[ExI] Optical illusion tricks you into seeing different colors

[Brent Allsop]

On Wed, May 19, 2021 at 10:46 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> > *On Behalf Of *Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat
>
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Optical illusion tricks you into seeing different
> colors
>
>
>
> On Wed, May 19, 2021 at 8:34 AM BillK via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> >>If you see 'red' when it's not red in reality, does this mean that
> the red qualia is just an artefact created by the brain?
>
>
>
> >…Possibly.
>
>
>
> >>…If so, then every brain probably creates a slightly different 'red'
> qualia, sometimes even when not seeing a red object.
>
>
>
> >…This does not logically follow.  It may be true, but not because of that
> cause…
>
>
>
> Wouldn’t it be cool to somehow create a device that could measure this?  A
> color can’t really be doing the exact same thing in every brain, ja?
>
>
>
> Of all the qualia discussion that has gone on for decades here, none of
> which I understood, this discussion may have triggered a trace of insight.
> The same red may create slight differences in chemical responses in the
> brain which operate on very certainly different neural networks, to create
> an effect all the brains will agree is called red.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>

Yay, Spike, You are finally getting it!!  this is exactly what we have been
attempting to describe.
It isn't that hard as long as you distinguishing between reality and
knowledge of reality
<https://canonizer.com/videos/consciousness/?chapter=differentiate_reality_knowledge>
.

Subjectively, as Dennett points out, we can "directly apprehend" the
qualities of our colored knowledge.  But when we objectively observe
things, from afar, through our senses, the information is necessarily
abstracted away from whatever happens to be representing the colored
information at any point in the causal chain that is perception.  Notice
that each different link in the chain representing the information,which
isn't intrinsically redness, needs a custom dictionary or transducing
system, to preserve the meaning to the next, different, link in the chain.
If any of these transduction systems is red/green inverted, the resulting
knowledge is also inverted.

In other words, when we objectively perceiving things, from afar, all we
get are abstract descriptions an labels of colors.  and of course abstract
descriptions and labels of colors tell us nothing of the actual intrinsic
qualities they represent.  But IF we have a dictionary (THIS is redness)
which connects the subjective with the objective  then it is possible to
bridge the explanatory gap, with defined statements that use multiple words
(red and redness) which differentiate between red and knowledge of red.
And example being my redness is like your greenness, both of which we call
red.
[image: image.png]


The only thing we need to do is connect the subjective, with the objective,
with an objective definition, giving us the required dictionary.  This is
what Mary does, for the first time, when she learns what her objective
descriptions of everything about red are describing, when she first steps
out of the room and, for the first time, directly apprehends what she has
been objectively observing and describing.  When we directly apprehend
things, we learn colored information that isn't possible to gain, only
abstractly, without a dictionary.  But IF you have a dictionary, and
clearly defined words, it's easy.

Consciousness, not a hard problem, just a color problem.

We simply need to discover which of all our descriptions of stuff in the
brain is a description of the redness behavior we can directly apprehend.
This will give us the required dictionary telling us THAT is red.

All you need is a colored dictionary which tells us the true color of
things, not just the color things 'seem to be".



On Wed, May 19, 2021 at 11:26 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Wed, May 19, 2021 at 10:09 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> The concept of [CENSORED] is tricky and always has been.  The terminology
>> is going to be as tricky as the concept.
>>
>>
>>
>> Being an engineer and math guy, I like things that are stone cold
>> objective.  I like it when steel and engineering meet to create a car that
>> wins a race, which is why I like self-driving race cars even more: it takes
>> the subjectiveness of the human brain out of the picture.  Cool!
>>
>>
>>
>> In order to give me some idea (after all this time) what is [CENSORED]
>> (or what ARE [CENSORED]? (is one [CENSORED] a [CENSORED] ?)) we need some
>> kind of objective instrument or device which somehow measures what a brain
>> is doing.
>>
>
> I have slightly edited your message to try to make my point clearer.
>
> It appears that almost all discussions of that word reduce to unproductive
> attempts to more precisely define that word.
>
> So...maybe it would be better to simply stop using that word, entirely.
> And don't try to make another shorthand word for the concept, either.
>
> Instead, say exactly what one means.  It has been amply demonstrated that
> that word does not mean (to others) what any given person thinks it means,
> so this precludes using that word.
>
> It would be superior if there was a single definition of "qualia" that
> everyone could agree on.  Literal years of discussion have demonstrated
> that this is difficult, maybe impossible, to achieve for that particular
> word.  Given this status of that word, it seems better to simply stop using
> that word entirely, and back off to stating the definitions that one would
> have tried to summarize with that word.
>

Adrian,  you are justified in not wanting to use the term, till it is
objectively defined.  And we have done exactly that in the camp where we
are building and tracking consensus around the best theories defining
qualia.
Everyone incorrectly thinks there is no consensus, in this field,
whatsoever.  But in reality, everyone (even Dennett
<https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Theories-of-Consciousness/21-Dennett-s-PBC-Theory>)
does agree we represent our knowledge of the world with knowledge that has
colored (and other phenomenal) qualities or 'qualia'.

Also, censoring words like this, and failing to use terminology that
distinguishes between reality and knowledge of reality, is exactly the
classic definition of being qualia blind.  When you use one abstract word
for all things 'red', and only ground this in light wavelengths, this is
what cases all these problems around the fact that anyone and everyone
could be engineered to represent colors with different qualia.  All you
need to do is add a simple red/green inverter in the objective detection
from afar system.

We do rigorously define redness, in the clear emerging consensus camp
Representational
Qualia Theory.
<https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Theories-of-Consciousness/6-Representational-Qualia#statement>
And there is still some lack of consensus, for the best term to refer to
effing the ineffable, so we are tracking this still lack of consensus for
terminology, here
<https://canonizer.com/topic/102-Communicating-Ineffable/1-Agreement>.  It
would help us all if you would help us build consensus around the best term.
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