[ExI] [Extropolis] Re: How the brain builds sentences, neuron by neuron

[John Clark]

On Fri, Jun 26, 2026 at 10:46 AM Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com>
wrote:

*Hi Brent*

*>>> does a hole in a tape equal ON or OFF?*
>>
>>
>> *>>That question is of absolutely no importance because either will work
>> equally well. The only important thing is that "on" is different from
>> "off", and zero is different from 1, and having a hole in a tape is
>> different from not having a hole in a tape.*
>>
>
> *> It only doesn't make a difference if you rewrite the dictionary to be
> different.  For example,  If the dictionary says physical redness
> represents off and greenness represents on, and if you switch the two,
> there is an important difference in quality, or what it is like. *
>

*That is incorrect. If the color qualia labels for red **light with
wavelengths of 650 nanometers **and green light with a wavelength of 550
nanometers where suddenly switched there would be no objective difference
in behavior and there would be no subjective notice that something had
changed either unless a memory had been retained about how those labels
used to represent different wavelengths of light. And a new memory,
regardless of whether the brain is biological or electronic, cannot be
formed unless something objective has changed.*


*>>> Whatever has a red (or redness) quality is just a brute physical fact *
>>
>>
> *>> OK, so what are we arguing about? A certain arrangement of on and off
>> switches produces the redness quality.  *
>>
>
> *> I wouldn't use the term "produces" because that separates qualia from
> objectively observable physical reality. *
>

*How is that a separation? I thought you were trying to find a way to unite
the objective and the subjective, in other words explain, in the simplest
way possible, how one can produce the other.  *

*  > The functionalist only cares about what is causally downstream from
> the redness quality, and they fail to realize that the strawbery still has
> the red quality,*
>

*A strawberry has a 650 nanometer light reflecting quality and a 550 nm
light absorbing quality, but that is NOT a qualia, it is the property of a
chemical in the strawberry that can be explained by quantum mechanics. A
strawberry is not in the qualia producing business, a mind is, and mind is
what a brain does. And it's not important what label a brain uses to
represent red light, the only important thing is that it is different from
the label it uses for green and blue light.*

*>>> It also must be a physical fact that something in the brain behaves as
>>> it does because of its subjective quality.*
>>>
>>
>> *>>You're never going to get a good explanation for the existence
>> of subjectivity by simply invoking more subjectivity, objectivity must come
>> into the picture someplace! You want an explanation for the existence of
>> the objectivity-subjectivity bridge, you want to start with something
>> objective and end with something subjective, but postulating subjectivity
>> at both ends of the bridge, as you're doing in the above, is not going to
>> get you there. *
>> *As I said before, a good explanation means breaking up something that is
>> complicated and confusing into its simplest and easiest to understand
>> parts, so you have only 3 possible courses of action:*
>> *1) Accept my explanation.  *
>> *2) Find something simpler and easier to understand than on and off (I
>> don't think that's possible but you're welcome to try). *
>> *3) Claim that brute facts do not exist because iterated sequences of
>> "why" and "how" questions always go on forever. *
>> *But if #3 is true then your investigations are not going to make any
>> progress; or to put it another way, in the next thousand years you'll make
>> exactly as much progress thinking about the nature of consciousness as
>> philosophers have made in the last thousand years thinking about the nature
>> of consciousness, and that would be ZERO. It would be a complete waste of
>> time, pointless navel gazing.*
>>
>
> *> What you are saying is that consciousness is not approachable via
> science.*
>

*What I'm saying is that consciousness is not approachable via science
unless you make the assumption that at least some iterated "how" questions
do not go on forever but terminate in a brute fact. And that's OK because
even pure mathematics needs to start with axioms, which is just a fancy
name for assumptions. *


> *> You are saying there really are 'hard problems' that we will never solv*
> e.
>

*The "hard problem of consciousness" will never be solved but not because
of anything I said in the above, the question will never be answered
because it has never been clearly elucidated exactly what the question is,
nor is it clear what sort of answer would be considered satisfactory.   *


> *> There is a 4th option, neurons can do subjective binding, allowing us
> to directly apprehend subjective qualities.*
>

*Huh? I can already directly apprehend subjective qualities, I'm doing it
right now, philosophers could do that too but that hasn't stopped them from
arguing about consciousness for over 3000 years, and yet all that bafflegab
has not resulted in the production of one particle of new knowledge. *

*> you will finally know if my elemental redness is like your*s


*NO. Brent Clark (or John **Allsop) might learn something, but you and I
won't, and even he won't learn anything new about how to bridge the
subjectivity/objectivity gap without making a new assumption. *


> * > And you will know that AI systems just run on different voltages,
> which aren't like anything,*
>

*Well, the color qualia that I experience aren't "like" anything either
except for themselves, so I and AI systems must be pretty similar. *

*And by the way it's not just AI systems, the neurons in the human brain
also fire because of differential voltages, the only difference is that the
voltage is caused by potassium and sodium ions instead of electrons.*


> *> so they aren't qualitatively conscious.*
>

*Brent, I'd really like to hear your ideas about how you think random
mutation and natural selection managed to produce consciousness at least
once and probably many billions of times.  I'd like to know how natural
selection could select for something that it can't see unless it was the
inevitable byproduct of intelligence. *

*John K Clark*








>
>
>>
>>>> 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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