[ExI] Mental Phenomena

Wed Feb 5 21:57:26 UTC 2020

On Thu, 6 Feb 2020 at 08:48, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> The trouble I’m having with this conversation is how one sided it seems.
> I make an effort to re-iterate your positions, even asking for feedback and
> then fixing where I’m making mistakes in my understanding of your
> positions, till I get what you guys agree is correct.  Ben said:
>
>
>
> “I think we're done here. I see no point talking to a broken record.”
>
>
>
> So, if I’m still failing to acknowledge something, I’ll be happy to listen
> to whatever that is again, and repeat it back till I get it right.
>
>
>
> I see critical issues in what I re-iterate back to you, but when I try to
> point these out, it seems like nobody even acknowledges that I have any
> issue, let alone anyone trying to understand what those issues might be.
> I’m not seeing efforts to re-iterate back many of the problems I see.  All
> I hear is the same old failure to acknowledge the issues I see with what
> Ben refers to as a “broken record” re-iterations of the same old same old:
>
>
> “I'll be damned if I understand how you've reached that conclusion!”
>
>
>
> followed immediately with re-assertions of your positions (which I've
> already repeated back) like:
>
>
>
> “you couldn’t notice a change if the physical change was compensated for
> with another physical change”
>

And the reason is that if you repeat it back you seem to agree, but then
later disagree. It would help if you clearly said something like “there can
be a change in qualia without a change in behaviour”. (And I have defined
behaviour: it is everything that can be observed, including speech, and not
just strawberry-picking ability).

On Tue, Feb 4, 2020 at 1:55 PM Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 5 Feb 2020 at 02:54, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi John:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Evidently, you’re not fully grasping what is going on if you think what
>>> you are saying is true.  Once we discover which physics it is in our brain
>>> which has a redness quality, we will have a dictionary connecting the word
>>> “redness” to that physical quality.  (example being glutamate behavior is
>>> redness behavior.)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> “There would be no way you could even notice subjectively that a change
>>> of some sort had been made.”
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> False.  Subjectively a physical redness quality you are directly aware
>>> of would change from redness to greenness, a huge subjective change.
>>> Because we have such a dictionary, people will be able to answer questions
>>> like: “What is your redness like?”  with “glutamate” and you will know that
>>> is like your greenness, and so on.
>>>
>>
>> Subjectively you couldn’t notice a change if the physical change was
>> compensated for with another physical change; for example, if the glutamate
>> was changed and the glutamate receptors was also changed. It is always
>> theoretically possible to make such a compensatory change, and for this
>> reason it is impossible to attach qualia to any particular substrate or
>> physics.
>>
>> “And there is no way I could see any change in your objective behavior
>>> either.”
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> False, Objectively, you could observe whatever physics it is which that
>>> brain is using to represent conscious knowledge of the red with (example:
>>> glutamate) and when it physically changed (example: changed to glycine) you
>>> would know that that brain is a qualia invert from what it was, before.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> And there will be the 3 different forms of effing the ineffable to
>>> objectively verify all this.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> What is it that you think: “My redness is like your greenness, both of
>>> which we call red.” Means?
>>>
>>> Once we have the dictionary, and better ability to observe the brain,
>>> we’ll be able to ask people questions like: What do you represent red
>>> with?  People will know if they are normal, or a red/green qualia invert
>>> from normal people.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> And if we see a bat using glutamate to represent echolocation
>>> information with, we’ll be able to answer the question: “What is it like to
>>> be a bat?”  with, it is like glutamate, or your redness.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> And the best part, all the absurd religious beliefs about qualia, such
>>> as “substance dualism
>>> <https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Substance-Dualism/48>”, “everything
>>> including rocks are conscious
>>> <https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Panexperientialism/34#statement>”, “consciousness
>>> is down at the quantum level <https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Orch-OR/20>”
>>> and all the mistaken people making careers of arguing there is a “hard mind
>>> body problem” of some kind will finally be put out of business.  So many
>>> other absurd ideas people currently believe in will be objectively proven
>>> false.  The only reason people believe in them, today, is because they know
>>> science “can’t account for qualia”.  Once we can account for all this, only
>>> people like “flat earthers” will be able to be justified in believing in
>>> all such absurdity.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Feb 4, 2020 at 5:44 AM John Clark via extropy-chat <
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Mon, Feb 3, 2020 at 4:17 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> >You [Ben] asked:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> “Now why on earth would the experience of redness suddenly become the
>>>>> experience of greenness? *How* could it?”
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> By simply inverting the red green signal anywhere in the causal chain
>>>>> of events that is perception as proven can be done here
>>>>> <https://canonizer.com/videos/consciousness/>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> You keep saying that but I don't know what you think has been proven.
>>>> As long as the inversion was done consistently and included memories (so
>>>> ripe strawberries and leaves don't suddenly have the same color) then there
>>>> would be no way you could even notice subjectively that a change of some
>>>> sort had been made. And there is no way I could see any change in your
>>>> objective behavior either. So if whatever you're talking about produces no
>>>> subjective change, and no objective change in behavior, then whatever
>>>> change you're talking about is not important to either.
>>>>
>>>>  John K Clark
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> extropy-chat mailing list
>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> extropy-chat mailing list
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>>
>> --
>> Stathis Papaioannou
>>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20200206/0ccc0739/attachment.htm>