[ExI] Mental Phenomena

Stathis Papaioannou stathisp at gmail.com
Thu Feb 13 21:36:12 UTC 2020


On Fri, 14 Feb 2020 at 06:45, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
> Stathis,  I've already pointed out, many many times, how what you are
> saying here, yet again, is only justified in a simplistic world that can't
> account for all these facts.
> But, since you continue to prove you don't understand them by repeating
> them despite this fact let me, yet again, point out the facts you are
> ignoring.
>
> On Thu, Feb 13, 2020 at 11:43 AM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, 14 Feb 2020 at 04:54, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Can we talk about certain facts you guys continue to ignore?  I keep
>>> trying to do this with everything including the 3 robots paper
>>> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YnTMoU2LKER78bjVJsGkxMsSwvhpPBJZvp9e2oJX9GA/edit?usp=sharing>,
>>> but you guys, forever, continue to refuse to acknowledge these facts.
>>>
>>>    1. Robot 1s honest and factually correct answer to the questions:
>>>    "What is redness like for your?" is:
>>>       1. My redness is like what Stathis experiences when he looks  at
>>>       something that reflects or emits red light.
>>>
>>> But Robot 1 could never know that, so it isn’t honest and factually
>> correct.
>>
>
> It is a fact that we have composite qualitative experiences where both
> redness and grenness can be computationally bound.  What you continue to
> assert here just proves you are ignoring the facts of the matter of what
> this "computational binding" system must be able to do.  (i.e. the 3.
> strongest form of effing the ineffable.)  You can't acknowledge that this
> fact proves this "could never" claim of yours is factually false.
>
>
>>
>>>    1. Robot 2s honest and factually correct answer to the same question
>>>    is different:
>>>       1. My redness is different, it is like what stathis experiences
>>>       when he looks at something that reflects or emits green light.
>>>
>>>
>> And Robot 2 could never know that either. It’s just the nature of
>> subjective experience; otherwise, it isn’t subjective.
>>
> I've already pointed how this is factually incorrect, yet again, above.
>
>  For you guys, the only requirement for something to have "qualia" is that
>> it has the same quantity of memory, and that the robot be able to pick the
>> strawberry identically to robot 1 and 2.
>>
> No, I don’t know if something that can do that has qualia, I only know
>> that I have qualia. I also know that if it does have qualia, the qualia
>> will not change if a physical change is made that results in no possible
>> behavioural change.
>>
>>>
>>>    1. Your model is, by definition, qualia blind, since it can't
>>>       account for the fact that the first of these two robots have very different
>>>       answers, and robot #3 has no justified answer to this question.
>>>
>>> All three robots might say the same thing, and we would have no idea
>> what, if anything, they are actually experiencing.
>>
> Yet again, I've pointed out above that this is just factually incorrect,
> above.
>
>>
>>>    1. Your definition of 'qualia' is completely redundant to your
>>>       system.  You don't need the word 'qualia', and you don't need two words
>>>       like red and redness, because one word, red, is adequate to model
>>>       everything you care about.  So, trying to use the redundant term 'qualia'
>>>       in your system, just makes you look like you are trying to act smart, but
>>>       obviously are still very qualia blind.
>>>
>>> Red is an objective quality, redness is subjective.
>>
> Why are you saying this and again ignoring the facts?  I've been
> attempting to point out exactly this same thing in everything I say.  While
> there is a falsifiable possibility that these two are different, it is also
> a possibility that they are the same, and that the objective is just an
> abstract(no qualitative information) description of the subjective
> (qualitative because unlike the objectively perceived things, we can be
> directly aware of it).
>
>
>>
>>>    1. You remain like Frank Jackson's Mary, before she steps out of the
>>>       black and white room.  LIke you, she has abstract descriptions of all of
>>>       physics.  To you guys, that is all that matters, and you don't care to step
>>>       out of the room so you can learn the physical qualities your abstract
>>>       descriptions are describing.
>>>
>>> But Mary does not have the subjective experience until she steps out of
>> the room. She knows about all the physical qualities because they are
>> objective. If a redness experience were objective she would know that
>> before she stepped out of the room.
>>
>
> Again, you are proving that you are not understanding the fact I'm
> pointing out when I say objective information is by design, abstracted away
> from any particular physical qualities, and hence contains no qualitative
> information.  Because the word "red" isn't physically red, you need a
> dictionary to know what it means.  Stathis doesn't need a dictionary to
> know what his redness is qualitatively like.
>
>
>>
>>>    1. Within your model there is an "Explanatory Gap
>>>       <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explanatory_gap>" which cannot be
>>>       resolved, and there are a LOT of people that have justified arguments for
>>>       there being a "harde [as in impossible] mind body problem."
>>>       2. All the arguments you continue to assert, including the neural
>>>       substitution argument, and your assertion that this #3 robot has qualia,
>>>       are only justified and only adequate "proofs" in such a qualia blind model
>>>       which can't account for all these facts.
>>>          1. Within a less naive model, which is sufficient to account
>>>          for the above facts, all your arguments, definitions of qualia, and so on,
>>>          are obviously absurdly mistaken, unjustified, and anything but 'proof'.
>>>          2. Your so called 'proof' is all you are willing to consider,
>>>          since you don't care about any of these other facts, and you are perfectly
>>>          OK with saying robot 3 has 'qualia', even though you have no objective or
>>>          subjective way of defining what the quali might be like.
>>>
>>> Only Robot 3 itself knows if it has qualia. We cannot know if it does or
>> what they are like.
>>
> Again, proving you are ignoring the facts I pointed out above, proving
> this statement factually incorrect.
>
>
>> Plugging ourselves into the robot would not give us this information.
>>
>
> Finally!!  It almost sounds like you are acknowledging the fact that we
> have a computational binding system.  Thank you.
> The only problem is, you are making this claim that this will not enable
> us to eff the ineffable with zero justification (other than might be
> possible an inadequate qualia blind model).
> Again, It remains a fact that we can have computationally bound
> experiences composed of both red and green.  It is a fact that we know both
> what that redness is like, and how it is different than greeness, as surely
> as Descartes knew that because he thinks, he necessarily exists.  It is
> also a fact that since you can do it between two brain hemispheres, you can
> also do it between 4, proving your claim here incorrect.
>

We have done the experiment with neural implants, thousands of times, in
patients who have an artificial cochlea. The qualia from the cochlea are
fully integrated into the consciousness of the subject, and appropriately
“bound” with other qualia. Yet we have no idea what, if anything, an
artificial cochlea experiences.

> --
Stathis Papaioannou
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20200214/ddbf6c17/attachment.htm>


More information about the extropy-chat mailing list