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<div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Dec 11, 2016 at 5:26 PM,
Rafal Smigrodzki <span dir="ltr"><<a
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<div class="gmail_quote">I find it difficult to think
that a single mathematical object can experience
qualia every time it is examined with the use of a
digital computer.<br>
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If you think about what are the physical mechanics in our brain that
compose an "experience of qualia", it helps to break it down to a
slightly more fundamental level than this. Take, for example, the
qualitative nature of elemental redness. To "experience" this,
there must be something in the brain that has this quality, which is
the redness knowledge we experience. This quality is bound by our
brain with other bits of knowledge, some of it qualitative, some of
it not, like the additional knowledge of you, having the experience
of this redness. The brain produces and binds what it is that has
all these diverse qualities together to make up or paint our
conscious experience or knowledge of the world. So the qualitative
nature or to be more specific, the elemental redness quality is the
only important thing to consider in this so called "hard" problem.
Everything else is, as Chalmers would say, part of the easy
problem. What is it, in our brain, that has this redness quality
that can be the qualitative part of our experience of it?<br>
<br>
Note, that an abstracted word like "red", though it can represent
it, does not have a redness quality. One possibility is that the
neurotransmitter like glutamate, chemically reacting in a synapse,
is what does have this physical redness quality we can experience.
A quality like redness, we can experience, must have detectable
physical behavior. It could be that glutamate, chemically reacting
in the synapse, is what is this redness quality behavior.<br>
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Currently, even though we know everything about the causes and
effects of the chemistry going on in that chemical reaction in the
synapse, all this knowledge of its behavior is represented by
abstracted information that, like the word red, does not have the
same quality. So this causal information could be representing
what it is, that is the physical causal properties of redness, but
we just don't know how to qualitatively interpret this abstracted
knowledge of this physical redness behavior. So, until you know how
to qualitatively interpret the abstracted knowledge of everything
about the chemistry or physics of redness, you can't know how to
qualitatively interpret this abstracted knowledge representing the
causal information. We are currently blind to any phenomenal
qualities
of the chemistry or whatever, in our brain, simply because we don't
know how to qualitatively interpreted the abstracted knowledge we
receive from our detectors.<br>
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This is similar to the way Frank Jackson's Mary, the brilliant
scientist, can know everything about red, but just not know how to
qualitatively interpret all her abstracted knowledge that is only
abstractly representing everything about the behavior of redness.
The only way for her to know what the abstracted word red
qualitatively represents, is for her to walk out of the black and
white room, and for the first time, experience physical redness, for
herself. Then she can say both that she knows everything about the
physical behavior of redness, and she knows how to qualitatively
interpret that abstracted knowledge about it, which itself, does not
have the redness quality.<br>
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/14/2016 8:15 AM, John Clark
wrote:<br>
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<div class="gmail_default" style="display:inline"><font
size="4"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">And
in addition to the question asked in the title of
this thread I'd like to ask another, "Do human
beings other than me feel?".</font></font></div>
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<br>
Yes, as long as you know what it is in your head that has each of
the phenomenal qualities that make up all your "feelings", you can
"eff the ineffable" and discover, at least on an elemental level,
how others feelings compare to your own. For more info on why we
are normally blind to qualia in other's minds, and how to "eff the
ineffable" in the various week, stronger and strongest forms, see
this 15 minute YouTube talk on "Detecting Qualia":<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHuqZKxtOf4">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHuqZKxtOf4</a><br>
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Brent Allsop<br>
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