[extropy-chat] qualia

[Brent Allsop]

gts responded:

> That's an interesting point of view, Brent. How do you suppose this will
> happen?

It's easy.  To date, science has only focused on cause and effect properties
of nature.  But as consciousness proves - there are also phenomenal
properties.  Once we just look in the right place - we will see (or rather
eff) them.


> Recently I read Chalmer's book on the subject of consciousness, (The
> Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory,
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195117891/103-0973791-
> 2204613?v=glance&n=283155).
> 
> I was left with the impression that the 'hard problem of consciousness'
> will be probably one of the last important questions of science. Solving
> it in 10 years would be quite an accomplishment.

Yes, amongst brain researchers, Chalmers is getting very close.  But it's
not really that "hard" of a problem.  It's just not causal properties - and
we refuse to consider anything but causal/complexity things - making it seem
hard only because we are looking in the wrong place - thinking they will
some how "emerge".

> I like the argument about Mary, the hypothetical neuroscientist who knows
> everything that can possibly be known about neuroscience and the
> perception color, but who lives in a black and white world. Does she
> really know "what it is like" to see the color red? i.e., does she know
> about qualia?  The answer seems to be no.

This is another great example of someone getting close to the critical issue
of phenomenal properties - but it is still making things to unnecessarily
complex and "hard".  What red is like isn't all that complex of an issue.
It's simply a phenomenal property of something in our brain.  You don't need
some huge paper and complex story about some neuroscientist to describe what
I just did in two sentences.

> How can empirical science ever grasp qualia?

Just as we have cataloged and measured the fundamental elements of nature
(at least the causal properties of these elements)  we will cataloge all
qualia or phenomenal properties - and the neural correlates that have them.
Once we do this we will reproduce these correlates in other minds which will
result in "effing" or other minds experiencing them.

Eugene replied:

> We're already seeing and measuring qualia all the time.

And

> Are you familiar with open-brain electrostimulation? Why do you think does
> common juice make all these qualia sing and dance?

Exactly - electrostimulation is almost exactly effing!  We are so close but
people are just too distracted, misdirected, and just can't see what should
be obvious.

> It's an emergent property of the physical system between our ears.

No, calling it "emergent" implies that phenomenal properties some how
"emerge" from abstracted causal properties that are complex enough.  This is
the big mistake everyone is making by looking here.  Phenomenal properties
are fundamental properties of nature that can represent information - they
don't "emerge" from some abstract simulation that is complex enough.

> It is an entirely unremarkable property, unless it introspects.

Saying a phenomenal property like red is "entirely unremarkable" is a very
stupid thing to say - in my mind.  I bet 20 years from now - or whenever you
experience/eff your first qualia you have never experienced before - you
will agree.  What do you mean by "unless it introspects"?

> If you'd give me a measurement procedure for qualia not requiring a person
> you'd have a point.

We will be effing these phenomenal properties to each other and to
artificial minds.  Our conscious minds will merge be shared and so on.  That
is how we will objectively (or is subjectively the better term here?)
measure and quantify them.

>>> Yes. Assuming, your qualia is everybody's qualia. (I'm having trouble to
understand, because qualia means absolutely nothing to me. Just as soul, vis
vitalis, or phlogiston).<<<<

This kind of thinking is exactly the mistaken thinking that distracts
everyone and makes things seem so "hard".

>>> Sorry, there's no way to way to remove the suffering from an accurate
model. Zombies are strictly ficticious. <<<

We have "intelligent" cameras that can tell us much more precisely what
color something is than we can.  But a camera is very much a "Zombie" and
the way it represents and knows about color information (though much more
capable than us) is very different from the phenomenal properties we use to
represent the same information.

This realization and discovery will be the most significant and life
changing scientific achievement to date.  All we need to do is look in the
right place.

So, anyone willing to make a bet?  I say 10 years.

Brent Allsop