<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<br>
Hi Stathis,<br>
<br>
It's great to hear from you. And the target audience of this paper,
is intelligent people like you, so I really need help understanding
how best to comunicate to people with this POV. So, thank you for
reading, and for jumping in here.<br>
<br>
You are using untestable not well defined metaphysical terms when
you talk about "consciousness" like this: "this will never be able
to tell you if the subject being studied really is conscious".<br>
<br>
When you use the term "conscious" you are talking about composit
qualia, or all of what conscoiusness is, as something that is not
easily completely sharable in it's entirety. And you are providing
no way to falsify any such assertions. All I hear you saying is
that consciousness is not approachable via science.<br>
<br>
What I am trying to say, is that you can break composite
"consciousness" and composite qualia down to elemental qualities,
like redness and greenness. And that there is some kind of binding
mechanism that binds them together, so that you can be aware of
redness and greenness, at the same time, and know how qualitatively
different they are. Like when a painter makes a composit painting,
using elemental color qualities, I am saying that you can break
conscoiusness down to effable, detectable, elemental qualities.<br>
<div><br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 1/31/2015 7:37 AM, Stathis
Papaioannou wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAH=2ypWEOh70nuboyjTjETJ8gD_X5wtQfUmFK337p5N0boHsvA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite"><br>
<div>Suppose, for example, you hypothesise that CMOS sensors in
digital cameras have colour qualia. You could show
experimentally the necessary and sufficient conditions for
certain colour outputs, but how would this help you
understand what, if anything, the sensor was experiencing? If
you tried connecting it to your own brain and saw nothing, how
would you know if that was because the sensor lacked qualia or
because it doesn't interface properly with your brain?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
You are thinking about this at the wrong level. CMOS systems can
only do intelligent operations if they have hardware that is
interpreting that which does not have consistent ones and zeros,
as if it did. And it certainly doesn't have anything like an
elemental redness quality at that abstractly operating,
interpreted from it's diverse intrinsic physical qualities level.<br>
<br>
But, there is the possibility, that some stuff like CMOS, does
have an intrinsic qualitative nature, that can be bound up with
other qualities the way our brain binds things with redness and
greenness up. And interpreting the way CMOS acts as only
colorless ones and zeros, is being blind to the qualitative nature
that it could have. Zombie information can represent everything
about the qualitative nature of CMOS, but you can only know what
the qualitative nature of the same is, if you interpenetrate,
correctly, what you are detecting, not some interpreted pieces of
zombie information we think of it as having.<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAH=2ypWEOh70nuboyjTjETJ8gD_X5wtQfUmFK337p5N0boHsvA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div>The other point I would like to make is that (it seems to
me) you have misunderstood the neural substitution thought
experiment you describe near the end of the paper. Suppose
glutamate is responsible for redness qualia, and you replace
the glutamate with an analogue that functions just like
glutamate in every observable way, except it lacks the qualia.
The subject will then accurately describe red objects, say he
sees red, and honestly believe that he sees red. How would you
show that he does not actually see red? How would you know
that your own red qualia were not eliminated last night while
you slept by installing such a mechanism?</div>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
</div>
No, you know I fully understand this argument. Chalmers points out
multiple possible ways science could demonstrate what happens,
subjectively, when you do this neural substitution. You only
consider the view that it will be possible to do it, just as
described, so there is a conundrum. So if your interpretation,
leads to such contradictions, then you are going down the wrong
path. Why do you refuse to consider any other possibility?<br>
<br>
Chalmers points out there is a vanashing qualia and fading qualia
options you are not considering. I don't like the way he describes
these, because they are very metaphysical and non testable
predictions about what is happening. So, if you assume a 3 color
world, like that described in the paper, the theory makes testable
predictions about how the qualitatively consciousness scientists
will discover, when they do the neuro substitution experiment.
