[extropy-chat] Qualia Bet.

[Jef Allbright]

On 11/24/05, gts <gts_2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 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.

What could you possibly mean by saying that you think flies don't
experience the world but do experience qualia?

Could you, please, try to elucidate that claim?  If it doesn't seem
coherent to you either, then please just say so.

I must admit that I have a hard time even keeping a placeholder in my
mind for the concept of qualia. That goes for similar popular concepts
such as "free will", a discrete and continuous "self", "morality",
etc., but for these other concepts I'm able to make a kind of
translation to some form of operational description.  With "qualia" as
generally used it's hard to know what operational description would
have any effect, and when you make a statement such as the one above,
I can't conceive of even a moderately coherent mental framework that
would support it.

I am fascinated by what seems to be an insurmountable gap between
those who prefer the subjective and those who prefer the objective
approach to describing "reality".  I have ideas as to how this might
be overcome, but let's continue along the current path a little
further.


> 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.

I would agree that each of these systems responds to its environment
and that neither has self-awareness. It could be said that only one of
these has the attribute of agency, but I don't know if that's relevant
to the point you're trying to make.

> If there is no difference then pan-psychism is true.

Huh?!  Please fill in the steps in your reasoning here.

- Jef