[extropy-chat] effing

Brandon Reinhart transcend at extropica.com
Tue Dec 6 04:13:20 UTC 2005


So for any object there are an infinite number of qualia of defined and
undefined nature among any number of known or unknown dimensions? Or must
the quale be perceived in order to come into being and from that point
forward always exist? Or cease to exist when the last thing to perceive it
or have remembered perceiving it ceases to do so?

If a person is under the influence of some mind-altering substance and
perceives an orange to have a multicolored hue they term "bervish" does
bervish exist as a quale? If so, it is a quale of the orange or of the
orange combined with the effects of the substance?

Qualia seem to share similar properties as consciousness itself. Perhaps
unconscious entities do not perceive qualia. Qualia could be a byproduct of
the conscious interpretation of data (pattern matching, etc) and not an
inherent property of an object.

If I feed input into a program and it processes that data, is it
experiencing some qualia of the input? If not, at what point does
computation/pattern matching become complex enough to perceive qualia? If
the program is experiencing qualia, then this would seem to imply that
objects have infinite qualia of undefined nature. Which really means nothing
of consequence to me other than "how do I use it to encode/store data?"
Subjective computing?

If something has to be conscious to perceive qualia and we could isolate
qualia or somehow associate an objective test with it, could this be a path
to a solution to the zombie problem? (An objective proof of consciousness.)

I'm just shooting the BS here, for fun.
 
Brandon

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of gts
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2005 9:06 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] effing

On Mon, 05 Dec 2005 21:36:56 -0500, Acy Stapp <acy.stapp at gmail.com> wrote:

> Or rather, Are the balls still reen, even though no being is able to
> perceive said color?

I think Locke would be forced to answer in the affirmative: the balls are  
still reen even though no being can see the color reen.

In that case his secondary qualities of objects are better defined as the  
powers of objects to cause qualia in the experience of beings capable of  
experiencing them.

For example, to blind bats equipped with sonar, object X has a sonar  
quale. That quale of object X would be a quality of object X even if bats  
were extinct.

Even if bats were extinct, the sonar quale of object X would still be a  
secondary quality of object X. That quale could perhaps be experienced by  
human minds.

-gts

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