[ExI] Why stop at glutamate?

Giovanni Santostasi gsantostasi at gmail.com
Thu Apr 13 03:48:49 UTC 2023


*It's just that if we objectively observe it, it doesn't tell us what it is
like.*Yeah, the drawing of a pizza doesn't feel my stomach. The
sentence above is both trivially right and absurd.
What are you trying to say?
It drives me nuts.

On Wed, Apr 12, 2023 at 5:46 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
> Hi Jason,
>
> There are many cases where there is conscious awareness, without a subject.
> One example is when Buddhists meditate.   They achieve a state where the
> self ceases to exist, and the claim to be "one with the universe"
> But of course we know they are jost one with their knowledge of the
> universe, all in their head.
>
> We know, absolutely, that we can have subjective knowledge that has a
> redness quality.
> There must be something in the brain that is this redness quality.
> We can objectively describe everything in the brain, but that tells us
> nothing about what the subjective quality of that behavior is like.
> One of those descriptions of all the stuff we objectively know, simply
> must be that redness.
> That redness must be causally active, and there is no reason we can't
> objectively observe that causal effect.
> It's just that if we objectively observe it, it doesn't tell us what it is
> like.
>
> We simply need to observe the stuff in the brain, in a non quality blind
> way,
> so we can learn to relate subjective experiences (without mapping them
> back to the stimulus that initially caused those experiences) to what we
> are objectively observing.
>
> Once we can reliably predict which objective stuff has your redness
> quality, we will have our dictionary.  Hard problem solved.
> We just need to know the true quality of things, not just the qualities
> things seem to be.
>
> Brent
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 12, 2023 at 1:27 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 2:02 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Jason,
>>> Oh, perhaps that's our communication problem.  You don't yet realize
>>> that we redefine color terms.  Traditional color terminology is 'quality
>>> blind'.  With traditional ambiguous terminology that only has one term
>>> 'red' that represents all the properties that have to do with perception
>>> and conscious awareness of red things, you can't tell if the term red is
>>> referring to the strawberry or knowledge of the strawberry, or the light.
>>> THAT ambiguity is 99% of everyone's problem, and evidently the problem we
>>> are suffering from now.
>>>
>>> This redefinition is specified in the RQT
>>> <https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Theories-of-Consciousness/6-Representational-Qualia>
>>> statement.
>>>
>>>
>>>    - “*red*” The intrinsic property of objects that are the target of
>>>    our observation, the initial cause of the perception process (i.e. when the
>>>    strawberry reflects 650 nm (red) light). A label for Anything that reflects
>>>    or emits ‘red’ light.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>    - “*redNESS*” The different intrinsic property of our knowledge of
>>>    red things, the final result of our perception of red.
>>>
>>>
>>> With terminology that can represent multiple properties which you can
>>> then sufficiently ground to physical properties (subjective and objective),
>>> you can make effing of the ineffable statements like:
>>>
>>>
>>>    - "My redness(glutamate) is like your grenness(also glutamate),
>>>    which is what I use to represent what we both call red."
>>>
>>>
>>> Does that help?
>>>
>>
>> Not quite. It might be clearer if we instead used language like:
>>
>> A) 650 nm light
>> B) How Bob perceives 650 nm light
>> C) How Alice perceives 650 nm light
>>
>> I grant that all 3 of these things are different things. But note that
>> nowhere above is there any definition for an 'objective perception of 650
>> nm light'. I don't know what that could mean or be. There must always be a
>> subject in question to have a particular perception. How can one define a
>> perception in objective terms when perceptions are always relative to some
>> subject?
>>
>> If we accept your theory that particular molecules are associated with
>> objective perceptions, how do we prove that? How do we even test for that,
>> in principle?
>>
>> Jason
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Apr 12, 2023 at 9:02 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 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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