[ExI] The relevance of glutamate in color experience

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Mon, 2 May 2022 at 07:21, Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> I am curious if Brent was familiar with this passage from David Chalmer's
> "The Conscious Mind" (pages 267-268), which concern the plausibility of
> different qualia arising between two functional isomorphs made of different
> physical materials (e.g. silicon chips vs. neurons), and if so, what does
> this thought experiment imply for the role of molecules in the emergence of
> distinct quale?
>
> “For the purposes of the illustration, let these systems be me and Bill.
> Where I have a red experience, Bill has a slightly different experience. We
> may as well suppose that Bill sees blue; perhaps his experience will be
> more similar to mine than that, but it makes no difference to the argument.
> The two systems are also different in that where there are neurons in some
> small region of my brain, there are silicon chips in Bill’s brain. This
> substitution of a silicon circuit for a neural circuit is the only physical
> difference between Bill and me.
>
>
> The crucial step in the thought experiment is to take a silicon circuit
> just like Bill’s and install it in my own head as a backup circuit. This
> circuit will be functionally isomorphic to a circuit already present in my
> head. We equip the circuit with transducers and effectors so that it can
> interact with the rest of my brain, but we do not hook it up directly.
> Instead, we install a switch that can switch directly between the neural
> and silicon circuits. Upon flipping the switch, the neural circuit becomes
> irrelevant and the silicon circuit takes over. We can imagine that the
> switch controls the points of interface where the relevant circuits affect
> the rest of the brain. When it is switched, the connections from the neural
> circuit are pushed out of the way, and the silicon circuit's effectors are
> attached. (We can imagine that the transducers for both circuits are
> attached the entire time, so that the state of both circuits evolves
> appropriately, but so that only one circuit at a time is involved in the
> processing. We could also run a similar experiment where both transducers
> and effectors are disconnected, to ensure that the backup circuit is
> entirely isolated from the rest of the system. This would change a few
> details, but the moral would be the same.)
>
>
> Immediately after flipping the switch, processing that was once performed
> by the neural circuit is now performed by the silicon circuit. The flow of
> control within the system has been redirected. However, my functional
> organization is exactly the same as it would have been if we had not
> flipped the switch. The only relevant difference between the two cases is
> the physical makeup of one circuit within the system. There is also a
> difference in the physical makeup of another “dangling” circuit, but this
> is irrelevant to the functional organization, as it plays no role in
> affecting other components of the system and directing behavior.
>
>
> What happens to my experience when we flip the switch? Before installing
> the circuit, I was experiencing red. After we install it but before we flip
> the switch, I will presumably still be experiencing red, as the only
> difference is the addition of a circuit that is not involved in processing
> in any way; for all the relevance it has to my processing, I might as well
> have eaten it. After flipping the switch, however, I am more or less the
> same person as Bill. The only difference between Bill and me now is that I
> have a causally irrelevant neural circuit dangling from the system (we
> might even imagine the circuit is destroyed when the switch is flipped).
> Bull, by hypothesis, was enjoying a blue experience. After the switch,
> then, I will have a blue experience too.
>
>
> What will happen, then, is that my experience will change “before my
> eyes.” Where I was once experiencing red, I will now experience blue. All
> of a sudden, I will have a blue experience of the apple on my desk. We
> can even imagine flipping the switch back and forth a number of times, so
> that the red and blue experiences “dance” before my eyes.
>
>
> This might seem reasonable at first–it is a strangely appealing image–but
> something very odd is going on here. My experiences are switching from red
> to blue, but I do not notice any change. Even as we flip the switch a
> number of times and my qualia dance back and forth, I will simply go about
> my business, noticing nothing unusual. By hypothesis, my functional
> organization after flipping the switch evolves just as it would have if the
> switch had not been flipped. There is no special difference in my
> behavioral dispositions. I am not suddenly disposed to say “Hmm! Something
> strange is going on!” There is no room for a sudden start, for an
> explanation, or even for a distraction of attention. Any unusual reaction
> would imply a functional difference between the two circuits, contrary to
> their stipulated isomorphism.”
>
>
> Is there an error in this reasoning? If so, where is it?
>

>From presenting this argument to various people over years, the main
problem seems to be with the concept of functional equivalence. They often
respond that if the qualia were different the subject would notice,
 although this could only happen if there were no functional equivalence.

> --
Stathis Papaioannou
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