Nothing they present to the binding system will ever have a redness
quality, except that which really has redness, so it will be a kind
of vanishing qualia.<br>
<br>
The critical part of the neuro substitution experiment, is adding in
the hardware interpereters, for every piece of hardware replacing
the knowledge being represented with qualitative properties. Sure,
you know how to interpret what the zombie knowledge represents, it
can be thought of as behaving the same way. And, once you replace
the binding mechanism, and all that does have true qualitative
nature, it will be possible to think of it as being the same thing.
But, by definition, the zombie information will not have redness, it
can only be interpreted as and thought of, as if it does.<br>
<br>
And sure, this is a very simplistic theory. But the prediction is,
that this is just an example of how to cross the qualitative
knowledge boundary in one possible world. And the prediction is,
that a simple variation on this theory will make it possible to
bridge this knowledge gap in the real world.<br>
<br>
Does any of that help?<br>
<br>
Brent Allsop<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 1/31/2015 7:37 AM, Stathis
Papaioannou wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAH=2ypWEOh70nuboyjTjETJ8gD_X5wtQfUmFK337p5N0boHsvA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite"><br>
<br>
On Saturday, 31 January 2015, Brent Allsop <<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:brent.allsop@canonizer.com">brent.allsop@canonizer.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"> <br>
<div>On 1/30/2015 7:43 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">One side
of this debate says that subjective experiences are
metaphysical. So I have two comments:<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">1 - How
does one go about proving the existence of something
metaphysical? <br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">By
proving that physical causes don't exist for that
experience? Isn't that trying to prove a negative?<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">2 -
Since nothing has ever been shown to be metaphysical (no
way to measure it), why would one ever start from that
as an assumption? Why, in fact, believe in anything at
all metaphysical, in the most literal sense? Demons and
angels? Ghosts? (It does seem that many people will
believe in these things rather than what science says.
If anyone has any doubt that we are an intellectually
flawed species, just look at that fact.)<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">In
short, there seems to me to be no way to establish that
metaphysical causes exists for anything. At least, no
scientific way. Playing with words, thought
experiments, and just sheer sophistry don't do the job.<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Either you didn't read the paper entitled "Detecting Qualia" (<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vxfbgfm8XIqkmC5Vus7wBb982JMOA8XMrTZQ4smkiyI/edit?usp=sharing"
target="_blank">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vxfbgfm8XIqkmC5Vus7wBb982JMOA8XMrTZQ4smkiyI/edit?usp=sharing</a>)
or you didn't understand any of it. You must have at least
read the title: "Detecting Qualia", but evidently you refuse
to understand what most people understand such to mean, as
proof by you asserting that there is "no way to measure it".
Since you don't seem to get it, I guess I'll have to explain
it to you: Detecting, is the same as measuring, and if it is
detectable, it is physical, and experimentally demonstrably to
all to be physical, just like all physics.<br>
<br>
Brent Allsop<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Dear Brent,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I've read the paper. Maybe I haven't understood it properly,
but it seems to me that the main thing you have in mind when
talking about "effing the ineffable" is the neural correlates of
consciousness, and this will never be able to tell you if the
subject being studied really is conscious, let alone what the
actual conscious experience is like. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Suppose, for example, you hypothesise that CMOS sensors in
digital cameras have colour qualia. You could show
experimentally the necessary and sufficient conditions for
certain colour outputs, but how would this help you
understand what, if anything, the sensor was experiencing? If
you tried connecting it to your own brain and saw nothing, how
would you know if that was because the sensor lacked qualia or
because it doesn't interface properly with your brain?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The other point I would like to make is that (it seems to me)
you have misunderstood the neural substitution thought
experiment you describe near the end of the paper. Suppose
glutamate is responsible for redness qualia, and you replace the
glutamate with an analogue that functions just like glutamate in
every observable way, except it lacks the qualia. The subject
will then accurately describe red objects, say he sees red, and
honestly believe that he sees red. How would you show that he
does not actually see red? How would you know that your own red
qualia were not eliminated last night while you slept by
installing such a mechanism?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
</body>
</html>