[ExI] Theoretical Breakthrough? Was Re: Do digital computers feel?

[Brent Allsop]

Hi all you thankfully very persistent, and patiently helpful people,


James is probably going to hate me for this, but I've again CCed him in
this conversation, as I again think that after dozens of more iterations
here since he was last CCed, we might have achieved a breakthrough (and
this time I'm more sure than the last 100 or so times I thought this! ;)
and I couldn't have done it without all your help.  If you guys think
you've told me your ever improving arguments too many times, James has
given me Stathis' nero substitution argument what seems to be hundreds of
times in ever improving ways over the span of many years.  Via James
continued prodding he helped me realize that from the subjective side, you
need to do something like distinguish redness from greenness, and on the
objective side, the same thing will appear to be something like
distinguishing between the qualitative nature of something physical like
(not, see below) glutamate and (not, see below) glycene neuro
transmitters.  On the subjective side, all we know of not glutamate, is
it's redness quality.  So thanks, everyone, for all your patient help over
so many years with all this.


Oh, and I've CCed the brilliant Steven Lehar, as I think he'll get a kick
out of this.  He was the first person that helped me understand how all
this knowledge in the brain stuff could work back in the 80s.  He may have
some better proposed theories about what qualitative not glutamate and not
glycene may be, including what the binding neuron could be.  Steve, for
more context, you may want to watch this 15 minute video to know what I
mean by the simplified theoretical world that only has 3 colors:
redness(glutamate) grenness(glycene) and whitness(aspartate):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHuqZKxtOf4 where I describe how to eff the
ineffable in the simplest (as far as I know) possible theoretical way.


"*The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.*"
Thomas A. Edison


Ben is definitely getting close with this realization he described below,
but he doesn't quite have it all.  The external behavior, that is the
ability to verbally report (as in outside the black box behavior)
qualitative differences inside the black box is possible and important too.

So, let me more rigorously define what I mean by qualitative
discern-ability function (which includes something that could lead to
verbal report ability).  To reproduce qualitative discern-ability in any
theoretical testable way, there needs to be at least 2 qualitative
representation of knowledge or knowing.  When you talk to me, you should
use simple words like glutamate(redness) and glycene(greenness) to
represent this objective and subjective qualitative functionality
representing knowledge (because I'm not too smart, and need a simplified
(though evidently this particular example theory is already falsified in
some people's minds) way to comprehend this kind of qualitative theory).
But when you talk to Ben and John, Ben describes it this way:

*<<<<*
*Not some/thing/. *

*I don't think knowledge is a 'thing', it's a process. As John K Clark
would put it, knowledge isn't a noun, it's more like a verb or an
adjective. This means that there is no such thing as 'a knowledge', but
there is such a thing as 'knowing'. *

*More conventionally put, knowledge (and experience) is an
information-process. *

*So your statement above could be reworded: "If you know something, there
must be an information process that is that knowing". *
*>>>>*

So, for others I'll call it "not glutamate".  Ben should take "not
glutamate" to be a process of knowing redness, at least until the neuro
scientists falsify his particular theory.  And "Not glycene" is the process
of knowing greenness.  It must be possible to know what qualitative
distinguishable functionality is with this, on the detectable objective
side, and it is important to have the ability to tell the qualitative
difference between redness and greenness on the subjective side.  This
qualitative discern-ability of the knowledge process is what gives the
system the ability to objectively distinguish between knowledge of
strawberries and knowledge of leaves (and to verbally report qualitative
difference).  For Ben, the redness functionality is the process of knowing
redness which is objectively detect-ably different than the process of
knowing greenness.  This can be true, even if it isn't possible to truly
eff the difference -  John would probably say you must change from Ben or
John to know all the subtle differences between redness and greenness, and
you must become Brent, to fully detect Brent's redness and greenness.
While this particular theory is harder, it's not objectively detect-ably
impossible.

And finally, you need a third function which can be testibly proposed to be
some kind of binding system or maybe a binding neuron.   Or maybe, if you
must maybe call it a binding - not a neuron.  Whatever it is test-ably
theoretically proposed to be, it is the ability for the system to be aware
of and report, or fire, only when at least 2 different objective and
subjective things are qualitatively different.  It has the ability to
combine simple or elemental qualia to produce the diversely complex
composite qualia or conscious knowledge required for powerful natural
intelligence.

