<div dir="ltr">
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">OK Stathis,</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">Thankfully, it looks like lots of people are starting to get
it.<span style> </span>Spike is clearly getting it.<span style> </span>And Ben Zaiboc said:</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"><<<< </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">Brent Allsop <<a href="mailto:brent.allsop@canonizer.com">brent.allsop@canonizer.com</a>> wrote:</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">> In this idealized theoretical world, it is glutamate
that</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">> has a redness quality.<span style>
</span>And this glutamate behaves</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">> the way it does, because of this redness quality.<span style> </span>...</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">> That’s at least how I think about it.<span style> </span>Does this help</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">> you guys at all?</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">Yes, it helps enormously.</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">>>>> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">(Ben, thanks for this.<span style>
</span>I literally feel to my knees, and cried, when I read this.)</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">But Stathis and James are still providing no evidence that
they are getting it at all.<span style> </span>Stathis, you
are simply not being creative enough, when you think it is not possible to have
both similar behavior from knowledge with different qualities, or lack thereof,
while at the same time it is not possible for qualia to fade without noticing.</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">Another critical problem, at least with your terminology, is
that much of it is not focusing on the right thing.<span style> </span>It is focusing more on picking the
strawberry, than knowing that your knowledge of the strawberry has a redness
quality to it that is very different than the qualitative nature of your
knowledge of the leaf.<span style> </span>Forget about
things like “If the visual neuron perceives red it sends signals to the neurons
which make you say ‘I see red’” and instead focus on the system knowing what its
redness experience is like, and how this is different than greenness.<span style> </span>And think more along the lines that it is
sending a “yes that has a redness quality” because it knows of the qualitative
nature of its knowledge, or at least of the causal properties of such, whatever
that turns out to be.</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">For you guys that still aren’t getting it, let’s make this so
elementary it is impossible to miss.<span style> </span>Let’s
make an even more simplified theoretical model, and hand hold you through every
single step of the transmigration process, including a final resulting
simulated system that can behave the same.<span style>
</span>We’ll describe two of these simplified versions, side by side:<span style> </span>one with dancing quale, and the other with
fading quale.<span style> </span>We’ll describe exactly what
it will be like for the system’s experience as the process proceeds, including
one example of qualia inverting, and one example of quale "fading".</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">When we look out at the strawberry patch, we have millions
of 3D voxel elements we are aware of, that can all be represented with any
color, including transparent.<span style> </span>So the
model I was talking about before there are millions of neurons representing
each of these voxel elements.<span style> </span>These
voxel neurons can fire with a diverse set of neurotransmitters which each have
the qualities of color we can experience.</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">All of these millions of voxel neurons are sending their
color neurotransmitters to the single large ‘binding’ neuron.<span style> </span>This single large binding neuron is a very complicated
system, as it enables all these isolated color voxel elements to be bound
together into one unified phenomenal experience.<span style> </span>In other words, it is doing lots more than
just sending the signal that this red thing is the one we want.<span style> </span>It is also aware of the qualitative nature of
this knowledge and all of their differences and qualitative diversity, and enables the system to talk about and think about all this phenomenal diversity.</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">But let’s simplify all that, and just have two 2d pixel
element neurons, which can only fire either <b style><span style="color:red">glutamate</span></b>, which behaves the way it
does because of its redness quality, or <b style><span style="color:rgb(0,176,80)">dopamine</span></b>, which behaves the way it does
because of its greenness quality.</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">Even though we are now thinking of a very simplified binding
neuron, that only needs to be aware of the qualitative nature of two pixel elements
at the same time, this is a very complex piece of binding machinery.<span style> </span>It doesn’t just have the ability to say the ‘red’
one is the one we want, it knows what its red knowledge is qualitatively like,
and knows what greenness is like, and only says it wants the red one, because
it has the redness qualitative experience, which is very different from its greenness
qualitative experience.</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">Let’s think of the two pixel element neurons
differently.<span style> </span>One will be the reference
neuron, the other will be the sample neuron.<span style>
</span>The reference neuron will always be firing with <b style><span style="color:red">glutamate</span></b>, and the sample pixel will
be compared with this firing reference neuron.</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">The binding neuron is aware of the qualitative nature of
both of them, and says one is like the other, because it is qualitatively the
same, or has the causal properties of something with a redness quality.<br></span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">So, the first neuron we want to transmigrate is of course
the sample pixel neuron.<span style> </span>Obviously,
since the binding neuron is like a high fidelity <b style><span style="color:red">glutamate</span></b> detector, nothing but real
<b style><span style="color:red">glutamate</span></b>
will make it say, “yes that is qualitatively the same as the reference pixel”,
because of the fact that it has the causal properties of redness.</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">The dancing quale case is quite simple, because we want to
replace a pixel neuron firing with <b style><span style="color:red">glutamate</span></b>, with one that is firing with <b style><span style="color:rgb(0,176,80)">dopamine</span></b>.
