[ExI] Why stop at glutamate?

Wed Apr 12 15:01:21 UTC 2023

On Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 10:21 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, Apr 12, 2023 at 7:23 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Apr 11, 2023, 8:38 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, Apr 11, 2023 at 9:51 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, Apr 11, 2023, 11:30 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Apr 11, 2023 at 7:45 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
>>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, Apr 11, 2023, 9:20 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
>>>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Tue, Apr 11, 2023 at 3:21 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
>>>>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Tue, Apr 11, 2023, 12:05 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
>>>>>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Other parts of the brain decode the meaning of the signals they
>>>>>>>>>> receive.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> They decode it to WHAT?  Decoding from one code, to another code,
>>>>>>>>> none of which is like anything
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> You are now theorizing that there is nothing it is like to be the
>>>>>>>> process that decodes a signal and reaches some state of having determined
>>>>>>>> which from a broad array of possibilities, that signal represents. That is
>>>>>>>> what qualia are: discriminations within a high dimensionality space.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> nor are they grounded is not yet grounding anything.  It is still
>>>>>>>>> just a code with no grounded referent so you can't truly decode them in any
>>>>>>>>> meaningful way.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> What does it mean to ground something? Explain how you see
>>>>>>>> grounding achieved (in detail)?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It is all about what is required (experimentally) to get someone to
>>>>>>> experience stand alone, no grounding dictionary required, "old guys
>>>>>>> redness".  (the requirement for grounding as in: "oh THAT is what old guys
>>>>>>> redness is like.")
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You need to be the conscious of old guy's brain to ever know that.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I've had this identical conversations with multiple other people like
>>>>> John Clark.  Our response is canonized in the RQT camp statement
>>>>> <https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Theories-of-Consciousness/6-Representational-Qualia>.
>>>>> In summary, It's the difference between elemental qualities and
>>>>> composite qualities.  Of course, if you consider redness to be like the
>>>>> entire monalisa, it is going to be much more difficult to communicate what
>>>>> all that is like.  And you have to transmit all the pixels to accomplish
>>>>> that.  All that is required, is elemental codes, that are grounded in
>>>>> elemental properties.  And send that grounded code, for each pixel of the
>>>>> monalisa, to that person.
>>>>> P.S.  the person receiving the coded message, could decode the codes,
>>>>> representing the mona lisa, with redness and greenness inverted, if they
>>>>> wanted.  I guess you would consider that to be the same painting?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> No.
>>>>
>>>> There is no objective image (i.e. imagining) of the Mona Lisa. There
>>>> just some arrangement of atoms in the Louvre. Each person creates the image
>>>> anew in their head when they look it it, but there's no way of sharing or
>>>> comparing the experiences between any two individuals.
>>>>
>>>> If you think otherwise could you explain how two people with different
>>>> brains could come to know how the other perceives?
>>>>
>>>
>>> There is the weak form of communicating qualities which you can do if
>>> your terms are physically grounded (i.e. redness is glutamate) in a
>>> reliably reproducible way.  so if you objectively detect that objective
>>> description of redness for one brain, is an objective description of
>>> greenness in another brain.
>>>
>>
>> How can there be an objective description of redness for one brain? Isn't
>> that subjective? How does one determine when glutamate is redness in one
>> brain but greenness in another?
>>
>
> No, glutamate (or whatever objectively observed physics it turns out to
> be) is always the same subjective quality.  They are the same thing. the
> prediction is you can objectively observe subjective qualities.  We just
> don't currently know which of all the stuff we are objectively observing is
> subjective redness)  One person may use it to represent red visual
> knowledge (they would call it redness) but another person could be
> engineered to use glutamate quality to represent green.  So far that
> person, they would call it greenness.
>

Just when I thought I understood your theory this last paragraph above
completely undermines that understanding.

In one sentence you say that it always has the same subjective property,
but then in another you say it could be used to represent redness or
greenness. I don't see how to reconcile these two ideas. What is the common
subjective property, is it color of any kind?

Jason

>
>
>> That would enable you to ground a sufficiently defined statement like:
>>> "My redness(glutamate) is like your greenness(glycine), both of which we
>>> call red."
>>> Here is a description of the strongest form of effing the ineffable
>>> taken from my "3 Types of Effing the Ineffable
>>> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JKwACeT3b1bta1M78wZ3H2vWkjGxwZ46OHSySYRWATs/edit>"
>>> document.
>>>
>>> Half of our visual knowledge is in our left hemisphere, the other half,
>>> in the right.  The Corpus Callosum
>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_callosum> computationally binds
>>> these into one unified conscious awareness of everything around us.  If we
>>> had a neural ponytail <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf9SWvs4beE>,
>>> which could computationally bind like the corpus callosum, this would
>>> enable us to experience all of the experiences, not just half, when we hug
>>> someone.
>>>
>>
>> There's a case of some conjoined twins with a "thalamic bridge" that
>> enables them to hear each other's thoughts and see out of each other's eyes.
>>
>> It's an interesting question to consider whether this bridge ensures they
>> see the same colors or whether the separate processing by their unique
>> visual cortexes allows them to stil perceive colors differently. The same
>> question would arise with neural ponytails.
>>
>
> Yes, exactly.  If people double neural ponytails are possible, and they
> are often VERY shocked to hear of this, and it falsifies their doubt, for
> sure.  Demonstrable proof the 4 hemispheres can be bound just as well as 2
> hemispheres.
>
> If the first two inverted systems were computationally bound with a neural
>>> ponytail, they would both directly (infallibly) experience the other's
>>> inverted knowledge of the world.  You’d be aware of what is behind you, as
>>> seen through your partner’s eyes, that knowledge being red green inverted
>>> from your knowledge of what is in front of you.
>>>
>>
>> I think it depends on what level of processor the information is shared.
>> If the ponytails shared data from the optic nerves and they had similar
>> retinal behavior, their color experience would likely not change. Oft,
>> however higher level visual information from the visual cortex were shared,
>> then this could present as some kind of inverted qualia.
>>
>> Are you aware of the experiment were color blind monkeys had their
>> retinas infected with a retro virus that made their cone cells produced new
>> color sensing proteins, and after a few weeks they gained trichromatic
>> vision? The only change to their biology occurred in their retina. How can
>> the "qualia are physical properties" theory account for the results of this
>> experiment?
>>
>
> No, I wasn't aware of that.  Very interesting.
>
>
>
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