackness", some firing which are the qualia of "doorness" and some
firing which are the qualia of "recognizing blackness and doorness",
and some firing which are the qualia of "thinking about qualia" and
some firing which are the qualia of "experiencing my own mental
state". All of these ascend from different regions in my brain but are
integrated in one area where they are reflected upon and processed.
Qualia are simply the inputs to my reflective process.

Acy

On 12/1/05, gts <gts_2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 16:08:55 -0500, Brent Allsop <allsop at extropy.org>
> wrote:
>
> > We do very similar thinking things with similar different kinds of
> > models as what you describe these software robots doing.  Thecritical
> > difference  is - all of our conscious knowledge or models arerepresented
> > with qualia - rather than abstract information representedby arbitrary
> > causal  properties.
>
> But perhaps we can consider qualia as a type of idea or abstraction,
> something like what  Acy and Marc have suggested.
>
> Acy says:
>
> > I assert that qualia are merely tokens to enable conscious cognition
> > about subconscious processes.
>
> -gts

--
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those
who have not got it.

George Bernard Shaw



More information about the extropy-chat mailing list