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

[John Clark]

On Wed, Mar 22, 2017 at 2:41 PM, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com>
wrote:

​> ​
> Hi Stathis,
> ​
> as I’ve attempted to say over and over again (you always seem to think my
> answer is no to this): yes, “if the substituted component interacts with
> its neighbours normally then the whole system will be able to distinguish
> red from green and normally”


​Good.​



> ​> ​
> But, when you do a neuro substation from redness to purpleness, to
> whiteness, to oneness…, each of these isolates substituted stages will only
> be able to know the difference between red and green with very measurably
> (both objectively and subjectively) different representations of red and
> green knowledge.


I don't know what that means.

​> ​
> And if you don’t do the neuro substitution in the right way,
>
> ​And ​how do you know if the neuro substitution in the subject was done
the right way?

​If afterwards a disinterested party who knows the subject well can detect
no change in behavior but you can detect noises emanating from the
subject's mouth that sounds like "subjectively I feel exactly the same as I
did before" then you know the neuro substation was done in the right way.
And I know of no other way of doing this, if you do I'd like to hear about
it.   ​



> ​> ​
> including the necessary functionality of being aware of all the voxels


​How do you know if it's aware?
​The entire point of the neuro substation thought experiment is to try to
figure out what is aware and what is not,  if you already have some magical
way of determining this then what's the point of the thought experiment?


> ​> ​
> Doing so will make you tempted to erroneously claim that whatever is
> representing redness and greenness, even if it is some kind of
> distinguishable functional process, you will erroneously think you have
> proven that redness is preserved with such an insufficient neural
> substitution.


​I agree that the preservation of behavior does not prove that
consciousness or color qualia has also been preserved but it is powerful
evidence that it probably has been because if it has not then Darwin was
dead wrong. And I don't think Darwin was wrong.   ​


​John K Clark​
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