[ExI] Redness comes from Context? Was Re: Digital Consciousness

[Mike Perry]

At 19:23 2013-05-05, Brent Allsop wrote:


>Hi Mike,
>
>Thanks for the clarifications.
>
>You say we won't be able to tell, from our frame of reference, what 
>the redness in some other frame, like a static book description, is like.

I guess you could look at it that way, but I don't normally think 
that way myself. I think we could know what it's like for *a brain to 
be perceiving redness*, in the static book description. And *ditto 
for in our world too*. I don't think there is just "redness"--either 
in our world or somewhere else--apart from a brain that perceives 
redness. (Indeed, I think it's been established that colors can be 
perceived with unusual wavelengths of light if some of the more usual 
wavelengths associated with these colors are missing.) The perception 
is a mental phenomenon. It may be that a certain wavelength of light 
evokes this, so you call it "red" but the actual "redness" is in your 
perceptions. (To me this does not challenge a computational model of 
consciousness or perceptions.)

>So, could I imply from this, that we will be able to eff the 
>ineffable, between brains?  In other words, just like I can know 
>what redness in my right hemisphere is like, and how it is different 
>than greenness in my left hemisphere, might we some day know as 
>sure, how another person's elemental redness quale is or isn't like our own?

To me it seems reasonable that someday we will know (if we can 
advance indefinitely) all about what the perception of redness in 
another person's mind is like, at least for beings that are not too 
advanced relative to the level we've reached ourselves.

Mike

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