<div dir="ltr">Since people do talk about the consciousness this much ... I have a theory, that they indeed are conscious. Just as I am.<div><br></div><div>Had they weren't conscious, they wouldn't bother debating it so passionately. </div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 2:07 PM, Brent Allsop <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:brent.allsop@canonizer.com" target="_blank">brent.allsop@canonizer.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><br>
Hi Stathis,<span class=""><br>
<br>
On 2/17/2015 4:38 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
On 18 February 2015 at 02:36, Brent Allsop <<a href="mailto:brent.allsop@canonizer.com" target="_blank">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">
Hi John,<br>
<br>
You keep saying: "You can't prove if something else is conscious." But,<br>
does your left brain hemisphere not know, more than we know anything, not<br>
only that your right hemisphere is it conscious, but what it is<br>
qualitatively like. And if that is possible, why are you assuming we can't<br>
do the same thing the corpus callosum is doing, between brains, not just<br>
between brain hemispheres?<br>
</blockquote>
That's an interesting and relevant point about the left and right<br>
hemispheres of the brain. It does, however, illustrate that the only<br>
way we can really know what it is like to experience something is to<br>
become a part of the system that is doing the experiencing. I could<br>
attempt to find out what it is like to be a bat by interfacing with a<br>
bat's brain (and then the bat would also find out what it is like to<br>
be me). An objection to this, however, is that I would not be finding<br>
out what it is like to be a bat, but rather a bat-human hybrid, which<br>
may be quite different. And there is no obvious way I can see to find<br>
out what it is like to be a more alien system such as a thermostat,<br>
for example.<br>
</blockquote>
<br></span>
You must have missed the section in the paper pointing out the difference between compost vs elemental quale. You are talking about compost qualia, here, and I completely agree with you. But effing an elemental redness quale is very different. And, once you can bridge the explanatory gap with elemental quale, more complex types of composite effing are just more complex "easy" variations on the theme.<span class=""><br>
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Well, to me it also seems that you are missing the obvious (and John also, and he actually agrees with me!). The obvious is this: if you try to make zombie glutamate you will fail, because if the substitute glutamate has the relevant functional properties (i.e. it binds to glutamate receptors and changes their conformation) then it will necessarily also replicate any role natural glutamate plays in consciousness. For if it were possible to make substitute glutamate that performed the same as natural glutamate but did not replicate natural glutamate's role in consciousness, then you could create a being lacking an aspect of consciousness (likely a very big aspect, since glutamate is so widespread in the brain) but behaving normally and believing that they feel normal. I have repeated the last sentence many times in many different ways but it doesn't seem to get through. Maybe it is because you think that the functional isomorph of glutamate would NOT necessarily result in normal behaviour? But then it wouldn't be a functional isomorph! Maybe you think the functional isomorph would result in normal behaviour but consciousness would still be altered? But then there would be a decoupling between consciousness and behaviour: the subject could be blind, or in terrible pain, and his mouth would of its own accord smile and make noises indicating that everything was fine! <br>
</blockquote>
<br></span>
OK, thanks for pointing out that for functionalists (the target audience of this paper) I've not been adequately addressing this issue, either here, or in the paper. (working on fixing that)<br>
<br>
So the corollary to<br>
<br>
"if there is no detectable neural correlate to redness,<br>
someone will not be accurately experiencing redness."<br>
<br>
is<br>
<br>
"You will not be able to accurately believe you are experiencing redness, without the neural correlate."<br>
<br>
So, yes, the neural substitution will completely fail. And if it succeeds, I will admit that materialist theories have been falsified. The prediction is that nobody will be able to find a way to present to the binding system anything that is not the neural correlate of redness, and get a true redness experience. There are myriads of various possibilities, such as, in the inverted quale case, someone will believe they know what redness is like, when in reality they are just mistakenly thinking that the greenness quale is redness. Or there is the lying through their teeth, example, they know that 1 isn't really redness, nor is the 0 really greenness. They are just knowingly lying when they say: "That is red, and I know what it is qualitatively like." And, the prediction is that observation systems like that being used by Gallant will be able to objectively detect and prove exactly when all of this type of stuff is going on. So, no, without real glutamate, or without the detectable functional isomorph of redness is, whatever is causing them to accurately think they are experiencing redness, will not be possible without it. Otherwise the theory, which predicts you can't experience redness, without the reliably detectable intrinsic functional isomorph of redness, with out the real thing, will be falsified, or need to be adjusted.<br>
<br>
There must be something that is is a correct redness experience. When we are aware of redness, we are detecting this redness, and we are able to distinguish this from greenness. This must be true, regardless of whether the relationship is functional, material, quantum, or whatever. And whatever the brain is doing to do this detection that redness is qualitatively different than greenness, must be objectively discoverable, reproducible, mappable, and ultimately effable.<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
<br>
Brent</font></span><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
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</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><a href="https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/</a><br></div></div>
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