[ExI] Fwd: Mental Phenomena

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Wed, 29 Jan 2020 at 08:24, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Stathis,
>
>
>
> “I appreciate the time you take in these communications and I am sorry
> that we both seem to be repeating ourselves without getting through to the
> other.”
>
>
>
> After I sent that last long one to you, I was thinking I should have
> included a statement like this, with it.  So, thanks and right back at
> you.  James Carroll finally gave up on me LONG ago.
>
>
>
> I’m thinking this pretty much captures your view in a way I can understand:
>
>
>
> “IF glutamate is responsible for associated with redness qualia, and we
> replicate the objective behaviour of the glutamate (the qualia-blind
> behaviour, in your terminology) by some non-glutamate means, then the
> redness qualia will also be replicated. It's quite remarkable that we can
> say this, but it is true.”
>
>
>
> But I still struggle with the way you talk about many things.  You haven’t
> mentioned the substitution argument, but I’m assuming this is the only
> justification you have for making that last “but it is true.” Claim.?  No
> thoughts on nothing being able to be redness, for the same reasons?  Would
> you not agree that if experimentalist were never able to reproduce redness,
> without glutamate, it would falsify this claim?
>

If the experimentalist could reproduce all the behaviour associated with
redness but not the redness, then that would mean qualia are meaningless.
The subject would have altered or absent qualia, but they would not notice
any difference, and communicate that everything was exactly the same. The
most important thing about qualia is that we know we have them and we know
if they change; if this is eliminated, what is there left?

“If the op amp configuration is changed but other circuitry is also changed
> to compensate, the behaviour of the system will be preserved and so will
> the redness qualia.”
>
>
>
> You never seem to acknowledge any other behavior than external behavior
> (picking the strawberry).  You seem to be ignoring the fact that a qualia
> invert robot could have identical “behavior”, and the qualia is NOT the
> same.
>

If this is possible, then for the reason above it makes qualia meaningless.
Behaviour does not mean just picking the strawberry, it means every type of
behaviour that the subject can display, such as talking in detail about its
experience of seeing strawberries. It will therefore have different qualia
but declare that the strawberries are exactly the same shade of red as they
were before the change. That would mean that your qualia might have become
inverted in the last five minutes but you haven’t noticed. As far as you
are concerned redness is still redness and greenness is still greenness. Or
you might have gone completely blind in the last five minutes, but not
noticed that you have no visual qualia at all any more. If you do notice,
you are trapped in a nightmare, unable to communicate this information in
any way. Does this make any sense?

“I wouldn't say it's hopeless for scientific study if qualia are
> epiphenomenal. We effectively study qualia by talking to people, and
> deducing from that what they are experiencing. We cannot be sure that other
> beings have qualia, but we can also be sure, as I have explained many
> times, that IF they have qualia, replicating just the objective behaviour
> will also replicate the qualia. Replicating the objective behaviour could
> be done in an indefinite number of ways, so there is no particular physics
> that is necessary for particular qualia.”
>
>
>
> You always ignore the binding functionality.  For example, you mentioned
> multiple ways to study epiphenomenal qualia in that closing statement, but
> not once did you mention anything about using neural ponytails to do the
> strongest form of effing the ineffable to directly observe the physical
> qualia of others physical knowledge.  Do you not agree that your left
> hemisphere, knows absolutely, if your right hemisphere’s knowledge is
> inverted?  (for example, you use some special glasses and a camera system
> to make everything in the right field of vision red/green inverted from the
> information in your right hemisphere (from the left field of vision)?.  It
> seems to me that facts like this (and being necessarily possible to do the
> same thing for 4 brain hemispheres [Is this not a fact or not necessary if
> if qualia are epiphenomenal?]) should have some effect on these closing
> remarks of yours?
>

Connecting brains together is not going to allow knowledge of qualia
differences if even the original brain cannot notice qualia differences.

