<div dir="ltr">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">Hi Ben,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">It seems
evident from what you say here, that you haven't seen the video on detecting
qualia: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHuqZKxtOf4">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHuqZKxtOf4</a> . <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I think this will answer most of the questions
or issues you are pointing out here.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Also,
you use the word "red" in ambiguous ways.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>For me, the word "red" means
something has a property such that it reflects something like 650 nm light -
the initial cause of a perception process.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>The final result of this perception process is our knowledge of the
"red" thing. This knowledge has a “redness” quality you can
experience.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When you say “red”, I often
can’t tell which one you are talking about.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>This is important because, in cases like inverted qualia, my redness
could be more like your greenness, which we both represent “red” with.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">You
indicated I'm overly confident with this stuff., but the only thing we know for
sure is that conscious experienced includes at least 3 elements: an ability to
experience redness quale, and ability to experience a greenness quale, and a
mechanism the binds these two qualia together to make a composite experience
qualia of redness and greenness.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It is
this binding mechanism which enables us to be aware of both at the same time,
so we can compare them, qualitatively, enabling us to verbalize things like: “yes
those are qualitatively different or the same”.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>You like to think of a redness quale as particular patterns of firing
neurons,<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>John thinks of them as
ineffable, or not sharable, or not approachable via objective science.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Stathis thinks that redness is something
functional, independent of any particular hardware.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>All these are still theoretically possible,
or not yet falsified.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So, I need to have
a term to use that represents all these possible neural correlates of redness
to all people.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Since most people’s
theories about the neural correlates of redness might be are overly complex and
lack specificity, so it is almost impossible to describe to people what is
required to detect qualia or eff the ineffable. (in the various week, stronger,
and strongest, ways.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We need to have a
basic understanding of the requirements to think about this kind of qualitative
theory, so we know how to test for all the many theories, to find out if people
have inverted qualia, and so on.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">So, I’m only
confident that we can experience multiple qualia, that something in the brain
is the neural correlate of each, and that there is a binding mechanism that
enables us to experience all of these, as a composite qualia enabling us to
qualitatively compare them.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">So, in order
to verbalize this kind of qualitative information, I need a simple theoretical
example which could be use in some simplified world to test the various theories
of what qualia might be.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then once
everyone, with all their diverse ways of thinking about qualia, can understand
how to think in these kinds of qualitative testing ways, they can know how to
test if their particular theory is correct or not, and how we might be able to
eff the ineffable with their theory.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">So, instead
of trying to describe this relatively simple qualitative theory in all
possible, mostly very incomplete and non specific ways of thinking about
qualia, I just use this simple theory of how people in a simplified world would
be able to detect, eff, qualia and prove various qualitative theories.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">You, Stathis,
and everyone keep complaining about my usage of glutamate, and pointing out
problems with it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But this is missing
the point.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Glutamate” is just a simplified
term that represents whatever is doing the neural function of a redness
experience in an objectively and quantitatively describable way in a simplified
world.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If you think a redness experience
is a set of neurons firing in a particular pattern, then just substitute that
idea whenever I use the term “glutamate”.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>Stathis needs to substitute the term “glutamate” with something “functional”
that is a redness quale, and so on.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The important
part is just that we need some over arching qualitative theory we can all
understand, so we can talk to each other, and propose ways to objectively prove
which of our various theories are the on right theory, and how to tell if people
have inverted qualia and so on.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">Once a
person understands how qualitative theory works in a simplified world, then you
