[ExI] How the brain builds sentences, neuron by neuron

[Brent Allsop]

I know this is the popular consensus - functionalism.

I constantly admit my minority camp, materialism, can be falsified, for me,
if you simply tell me how you can demostrate getting a redness quality from
an "ON and OFF" that isn't laughable (without a dictionary).

The reason it is laughable, is that you're thinking about it in the wrong
way.  "ON and OFF" are abstract notions, or labels of particular physical
states, requiring dictionaries to get from one to the other.
(i.e. does a hole in a tape equal ON or OFF?)

It is a brute physical fact that some strawberries are 'red' (because they
reflect light in a particular way).
It also must be a physical fact that something in the brain behaves as it
does because of its subjective quality.

True, "On" can be defined to be a greenness quality, and "Off" can be
defined to be redness quality.

Functionalism, and substrate independence is all dependent on dictionaries.
Whatever has a red (or redness) quality is just a brute physical fact - no
dictionaries required.








On Wed, Jun 24, 2026 at 12:37 PM John Clark via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, Jun 24, 2026 at 10:29 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>> *> I just wanted to reiterate that nothing physical, like for instance a
>> neurotransmitter, has the kind of 'qualities' we talk about when referring
>> to colours (e.g. redness, etc.).This should be obvious when you consider
>> how many types of red there are (many, many more than the number of
>> neurotransmitters our brains use), then how many different types of green,
>> and blue, and yellow, etc., etc. Then there are all the other sensations we
>> are capable of experiencing.There are probably more different types and
>> variations of possible qualia than there are atoms in the universe, so they
>> cannot possibly be inherent in or dependent on specific pieces of matter.
>> There simply isn't enough of it /in the entire universe/, let alone in a
>> single brain.If you come up with some way for a small number of molecules
>> to combine together in different ways, though, things are very different.
>> Molecule x in molecular aggregate A can signify something entirely
>> different from the same molecule in aggregate B. This is how an atronomical
>> number of different proteins can be made from 22 amino acids. Unending
>> complexity can be, and is, built from small numbers of simple things. We
>> know this from physics, from biochemistry, and from biology. It's a pattern
>> we see again and again in nature.So rather than asking "what molecules have
>> what physical qualities that are equivalent or relevant to mental states?"
>> (which leads to the above problem of there not being enough molecules in
>> existence), we need to ask "what simple processes in the brain can be
>> combined in endless ways to produce the vast variety of mental states that
>> brains can experience?". The answer is glaringly obvious, when you know how
>> neurons work. To drive this point home, imagine that in the early days of
>> computing, instead of using holes punched in cards or tape to represent
>> zeros and ones which can be combined in various ways to produce a hierarchy
>> of codes that could be assigned to an endless variety of meanings, we
>> instead started with the meanings themselves, and used chemicals in small
>> areas on the cards, with each meaning being assigned to a different
>> chemical compound. Waving away the problems of producing and reading the
>> different chemicals, how far would computing have got? Would "sodium borate
>> = homesickness, silver nitrate = black with the faintest tinge of crimson,
>> etc., etc., etc..." actually be practical? Complex things are made of
>> simpler things. All the ordinary matter in the universe is made of
>> neutrons, protons and electrons. All the staggering complexity of physical
>> things boils down to that.In the same way, all mental states, no matter how
>> complex, are made of two pieces of information, ON and OFF, combined
>> together in a huge variety of ways. This is what red is, this is what
>> homesickness is. The infinitely large space of possible thoughts boils down
>> to ON and OFF, nothing else. The physical properties of molecules are not
>> only unnecessary, but totally insignificant in comparison.*
>>
>
> *I agree with all of that. *
>
> *John K Clark*
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