[extropy-chat] Qualia Bet.

[Jef Allbright]

On 11/24/05, gts <gts_2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 03:13:30 -0500, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
>
> > Recognizing a specific wavelength range is a really simple measurement.
> > A single molecule could do it.
>
> Yes, this is what I mean by pan-psychism. Right or wrong, it simplifies
> the problem.

Oh, you were soooo close.  You locked in on the point where
contradiction arises...and then smoothed it out.

Pan-psychism is like Borges' Library of Babel, which contains all
knowledge--randomly located with the random sequences on its pages.

It is like the Truth of the mystic who finally, at long last, has
arrived at the point where there are no more questions...because he
has stopped asking.

And pan-psychism is such a wonderful idea, full of potential...but
doesn't correlate with any empirical observations and doesn't sharpen
our understanding--we can't cut with it.

When you find your way back to that point, where you're asking about
the system "just" doing calculations, and whether it really
"experienced" anything, then ask yourself how you would know--or
better yet, how would it know?

A key to this puzzle is that, as material systems in a material world,
"we" only know what we are experiencing via interrogating that very
same system...one view of which is labeled "Self".

- Jef