[ExI] Do digital computers feel?

Mon Feb 13 16:54:34 UTC 2017

I feel like we’re repeatedly saying many things back and forth, but filing
to communicate.  I’m talking about two types of speaking.  There is qualia
blind speaking, and there is speaking that is not qualia blind.  You seem
to be thinking that all the speaking I’m talking about is qualia blind
speaking, and not understanding what I mean by speaking that is not qualia
blind.  You are not understanding what might enable someone to be able to
make a statement like: “My knowledge of red is like your knowledge of
green” in a way that is demonstrably provable to everyone both objectively
and subjectively, by various effing of the ineffable techniques.  Once we
can use binding systems, and eff to each other what our conscious knowledge
is qualitatively like, in ways that are demonstrable to all, in both
subjective and objective ways...  Once we can do this, qualia inverts and
qualia zombies (those with abstracted knowledge that is devoid of any
qualia) will talk in very different ways when talking about what their
knowledge is qualitatively like.

Another part of the communication problem is that you seem to not fully
understand the implication or function of the “binding system” and the
function it performs during neural substitution.  Also, you don’t seem to
understand the implication of being able to connect two brains with binding
systems, enabling two brains to eff the ineffable in the strongest
undeniable way.

I talk about a simplistic binding system that is binding two elemental
qualitative representations together.  When you replace half the
representations of knowledge with something that is qualitatively
different, in order for the binding system to behave the same, you must map
the new qualitatively different representations back to the original, for
the binding system to behave the same.  And when you finally replace the
binding system, you must then invert all the representations of knowledge
being feed to it, before it can behave the same.  This simplistic system
behaves exactly as we both predict, during the neural substitution.  You
seem to miss the fact that when you scale this binding system up to include
all of our diverse qualitative knowledge, you must replace all of the
knowledge representations being fed to the binding system at the same time
you replace the entire binding system.  Again, so that the system will
behave exactly as you and I agree will happen, as the neural substitution
progresses.  I see no evidence that you fully understand the implications
of what I’m trying to describe with all this.

