[extropy-chat] Qualia bet with Eliezer

[Harvey Newstrom]

On Nov 29, 2005, at 11:59 AM, Brent Allsop wrote:

> If I defined quale to be a property or piece of information that could 
> not
> be adequately described or communicated by abstract communication 
> based only
> on the physics of cause and effect?  Then would you say that qualia - 
> as
> I've defined it here, do not exist?

This is not a definition.  You describe what properties the quale lacks 
(the ability to be adequately described or communicated by abstract 
communications based only on the physics of cause and effect).  You 
don't define any qualities for the quale.  The fact that it cannot be 
communicated must be due to some proposed property of the quale.  Yet 
this definition does not attempt to describe it.

In other words, you are describing attribute or lacks of attributes, 
but you are not giving a definition.

This also is untestable, because it is impossible to prove something 
can't be done.  Instead of proving that something is a quale based on a 
definition you have given, you are setting yourself up to have to prove 
something cannot be communicated due to a lack of some undefined thing 
it doesn't have.  This will be very hard to prove, much less quantify 
or even describe.

--
Harvey Newstrom <HarveyNewstrom.com>
CISSP CISA CISM CIFI NSA-IAM GSEC ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP