[ExI] Canonizer 2.0

[Brent Allsop]

Hi John,

On Tue, Dec 25, 2018 at 5:34 PM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 25, 2018 at 12:03 PM Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>> > How do you know what it is like to be a bat,
>>
>
> That is easily answered, you can't. To do that you'd have to turn into a
> bat and even then you wouldn't know because you wouldn't be you, you'd be a
> bat that didn't know what it's like to be a human.
>

I agree.  The theory predicts that you would need to become a bat, or at
least become (or merge with as) a superset of a bat, to know the complete
composite qualia experience of a bat.  The theory also predicts that
consciousness, including likely, that of a bat, is composed of elemental
qualia, like redness and grenness, out of which composite conscious
experience is composed.  There is a chance that a bat could be using an
elemental redness and grennes qualia to represent an elemental level of
some of what it is sensing.  This elemental level is what the theory is
talking about.  And of course, you are making a very testable claim, and
the theory predicts we will eff the ineffable, on at least an elemental
level - falsifying your claims.



>
>
>> *> what did Mary learn, when she experienced red for the first time even
>> though she knew, abstractly, everything about red, before she experienced
>> it for the first time?  How do you “eff the ineffable” and all that.  In my
>> opinion, this is the only hard problem. *
>>
>
> And suppose I gave you answers to all these questions, why would you
> believe me? What sort of supporting evidence could I give that would make
> anyone say "yes you must be correct"? I don't see how there could be
> anything.
>

You need to ready the paper, through to the part where it talks about the
week, stronger, and strongest form of effing the ineffable.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uWUm3LzWVlY0ao5D9BFg4EQXGSopVDGPi-lVtCoJzzM/edit?usp=sharing

The week and stronger form of effing the ineffable would be evidence, which
descartes could doubt.  The prediction is that we will be able to achieve a
scientific consensus that agrees that this strongest form of effing the
ineffable, first proposed by V.S. Ramachandran, will be more than just
evidence.  Just as Descartes could not doubt his existence, since he
thinks, and just like we cannot doubt the physical qualities of our
elemental redness and greenness knowledge, and how they are different, the
strongest form of effing the ineffable would be similarly undeniable,
because we would be directly experiencing the redness and greenness in
another's brain, just as our two hemispheres can experience redness in one
hemisphere, and grenness in the other, in a way you can not doubt.  And
just the way conjoined twins have already disproved solipsism, since each
of the twins knows, in a way that is undeniable, that the other mind
exists, and what it is like.  They can both look out of each other's eyes,
in some cases.

*> Once an experimentalist does this, we will then be able to “eff the
>> ineffable” or bridge the explanatory gap.  *
>>
>
> Even if the explanation the experimentalist gives is correct there is no
> what for him to prove it is correct even to himself.
>

Again, we are predicting that the strongest form of effing the ineffable is
a proof that could not be denied.



> Solving the so called hard problem would be equivalent to proving that
> solipsism is untrue, and I see no way to ever do that even theoretically.
>

Again, the strongest form could do this, it could prove the existence of
other conscious entities just as surely as you left hemisphere knows that
your right hemisphere exists, and what redness and greenness are like, in
each of them, in a way you cannot doubt.


>
> *> In other words, the prediction being made in the “Representational
>> Qualia Theory” camp needs to be verified by experimentalists, as the theory
>> predicts is about to happen, before it will be a real solution to the
>> qualitative hard problem.*
>>
>
> If you could do that then you'd have proof the "easy" problem had been
> solved, not the hard one.
>

I can't understand what you could mean by THE easy problem, as there is
thousands and thousands of very difficult problems that still need to be
figured out, about how the brain works.  For example, we don't yet have any
idea of how long term memory works.  Is that THE easy problem, or is it any
of the other thousands of easy problems?

And, finally, these are all very testable predictions we are making.  And
37 of the 54 total people that have participated in the consciousness
survey are predicting we will achieve a scientific consensus that supports
the idea that Solipsism will have been, or at least could be, falsified for
many experts.  If you have justifiable arguments against these views, it
would sure be nice to get such represented in a camp, to see if anyone else
would support them - in competition with the current 37 supporters of
"Representational Qualia Theory".

Brent
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