[extropy-chat] qualia

[gts]

On Tue, 22 Nov 2005 18:07:54 -0500, Jef Allbright <jef at jefallbright.net>  
wrote:

I've been thinking about your interesting line of thought here, Jef, and  
trying to see how it applies to the question of qualia. I'm thinking it's  
an interesting answer to the question of ego and self-image but that it  
doesn't apply to the question of qualia. Qualia are about immediate sense  
experience, not about mental constructs such as the concept of self.

When you look at a red stoplight, for example, you experience a color.  
That immediate experience of the color red has certain characteristics to  
you separate from any concepts you may or may not have about your self in  
the world.

It's probable that lower organisms experience qualia with no concept of  
self. Insects probably "see things" (experience qualia) even if they have  
no concept of self and no ability to reflect intelligently on their  
observations.

However the abstract concept of self may very well be an evolutionary  
adaptation exactly as you describe here.  Maybe even worth a separate  
thread!

> Brent, have you considered turning the question around--and assuming a
> universe that has no "phenomenal properties"--what it might be like
> for organisms that evolved the capability to model their surroundings
> as many primitive organisms do, and then took the next step and began
> to include themselves in the model for the additional fitness this
> enhanced model provided?
>
> If such a theory accounted for all the observations, including an
> organism that would know and feel an immediate and indisputable sense
> of itself within its surroundings, then wouldn't that theory be
> preferable to one that requires some additional and mysterious
> "phenomenal properties"?

> Taking it up a level, could you also imagine how in this purely
> physical model, that a self-aware organism, evolved to protect its
> "self" at all cost, may find it nearly impossible to expand its
> concept of its world such that its "self" --its own special
> viewpoint--really isn't anything special in any measurable, objective
> sense?
>
> I realize that the foregoing is rife with loopholes and tempting
> distractions.  If you're up to it, I suggest only that you might play
> with such an impersonal and heartlessly objective scenario for a while
> and see where it takes you.  Some people have, and have found it
> similar to going into the void and emerging on the other side with all
> as it was before, only more so.
>
> - Jef