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

Wed Feb 22 04:26:55 UTC 2017

On Wed., 22 Feb. 2017 at 2:45 pm, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> Hi Stathis,
>
>
> Dang, I really thought this iteration of the argument, if you fully
> understood it, would at least have some effect on your insistence that the
> neuro substitution argument is not completely flawed.
>
>
> These statements of yours seem obviously completely wrong and indicate you
> still don't fully understand what I'm trying to say about qualitative
> discern-ability and how the binding neuron can't work the way you say
> describe, and how it must behave in the way I say it needs to - to achieve
> the necessary subjective or objective qualitative discern-ability
> functionality:
>
> *"the hypothesis is self-contradictory, since if it were true it would
> lead to a subject whose qualia could change in a gross way, but who would
> never be able to notice the change." *
>
> and
>
> *"if you are right and qualia are due to a certain brain structure, then
> qualia do not exist"*
>
>
> Could you describe why you think these are in a little more detail, or
> provide an example, as I don't see how anyone could think either of these
> could be true?
>
>
> And could you tell me if the most recent description of my qualitative
> discern-ability theory had any effect, whatsoever, on the way you think
> about the neuro substitution and the qualitative nature of consciousness?
> Do you understand what I mean by objective and subjective qualitative
> discern-ability are necessary given what we (I, sorry John) subjectively
> experience of qualitative knowledge?  If you don't understand it, probably
> nobody else will be able to understand it. :(  I guess we're not done,
> after all.  Oh well, thanks for still not giving up on trying to understand
> what I'm trying to say, and or helping me to better understand the way you
> think.  I sure don't want to have to resort to just waiting for the
> experimental neuroscientists to prove to us which of us closer to the true
> theory of the qualitative nature of consciousness.
>

But there is NO experimental result that would make any difference to the
argument. To give some emotional distance I have tried non-biological
examples. If the power supply of your computer is replaced with a different
power supply that produces exactly the same voltage and current, is it
possible that your programs will run differently? If the cylinders in your
car engine are replaced with cylinders of a different material with the
same dimensions, density, melting point, and every other relevant physical
parameter is it possible that your car will run differently?

Brent
>
>
>
> On 2/21/2017 4:03 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> On 22 February 2017 at 08:56, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> 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.
>
> Perhaps there is a problem here with the way you are arguing. I think you
> are proposing that glutamate has a redness quality (or if not glutamate,
> some other structure in the brain). It is OK to propose this as a
> hypothesis, but then in scientific discourse the hypothesis is challenged.
> My challenge is that the hypothesis is self-contradictory, since if it were
> true it would lead to a subject whose qualia could change in a gross way,
> but who would never be able to notice the change. This is
> self-contradictory because, whatever else we might say about qualia, being
> able to notice our own qualia and notice when they change is a necessary
> part of the qualia deal; if you get rid of this aspect of qualia then you
> may as well say that qualia do not exist. In other words, if you are right
> and qualia are due to a certain brain structure, then qualia do not exist.
> You say below that functionalism leads to the "hard problem" of
> consciousness, which you don't like. I don't see how it leads to the "hard
> problem" any more than structure-specific qualia, but even if it does,
> that's just too bad - because structure-specific qualia leads to the
> elimination of the qualia that you and I know we have. This argument is
> independent of any particular details of brain function; it could have
> validly been made in a bygone era before the existence of neurons was even
> suspected.
>
>
> 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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>
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> --
> Stathis Papaioannou
>
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-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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