[extropy-chat] Qualia Bet.

[gts]

On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 10:20:56 -0500, Jef Allbright <jef at jefallbright.net>  
wrote:

> 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?

If we're trying to understand qualia then the ability to "know what we are  
experiencing" is really a different question and beside the point.  Higher  
organisms are interested in reflecting on the nature of themselves and  
their qualia, because as you point out in another message, that modeling  
of their environment with self included gives them an advantage.

Lower organisms probably just live by experience (qualia) and blind  
instinct.

I doubt flies know they are alive or that they experience the world. They  
seem to experience qualia without having a self-concept and without having  
knowledge of their own existence.

Aside from mobility, blind instinct, and the ability to replicate, I  
wonder how an insect is in any way different from a camera. I wonder if  
there is no difference. If there is no difference then pan-psychism is  
true.

-gts