[extropy-chat] Qualia Bet

[Robin Hanson]

At 11:18 PM 12/7/2005, Marc Geddes wrote:
>The comparison between 'Qualia' and 'Numbers' is well 
>made.   Because the same general kinds of philosophical arguments 
>that are made about phenomenal entities also apply to mathematical entities.
>
>If I could just ask Robin (Hanson):  Where does the number '4' 
>exist?   Is the proof of 'Fermat's Last Theorem' real or a 
>fiction?  If the proof is real, is it part of the causal processes 
>taking place in the brain?   What about other mathematical 
>entities?  Are they real or fiction?  How do they fit into physical 
>causal networks?
>
>I think you (Robin) can see that the 'Qualia' question is not as 
>clear cut as you are making out.   Again, if you are prepared to 
>believe in the objective existence of mathematical entities, and if 
>you agree that the relationship between mathematical entities and 
>causal brain-networks is not a direct one, then why could the same 
>not be true for Qualia?
>
>Of course it's trivially true that all metaphysical entities have to 
>be related to causal processes *in some sense* (in order to produce 
>observable effects).   But this by itself establishes little.  It 
>doesn't follow that all metaphysical entities are fully reducible to 
>descriptions in terms of *physical* causality at all - where I am 
>here defining physical causality as: 'cause and effect relations 
>between objects with spatial extensions and the forces and motions 
>associated with these objects'.

I talked about a network of causation of brain states, but did not 
require spatial extensions, forces, motions, or objects.  Numbers, 
and most math objects, are patterns, i.e., abstractions.  Things that 
sit in our networks of causation have many things in common, and we 
can describe those common features with patterns.  The patterns 
themselves, as opposed to their instances, do not as far as we know 
separately sit in our network of causation, though brain states that 
describe and think about those patterns do.


Robin Hanson  rhanson at gmu.edu  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Associate Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323