I'm not quite sure what Stathis and James, or anyone that champions
"functionality" based qualia because of the neuro substitutuion argument,
should think of "not glutamate" as.  They will always assert that it will
"arise" some place at some "functional" level, outside of wherever you
propose to do the physical substitution test.  They have a little trick
that will always enable them to neuro substitute out any proposed physical
theoretical claim of qualitative and physical discern-ability, no matter
where you propose to test for it in the system.  As far as I can see, the
only possibility they have is that it "arises" in some impossible to
objectively detect (else they will swap it out using this little trick)
"magic" or inconceivably "hard" way.

Stathis gave me the idea of how to describe and point out this little
trick, when he used a glutamate receptor, combined with glutamate, to keep
the "binding neuron from functioning the same" before and after
substituting glutamate (and it's glutamate receptor) with glycene (and it's
glycene receptor).

So, you can start with a system that is detecting the qualitative
difference between not glutamate and not glycene and the binding neuron is
firing, indicating they are different.  When Stathis does the neural
substitutuion of not glutamate (and a not glutamate receptor) with not
glycene (and a not glycene receptor), even though you now have not glycene
chemically reacting in both of the input synapses of the binding neuron, it
is incorrectly doing the "same observable behavior" and reporting that they
are different, even though they are both the same not glycene (and not
glycene receptor).  The problem is, if this is true, you have removed the
necessary functional ability of the system to fire correctly and report
qualitative discernment of not glutamate and not glycene.  If you preserve
the necessary qualitative discernible functionality (and the ability to
verbally report such) with your theory, the system must report the
qualitative difference between not glutamate and not glycene.  Hence this
little "trick" is a functional fallacy since it is removing the very
qualitative discern-ability you need from the system, no matter where you
propose it might testably physically resides.  No matter what you theorize
that not glutamate and not glycene may be, and how it might be physically
distinguished, Stathis and James will attempt to use some physical trick
like not glutamate receptors and not glycene receptors to remove the
necessary objective qualitative discern-ability of the system - resulting
in all the "hard" problems and the removal of any objective ability to
detect or discern it.

Now, if you can preserve the correct qualitative discern-ability function,
theoretically possibly by physically or chemically coupling the two
synapses in some way giving the binding neuron's ability to be aware of
when one synapse has the reference quality key like not glycene
functionality and the lock like not glycene receptor functionality and the
other synapse has either the same or the not glutamate and a not glutamate
receptor, so the system can be aware of, and correctly report whether they
lock and key like functionality are qualitatively different, then notice
that by preserving the qualitative discern-ability  function and firing
correctly when they are different, and not firing when they are the same
the "hard" problems go away - and you can now objectively detect not
glutamate, and distinguish this from not glycene and there by objectively
eff the ineffable - if science is able to prove your proposed not glutamate
and not glycene, to be the real reliable for everyone and every subjective
computer thing.  Proving which theory is THE ONE, will be left to the
experimental neuroscientists, who will be able to finally know how to
effingly test for this stuff, once they understand this qualitative theory,
how to properly qualitatively interpret what they are observing, to know
how to not be qualia blind as most of them now do simply because they are
miss interpreting the abstracted information about what they are observing,
and be able to eff the ineffable.  I bet this will happen relatively
rapidly, once experimentalists understand this kind of qualitative discern
ability theory, and how to properly qualitatively interpret what they are
observing.


So, does this help?  Any questions? Do we need to keep going?  Is there any
simpler way to describe any of this kind of qualitative discern-ability
theory so that more neuro scientists can more easily relate to it?


Brent Allsop











On 2/20/2017 1:59 PM, Ben wrote:

John K Clark wrote:

"if internal changes to a part produce no changes in the way that part
interacts with other parts then they make no change to the overall
behaviour of the system"

Aha, I think I see now where the difference of opinion lies.

He can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Brent is of the opinion that it
/does/ matter what goes on inside the black boxes of interacting parts,
whereas the rest of us don't, as long as the interactions remain the same.

I hope I'm right, because this suddenly makes sense of what Brent has been
saying.

Not that it's correct, I think it's profoundly incorrect, and I think there
are very good logical and empirical reasons for thinking this, but at least
it's understandable now.

Thanks, John.


Ben Zaiboc
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On 17 February 2017 at 16:04, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> Hi Stathis,
>
> You obviously know more than I know about how neuro transmitters work.
> Thanks for helping me to better understand this type of stuff.
>
>
> As I said, if what you say is true, then it merely falsifies the
> prediction that glutamate is what performs the redness quality we
> experience.
>
It falsifies the theory that *any* particular substrate or physics is
necessary for the redness quality, or any other quale. The general argument
is this:

A. The brain is a system made of parts.
B. Each part interacts with neighbouring parts.
C. If you replace one part with a different part that interacts with its
neighbours in the same way, then the system as a whole will behave in the
same way.
D. If the part you replaced were essential for qualia, then the qualia
would change but the behaviour would not.
E. Think about what it would mean if (D) were true.

