[extropy-chat] qualia

[gts]

On Tue, 22 Nov 2005 13:23:38 -0500, Brent Allsop <allsop at extropy.org>  
wrote:

> 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.

Seems to me that to say 'It's simply a phenomenal property of something in  
our brain' is to avoid the question. How exactly is it that phenomenal  
properties of matter exist and lead to subjective experience?

To quote Chalmers, "At the end of the day, the same criticism applies to  
any purely physical account of consciousness. For any physical process we  
specify there will be an unanswered question: Why should this process give  
rise to experience?"

That is Chalmers' hard question. But maybe that is not the question you're  
trying to answer.

> Exactly - electrostimulation is almost exactly effing!

Assume we have this 'effing' technology, that it resembles  
electrostimulation. We attach the device to person A and flip the switch.  
He reports seeing red. We do the same with person B who also reports  
seeing red. This might seem a success, but is it? How can we be certain A  
and B actually experience the same qualia? How is this method  
qualitatively different from a more basic type of stimulation, such as  
simply asking A and B to gaze at the same red wall?

Rather than stimulating the retina you are (presumably) stimulating  
certain neurological structures associated with 'redness'. You must be  
assuming that the same structures exist and work identically in every  
brain, yes?

-gts