[ExI] Qualia are not in the matrix (was Re: The Matrix: Resurrections trailer)

[Brent Allsop]

Stathis, evidently you can't see how qualia blind this claim is?  You are
talking about stuff that has nothing to do with the intrinsic qualities or
physical properties enabling that substrate independent functionality.

You could engineer two people, one representing redness with glutamate, the
other representing redness with glycine.  The dictionary of one would say
it is glutamate representing red, the other's dictionary would say
glycine is representing the red.  Without two different dictionaries, you
couldn't achieve that substrate independence.  But with different
dictionaries, they can perform, independently from whatever is
representing red.  You are talking about behavior, after you have substrate
independent enabling dictionaries.

And it remains a fact, that those two engineer systems are represent red
things with physically different or qualitatively different things, before
those dictionaries.  All the functionality you are talking about, has
nothing to do with what physical qualities are representing red and what
they are physically like.  You are talking about everything after the
substrate enabling dictionary, I am talking about the actual physical
qualities, that are different, that require different dictionaries to
perform the same function.  For one, glutamate is red, for the other
glycine is red.  Sure, in both of these cases, they have knowledge of the
same red.  Why are you talking about that?  We are talking about the
quality of the stuff, before the different dictionaries, and the fact that
they are, qualitatively, different.





On Sat, Sep 11, 2021 at 10:48 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> On Sun, 12 Sep 2021 at 14:05, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi Stathis,
>> On Sat, Sep 11, 2021 at 9:50 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> But the hard problem is not solved by saying "glutamate has a redness
>>> quality", since one can always ask WHY glutamate has a redness quality
>>> rather than a greenness quality, or no quality at all.
>>>
>>
>> OK, you've got me there.  But let me ask you this, do rocket scientists
>> ask why force equals mass times acceleration?  No, they just use that never
>> failing knowledge to dance in the heavens with their rockets.
>> The same is true with redness.  Engineers don't need to know why
>> glutamate and only glutamate has a redness quality.  They just need to know
>> if they want to engineer a being that can know what redness is like, they
>> can always use only glutamate.
>>
>>
>>> Intrinsic qualities, like redness and greenness, are simply physical
>>>> qualities of something in our brain.  That is just elementary school all
>>>> day every day demonstrable physical reality, not magic.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Well, then you are a functionalist! Praise be! The functionalist
>>> position is just the above: that IF we replaced part of a person's brain
>>> and they said they were experiencing exactly the same qualia (and whatever
>>> other test you want to throw at them), then they would be experiencing
>>> exactly the same qualia. There is no assumption that this is possible, just
>>> that IF it were possible, the only reasonable conclusion would be that the
>>> qualia have in fact been reproduced.
>>>
>>
>> Again, I admit that if someone produces a redness experience from a
>> function, my falsifiable claims will be falsified.  But you've got to give
>> me an idea of what function it is which has any possibility of passing the
>> laugh test for having redness quality.  It certainly isn't a square root
>> function, or any other 'function' that I can Emagine.  Why do you never
>> provide an example function that has a redness quality?  The way I'm
>> providing a falsifiable example of glutamate having a redness quality.
>> Because even the idea of any and all functions having a redness quality
>> would be completely absurd, not passing the laugh test.
>>
>
> The function is that the person says “I see red, it looks exactly the same
> to me”, that he identifies red things correctly, that if he is a painter
> his paintings are just as good as before and make just as good a use of
> colour as before, and everything else pertaining to red.
>
>> --
> Stathis Papaioannou
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