Spirits (was RE: [extropy-chat] Qualia Bet.)

[Jef Allbright]

On 12/2/05, David McFadzean <davidmc at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/28/05, Brent Allsop <allsop at extropy.org> wrote:
>
> > When, in your field of vision you see a patch of red, next to a patch of
> > green, next to a patch of a new phenomenal property that you have never
> > experienced before (say a tetrachromat is effing to you who is a normal
> > trichromat) you will know you are effing.  Even if it is turtles all the way
> > down (yea right!) who will care?  Right?
>
> I don't think so. Let's assume that we experiment with a real effing machine.
> We find a group of stones that all look like the same colour (blue) to us
> normal trichromats but a tetrachromat is able to separate the stones into
> two groups. We can tell the tetrachromat perceives them differently because
> they can repeatedly separate them into the same groups even if they are
> first randomized outside the tetrachromat's sight. Let's assume that the
> distinction becomes obvious to normal trichromats if an ultraviolet
> light is used to illuminate the stones.
>
> Now we hook you up the tetrachromat with the effing machine and find that
> you too can repeatedly separate the stones into two groups in normal light.
> Before they all looked blue, but when hooked up to the effing machine they
> appear to you as dark blue and light blue. So you separate the stones and your
> choices are validated after with the ultraviolet light.
>
> So does that mean you experienced the same qualia as the tetrachromat?
> There is no way to tell. It is possible, but it is also possible the
> tetrachromat
> sees the stones as dark green and light green, or as yellow and orange, or
> as rough and smooth, or as warm and cold, or something else we have no
> words for.
>
> So even if the effing machine works it still doesn't tell us what it
> like to be a tetrachromat.
>

It's more subtle than that.  There is no homunculus within, observing
relative differences in qualia as if there were such a reference
frame.  The only way for anyone-including the system itself--to know
what the system observes is by interrogating the system.

- Jef