[ExI] Symbol Grounding

[Jason Resch]

On Sun, Apr 23, 2023 at 8:27 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> On Sun, Apr 23, 2023 at 4:43 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> Quoting Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>:
>>
>> > This is so frustrating.  I'm asking a simple, elementary school level
>> > question.
>>
>> So you think that the Hard Problem of Consciousness reframed as a your
>> so-called "Colorness Problem" is an elementary school level question?
>> Then maybe you should quit bugging us about it and seek the advice of
>> elementary school children.
>>
>
> I am working with those people that do get it.  Now, more than 40 of them,
> including leaders in the field like Steven Lehar
> <https://canonizer.com/topic/81-Mind-Experts/4-Steven-Lehar>, are
> supporting the camp that says so.  Even Dennett's Predictive Bayesian
> coding Theory
> <https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Theories-of-Consciousness/21-Dennett-s-PBC-Theory>
> is a supporting sub camp, demonstrating the progress we are making.
> Gordon, would you be willing to support RQT
> <https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Theories-of-Consciousness/6-Representational-Qualia>?
> The elementary school kids are telling us, plug things into the brain, till
> you find what it is that has a redness quality.  So, we are collecting the
> signature, and once we get enough, experimentalists will finally get the
> message and then start doing this, and eventually be able to demonstrate to
> everyone what it is that has a  [image: red_border.png] property.  To my
> understanding, that is how science works.
>
>
> The reason I am bugging you functionalists is because I desperately want
> to understand how everyone thinks about consciousness, especially the
> leading popular consensus functionalism camps. Giovani seems to be saying
> that in this functionalist view, there is no such thing as color qualities,
> but to me, saying there is no color in the world is just insane.  You seem
> to be at least saying something better than that, but as far as I can see,
> your answers are just more interpretations of interpretations, no place is
> there any grounding.   You did get close to a grounded answer when I asked
> how the word 'red' can be associated with [image: green_border.png].
> Your reply was  "at some point during the chatbot's training the English
> word red was associated with *the picture in question*."   But "*the
> picture in question*" could be referring to at least 4 different things.
> It could be associated with the LEDs emitting the 500 nm light.  It could
> be the 500 nm light, which "the picture" is emitting, or it could be
> associated with your knowledge of   [image: green_border.png]. in which
> case it would have the same quality as your knowledge of that, or it could
> be associated with someone that was engineered to be your inverted
> knowledge (has a red / green signal inverter between its retina and optic
> nerve), in which case, it would be like your knowledge of [image:
> red_border.png].  So, if that is indeed your answer, which one of these 4
> things are you referring to?  Is it something else?
>
>
> You guys accuse me of being non scientific.  But all I want to know is how
> would a functionalist demonstrate, or falsify functionalist claims about
> color qualities, precisely because I want to be scientific.  Do you believe
> you have explained how functionalism predictions about color qualities
> could be falsified or demonstrated, within functionalist doctrines?   If
> so, I haven't seen it yet.
>

I've suggested several times that you read Chalmers Fading/Dancing qualia
thought experiment. Have you done this? What is your interpretation of it?

https://consc.net/papers/qualia.html

Jason


> So please help, as all I see is you guys saying, over and over again, that
> you don't need to provide an unambiguous way to demonstrate what it is that
> has this quality: [image: red_border.png], or even worse functionalism is
> predicting that color doesn't exist.  As if saying things like that, over
> and over again, makes them true?
>
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