[extropy-chat] Re: Qualia Bet

Marc Geddes marc.geddes at gmail.com
Fri Dec 30 05:29:39 UTC 2005


On 12/30/05, gts <gts_2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 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.

Tonight, take a tomato from your kitchen.  Look at it in the dark. 
You'll see that its grey, not red ;)

>
> > 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.

But if you agree that color perception is generated by brain
processes, how on Earth can you think that colors are out there in the
world then? ;)



>
> >  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
>

I think I've answered that one before.  I agree that one could  say
that there's a sort of 'true green' (in the sense of an 'archetype'
for green).  But as I said earlier, I think this exists in Plato's
world.  It's not a property which physical objects have.

--
"Till shade is gone, till water is gone, into the shadow with teeth
bared, screaming defiance with the last breath, to spit in
Sightblinder's eye on the last day"



More information about the extropy-chat mailing list