[ExI] Can philosophers produce scientific knowledge?

Mon May 17 23:06:14 UTC 2021

On Tue, 18 May 2021 at 08:30, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Stathis,
> This is the problem, you are focusing on everything unrelated to the
> quality of the experience, like what the brain is reporting, and a
> gazillion other external behavioral possibilities, causing you to
> completely miss what I'm trying to talk abou8t.  I'm not talking about any
> of that stuff.
> We are just talking about the fact of the matter of the quality of the
> experience.  Either it is the same redness, throughout space and time, or
> it is different, like greenness.  A simple fact about reality.
> We could wire up whether the user lies about what he is experiencing, or
> not, none of which is relevant to the redness quality of the knowledge, you
> only focus on all that stuff which doesn't matter.
> This quality can be considered a substrate quality of
> conscious knowledge.  And if that quality changes, it is simply a fact
> about reality that the redness quality of that knowledge, of which
> consciousness is composed, has changed.
> The system must be able to be aware of these qualities, and it must be
> able to report if they change, and it is these qualities that I'm talking
> about, and calling a  qualitative substrate.
> I'm guessing to you, the redness quality could be produced in any physical
> substrate independent way, but the fact of the matter still remains, even
> in that case, that redness will always be the same redness quality, through
> out space and time.  AND the system must be able to detect any change in
> the quality of this conscious knowledge substrate.  If redness changes to
> anything else, the system must be aware of this change (and if you insist,
> it must be able to report such changes, but ;this fact is
> just destructing from what is important, the quality of the substrate
> representing conscious knowledge)
>

“The system must be able to be aware of these qualities, and it must be
able to report if they change, and it is these qualities that I'm talking
about, and calling a  qualitative substrate.”

Yes, this is what I am saying: if there really is a change in qualia, the
system must be able to notice it and report it, which is a behavioural
change. If the system cannot notice and report any change, then there
hasn’t been any change. If qualia were substrate dependent, it would be
possible to change the qualia without the system noticing and reporting the
the change in qualia, which is absurd. I think you know it is absurd; you
just can’t see how substrate dependence would lead to this absurdity.

On Mon, May 17, 2021 at 4:15 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 18 May 2021 at 07:22, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, May 10, 2021 at 7:18 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat <
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, 11 May 2021 at 11:10, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes, but again, let's throw out the irrelevant complexity about what
>>>>> the person is reporting, whether he is reporting it mistakenly, being
>>>>> forced or whatever.  Let's just focus on the facts of the matter of the
>>>>> quality of the experience.  It is ether a fact that the experience is
>>>>> redness, or the experiences is greenness.  The facts of the matter are
>>>>> dependent on the quality of the substrate which the subject is
>>>>> experiencing, as knowledge of the strawberry.  Everything we care about is
>>>>> simply the quality of the experience, which must remain factually
>>>>> consistent, over space and time.  If the quality of the substrate of the
>>>>> experience changes, this must be notice.  If not, not noticed, either of
>>>>> which the subject must be aware.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Yes, that’s consistent with everything I have ever said, except for the
>>>> part about “the quality of the substrate which the subject is
>>>> experiencing”, because I think it is possible for the substrate to change
>>>> but the experience to remain the same.
>>>>
>>>
>>> No, No.  Your miss interpreting my words, into you incorrect
>>> interpretation of what I'm trying to say.  I'm refiring to the quality of
>>> the knowledge, that must not change, this quality is the substrate,
>>> representing our knowledge, or it is the quality of the substrate, out of
>>> which our conscious experience is composed.  Redness quality of experience
>>> must always be the same redness, throughout space and time, and greenness
>>> must be different, again throughout space and time.  The fact that you
>>> represent red things with knowledge that has a redness quality is a fact
>>> about reality.  It is the quality of this knowledge that is the substrate
>>> to which I am referring.  What you consciousness is like,  is dependent on
>>> the quality of that substrate, representing your knowledge.  If it was
>>> red/green inverted, you could still behave the same, but it remains a fact
>>> that since the quality of the substrate of your knowledge change, you
>>> consciousness would be different.
>>>
>>
>> If the quality of your experience changed through red-green inversion,
>> then your behaviour would change: you would say “colours look different to
>> me”, which is a change in behaviour. If your behaviour did not change, you
>> would say “colours look the same to me”. So, assuming you are alert and
>> cooperative, if the quality of your experience changed but your behaviour
>> did not change, that would mean that you did not notice the change in the
>> quality of your experience, because either the change was too small to
>> notice or there was no change. So the rule is: no change in behaviour, no
>> change in the quality of the experience. And THIS is why qualia cannot be
>> substrate dependent!
>>
>>> --
>> Stathis Papaioannou
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-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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