<span style> </span>Or, if you are a functionalist, you will
be replacing the “functional isomorph” or “functionally active patter” that has
the causal properties of redness with a “functional isomorph” that has the causal
properties of a greenness quality.</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">The transmigration process describes providing a transducer,
which when it detects something with a greenness property, sends real <b style><span style="color:red">glutamate</span></b>
to the binding neuron, so the binding neuron can say: yes that has a redness
quality.</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">In the fading quale case, we are going to use a binary “1”
to represent <b style><span style="color:red">glutamate</span></b>,
and a “0” to represent <b style><span style="color:rgb(0,176,80)">dopamine</span></b>.<span style>
</span>Functionalists tend to miss a particular fact that they must pay close attention
to here.<span style> </span>You must be very clear about
the fact that this “1” which is representing something that is a “functional
isomorph” by definition does not have the same quality the “functional isomorh”
has.<span style> </span>The “1” is only something being
interpreted as abstracted information, which in turn can be interpreted as
representing the <b style><span style="color:red">glutamate</span></b>, or the functionally isomorphic pattern or whatever
it is that actually has the redness quality.<span style>
</span>Obviously, the transduction layer in this case, must be something for
which no matter what it is that is representing the one as input, when it sees
this “1” it produces real glutamate, so the binding neuron will give the signal:
“yes that has a redness quality”.</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">OK, so now that the sample neuron has been replaced, and we
can switch back and forth between them with no change, we can now move on to
the binding neuron.<span style> </span>But keep in mind
that this one sample neuron could be expanded to include millions of 3D voxel
elements.<span style> </span>All of them are firing with
diverse sets of neurotransmitters which can be mapped to every possible color
we can experience.<span style> </span>And keep in mind the
big job this binding neuron has to do, to bind all this, so it call all be
experienced, qualitatively, at the same time.</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">In the dancing quale case, we now have to provide the transduction
between the reference neuron, which is still firing with <b style><span style="color:red">glutamate</span></b>, with something that
converts this to <b style><span style="color:rgb(0,176,80)">dopamine</span></b>.<span style> </span>So, when
the system sees <b style><span style="color:rgb(0,176,80)">dopamine</span></b>
on both sample, and the reference, it is going to finally say: “Yes, these are
qualitatively the same” and it should finally be blatantly obvious to everyone,
how different this system is when we switch them back and forth, and even
though some naive person may be tempted to believe both of the “yes they are the
same”, before and after the switch, are talking about ‘red’ knowledge.</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">The fading quale case is similar.<span style> </span>There is a “1” present on both the sample and
now on the reference, thanks to a new transduction layer between the pixel
producing real glutamate, which enables the virtual neuron to send a signal
that can be thought of as “these are qualitatively the same” even though
everyone should be clear that this is just a lie, or at best an incorrect interpretation
of what the signal really qualitatively means.</span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">So, please return and report, and let me know if I can fall
to my knees and weep yet?</span></p>
</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 5:02 AM, Stathis Papaioannou <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:stathisp@gmail.com" target="_blank">stathisp@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="im">On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 3:50 AM, Brent Allsop<br>
<<a href="mailto:brent.allsop@canonizer.com">brent.allsop@canonizer.com</a>> wrote:<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
> Stathis Said:<br>
><br>
> <<<<<br>
> A volume of neural tissue in the visual cortex is replaced with a<br>
> black box that reproduces the I/O behaviour at the interface with the<br>
