[ExI] Mental Phenomena

[Brent Allsop]

Hi Will

On Thu, Feb 13, 2020 at 6:34 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Redness is not a quality of any *thing*!  It's a dance between an observer
> and an observed.
>

This is completely ambiguous.  It sounds like you are talking about things
"out there".  I.e. a real strawberry, and a real eye detecting light from
the strawberry.

You need to distinguish between reality and knowledge of reality.  None of
the above has anything to do with consciousness, because you can put a
brain in a vat, and stimulate the optic nerve identically to the way the
eye would be.  And this setup has nothing that you are talking about (no
strawberry, no eye).  But it has everything that you should be
talking about.  As in you should be clearly talking about "knowledge of an
observer and knowledge of what is being observed."  not the stuff that is
"out there".

If you know something, there must be something, physical, in your brain,
that is that knowledge.  All that (the only stuff important when talking
about consciousness) can exist, without anything but a brain in a vat.
Everything else is irrelevant to consciousness.  So why are you talking
about eyes and tings that we observe?


>
> I also think it has to be said that the PURE red quale is not experienced
> in life.
>

I'm sorry I used this term "PURE quale" pure, originally used by John.  I
have no idea what this means, other than something that is not
physically real.  And if it isn't real, why is anyone talking about it?


>
>
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