[ExI] Fwd: Mental Phenomena

[Brent Allsop]

Hi Dylan,


This is so frustrating.  No matter how I try to say things so they won’t be
misunderstood, people always map what I’m trying to say, onto their model,
and it becomes something nothing like what I’m trying to say.

On Sat, Feb 15, 2020 at 12:29 PM Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> I appreciate your passion, but how can you be so sure your hypothesis is
> correct when there doesn't seem to be any more experimental evidence for it
> than any other theory of consciousness.
>

You've missed most of what I've been saying.  Representational Qualia Theory
<https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Representational-Qualia/6> is not a real
theory.  It is just a set of facts about consciousness that everyone else,
and all their theories agree on (they are all supporting sub camps to
RQT).  All RQT is saying, is that we have qualia, and that we should
distinguish between reality and knowledge of reality  (use more than one
word for all things red).  Even Dennett's unique "Predictive Bayesian
Coding Theory <https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Dennett-s-PBC-Theory/21>"
agrees with the facts which nobody can deny: we have qualia.  All the sub
camps of RQT are the many diverse predictions about what qualia are.  Some
predict qualia are a dual substance
<https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Substance-Dualism/48> separate from
physical reality, others predict qualia are down at the "quantum level
<https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Orch-OR/20>" .  The current popular
consensus, as a result of the substitution argument, is what Stathis
espouses: "Functionalism
<https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Qualia-Emerge-from-Function/18>".
 Currently, because of this popular belief, everyone thinks there is a
"hard mind body problem", and an "explanatory gap
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explanatory_gap>" resulting in has having no
idea how to approach color, and basically, nobody can conceive of a way to
falsify any of these theories.  All that RQT does, is acknowledge what
everyone must agree on, that we have qualia.  Then it points out how to
think about color in a more rigorous way, by not being 'qualia blind'.  If
we do experimental methods that use more than one word for all things
'red', and stop 'correcting' for any physical differences we observe in
different brains, labeling it all as the same 'red'.  (This is what ALL
experimentalists currently do) we will finally have a way to discover what
it is that really has a redness quality.  This is the experimental method
that will finally provide the "experimental evidence" you are asking for so
we can falsify all but THE ONE.

RQT makes no predictions about the nature of qualia.  It just proposes a
way to of thinking about the facts we know about color in a more rigorous
way, which accounts for all the facts we know.  All RQT is doing is
providing an experimental method which finally has the ability to bridge
the explanatory gap and there by discover which of all the many sub camp
theories is THE ONE, so we can discover which of alll our descriptions of
stuff in the brain is the description of redness.  Again, it could be
dualism, functionalism, quantum....   RQT is just describing the
experimental method required (not being qualia blind) to be able to start
falsifying all but THE ONE.

If we get to a point where a mouse connectome is fully elucidated and
> simulated with enough fidelity in a computer, and the resulting entity
> seems to act/react like a mouse, will this give you pause?
>

Again, you have missed most of what I've been saying.  The 3 robots that
are functionally the same, but qualitatively very different
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YnTMoU2LKER78bjVJsGkxMsSwvhpPBJZvp9e2oJX9GA/edit?usp=sharing>
paper is meant to illustrate exactly the problem with what you are saying
here.  Each of these robots are 3 different versions of your mouse, all of
which can pick the strawberry (seems to act/react like a mouse), yet their
knowledge enabling them to pick the strawberry is qualitatively very
different.  It is THAT colored difference in their knowledge that is
important.

Do you consider animals automata? If not, why do you assume there are
> special qualia related to human consciousness the location of which cannot
> be identified in the brain, and that are unique to human consciousness.
>

Hopefully you can see from the above, that I am saying nothing even
remotely close to any of this.
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