On Tue, Jan 28, 2020 at 1:37 AM Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 28 Jan 2020 at 16:13, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Stathis,
>>>
>>
>> Hi Brent. I appreciate the time you take in these communications and I am
>> sorry that we both seem to be repeating ourselves without getting through
>> to the other.
>>
>>
>>> On Mon, Jan 27, 2020 at 4:12 PM Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I don't think glutamate is sufficient for redness because it's too
>>>> simple. You might agree with this, because you have said that glutamate is
>>>> just an example to facilitate discussion. But I agree that glutamate might
>>>> be sufficient as part of a component in a system. It cannot be necessary,
>>>> because once we work out what physical interactions the component is
>>>> involved in, we can substitute another component.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I always think you understand, especially when you say thing like: " You
>>> might agree with this, because you have said that glutamate is just an
>>> example to facilitate discussion."
>>> But then you prove that you still don't understand, with the rest.
>>>
>>> Let's back up a bit, and see if we can get this right.  Start by
>>> watching this video <https://canonizer.com/videos/consciousness/> up to
>>> the "inverting pixel" section where it goes into a loop (1 pixel switching
>>> between red and green) till you press continue.
>>>
>>> I'm talking about what is the necessary and sufficient set of physics
>>> (or magic or spirit world stuff, or whatever) for that one pixel to have a
>>> redness quality.  And what are the changers, when only that one pixel
>>> changes.
>>> Implications being you can do this for every pixel you are consciously
>>> aware of, and that being proof that there must be something physical for
>>> everything you know, including every pixel of visual knowledge.
>>>
>>
>> If the pixel changes subjectively, then it must change objectively also.
>> That is, there must be some test that can be done on the system which will
>> reveal that there has been a change: the subject cannot distinguish between
>> objects that are a different colour, or the subject says that the
>> strawberry looks different, or something. If there is no such objective
>> change, then there cannot be a subjective change. It is possible to change
>> many parts of the system and produce no objective change. It is like a
>> computer running a program: there are multiple different computers that
>> will run the program exactly the same and give the same user experience.
>> Thus it might be sufficient for a certain set of hardware to run Microsoft
>> Word, but we can't state what is necessary to run Microsoft Word: in a
>> thousand years time people may be running old computer programs on hardware
>> based on dark matter, or other technologies that we can't even imagine now.
>>
>>
>>> When we abstractly describe glutamate, we have no idea the colorness
>>> property of what we are objectively describing.  Everything we get,
>>> objectively, is necessary abstracted away from physical qualities and
>>> necessary substrate independent.  In other words, without a dictionary, you
>>> can't know the colorness property you are describing or objectively
>>> observing.  Subjective experience is very different.  Subjectively, we
>>> directly experience the physical quality of what our abstract descriptions
>>> are describing.  In order to connect the two, you need a mapping like both
>>> the objective word "glutamate" and the subjective word "redness" are labels
>>> for the same physical thing.
>>>
>>
>> By examining glutamate objectively, we cannot know what redness is like.
>> However, we do know that IF glutamate is responsible for associated with
>> redness qualia, and we replicate the objective behaviour of the glutamate
>> (the qualia-blind behaviour, in your terminology) by some non-glutamate
>> means, then the redness qualia will also be replicated. It's quite
>> remarkable that we can say this, but it is true.
>>
>>
>>> So, despite attempting to define glutamate that way, as you are doing
>>> here, you think of glutamate in a completely different way than I was
>>> attempting to describe.  You reveal this misinterpretation of what I'm
>>> trying to say with things like: "the component is involved in, we can
>>> substitute another component."  In other words you are assuming glutamate
>>> is just some "component" of whatever it is that has redness.  (Completely
>>> changing what it actually says).  Thankfully, in the past, after a
>>> gazillion requests, you finally provided the "op amp" example.  You pointed
>>> out that you can replace all the neurons performing the op amp
>>> functionality with neurons that can perform the same functionality, and it
>>> would still result in redness.  You think I disagree with this, but I
>>> don't.  You are just changing the conversion away from what I"m trying to
>>> talk about.  If glutamate is just a component of rendes, then you must
>>> substitute glutamate for whatever it is glutamate is a component of that
>>> performs the necessary and sufficient functionality that is redness for
