[ExI] The relevance of glutamate in color experience

[Brent Allsop]

Hi Rafal,
We're still talking about completely different things.  I'm just saying
that when you look at a strawberry, and if a pixel on the surface of that
strawberry is changing from redness to grenness, there must be something,
physical, that is responsible for that change in the one pixel.  The
prediction is, nothing but that physics will be able to duplicate the
redness quality of that one pixel, especially not some abstract function.
This redness quality, and what it must be, has nothing to do with what you
are talking about.

Again, like I was asking Jason.  Could I get you guys to support one of the
functionalists camps.  I'm kind of proud of the fact that I'm in a minority
camp, and that so many of you believe functionalism is a reasonable
theory.  I'd really like to track this more rigorously, and I"d like to
know if any of you ever jump camps, based on any evidence, or new
arguments, in the future.

Stathis' camp: Functional Property Dualism
<https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Theories-of-Consciousness/8-Functional-Prprty-Dualism>,
or there is also the Qualia emerge from function camp.
<https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Theories-of-Consciousness/18-Qualia-Emerge-from-Function>

And would anyone care to place a bet (I'd bet 10 to 1 odds) on which camp
will have, by far, the most support in 10 years, functionalism or
materialism?




On Mon, May 2, 2022 at 12:01 PM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> On Sun, May 1, 2022 at 10:07 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> Hi Jason,
>>
>> Yes, this is the Neuro Substitution Argument for functionalism
>> <https://canonizer.com/topic/79-Neural-Substitn-Argument/1-Agreement> Stathis,
>> I and others have been rehashing, forever, trying to convince the other
>> side..  Stathis, Chalmers, and other functionalists
>> <https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Theories-of-Consciousness/18-Qualia-Emerge-from-Function>
>> believe they must accept functionalism because of this argument.  This is a
>> specific example of the 'dancing qualia' contradiction (one of many) which
>> results if you accept this argument.
>>
>> I like to point out that this argument is dependent on two assumptions.
>> 1., that all the neurons do is the same thing discrete logic gates do in
>> abstract computers.  2. That the neuro substitution will succeed.  If
>> either of these two fail, the argument doesn't work.
>>
>
> ### This is not true. The argument is valid regardless of the mechanism of
> computation in the device that is substituting for a part of the brain.
> Only requirement for the substitution argument is that the substituted
> device must not change the way the rest of the recipient brain works (i.e.
> the overall pattern of neural activity and behavior controlled by the
> brain).
>
> By way of illustration, instead of using a digital device for
> substitution, we may consider a genetically engineered brain that has the
> identical functional organization as a normal human brain but substitutes
> e.g. D-glutamate for L-glutamate as the transmitter. This would require
> re-engineering the structure of the relevant glutamate receptors, adding a
> glutamate isomerase to make D-glutamate out of L-glutamate and perhaps
> other minor tweaks but it would not change the functional aspects of
> neurotransmission in the modified brain or its parts.
>
> Obviously, if the chemical structure of glutamate somehow determined
> qualia, then such a modified brain would have different qualia. If however
> the modified D-glutamate brain is able to substitute for a part of the
> standard L-glutamate brain without changing the overall patterns of neural
> activation and without changing behavior then the substitution would prove
> that glutamate has nothing to do with qualia.
>
> Rafal
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