> surrounding neurons. Do you see how "reproduces the I/O behaviour at<br>
> the interface with the surrounding neurons" means the subject must<br>
> behave normally?<br>
>>>>><br>
><br>
> Exactly. But if one box is representing the strawberries and leaves with<br>
> inverted red green qualities, even though it is behaving exactly the same,<br>
> this qualitative difference is all important to consciousness.<br>
<br>
</div>You have said, if I have it correct:<br>
<br>
(a) It is possible to reproduce the behaviour of neural tissue with a<br>
different substrate, but this won't necessarily reproduce the qualia;<br>
and<br>
(b) It is not possible to have your qualia change or disappear without noticing.<br>
<br>
Do you see how these two statements cannot both be true?<br>
<div><div class="h5"><br>
> I’ve attempted to describe one final key point, but you guys are providing<br>
> lots of evidence that you still don’t get this one very important thing.<br>
><br>
> This evidence includes when Kelly replied to my saying:<br>
><br>
><br>
> <<<<<br>
> The prediction is, you will not be able to replace any single neuron, or<br>
> even large sets of neurons that are the neural correlates of a redness<br>
> quality, without also replacing significant portions of the rest of the<br>
> system that is aware of what that redness experience is like.<br>
>>>>><br>
><br>
> With:<br>
><br>
><br>
> <<<<<br>
> Replacing a single neuron is going to change the qualia of redness? Really?<br>
> You can't replace a single neuron without losing something? You better not<br>
> play soccer, you risk losing your consciousness.<br>
><br>
> Saying something like this undercuts your credibility Brent.<br>
><br>
> You absolutely can replace small parts of the brain without changing how the<br>
> person feels. Ask anyone with a cochlear implant. This is a silly claim.<br>
>>>>><br>
><br>
> I also don’t think Stathis is fully understanding this. The following could<br>
> be evidence for this when he responded to Spike with:<br>
><br>
><br>
> <<<<<br>
> It's difficult if you try to define or explain qualia. If you stick to<br>
> a minimal operational definition - you know you have an experience<br>
> when you have it - qualia are stupidly simple. The question is, if a<br>
> part of your brain is replaced with an electronic component that<br>
> reproduces the I/O behaviour of the biological tissue (something that<br>
> engineers can measure and understand), will you continue to have the<br>
> same experiences or not? If not, that would lead to what Brent has<br>
> admitted is an absurd situation. Therefore the qualia, whatever the<br>
> hell they are, must be reproduced if the observable behavior of the<br>
><br>
> neural tissue is reproduced. No equations, but no complex theories of<br>
> consciousness or attempts to define the ineffable either.<br>
>>>>><br>
><br>
> So let me try to explain it in more detail to see if that helps.<br>
><br>
> Let’s just imagine how the transmigration experiment would work in an<br>
> idealized material property dualism theoretical world, even though reality<br>
> is likely something different and more complex.<br>
><br>
> In this idealized theoretical world, it is glutamate that has a redness<br>
> quality. And this glutamate behaves the way it does, because of this<br>
> redness quality. Also, imagine that there are multiple other neuro<br>
> transmitters in this world that are like different color crayons. Brains in<br>
> this word use these colorful neurotransmitters to paint qualitative<br>
> conscious knowledge with.<br>
><br>
> In a simplified way. Let’s also imagine that it is a single large neuron<br>
> that is binding all these synapses representing voxel elements in a 3D<br>
> space, so we can be aware of all of the colors all at once. If the upstream<br>
> neurons fire glutamate, for that 3D element, this large binding neuron knows<br>
> there is a redness quality at that particular location in 3D space. When<br>
> another upstream neuron fires with another neurotransmitter it will know<br>
> there is a leaf there, represented with its greenness quality, at the 3D<br>
> pixel element representing a point on the surface of the leaf. In other<br>
> words, all these crayons are just standing alone, unless there is also some<br>
> system that is binding them all together, so we can be aware of all of them<br>
> and their qualitative differences, at one time.<br>
><br>
> When we look at only the behavior of this large binding neuron, and only<br>
> think of it abstractly, this neuron which is able to tell you whether a<br>