>>> that one pixel, THAT is what I'm talking about, and you continue to change
>>> the subject.  If that is true, I'm not talking about glutamate at all, as
>>> you continue to think I am.  Glutamate is just a stand in word for whatever
>>> is the necessary and sufficient set of physics (or functionality.  For your
>>> sake, let's assume an addition op amp has the redness quality, and when
>>> that pixel switches from redness to grenness, the op amp functionality
>>> changes from addition to subtraction.  I can completely agree with you that
>>> you could implement both an addition and a subtraction op amp in either
>>> neurons, or silicone, or anything else, but I"m not talking about
>>> components of redness, I'm talking about redness.  In this case it is the
>>> the addition op amp functionality which can be implemented with either
>>> silicon or neurons.
>>>
>>
>> You seem to be agreeing with me that if the op amp is involved in redness
>> qualia, and it is changed for a functionally identical op amp in a
>> different substrate, then the redness qualia will be preserved. If the op
>> amp configuration is changed, say from inverting to non-inverting, while
>> leaving everything else the same, the behaviour of the system will change
>> and the redness qualia may also change. On the other hand, if the op amp
>> configuration is changed but other circuitry is also changed to compensate,
>> the behaviour of the system will be preserved and so will the redness
>> qualia. This demonstrates that there can be no particular physical property
>> of the op amp that is necessary and sufficient for redness qualia.
>>
>>
>>> The binding system is part of the required functionality.  The binding
>>> system makes you aware of the pixel that is changing from an addition op
>>> amp, to a subtraction op amp (bound with all the other pixels of color of
>>> yet different op amps that are not changing, while this one pixel does
>>> change.)  Anything else you present to that binding system, for that pixel,
>>> the system must immediately be aware of the change, just as when you see
>>> that pixel change from addition op amp ness to subtraction op amp ness.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Sun, Jan 26, 2020 at 3:55 PM Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Glutamate may be involved when red qualia are experienced, but this
>>>>>> cannot be a unique property of glutamate, because if glutamate's physical
>>>>>> effect in the brain,
>>>>>>
>>>>> It almost sounds like you think you have found a way arround my
>>>>> "proof" that if it can't be glutamate, it can't be anything.  Since you now
>>>>> seem to be on board (a change?) with glutamate at least being sufficient
>>>>> for redness, but not necessary?  Is this new?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> changing the shape of glutamate receptors to which it binds, were
>>>>>> replicated with a different mechanism, the red qualia would continue.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> How is this not just saying redness isn't physically real, it is just
>>>>> magic.  There must be a very discoverable set of objectively observable
>>>>> physics, that can result in a redness experience.  This is just up to
>>>>> nature.  Either it is within that set or it isn't.  We don't get to specify
>>>>> when we do and do not want redness to arise so it will fit our possible
>>>>> faulty thinking.  Do you agree that even if there is some "software
>>>>> functionality"  (trying to imagine what a "non physical functionality"
>>>>> might be), it is up to physics (or God?) as to whether redness will "arize'
>>>>> from that, right?  In other words, in all possible cases, redness is a real
>>>>> physical quality?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I honestly can't see why you think that if the glutamate is replaced by
>>>> another mechanism and everything works the same, that means qualia are
>>>> magic.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Again, you are thinking completely incorrectly about what I think, as I
>>> indicated above.  If it is the entire mechanism that has the redness
>>> quality, and glutamate is only a "component" of that mechanism.  In that
>>> case, you need to replace glutamate, with the entire mechanism, or whatever
>>> it is that is the necessary and sufficient set of functionality required
>>> for you to directly experience it as a pixel of redness.
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Also, changing the shape of the glutamate receptor can't uniquely be
>>>>>> the determinant of red qualia because if the physical effect in the brain
>>>>>> of (one type of) glutamate receptor, opening sodium ion channels when
>>>>>> glutamate binds, were replicated with a different mechanism, the red qualia
>>>>>> would continue.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I've repeatedly tried to show the error I think I see in this logic
>>>>> (you are clearly thinking as if glutamate isn't the redness, that redness
>>>>> is something higher up in the system) but you just continue to even
>>>>> acknowledge what I'm trying to say, let alone point out some mistake in my
>>>>> logic.  You just keep saying this same old (clearly mistaken to me)
