<div dir="ltr">On Mon, May 6, 2013 at 8:41 AM, Brent Allsop <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:brent.allsop@canonizer.com" target="_blank">brent.allsop@canonizer.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">
<p><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:12pt">Hi Ben,</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:12pt">This is all about Shannon’s information theory.<span> </span>You can’t store a megabyte of information in
some physical device that is only capable of holding one byte.<span> </span>If you know something, there must be
something physical which you can point to, which is representing that
information.<span> </span></span></p></div></blockquote><div style>Hi Brent, </div><div style><br></div><div style>Are you familiar with the way a hologram works? The information is not stored in any one particular place, it's distributed all over the thing. All of the information is stored everywhere, and it degrades gracefully as pieces of the original are removed. That is how I see memory and qualia in the brain. It is a pattern that is triggered when the right information flows through it, just as light flows through a hologram.</div>
<div> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><p><span style="font-size:12pt">If something ‘seems’ some
way, there must be something that is this seeming.<span> </span></span></p></div></blockquote><div style>Seeming is intuition. Ben has done a good job of telling us why intuition is unsuited to this endeavor. If all you needed was intuition, the ancient Greeks would have figured all this stuff out. <br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><p><span style="font-size:12pt">You talked about a ‘vortex’, which is a good
example.<span> </span>In that case, if a vortex
exists, there is a real liquid, in a real ‘vortex’ state, which can be
described.<span> </span>The physical stuff, along
with the state description, are the necessary and sufficient set of causal
properties that are the real ‘vortex’.<span>
</span></span></p></div></blockquote><div style>But the concept of a vortex doesn't exist in one spot in your brain. It's distributed all over the brain. Studies of people with various forms of brain damage by and large show this, though specific kinds of thinking are localized for sure as Oliver Sacks' books and studies demonstrate. (By the way, Oliver Sacks' books are true horror, Steven King is a schlep.) <br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><p><span style="font-size:12pt">If something /feels/ some way, the same thing is true, there must be
something physically real, and some physical state, which is responsible for
that feeling.<span> </span></span></p></div></blockquote><div style>Clearly, but it's all over, not a glucose level in a single cell or anything remotely like that. </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr"><p><span style="font-size:12pt">There must be some
necessary and sufficient set of causal properties that are the redness
experience.<span> </span>Obviously, something that
/feels/ like redness is very different than something that /feels/ like
greenness.<span> </span>The qualitative natures of
these, and their differences, and whatever is responsible for it, is what I’m
talking about, nothing more.</span></p></div></blockquote><div style>Then talk about it that way. I have no problem with this. <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<p><span style="font-size:12pt">Also, as far as ‘elemental redness’ goes.</span><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span><span style="font-size:12pt">We both agree that when we experience
redness, we usually have bound to that our knowledge of the word ‘red’, our
knowledge of us perceiving redness, a sensation that redness is a ‘warm’ color
and a bunch of stuff like that.</span><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span><span style="font-size:12pt">While it
is true that all of these things can be bound together in one person’s brain,
would you also agree that it is possible to reduce these things down, and
isolate them all.</span><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span><span style="font-size:12pt">So that it is possible
for a brain to have just a qualitative redness experience, with none of the
other cognitive information bound up with it?</span></p></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div style>No. I don't think it is possible. You can't teach an infant to understand and know "redness" and nothing else. It is ludicrous. I challenge you to raise a lab rat in an environment where all it learns about is redness, and nothing else. </div>
<div style><br></div><div style>-Kelly</div><div style><br></div></div></div></div>