can use the same general qualitative ideas to better understand qualia in the
real world.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">Brent</p>
<div><br><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Mar 15, 2017 at 8:52 AM, Ben <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bbenzai@yahoo.com" target="_blank">bbenzai@yahoo.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Brent:<br>
> I'm using "qualitative" in relation to qualia. As in a redness qualia (sic) has a specific set of detectable subjective and objective qualities.<span class=""><br>
> Or a redness experience is qualitatively different than a greenness experience.<br>
<br></span>
Oh, that's interesting. So a specific quale has a specific set of detectable objective, um, qualities?<br>
<br>
Hang on, that doesn't make sense! I assume you mean objective *properties*, things that can be measured. In other words quantitative data, not qualitative.<br>
<br>
And of course, a quale has a certain set of detectable /subjective/ properties, that's the whole point of the idea of qualia. They are experiences detectable by the subject.<br>
<br>
So you are saying that there is something measurably different about someone's brain when they look at a red object to when they look at a green one. I suppose that must be true, although I doubt if we know how to do that measurement, it must be horribly complicated. And I'm not sure if this holds if that person looks at /any/ red object vs. /any/ green object, rather than say a red ball when you're in a good mood after a nice meal vs. a green ball under similar circumstances. Could we be sure that it's true of a red ball seen during a game of tennis vs. the memory of a red ball seen in a photograph of that same game of tennis? I honestly don't know.<br>
<br>
The more I think about it, the more remarkable I find your confidence that there is such a specific set of detectable objective properties. What leads you to that conclusion?<br>
<br>
<br>
And even if it is true, I don't see how this could extend to comparisons between individuals, so it's of limited use for detecting if some random person was seeing something red or not.<span class=""><br>
<br>
<br>
> There is no translation mechanism involved with the qualitative values of a redness we can experience.<br>
<br></span>
Er, you just said that there is: "a redness qualia (sic) has a specific set of detectable ... objective ..."<br>
<br>
So if we can hook someone up to a decector of some kind (an MRI scanner, say), and after a set of tests (probably lots of tests!), come up with a characteristic signal that occurs when the subject looks at a red ball, we'd be able to have them look at an object and tell from the signals alone whether he was looking at a red ball or not. Or, you seem to claim, any red object.<br>
<br>
If this works, then you have a translation mechanism. This precise set of signals from the MRI scanner = an experience of 'red' in this specific experimental subject (or at least an eel wearing a red dinner jacket in a hovercraft, or whatever the test data was).<span class=""><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
> Effing the ineffable is still simply theoretical, yet to be proven by science.<br></span><span class="">
> Many people, like John, are predicting that it will always be impossible to eff the ineffable or that it will be impossible for me to know anything about John's redness.<br>
<br></span>
Well, you could ask him.<span class=""><br>
<br>
<br>
> A simplified example testable theory is that glutamate is the objectively observable side of subjective elemental redness<br>
<br></span>
Please, stop with the glutamate and the 'elemental' redness. It has been pointed out many times that this concept is just wrong.<br>
<br>
By all means, talk about detectable conditions or events (a specific pattern of spike trains in a certain set of nerve tracts, or whatever) corresponding to reported experiences (like seeing red), but obstinately sticking with a concept that directly contradicts what we know about neuroscience is not helping. "It's a simplification" is not an excuse. As I've pointed out already, it's not a simplification, it's a fabrication.<span class=""><br>
<br>
<br>
> So, if you can prove that if you have one, you always have the other<br>
<br></span>
If the results of the MRI experiment above on Bob are applied to Susan, how can you say with confidence, without repeating the whole experiment again on Susan, that she also sees red when the same signals are observed? What if she insists that she is seeing pink? You'd have to calibrate the system for every single individual, and I'm betting you'd always find exceptions who say "I'm looking at a red ball" when the signals are totally different, or "I'm looking at a polar bear" when they are the same.<br>
<br>
But by all means, do the experiment. You may be right. With enough experiments on enough individuals, it may be possible to arrive at a standard set of neural signals that reliably indicate an abstract experience of 'red'. I'm skeptical*, but willing to be persuaded by hard experimental evidence.<br>
<br>
<br>
Ben Zaiboc<br>
<br>
* to say the least. Consider all the myriad ways that people learn the concept of 'red'. The different experiences and circumstances, different eyes, bodies, environments, histories, etc., tied up with the linguistic label 'red'. Consider the huge variety of brain-states across billions of people, that lead them all to say "I'm seeing a red ball".<br>
There are languages that don't distinguish between 'blue' and 'green'. What does this mean for the subjective experience of the people who speak them? How could a 'test for experiencing blueness' apply to them?<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
<br>
Ben</font></span><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
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