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

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Sun, 12 Sep 2021 at 15:47, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
> 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.
>

What I’m saying is that if you could do the experiment, making any change
whatsoever in the person’s brain, and after the change he said that
everything felt exactly the same, then everything would indeed feel exactly
the same. Isn’t that the experiment you proposed? If not, what adjustments
would you suggest?

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.
>

But even though you seem to think it’s incredible, they would both have the
same redness qualia, even though one had glycine and the other glutamate.
It wouldn’t be the chemicals representing colours though, it would be the
chemicals being a cog in the machine generating colours. You would just be
replacing a brass cog with a steel cog, as it were.

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.
>

They wouldn’t just have knowledge of the same red, they would have the same
redness qualia, that’s the point.

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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-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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