[ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering

William Flynn Wallace foozler83 at gmail.com
Fri Mar 17 18:03:38 UTC 2017


Since my brain works that way it is a reasonable hypothesis that your brain
does too, but I'm not able to prove that and never will be able to.  john

 'Prove' must mean something different to you than it does to me.  To me it
just means test - oh well, you know that.

My point is that you can do the same test thousands of times with different
subjects and keep getting the same results.

Say you show them a red rose.  All except the male color blind will respond
'red'.  A fMRI will show much the same firings in their brains from the
same areas.  Thus prediction of what they say and what went on in their
brains is nearly 100% accurate.

 Now I agree that one cannot show that the experience is exactly the same
(but similar, that I would assume), but I would conclude that unless
defective, showing red will result in saying red and the same brain areas
stimulated.  No need to mention consciousness.

What more do you want?

bill w

On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 11:47 AM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 5:08 PM, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>> ​> ​
>> It seems evident from what you say here, that you haven't seen the video
>> on detecting qualia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHuqZKxtOf4 .  I
>> think this will answer most of the questions or issues you are pointing out
>> here.  Also, you use the word "red" in ambiguous ways.
>
>
>> You talk as if I was confused about the difference between objective and
> subjective
> ​,
>  but I assure you I am crystal clear on that point
> ​,​
> as it is to every sane person. In your video you mention a brilliant
> scientist who lived her entire life in a black and white world and then one
> day opens a door and for the first time sees a red rose. What has changed
> subjectively and objectively? I can't speak for the woman scientists but if
> it were me I'd be very surprised and delighted at seeing something new that
> I hadn't even imagined before.
>
>> Objectively if I knew enough
> ​about her ​
> neurology
> ​​
> ​​
> I'd say that previously her brain only needed one dimension to represent
> the texture of objects but now 2 numbers are needed. Previously a scalar
> was sufficient but now a vector is needed. And even if I didn't know enough
> neurology to do that I'd still know there is something entirely new here
> because she would make a noise with her mouth that she had never made
> before that sounds like "*there is something entirely new here*
> ​"​
> .
> ​ ​
> If instead she saw a white rose her brain would still only need
> ​one ​
> number to classify the texture of
> ​an ​
> object
> ​just as she always had ​
> so the noise made by her mouth would sound like "*I see nothing new here*"
> ​.
>> Suppose there were twin sisters, one lived her entire life in a black and
> red world and the other lived her entire life in a black and
> ​ ​
> green
> ​ ​
> ​world​
> ​;​
>  what difference in biology could you
> ​an​
> outside observer detect between the two? There would be only one
> difference, in one the red cone cells in the retina showed more wear and
> tear
> ​,​
> while in the other the green cone cell in the retina
> ​would​
> . So when one sister opened that door and saw the red rose the red cone
> cell was stimulated and sent the same signal to the brain it had done
> billions of time before and her brain had no difficulty classifying the
> texture of the flower with only one
> ​number​
> ​ so her brain would send signals to her mouth causing it to make a noise
> like "*I see nothing new about that flower*".
> But with the other sister the red cone cell fired for the first time in
> her life and sent a novel signal to her brain unlike any she received
> before, a signal in which one number was no longer sufficient to classify
> ​ a texture, ​
> so her brain would send signals to her mouth causing it to make a noise
> like "
> *​Wow, ​*
> *I see *
> *​something​*
> * new about that flower*
> ​".
>
> As far as subjectivity is concerned, although I will never be able to
> prove or disprove it my strong hunch is that living in a black and red
> world would be subjectively identical to living in a black and green world.
> ​I can say that without fear because even if I'm wrong you will never be
> able to provide evidence that I'm wrong.
>
>
>> ​> ​
>> You like to think of a redness quale as particular patterns of firing
>> neurons,
>>
>
> ​If the ​
> particular pattern of neurons
> ​ firing in my brain changes then my redness quale changes, and if my
> redness quale changes ​then
> the ​
> particular pattern of neurons
> ​ firing in my brain changes; so the only thing a logical man can conclude
> from that is that my redness quale is caused but the pattern of neurons
> firing in my brain. And I like to think I am a logical man.
>
> Since my brain works that way it is a reasonable hypothesis that your
> brain does too, but I'm not able to prove that and never will be able to.
>
>
>> ​> ​
>> John thinks of them as ineffable, or not sharable, or not approachable
>> via objective science.  Stathis thinks that redness is something
>> functional, independent of any particular hardware.  All these are still
>> theoretically possible, or not yet falsified.
>>
>> ​Absolutely nothing about consciousness is falsifiable or provable
> except for my own consciousness, and even then the evidence is available
> only to me. That's why consciousness theories are so easy to dream up and
> that's why consciousness theories are a waste of time and that's why
> intelligence theories are not.
>
>  John K Clark
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>
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