On Wed, Feb 8, 2017 at 11:23 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On Thu., 9 Feb. 2017 at 8:34 am, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> Hi Stathis,
>>
>> You said: "You talk about a 'detectably different behaviour awareness'
>> but you agreed above that the observable behaviour is the same."  But I
>> only said it would be the same for external behavior that can be qualia
>> blind, like, picking strawberries.  If you include the internal behavior or
>> the qualitative behavior of the knowledge itself that is required when
>> asking questions like: "Does your knowledge of red behave like my redness,
>> or like my greenness?" the behavior will be opposite for the invert.
>>
>
> You're contradicting yourself here because you previously agreed that the
> *observable behaviour* will be the same. Speaking is *observable
> behaviour*. This is why I have been labouring the point and emphasising it
> with asterisks! So the subject will not only pick the strawberries, he will
> also say the strawberries look red exactly as they did before the
> substitution, even if all or half of his visual qualia associated with the
> strawberries have turned green, or disappeared altogether leaving him blind.
>
> And since you will be able to tell the difference when half of the
>> glutamate has been replaced with glycene, before replacing the single
>> awareness neuron, all the glycene that has been substituted for glutamate
>> will have to be interpreted back to glutamate to be fed to the not yet
>> replaced binding neuron that binds all the knowledge together to make one
>> composite experience be the same.  As you said, you will not be able to
>> replace any of the glutamate, being fed to the binding system (as you will
>> be aware of the difference), until you replace the entire binding system
>> with something that knows how to interpret glycerine, and behave as if it
>> was glutamate.
>>
>> If the binding system that enables you to experience all your diverse
>> knowledge as one compositely experience is more complex than one neuron,
>> describe whatever different way you will achieve the singular composite
>> experience.  With that we will be able to predict in a falsifiable way,
>> exactly when the qualia will dance (until you  correctly provide
>> interpretation hardware that will interpret that which is not red, as if it
>> was), and you will only be able to finally reproduce the same external
>> behavior when the entire binding system has been substituted - resulting in
>> a detectable (via whatever binding system you use) qualia invert.
>>
>> Brent
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 8, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Thu., 9 Feb. 2017 at 4:25 am, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hi Stathis,
>>
>> You said:
>>
>> "Anyway, these are peripheral considerations to the central argument. I
>> have asked you to state what you think would happen if a substitution were
>> made with a component that has the same *observable behaviour* as the
>> neural component you think is essential for particular qualia."
>>
>> I thought I have answered this many times, so thanks for letting me know
>> that I'm still not communicating.  Let me try to clearly answer this
>> specific question:
>>
>> Absolutely, yes, according to a qualitative blind definition of
>> "*observable behaviour*" the behaviour would be the same.  That is why I
>> always talk about two people behaving identically (finding and picking
>> strawberries), yet they have inverted red/green qualia.  Since the
>> "*observable behaviour*" is qualia blind, it sees the identical behaviour
>> of the two people behaving the same, but it is blind to the different
>> behaviors of the inverted qualitative awareness.
>>
>>
>> If changing the glutamate receptors changes red qualia to green, then
>> changing the receptors in half the brain should invert the qualia that half
>> of the brain is responsible for. So if the subject sees a field of
>> strawberries after the change, one half if the strawberries will look red
>> and the other half will look green. Yet the subject will not notice a
>> change, and will tell you that all the strawberries look red, just as
>> before. Or to change the experiment slightly, as a result of some neural
>> substitution all of the visual qualia disappear, but the subject doesn't
>> notice, continues to describe red strawberries as before, and is able to
>> pick the strawberries as before. Would you still insist that the qualia
>> have been inverted or eliminated even though the subject can notice no
>> internal difference and the experimenter can notice no external difference?
>> In what sense is a change in qualia a change if there is neither a
>> subjective nor objective difference?
>>
>> When you include in the system, the behaviour that is the redness
>> awareness, and the detectably different behaviour that is the greenness
>> awareness - the external behaviour is the same, but they are finding the
>> strawberry for inverted behavioural reasons or they are finding the
>> strawberry for qualitatively inverted initial causal behaviours.
>>
>>
>> You talk about a "detectably different behaviour awareness" but you
>> agreed above that the observable behaviour is the same.
>>
>> Again, what is required is some well defined or testable way to
>> qualitatively eff ineffable qualities.  What makes something ineffable is
>> the fact that an abstracted representation like the word red, does not have
>> a redness quality.  So without having some kind of way to  know how to
>> interpret an abstracted representation to get back to the original quality
>> of the composite knowledge being observed to know the intended qualitative
>> meaning of a word like red, one remains qualia blind.
>>
>> So, you must have some kind of minimal awareness behavioural requirements
>> like including two qualitatively diverse representations of knowledge, and
>> a way to bind them together to form a composite qualitative conscious
>> awareness.  This diverse composite qualitative awareness behaviour needs to
>> be the behavioural mechanism that enables the system to answer questions
>> like:  "No, my qualitative knowledge of red is more like your qualitative
>> knowledge of green."
>>
>>
>> That would be difficult, if I can't even notice when my own qualia change
>> or disappear!
>>
>> There are many testable theoretical ways one might achieve this kind of
>> detectably diverse qualitative composite awareness with materialist
>> theories.  I only use glutamate, because it is the simplest and most
>> straight forward to understand.  I've tried to find some functional way the
>> behaviour of redness knowledge could have distinguishable from greenness
>> behavioural properties, but not only can I not do it, it seems impossible.
>> You said: "I don't see why you should consider this 'miraculous'".  To me,
>> if it is impossible to come up with any theoretically testable way to to do
>> this kind of detectable effing of the ineffable within a functionalist
>> theory, then the only conclusion a reasonable person can come to is that it
>> is some kind of "miracle."  In order for one to not think it is simply
>> magic, someone must falsify the belief that it can't be done, by providing
>> any kind of theoretically possible way to observe qualitatively diverse
>> awareness behaviour in a detectable effing of the ineffable way.
>>
>>
>> You've said you don't find it problematic that qualia might be associated
>> with a substance but you do find it problematic that they might be
>> associated with a process. I don't see why you would have this intuition.
>>
>> --
>> Stathis Papaioannou
>>
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