>>>>> argument over and over again.  There must be something that is the
>>>>> redness.  If this physically changes in any way, it will be physically
>>>>> different than redness.  The system only works if it is physical redness.
>>>>> If the system can't tell when the redness has physical changed, resulting
>>>>> in the entire system being aware that it has changed, physics, it isn't
>>>>> functioning correctly.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Glutamate changes the shape of receptors that it binds to due to the
>>>> electrostatic force, and this is how it causes other physical effects in
>>>> the body, such as muscle movement. Therefore, if the shape of the receptors
>>>> can be changed by some other means than glutamate, the other effects in the
>>>> body will be the same. Your error is to assume that glutamate has some
>>>> other physical effect, "redness", that can cause muscle movement, such as
>>>> the muscle movement associated with saying "I see red". But there is no
>>>> extra such effect; changing the shape of receptors that it binds to due to
>>>> the electrostatic force is 100% of the relevant physical effect of every
>>>> glutamate molecule in every human that has ever lived.
>>>>
>>> More proof that you are completely misunderstanding what I"m trying to
>>> say.   Again, in the case you are talking about, glutamate is only a
>>> "component".  In that case I'm not talking about a "component" of redness,
>>> I'm talking about whatever is the necessary and sufficient set of physics
>>> that has the redness quality we directly experience for that one pixel.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> This analysis can be continued for the whole brain, replacing every
>>>>>> part with a different part, but preserving all the qualia and
>>>>>> consciousness. It cannot be any one component, or any one physical process,
>>>>>> that is identified with qualia.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Again, as I've said, and demonstrated (remember the checkmate?) IF
>>>>> this is true, then the result is that nothing can have redness, for the
>>>>> same reason.  It seems like you are completely ignoring that, and just
>>>>> going back and replaying the old steps that lead to the checkmate, without
>>>>> changing anything, yet expecting different results?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I misunderstood the "checkmate". Was it that qualia are epiphenomenal?
>>>> I don't consider that "checkmate".
>>>>
>>>
>>> OH, yea.  That was my bad.  James Carroll, who is also a functionalist
>>> (the guy that joined the conversation on Quora the other day, he liking
>>> your "functionalists" responses, and hem adding additional functionalist
>>> responses.)
>>>
>>> My recollection is that he would repeatedly say the neural substitution
>>> argument proves that if it is glutamate that has the redness quality, then
>>> redness must be "epiphenomenal", which we both agreed meant redness would
>>> not be approachable via science, and we both agreed that would be game over
>>> or something neither one of us could accept.  Kind of ironic, in a way.
>>>
>>> So, it was a big surprize to me to hear you say you believe qualia are
>>> epiphenomenal.  But anyway, that doesn't matter.  What I was talking about,
>>> was the second argument I was making that would also be a "check mate",
>>> especially in your case.  (in James' case, I think I have a double check
>>> mate, but let's ignore that for now.)
>>>
>>> So, back to the op amp being the necessary and sufficient set of
>>> functionality to experience a redness quality (including when you can
>>> achieve the same addition op amp with various diverse sets of
>>> "components")  So, now, we need to replace glutamate, with this op amp (or
>>> whatever it is, including magic) that is the necessary and sufficient set
>>> of physics that have the redness quality you can experience for that one
>>> pixel.  For the same reason you are claiming it can't be glutamate, you
>>> must also make the same claim for addition op amps.  They can't have
>>> redness, absolutely nothing, even magic, can have redness, and you can
>>> prove that for anything that you try to substitute glutamate with.
>>>
>>> With that I'm thinking:  And we all know, more than anything, that we
>>> can experience redness.  So if your so called "proof" "proves" we can't,
>>> there is something wrong with your proof.
>>> That seems to me to be Checkmate.
>>>
>>> Does that help at all?
>>>
>>
>> I wouldn't say it's hopeless for scientific study if qualia are
>> epiphenomenal. We effectively study qualia by talking to people, and
>> deducing from that what they are experiencing. We cannot be sure that other
>> beings have qualia, but we can also be sure, as I have explained many
>> times, that IF they have qualia, replicating just the objective behaviour
>> will also replicate the qualia. Replicating the objective behaviour could
>> be done in an indefinite number of ways, so there is no particular physics
>> that is necessary for particular qualia.
>>
>> --
>> Stathis Papaioannou
>>
> --
Stathis Papaioannou
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