> particular neuro transmitter has a redness quality or not, will simply look<br>
> like a high fidelity glutamate detector. Nothing but the glutamate will<br>
> result in the neuron firing with the ‘yes that is my redness quality’<br>
> result.<br>
><br>
> Now, within this theoretical world, think of the transmigration process when<br>
> it replaces this one large binding neuron. Of course the argument admits<br>
> that the original neuron can’t deal with being presented with ones and<br>
> zeros. So, when it replaces the glutamate, with anything else, it specifies<br>
> that you also need to replace the neuron detecting the glutamate, with<br>
> something else that includes the translation hardware, that is interpreting<br>
> the specific set of ones and zeros that is representing glutamate, as the<br>
> real thing. And this virtual neuron only gives the ‘yes that is my redness’<br>
> when this predefined set of ones and zeros is present.<br>
><br>
> In other words, when people think about this transmigration argument of<br>
> replacing one neuron at a time in this way, they are explicitly throwing out<br>
> and ignoring what is important to the ‘that is real glutamate’ detecting<br>
> system. They are ignoring the additional hardware system that is required<br>
> that binds all this stuff together, so we can be aware of redness, at the<br>
> same time as we are aware of greenness, so we can say, yes they are the<br>
> same, or no, they are qualitatively different.<br>
><br>
> If a single neuron is what our brain uses to detect glutamate (or whatever<br>
> it is that is the neural correlate of redness), then you can see the obvious<br>
> fallacy in the transmigration thought experiment. And it is also<br>
> theoretically possible, that it is more than just a single neuron that is<br>
> involved in the process of detecting the causal properties of glutamate, so<br>
> that this system only says “That is my redness”, only if it is real<br>
> glutamate (or whatever it is that really is responsible for a redness<br>
> quality). And not until you replace the entire binding system, which is the<br>
> complex process of detecting real glutamate, with an abstracted version<br>
> which can interpret a specific set of ones and zeros, as if it were the same<br>
> as glutamate, will it finally start behaving the same. And of course, there<br>
> will be lots of fading quale, as lots of single neurons are placed in<br>
> between these two states. Additionally, unlike the real thing, you will<br>
> never be able to ‘eff’ to know if the abstracted stuff, which is something<br>
> very different than redness, only being interpreted as redness, really has a<br>
> redness experience – unlike the real thing.<br>
><br>
> That’s at least how I think about it. Does this help you guys at all?<br>
<br>
</div></div>The big neuron detecting the multiple neurotransmitters sends signals<br>
to downstream neurons. For example, it sends signals to motor neurons<br>
responsible for speech. If the visual neuron perceives red it sends<br>
signals to the neurons which make you say "I see red" and if it<br>
perceives green (which could be due in your model to, say, dopamine)<br>
it sends signals to the neurons which make you say "I see green". Now,<br>
a foolish engineer, who knows nothing about qualia, observes this and<br>
replaces your visual neuron with a black box which can tell the<br>
difference between the two neurotransmitters. If the black box<br>
detects glutamate it will stimulate the neurons that make you say "I<br>
see red" while if it detects dopamine it will stimulate the neurons<br>
that make you say "I see green". But this black box produces no visual<br>
qualia at all. So the result is a person who is blind but describes<br>
things normally, believes he can see normally, and tells everyone he<br>
can see normally... which you have agreed is absurd.<br>
<br>
I imagine now you will say that the black box cannot send the right<br>
signals to the motor neurons unless it truly does perceive colours,<br>
but that goes against the initial assumption, which is that the<br>
*externally observable behaviour* of neural tissue is computable. It<br>
is generally thought that chemistry is computable, but even if it<br>
isn't, the case against the substrate-dependence of consciousness is<br>
upheld by simply leaving out the detail that the artificial neurons<br>
are computerised.<br>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
<br>
--<br>
Stathis Papaioannou<br>
</font></span></blockquote></div><br></div>