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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/23/2016 12:37 AM, Stathis
Papaioannou wrote:<br>
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On 23 Dec. 2016, at 3:44 pm, Brent Allsop <<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:brent.allsop@gmail.com">brent.allsop@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
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<p>Hi Stathis,</p>
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<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>
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<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.</p>
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<div>I'm having difficulty following what you're saying. I'm
simply proposing replacing any component of a neurone, or any
collection of neurones, with a machine that does the same job.
There is a type of glutamate receptor that changes its shape
when glutamate molecules bind, creating a channel for sodium and
potassium ions to pass through the membrane, and triggering an
action potential. We could imagine nanomachines in the place of
these receptors that monitor glutamate and open and close ion
channels in the same way as the natural receptors, but are made
from different materials; perhaps from carbon nanotubules rather
than proteins. The engineering problem would be to ensure that
these nanomachines perform their task of detecting glutamate and
opening ion channels just like the naturally occurring
receptors. Do you think it is in theory possible to do this? Do
you see that if it is possible, then neurons modified with these
receptors *must* behave just like the original neurons?<o:p> </o:p><br>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><o:p><br>
Good example – that helps me to understand more clearly. Yes, I
see that if neuron’s are modified [using carbon nanotubes to
open and close ion channels in the same way that glutamate does]
they *must* behave just like the original neurons. I really
appreciate you and James sticking with me and pointing out all
my admittedly sloppy mistakes. I've spent much time rewriting
this response, after thinking about all this for many years, and
I hope I've improved and am not making as many sloppy mistakes
with this reply.<br>
</o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><o:p>I
still see and theoretically predict that there must be some
level, for which it can be said that something “has” the redness
quality we can experience in a bound together way with other
diverse qualities. Of note is that something having a redness
quality is different than some mechanism that can detect this
redness quality by being aware of it together with other
qualities. And that is the purpose of the binding neuron in my
example that you are replacing. It does not have the quality,
but only detects, by being aware of the glutamate quality vs
other physical qualities. So, the binding neuron, itself, does
not have the glutamate quality, but only allows such qualities
to be bound together into unified awareness of all diverse
qualities. As for the behavior of a regular not exclusive or
gate, how the not exclusive or functionality is implemented is
irrelevant and hardware independent – as long as the output is
the same. But for this binding neuron, the diverse qualities it
can be aware of at the same time is critically important to its
conscious intelligence. And when you replace this functionality
with an abstracted not exclusive or gate, you are obviously
doing this same function without being aware of nor comparing
any real physical glutamate qualities.<br>
</o:p><br>
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/23/2016 1:59 PM, James Carroll
wrote:<br>
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<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 7:39 PM,
Brent Allsop <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:brent.allsop@gmail.com" target="_blank">brent.allsop@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
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<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">But of course,
everyone would know this was only functionally the same
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<div>No, everyone would NOT know that. You are begging the
question... since the question is whether things that are
functionally the same have the same qualia. So we would
NOT know that it is "only" functionally the same. <br>
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I think statements like this reveal a key difference in our
theoretical predictions and that this difference in our thinking is
the cause of all of our failure to communicate. For you, it is
anything that is functionally the same as, that is the neural
correlate of qualia. For you, the qualia is downstream, or
implemented on top of the functional behavior. But my prediction is
that you have this completely backwards. When we are aware of
redness and greenness qualities, together, this qualitative
awareness is what enables us to consciously perform the not
exclusive or hugely diverse qualitative comparison functionality.<br>
<br>
And, again, as I have pointed out in the various week, stronger, and
strongest ways to eff the ineffable, the prediction is that you and
John Clark will soon be proven wrong, and that we will be able to
find out the actual qualities of these physical behaviors, (and how
they are bound together) and reliably predict when someone's
awareness systems is aware of glutamate vs glycene psychical
qualities, and thereby reliably predict when someone is comparing a
redness quality with a greenness quality. The prediction is that
everyone will be forced by reliable demonstrable science to say
something like - yes, it is glutamate that has the greenness
quality. Everyone will start talking about it in this way, using
the term "has" a redness quality, instead of using terms like the
neural correlate of redness.<br>
<br>
Another point I feel I should point out is that you are predicting
that a functional theory of qualia gets around the issue allegedly
raised with the neural substitution argument. But I predict that it
doesn't.<br>
<br>
Perhaps it will help to look at it this way. Let’s go with your
functional predictions and move qualia above the hardware level and
assume that there is some hardware independent function that has the
redness quality we can experience, and that there is a different
function that has the greenness quality we can experience, and of
course we must be able to bind these two qualitative functions
together so that it can be said that some binding system is our
conscious awareness of both of the functional qualities. The
detection of these functional qualities, via being consciously aware
of them, can be said to be the initial cause of us reporting that “I
am experiencing red”. Our ability to perform the not exclusive or
operation consciously is based on our ability to be aware of the
redness function quality, and know that this is not like the
greenness function quality. So, when you do the neural substitution
of this system, and when you replace the binding / awareness
function (whatever enables us to be aware of a greenness and a
redness function at the same time) and you replace the redness and
greenness functions with something else, you - again, remove the
conscious redness and greenness quality based not exclusive or
function and replace it with something that is again hardware
independent (or rather independent of the functional quality at this
level). The functionalist theory of qualia implies that the true
redness is some place beyond or based on this logical awareness
functioning system. So you must repeat the process, removing the
qualitative system on which the not exclusive or functionality is
based add infinitem. The best you can do is claim that it is
functional redness turtles, all the way up, and that the only place
a redness quality exists (on which our conscious not exclusive or
functionality is implemented on), is in this infinite regressed
functionality.<br>
<br>
Brent Allsop<br>
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