[extropy-chat] Consciousness is a process in multi-dimensional time! [Was: Qualia Bet]

[gts]

On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 23:38:32 -0500, Marc Geddes <marc.geddes at gmail.com>  
wrote:


>> Types of "Shape" and "Number" are classic platonic ideas, and Locke  
>> writes that these properties are in objects, whether or not we perceive  
>> them.
>> if  qualia truly have objective reality as you and I want to say then I  
>> think  we have to admit they too are qualities of the object whether or  
>> not we  perceive
>> them. What else could we mean by objective? We might say the  qualities  
>> have their origin in the platonic realm of ideas, and can be  seen only  
>> when we perceive the object, but they are nevertheless objective   
>> properties of the object.
>
>
>  'Green' can't possibly be  a primary property of green objects! To see  
> why, just imagine an alien with a brain wired differently from ours, so  
> that what we see as 'Green', the alien sees as 'Red'.  He would see our  
> so-called
> 'Green' objects as Red.
>
> Remember, we agreed that Qualia are objectively real and that they're  
> 'real'  in the same sense that 'numbers' are real.

For your argument about aliens to work here, I think you would be forced  
to say that these aliens with brains wired differently from ours might not  
only see 'green' as 'red' but also see '5' as '3'. In that case I would  
say you are not referring to platonic ideas. If 5 exists objectively in a  
platonic sense then it is perceivable by all intelligent beings in the  
universe. In fact the SETI project works more or less on this assumption.

If green exists platonically like a number then, like the number '5',  
green should also be perceivable by all intelligent beings, or at least by  
all intelligent beings with suitable sense organs. The existence of a  
being incapable of seeing green would not disprove the objective greenness  
of green objects, any more than would the existence of a color-blind  
person disprove the objective redness of tomatoes.

>  So it's a mistake to say that they're primary properties of physical  
> objects.Instead, they exist in Plato's world of abstract forms.

And Plato's world of abstract forms is in principle real and objective for  
all beings. Intelligent beings *discover* the Forms.

> A Quale, as I said, is a *relationship* between a physical object and an
> observer.  Qualia, for the reasons I just gave, cannot be primary  
> properties of physical objects, but instead exist in Plato's world of  
> abstract forms.

And Plato's forms are primary, analogous I think to Locke's primary  
qualities.

One interesting (and some might say philosophically fatal) consequence of  
my relating Locke's primary qualities to Plato's primary forms is that  
objects will have in theory an indefinite or perhaps even infinite number  
of real objective qualia properties. A baseball looks white to you and me,  
and really is white in an objective sense, but will look much different to  
a blind bat perceiving it through sonar. That sonar quale must  
nevertheless be understood as an objective quality of baseballs.  
Presumably that sonar quale of baseballs exists platonically alongside the  
'white' and 'sphere' ideas that humans access.

> To see how this works, imagine that Plato's world of forms is  
> 2-dimensional.  To locate the 'Green Quale' in Plato's world you would  
> need two
> co-ordinates.  Then the properties possessed by physical things (like  
> green objects) are
> *psuedo-Quale* (or proto-Quale) which give *one* co-ordinate for a  
> location in Plato's world.

It seems then that you want to say 'proto-qualia' exist objectively in  
objects, but not qualia.

> The Green Quale itself is not a property of the Green object, nor is it
> equivalent to the material processes in the brain of the observer, but
> exists instead in Plato's world of forms.

But, again, Plato's forms are thought to exist objectively. If objects  
exist objectively along with their Lockean primary qualities and objective  
platonic qualities, and if qualia are objective, then I see no need for a  
subjective component in the definition of 'qualia'.

I wonder if you really mean that qualia are something like Aristotle's  
universals. This might be consistent with what you wrote earlier about  
your subscribing to a 'weaker form of platonism' in which forms do not  
exist separate from their instances. I think you mentioned set theory --  
that qualia are like sets --  also consistent with Aristotle. Sets are  
formed in a mind, whereas platonic forms exist before they are  
comprehended.

-gts