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Hi Omar,<br>
<br>
<br>
On 9/26/2010 3:09 PM, Omar Rahman wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:7E0BF99B-0897-4FE0-A0B7-3D8463D2162E@me.com"
type="cite">
<div>Brent,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<blockquote type="cite">Very interesting topic. About the best
way I have of thinking about <br>
things is critical milestones such as:<br>
<br>
1. Scientific discovery of how the ineffable phenomenal
qualities of <br>
consciousness relate to their neural correlates. Ultimately
this will <br>
lead to conscious effing of the ineffable, unification and
expansion of <br>
our phenomenal conscious minds. It will allow us to realize
what we, or <br>
our phenomenal 'spirits' are (as defined and predicted in the
expert <br>
consensus 'Representational Qualia Theory' camp here <br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6">http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6</a> )
Of course, once we objectively <br>
discover the phenomenal nature of reality and how our
knowledge of <br>
ourselves is represented by such, our conscious knowledge of
ourselves <br>
will finally be able to phenomenally escape from the mortal
spirit veil <br>
of perception prison walls that are our skull. Of course,
achieving <br>
this, as predicted by this expert consensus camp, solves most
all of our <br>
problems from mortality to still being stuck with primitive
animalistic, <br>
slow static, unable to really communicate minds (the cause of
war and <br>
all other problems).</blockquote>
<br>
</div>
<div>Qualia seem to be useful as a sort of algorithm that run the
background processes of the brainOS.</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
I'm in the camp that believes thinking of qualia as an 'algorithm'
is thinking about it completely and categorically in the wrong way.<br>
<br>
Algorithms and information must be instantiated and run on something
physical. Information theory mandates that if you know something,
there must be something that is that knowledge. An algorithm can be
represented by something that, by design, doesn't mater what it is
represented with (today's computers - it only matters that whatever
is doing the representation be interpreted properly). Or, it can be
represented by something that does matter what it is represented
with, and what it is like (conscious knowledge). Either one can run
'algorithms'.<br>
<br>
My brain may represent knowledge of 650 nm light with your blue.
With that I could be algorithmically just as smart as you. But
there is nothing 'algorithmic' in saying my brain represents red
with your blue, and that what it is like for me is different than
what it is like for you.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:7E0BF99B-0897-4FE0-A0B7-3D8463D2162E@me.com"
type="cite">
<div> Whether the consciousness is an app running on top of that
framework or is just a product of the all the qualia
interpreting each other is another question. (A very interesting
one!) About effing the ineffable I think it will be possible but
require work to attain that experience as the qualia of one
individual will be hard to integrate into the perceptual system
of another. In fact qualia probably change over time in an
individual.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>What do you say to this scenario: The Wine Taster</div>
<div>A person drinks wine with meals and socially. This person
enjoys it, and likes some wines but not others. One day they
decide to go to some wine tasting classes. There the
instructor/sommelier introduces the students to various wines
and points out the flavors. Some of the students have the taste
buds to sense these flavors, and some don't. Some of them have
the interest in the experience to learn to savor the
differences, and some don't. In the end some develop qualia for
wine tasting. From this example it would seem that qualia
generally exist as potential and can be learned, and perhaps
forgotten.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The ability to develop qualia more directly, perhaps but
doing simultaneous brain scans of two (or more) people wile they
think of blue and then stimulating/anesthetizing the brains of
the others so that their 'blue' patterns resembled each other
more closely. This could be done in a many to many experiment to
get a consensus 'blue' or someone could be a 'blue' leader and
the other would emulate the leader.</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Thinking of blue and experiencing blue are two very different
things. Recalling blue, is much less solid / phenomenal than the
real thing. Thinking of blue is voluntary, while experiencing blue,
under normal circumstances is not.<br>
<br>
Sure, some people may not yet have the proper set up in their brain,
or they may still be missing the right stuff, to experience, be
interested in, have the ability to remember... or whatever my blue.
But, if I can fix that, configure the right stuff, and reliably eff
to you, the same experience, it could be something like: "Wow, I
know what your blue is now - I've never experienced that before".<br>
<br>
I'm in the camp that believes blue will eternally be blue, and if
and only if you have the right stuff, anyone will experience it -
reliably the same - forever - whether you use it to represent 500 or
650 nm light or anything else.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:7E0BF99B-0897-4FE0-A0B7-3D8463D2162E@me.com"
type="cite">
<div><br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">2. When the last person dies. (the
mortality rate finally reaches 0)<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>For a moment I thought you were talking about the total
annihilation of our species as a metric for progress.......then
I realized you were talking about physical immortality or some
sort of immortality. I think we will always be faced with
scarcity of resources unless we engineer ourselves to not
need/want so much...and if we could engineer our needs away we
probably won't 'need' to exist. Once people upload or some sort
of AI emerges their requirements for resources will probably
expand right along with their understanding of the universe and
their ambitions. Add into that the potential for a population
explosion of digital entities and war and death seem likely to
remain with us.</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
The amount of resources we have access to continues to growing
exponentially. Even when we have the resources of billions of
galaxies completely in our control, as you point out, that still
won't be enough. But I think such will be a little better than our
current limitations.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:7E0BF99B-0897-4FE0-A0B7-3D8463D2162E@me.com"
type="cite">
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">3. Every human and memory is finally
restored and 'resurected'.<br>
<br>
<br>
Who knows how long each of these will take. Many probably doubt
the <br>
possibility of ever achieving number 3. But I bet we are on
the virge <br>
of number one, which I believe will be the greatest world
changing <br>
scientific achievement of all time. The biggest problem we are
facing, <br>
is communicating what the expert consensus already knows (as is
being <br>
proved by the consciousness survey project at <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://canonizer.com/">canonizer.com</a>),
to <br>
everyone else and the real nuts and bolts researchers looking at
the <br>
neurons and funding the research of such.<br>
<br>
Looking forward to finding out more about what you think of all
such.<br>
<br>
Brent Allsop<font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><font
class="Apple-style-span" color="#144fae"><br>
</font></font></blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I read your story "<span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12px;">1229
Years After Titanic</span>", which has a sentiment of owing a
debt to past generations which I share.</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Thanks! I'm trying to measure for how much consensus there is on
this. Especially amongst any who might disagree. Would you (or
anyone) be willing to participate in the survey on this here?
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/56">http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/56</a> .<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:7E0BF99B-0897-4FE0-A0B7-3D8463D2162E@me.com"
type="cite">
<div>Number 3 would only become possible if we discovered
something new about the nature of time, or if we could trace the
history of an atom and then trace the history of all the atoms
in the Earth in all their combinations. Maybe a post-singularity
entity will do this, maybe this is just plain impossible.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Exactly. Nobody can ever assert that anything is absolutely
impossible. There is always hope, and faith that we can always work
and at least forever successfully get closer to such.<br>
<br>
Great Comments!<br>
<br>
Brent Allsop<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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