Note that this does not say anything about whether qualia can be detected -
only that qualia cannot be due to a particular substrate or physics.

That is why I always resort to talking about the "simplified theoretical
world".  In the simplified world, there are only 3 colors: red, green and
white.  And in that simplified world, glutamate has the redness quality,
glycene has the greenness quality, aspartate that has the whiteness
quality, and it is one neuron that binds them all together, so you can be
aware of them all at once.  And for Ben's sake: in this simplified world
there are "red and green signals in the optic nerve" that can be easily
inverted.


The goal is to make a very hard topic a little more simple.  If one can
understand the qualitative theory I'm trying to describe, and how neuro
substitutuion works with no "hard" problems, and how people in such a
simplified world can "eff the ineffable" by properly qualitatively
interpreting abstracted observation knowledge - then they should be able to
apply the same qualitative theory in the more complex real world.  All that
is required is to test for, and find, experimentally, in the real world,
what it is that takes the place of glutamate, glycene, aspartate, and the
single neuron binding system.  That job is for the experimentalists to do,
once they understand how to test for it by no longer being qualia blind (by
miss interpreting abstracted observation information as they all do now)
and effing the ineffable by interpreting what they are observing,
qualitatively correctly.


Ben, I don't know if it will help, but I describe the "simplified
theoretical world" in more detail, in this talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHuqZKxtOf4 .  But it may not help if you
believe there are not elemental qualities out of which our brain builds or
paints composite qualitative experiences with.  It sounds like you and John
Clark agree on this?  Do you also, like John, believe that effing the
ineffable is impossible, and thereby, qualia will forever not be
approachable via objective or sharable science?

Brent



On 2/15/2017 8:23 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:


On Wed., 15 Feb. 2017 at 4:48 pm, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> Hi Stathis,
>
>
> Thanks for expressing all this so concisely. I hope I can be as concise so
> we can make progress with this.  I think the key point in our
> misunderstanding is captured by you with this:
>
> On 2/14/2017 5:02 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> You're missing the point when you talk about "qualitative representation".
> *Observable behaviour* is the only thing necessary to consider in order to
> replicate *observable behaviour*. The argument is that if you ignore qualia
> and just replicate *observable behaviour* then the qualia will also
> necessarily be replicated. I gave an example of this which I believe is
> clear (tell me if not) with the glutamate/glycine swap.
>
>
> Yes, your answer was very clear.  I agree with most of what you are
> saying, but we both believe that the other is missing the point.  You first
> want to focus on: "If you ignore qualia and just replicate *observable
> behavior* then the qualia will also necessarily be replicated."  But even
> if I do agree with this, from how I see things, it is still missing or
> removing some important functionality.  In the past you never want to move
> beyond this, because or until this has been settled.  The problem is, I
> can't point out the required functionality being removed, until you first
> understand and agree with some other things in the qualitative theory.  So,
> this time, could you move beyond that, at least for a bit and digest this
> initial description, then given that understanding (if you agree), I'll be
> able to point out the reasons I can't yet accept this functionalist way of
> doing neuro substitution.
>
> Let's start on the subjective side of things, again, with our simple 3
> element system.  The system is experiencing both redness and greenness as a
> unified composite qualitative experience.  So, there are two qualitative
> representations of knowledge and there is a 3rd part of the system that is
> binding the two different representations into one composite experience.
> The fact that the system is aware of both of these qualitative
> representations at the same time, is the critical base functionality on
> which the comparison system is derived - outputting an indicator that could
> lead to one saying they are consciously aware that they are qualitatively
> the same or not.
>
> So, given that we subjectively know that, would you agree with the
> following?  There must be something that is performing the functionality of
> the redness experience, and there is something that is performing the
> functionality of the greenness, and there is a 3rd element that is
> performing the function of binding these two representations of information
> together to make a composite experience - enabling the 3rd
> awareness/comparison neuron to indicate whether they are the same or not.
>
> You seem loath to want to go there, instead, first, wanting to first focus
> on: "If you ignore qualia and just replicate *observable behavior* then the
> qualia will also necessarily be replicated."  But this ignoring of qualia
> is the problem, and you end up removing the most important parts of the
> functionality we want to observe as we neuro substitute.
>
> Let's compare this subjective way of observing things to the objective way
> of observing things, and for the time being assume it is glutamate that has
> or performs the redness experience functionality, and it is glycene that
> performs the greenness experience functionality.  Given that, with
> subjective observation, we would experience a redness detector and with
> objective observation we would see a glutamate detector.  So, what the 3rd
> part of the system (we are assuming it is a single neuron for simplicity's
> sake) is basically an objective and subjective comparison system -
> outputting an indicator as to whether the two representations of knowledge
> are functioning the same or not.  This functionality derived from the way
> it binds together awareness of the two representations of knowledge to make
> one composite qualitative experience.
>
> Now, when you say you replace glutamate with glycene, and you replace the
> glutamate receptor with a glycene receptor, then assert that the comparison
> neuron will behave the same, you are removing the important comparison
> functionality, or simply falsifying the theory that it is only glutamate
> that reliably performs the redness function (if so, necessitating that it
> be something else, yet to be discovered, that is reliably performing the
> redness functionality we know so well).  Both representations of knowledge
> are now the same qualitative glycene (or the greenness functionality), yet
> you are asserting that the output is still indicating that the two are
> different.  This removal of the correct functionality as you do the neuro
> substitution, is why I can't accept your line of reasoning, along with it
> being the source of all the "hard" problems.
>

