[ExI] What is "Elemental Redness"?

[Ben Zaiboc]

On 02/05/2023 02:42, Jason Resch wrote:
> I disagree with mind-brain identity theory. To say something is 
> something else established an identity relation, or a 1-to-1 mapping, 
> if A is identical with B and B identical with C then A is identical 
> with C.
>
> But note that identity theory rules out multiple realizability. If 
> colour experiences are identical with certain neural activity, then 
> those same experiences can't be identical with certain silicon 
> computations.
>
> Here, if A is identical with B but we know A ≠ C, then we know B ≠ C.
>
> If multiple realizability is true, then there must be a 1-to-many 
> relationship between conscious states and realizations of those 
> conscious states, be they by neurons, computer chips, or any other 
> substrate, and this precludes an identity relationship between the 
> conscious state and any realization of it.
>

Well, I don't know anything about 'identity theory', but saying that A 
is identical with B doesn't rule out A also being identical to C. If a 
neural pattern is an experience, then that same pattern replicated 
somewhere else is the same experience. The neural circuitry and the 
silicon circuitry can do exactly the same things, in terms of 
information processing. It's the information processing that's the 
significant thing, not the fact that one uses ions and the other electrons.

If you copy a music CD to a USB stick, playing the copy gives you the 
same music as playing the original.

Ben