[ExI] “Stathis’ ‘behavior’ which, if it remains the same, the subjectivity remains the same.”

[Brent Allsop]

Hi Stathis,

On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 2:04 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> So, from now on, how about I refer to what we are both trying to talk
>> about as: “Stathis’ ‘behavior’ which, if it remains the same, the
>> subjectivity remains the same.”?
>>
>
> As long as we understand that this refers to high level behaviour,
> particularly behaviour associated with honestly communicating about the
> subject's experiences.
>

Yay, I think this is progress.

I don't like the term "spiritual" but there are several terms that mean the
> same thing: subjective, qualia, consciousness, mental.
>

Right, but I predict (falsifiably) that "subjective", "qualia",
"consciousness", "mental" are labels for physical things, where you predict
(also falsifiably) that these words are labels for things that at best
"supervene" on physics, so we can't use those words.  If you don't like the
word "spiritual" for all things that are not physical, what word would make
you happy, that would include everything from substance dualism to anything
else that is seperated in any way from physicalism, including supervene ism?

I don't think that "redness is always redness" could be called part of the
> behaviour. The behaviour is what a scientist would observe. A scientists
> would not observe that "redness is always redness", although he might
> observe that a report of redness is always associated with certain
> neurological processes. The two components of the behaviour are the high
> level behaviour of the system, such as saying "that is red", and the low
> level behaviour, such as neurons firing and bones moving. The low level
> behaviour can change without affecting the high level behaviour, and in
> this case, the subjectivity must remain the same. The subjectivity is
> dependent on the high level behaviour.
>

This is qualia blind.  You are talking about "higher level behavior" (which
you say is 'saying "that is red"')  and "low level behavior" (which you
also say is neurons firing causing the muscles to move 'bones'.)  Both of
these are the same thing.  No place in here is anything that is
factually  "Stathis’
redness ‘behavior’ which, if it remains the same, the subjectivity remains
the same.” There must be something which is the initial cause of the
neurons firing, causing the bones to move, when the subject says: that is
red. I"m trying to talk about THAT, but every time I do, you say it can't
be that. What is this "Stathis’ redness ‘behavior’ which, if it remains the
same, the subjectivity remains the same.” and must not this be the initial
cause of the neurons firing to make us say: "That is red"?

If you don't like "redness is always redness", just replace both words of
redness with this fact: "Stathis' redness ‘behavior’ such that, if it
remains the same, the subjectivity remains the same.”

There is a type of slight of hand or changing the subject you always do
that is very frustrating. Every time I try to talk of the factual substrate
behaviour that is "Stathis’ redness ‘behavior’ which, if it remains the
same, the subjectivity remains the same.” even if this factual substrate
behavior only supervenes on physical substrate you always try to change the
subject to something that "will cause red-green qualia inversion but they
do not notice a change". Neither you, nor I are ever talking about a case
where something "will cause red-green qualia inversion but they do not
notice a change". We are only talking about the facts of the matter when
someone experiences "Stathis’ redness ‘behavior’ which, if it remains the
same, the subjectivity remains the same.” and what honestly and accurately
causes them to report "that is red". We are only talking about a system for
which if you replace the "Stathis’ redness ‘behavior’ which, if it remains
the same, the subjectivity remains the same.”  We are trying to both point
out that if you replace that with something different, both the behavior
and the subjective experience are different.  Please stop misdirecting the
conversation to be about something nobody is talking about. If you are
talking about any type of neural substitution that results in something
that "will cause red-green qualia inversion but they do not notice a
change" that type of neural substitution has nothing to do with the
necessary facts of the matter mentioned above, and doesn't make any sense
at all.
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