[extropy-chat] Re: Qualia Bet

[gts]

On Thu, 29 Dec 2005 23:14:20 -0500, Marc Geddes <marc.geddes at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> I've considered the view and I have no idea what the heck Chalmers and
> Clark are on about there.

It's a fairly simple idea. Because we equate our brains with our minds, we  
think our minds are contained in our skulls. However the brain is not the  
mind, necessarily.

If you consider your mind to contain everything it comprehends then your  
mind contains the objects of its comprehension. Some of those objects have  
color qualities. Those color qualities are in your mind, yet also in the  
objects. Voila. Qualia problem solved.

Tomatoes are red after all, just as common-sense was informing us all  
along.

> As I pointed out, we know how the visual
> system works and things are definitely represented in the brain:

I have an idea how the physiology works, thanks.

>  So again, absolutely no way to pick out some color as being
> 'objectively correct'.

Here is where I see a possible inconsistency in your theory. Plato's forms  
are in a sense objective. There is only one true '7', for example, and it  
exists 'objectively' in the platonic realm. You want to grant colors and  
other qualia platonic status, but you don't seem to want to grant them the  
same objective status as platonic numbers. If there is only one true 7  
then why is there not only one true green?

-gts