[ExI] Mental Phenomena

Thu Jan 23 18:30:21 UTC 2020

Hi Ben,

The term “elemental” is simply to contrast an idea with the different
composite qualitative experiences.  When you experience redness, there are
lots of other things bound into the experience.  The things that we can be
aware of at the same time can include the name ‘red’, holidays, how sweet a
‘red ‘strawberry tastes…..  A good amount of people think qualia are
everything else but the redness quality.  They think the redness is a
property of the strawberry, out there.  It is evident that you are thinking
in this qualia blind way when you say things like:

“Qualia are not elemental properties of anything, they are patterns of
information.”

So tell me, when a pixel of knowledge on the surface of a strawberry is
switching between redness and greenness, as illustrated here
<https://canonizer.com/videos/consciousness/>, what might the change be in
this “pattern” of information.  And can you tell me anything about the
phsyics, of which such a ‘pattern” might exist?  If not, then your theory
isn’t falsifiable, is it?  Is inverted qualia even possible in your theory?

“Representational Qualia Theory
<https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Approachable-Via-Science/2#statement>”
predicts that consciousness can be ‘painted’ (more accurately:
computationally bound) out of an elemental set of qualities, similar to the
way a painting can be built out of a set of pixels with elemental colors.
It points out that it is a necessary fact that if you know something, there
must be something, physical, that is each piece of that knowledge.  At some
level, you need to break down consciousness it’s elemental constituents.

“You talk of 'the physics' of perception, but the physics is not the
important thing. The informatics is. We know this for a fact, from
countless neurology studies and experiments (many of them unintentional,
the results of accidents).”

Part of what “Representational Qualia Theory
<https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Approachable-Via-Science/2#statement>” is
predicting is that all the peer reviewed journal articles reporting on all
this “neurology studies and experiments” is qualia blind.  For example, all
of it only uses one word for all things red.  Nothing in any of that stuff
you are pointing to can account for the fact that qualia can easily be
inverted, again as illustrated in the video
<https://canonizer.com/videos/consciousness/>.  You must be able to say
things like: “My redness is like your greenness, both of which we call
red.  All of the stuff you are referencing is just abstract descriptions of
stuff in the brain.  Nowhere in any of that can anyone tell you the
physical color of any of their abstract descriptions are describing.

There are now over 40 experts that are supporting the general Ideas I’m
talking about here in “Representational Qualia Theory
<https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Approachable-Via-Science/2#statement>”.  No
other theory has any significant amount of consensus.  Even Dennett’s
Predictive
Bayesian Coding Theory
<https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Dennett-s-PBC-Theory/21> is supporting what
I’m talking about here.

I’ve run into lots of people that think the way you do, and disagree with
the general ideas now supported by all these experts.  I beg them to
canonize whatever it is they think is wrong with this emerging consensus.
But nobody ever does.  If you do disagree with all these experts, could you
please create a competing camp to “Representational Qualia Theory
<https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Approachable-Via-Science/2#statement>” and
concisely state what you are trying to say here?  Don’t you think it would
be interesting to see if anyone else is brave enough to risk their
reputation by supporting competing camps?

My prediction is that in the next 10 years experimentalists (finally
collecting data in a way that is not qualia blind) will discover what it
is, in the brain, that has a redness quality.  This will falsify all the
bad camps, and result in a clear and definitive consensus.  My prediction
is that before 10 years, using the “Mind Expert
<https://canonizer.com/topic/81-Mind-Experts/1>” canonizer algorithm it
will show a greater than 80% expert consensus for this one camp, that was
initially predicting what redness is, before the experimentalists were
finally able to experimentally prove this.  If you are the first one in the
camp that turns out to be the one, that would be huge, reputation wise.
But of course myself, and now over 40 people are predicting your theory
will be one of the many that will be falsified by science, especially if
experimentalists discover what it is that has an elemental redness quality,
out of which consciousness can be built.

On Thu, Jan 23, 2020 at 10:02 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On 21/01/2020 19:14, Brent Allsop wrote:
>
> So, Ben, Please.  From here on out, whenever I say glutamate, please
> replace that word with a description of whatever physics you most likely
> think is a description of redness
>
>
> You ask that we substitute whatever we think is responsible for 'elemental
> redness' for glutamate, but the whole point of my arguments is that *there
> is no such thing as 'elemental' qualia at all*. It's a nonsense concept.
> You talk of 'the physics' of perception, but the physics is not the
> important thing. The informatics is. We know this for a fact, from
> countless neurology studies and experiments (many of them unintentional,
> the results of accidents). We know that even a slight change in the wiring
> of the brain (not a change in its biochemistry, note. Not a change in
> materials, but a change in structure) can deprive someone of the ability to
> perceive or understand certain things, or add perceptions they never had
> before. Changes in their qualia. This can't be explained if these
> perceptions are somehow 'elemental', tied to materials, because it's not
> that all the GABA, for instance, has been removed from their brain. It's
> the *wiring* that has been changed. The patterns of information have
> changed, nothing else.
>
> Qualia are not elemental properties of anything, they are patterns of
> information.
>
> If you can't see that, or simply won't contemplate it, there's really no
> point talking any further.
>
> You're in the position of someone who, when presented with two brick
> buildings, one circular and one square, and told that the circular one is
> much better at withstanding battering rams, jumps to the conclusion that
> the bricks in the circular building must be stronger, and when told "no,
> the bricks are the same in both buildings", refuses to believe it. After
> all, the 'elemental strength' must be greater in the round buildings
> bricks, mustn't it?
>
> >The problem is, everyone gets lost in the minor details everyone
> disagrees on, and focuses on that
>
> Not at all. It's the bigger picture that we are disagreeing on. Not the
> precise identity of specific qualia, but the very nature of qualia in
> general.
>
> And you still haven't said why you think my 'availability argument' is
> invalid.
>
> --
> Ben Zaiboc
>
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