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

[William Flynn Wallace]

On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 3:56 PM, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com>
wrote:

> ​
> *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'. *
>

​-------------------

Here I am again,  butting into a conversation I don't understand.  BUT -
what is meant by 'thing' and does it matter what we call knowledge?  If it
is more of a verb than a noun, how does that help us understand it?  If you
want to get away from an analogy like 'knowledge is a thing sitting in a
folder waiting to be accessed, like your dental xrays', then I still want
to know how that helps.

bill w​

> ​
>
> 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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