[ExI] Fwd: Chalmers

Brent Allsop brent.allsop at gmail.com
Fri Dec 20 21:58:00 UTC 2019


Hi Stathis,


If it isn’t a physical property, then the best it could be is: “A miracle
happens here”.  That alone (along with all the other resulting “hard”
problems) proves to me you’ve got a mistake somewhere in your logic.  And
given how detailed I describe the problem with this logic, I don’t
understand how you can’t see this.



Pluss splitting everting into just A, B, and C is so far aware from any
qualia, and what qualia are is completely irrelevant.  As I’ve tried to
point out repeatedly, you not including the required functionality.  You’ve
got to include the colorness functionality (redness, greenness…) in the
system,, and finally a binding mechanism which can computationally bind
colorness together, so you can have a composite qualitative experience
composed of lots of them.



So, let’s assume your B performs the required binding functionality.  You
said a and b could be “Chemical Signals.”  We can throw out b because that
is causally way downstream from the qualia pixels elements we can both
objectively observe and consciously be directly aware of, would be aware
of, presenting to a binding system.  a must be whatever it is that is the
colorness quale (redness, greenness….) we can detect by being aware of its
quality computationally bound to lots of other pixels of colorness.  I say
colorness, a, is a physical property, evidently you think a is just magic.
And there must be more than just B(a).  Since we can have at least 10s of
thousands of pixels of awareness for each pixel on a surface we can see.
So it must be B(a1, a2, a3…. aN)  Where n is at least tens of thousands of
elemental “magic” qualities which can be bound into one unified conscious
experience by B.



A required functionality of binding mechanism B is the ability to recognize
physical (or magic) red.  If it is glutamate that has the redness quality
we can directly experience, B (and B1) must be able to report being aware
that anything but glutamate (or redness or magic) being presented to any aN
must be able to report, by being aware of that physical or qualitative (or
magic?) difference, that it is not glutamate.  If it can’t do that, then it
isn’t functioning properly.



Also, if you are able to do some kind of substitution from B to B1, you
must be able to use B1, to bind to the neuro substituted system, so you can
be computationally aware of whether it is using glutamate, glycine, 1s, or
0s (or whatever redness or greenness magic you are thinking of.)



If you provide the computational binding system which can do all of the
above required functionality including the colorness (whether magic or
physical) there will be no “hard” problems.  If you can describe such a
sufficient system that has any other problems than an approachable color
problem, I will join the functionalist camp.


You seem to have constructed your argument in such a way that nothing will
falsify your thinking that colorness must be magic, resulting in all the
'hard' problems chalmers has become famous for?


---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Dec 17, 2019 at 9:12 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Chalmers
To: Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com>




On Wed, 18 Dec 2019 at 09:39, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com> wrote:

> But if the argument contains a mistake of logic or slight of hand
> <https://canonizer.com/topic/79-Neural-Substtn-Fallacy/2#statement>, then
> this argument for functionalism is falsified, resulting in it being more
> likely that functionalism IS probably wrong?
>

If functionalism is wrong then it means that your qualia could change
radically and you wouldn’t notice, which seems absurd.

> --
Stathis Papaioannou
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