[extropy-chat] Qualia bet with Eliezer

[Robin Hanson]

At 07:29 PM 11/29/2005, Brent Allsop wrote:
> > So in a sense I already agree with your #1
>
>Awwwrrrr!  So we are basically in the same camp then!  You agree that qualia
>do exist!  The other two were mostly just added in for fun and vanity.
>Thank you for not taking advantage of me and my vanity!
>The only difference is I don't like your terminology and some of its
>implications.

You offered to bet for a conjunction of three claims, #1&#2&#3, at even odds.
I offer to bet against #3 at even odds.  Since a conjunction must be no more
likely than its components, this should be to your advantage.  Your #3 was
the most objectively verifiable claim, and to my mind the most central to
your claim that a grand new scientific and technical revolution is upon us.
To quote:

>3. The discovery of qualia or phenomenal properties (which I once thought
>did not exist) which scientific evidence is now showing us do indeed exists
>is the most significant scientific discovery made to date and will more
>profoundly effect our future than any other thing we've so far discovered.

Yet though you repeatedly asked why oh why won't anyone take your bet, you
have backed out the first time someone has tried to accept your challenge.


Robin Hanson  rhanson at gmu.edu  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Associate Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323