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

Brent Allsop brent.allsop at gmail.com
Sun Mar 26 16:32:45 UTC 2017


Hi Ben,

As far as I can tell, from reading this and subsequent posts, is that 
your theory is completely qualia blind or devoid.  In no place in your 
theory is there anything we could experience as a redness quality, and 
be able to experience and distinguish it (and objectively detect such 
differences) from a greenness quality being experienced.


 From all I can see, you think redness can be "red", "0xF00"... or 
anything else as long as it is interpreted correctly.  But that is 
absurd.  What could make "red", "OxF00" be experienced as redness and 
what differences does "green" or "0x0F0" cause you to experience greenness?


EVERYTHING you are describing is required to be properly interpreted.  
But remember, qualia just are - you experience them as is, there is no 
interpretation involved.  Sure, you can interpret redness as "red" (ie 
reflects something like 650 nm light), "stop", and myriads of other 
things, but redness just is. What is it, in your theory, that has this 
redness and greenness, that are experienced, as is, without any 
interpretation?  If I had two nearly identical conscious beings, one 
that represented the strawberry with redness knowledge, and the other 
that represented it with greenness knowledge, how could you possibly 
observe the difference, given your way of thinking about things, since 
in you theory it doesn't matter what it is, as long as it is interpreted 
correctly, and everything requires interpretation?


Brent



On 3/24/2017 2:57 PM, Ben wrote:
> Ben <bbenzai at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > I await his response to your question with interest
>
> OK, Brent has answered, and his answer is "No". So, agreeing that it 
> doesn't matter what goes on inside a black box as long as its 
> interactions remain the same, I'm completely at a loss to understand 
> his argument.
>
> Brent:
> "The theory I am promoting is predicting that there are elemental 
> qualities..."
>
> So please explain what these 'elemental qualities' that you keep 
> insisting on, are! I have no idea what they can be!
>
> And if you can't explain what they are, then please at least give some 
> empirical evidence for their existence, because I can't see that there 
> possibly can be such a thing as 'elemental feeling of being watched', 
> or 'elemental quality of the sound of a french horn', etc. Using 'red' 
> as an example is all very well, but you must recognise that 'red' is 
> just one of billions of experiences that a person can have.
>
> Can you argue against the idea that 'red' is actually a high-level 
> abstraction of more specific experiences such as the sight of a red 
> ball a metre away, all the english telephone boxes I've ever seen, the 
> sight of blood, etc.?
>
> Ben Zaiboc
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat




More information about the extropy-chat mailing list