I started answering point by point but I think it is best to just respond
to this point, because it seems that you are ignoring what
neurotransmitters actually do. Neurotransmitters are small molecules that
are released from the presynaptic neuron and bind to the appropriate
receptor on the postsynaptic neuron. Receptors are proteins in the cell
membrane which have special sites to which neurotransmitters attach
non-covalently (without forming a permanent chemical bond), sometimes
described as being analogous to a lock and key mechanism. As a result of
this interaction the receptor protein is pulled into a different shape,
leading to a cascade of events in the neuron. With so-called ionotropic
receptors the binding of the neurotransmitter opens up channels in the
receptor allowing ions to move into and out of the neuron: sodium,
potassium or calcium ions. Since ions are charged entities, this changes
the voltage across the cell membrane, which can then change the shape of
transmembrane proteins called voltage-gated ion channels, which can then
cause a spike in voltage to propagates down the axon of the neuron, and
ultimately to cause neurotransmitter release at the end of the axon,
triggering the next neuron in the chain.

Now, if we swap glutamate for glycine in this setup it won't work - glycine
will not bind to the glutamate receptors. If we swap the glutamate
receptors for glycine receptors it won't work - glutamate will not bind to
glycine receptors. But if we swap glutamate for glycine and glutamate
receptors for glycine receptors, and the glycine receptors otherwise have
similar properties to the glutamate receptors (open similar ion channels
when glycine binds), then the neuron will behave in the same way in regard
to when it will fire, and hence all the downstream neurons and the muscles
will behave in the same way, and the subject will behave in the same way.
"The subject will behave in the same way" means, among other things, that
the subject will say in a before/after comparison that the strawberries
look red to him in exactly the same way as they did before. If you don't
agree with this, then please point out where in the detailed chain of
events I have described I have missed something and explain how the
glutamate/glycine swap (leaving everything else in the brain the same) can
possibly lead to the subject saying that his qualia have changed.

If you assume the qualia experience functionality will arise or emerge in
> some other way or some other abstracted level, then it is this other
> abstracted location of qualia that can't be ignored, and must be able to be
> reliably compared via composite awareness.  I am talking about doing a
> neuro substitution at this level, with the required qualia comparison
> functionality, not the level you are talking about, where the qualia being
> compared is being removed.  If you are going to claim that a comparison
> functionality can be constructed out of this simplistic lower level (I
> don't see how this could be done), then provide at least one theoretically
> possible description of such (as I have done with glutamate, glycene, and a
> binder neuron to make a composite experience), and with that, whatever it
> is, it will be obvious what happens, and why, as the neural substitution
> occurs.
>
> If you do the neural substitutuion on a system that, instead of ignoring
> and removing qualia comparison, you provide any testable theoretical method
> of really doing the function of qualitative comparison, it can be obvious
> what is going on during the neural substitution.  Let's do this by having
> two sets of such identical 3 element qualitative comparison systems, one
> that doesn't change and is for constant reference comparison purposes, and
> the other one is the one we will perform the neuro substitution on.  We
> will bind these two systems with the same provided binding system in a meta
> comparison functioning system which will monitor and compare all the
> qualities, as the neural substitution takes place on one of the systems, so
> you can prove to everyone, both objectively and subjectively, exactly what
> it is going on, and why both of the 3 element systems are always
> indicating: "It is red" even though one is the qualia invert of the other
> after one of the neuro substitution steps.  If you duplicate all this
> *observable behavior*, including the meta awareness of what is going on
> with both systems, there will be no hard problems when it is neuro
> substituted since you are not removing the most important *observable
> behavior*.
>
> Does that help?
>
>
> Brent Allsop
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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