<div dir="ltr">Is what you are describing with the two neurotransmitters for red and green light merely the opponent process theory of color vision ( <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opponent_process">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opponent_process</a> )? According to this view, the visual system does not transmit RGB values, as computers do, instead different colors are paired as opposing. Red vs. Green, Blue vs. Yellow, Black vs. White. The more red light that falls on the retina, the faster the neuron firing rate, and the more green light the slower (I might be mixing up which one speeds it up vs. which one slows it). If so, then we would expect the same neurotransmitters pairs of red/green, to also appear for yellow/blue. But then you have to explain, why in one circumstance, the neurotransmitter is associated with red in some contexts and blue in others.<div><br></div><div>The opponent process explains why there are bluish greens (cyan), bluish reds (purple), yellowish reds (orange), but no yellowish blues, and no reddish greens.</div><div><br></div><div>I don't think there is anything special about the neurotransmitters here, aside from their effect on either accelerating, or decelerating the rate of firing. There are thousands, if not millions of colors that can be perceived by the eye, and each might be considered its own quale in its own right, but there are not millions of different chemicals or neurotransmitters.</div><div><br></div><div>Some humans can see 4 primary colors. It is due to having an extra type of color sensing cone in their retina, not due to a difference in brain chemistry. This was demonstrated when monkeys that were normally color blind had their retinas infected with a retrovirus that inserted a gene to create a third color-sensing cone. After a few weeks their brains learned to adapt to the new signals and they could perceive a new primary color. Given that the change was purely one that affected the eye, and the information the eye sent to the brain via the optic nerve, I don't see how the outcome of this experiment can be explained in terms of altered neurochemistry of the brain. It appears, rather, that the brain began to process the signals differently, and the new informational states it realized led to new patterns and thereby new perceptions.<br><div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">Jason</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 10:44 PM, Brent Allsop <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:brent.allsop@gmail.com" target="_blank">brent.allsop@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<p>Hi Stathis,</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Hmmm, I'm having troubles understanding what you are saying. You
seem to be not understanding what I am trying to say as in no
place did I intend to say that any functionally equivalent neurons
would behave differently when they were receiving the same
inputs. I am only saying that IF the entire comparison systems
was one neuron (it would at least have to have input from all
voxal element representing neurons - at the same time, so it could
know how they all compared to one another, all at the same time.)
And if this was the case, and if you swapped this entire awareness
of it all neuron - only then could you swap all the glutamate
producing representations of the strawberry with positive voltage
representations of the strawberry - just as the neural
substitution argument stipulates is required to get the same
functionality. Only then would it behave the same. If only any
sub part of the comparison system was substituted, it would not be
able to function the same. The way it would fail would be
different, depending on the type of binding system used. A real
glutamate sensor will only say all the surface voxels of the
strawberry are all glutimate when it is all represented with real
physical glutamate and a comparison system will only say all the
positive voltages (again representing the same strawberry) are the
same "red" if it knows how to interpret all it's physically
different representations of "red" as if they were red.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>I think the problem is, whenever you are replacing discrete
individual small neurons, there is no easy way for it to be aware
of whether they are all qualitatively alike, all at the same
time. If you give to me any example of some mechanical way that a
system can know how to compare (or better - be aware of) the
quality of all the physical representations at the same time (I'm
doing this by making the entire system be one large neuron) it
will be obvious how the neural substitution will fail to function
the same. If the entire comparison system is one neuron, when it,
along with all glutamate is replaced by positive voltages, - there
would be no failure and it would behave the same - as demanded by
the substitution argument.<span class="gmail-HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
</font></span></p><span class="gmail-HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Brent<br>
</p></font></span><div><div class="gmail-h5">
<br>
<br>
<div class="gmail-m_-8855373463217731moz-cite-prefix">On 12/22/2016 8:25 PM, Stathis
Papaioannou wrote:<br>
</div>
</div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div class="gmail-h5">
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
On 23 Dec. 2016, at 1:39 pm, Brent Allsop <<a href="mailto:brent.allsop@gmail.com" target="_blank">brent.allsop@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<p>I tried to explain that it wouldn't be identical behavior,
until the entire substitution.</p>
</blockquote>
I think the issue is, as James Charles has also pointed out, that
you contradict yourself by allowing that the artificial neurone
will interact with the the other neurones normally (which is of
course crucial to the experiment) but then saying that the other
neurones will behave differently. How could the other neurones
possibly behave differently, if they are receiving the same inputs
they would normally receive?
<br>
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