<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Hi Stuart,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Thanks for continuing this discussion
on consciousness!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Max Tegmark’s paper, like everything
else in all of the peer reviewed literature on physics, and consciousness, and particularly
studies on perception of color are all completely qualia blind.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Everyone uses the term “red” in only
a functionalist way, which imparts no qualitative meaning, whatsoever. For example, you said: “</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Redness
is a function of red”. Statements like
this provide no qualitative meaning, especially when you consider what
should be an obvious fact that my redness could be like your greenness.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">In order to know, qualitatively, the meaning of
a word, like redness or red, you need to keep in mind that it is only a label
for a particular set of physical properties or qualities. Everyone uses the term “red” to talk about when
something reflects or emits red light, they also use it as a label for a particular
type of light, they also use it to talk about “red” signals in the optic nerve
and “red” detectors in the retina… ALL
of these are purely functionalist definitions and provide no qualitative meaning. They are completely ambiguous definitions,
and nobody knows which physical qualities they are talking about, when the use any
such terms.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">In order to not be qualia blind, you need to
use different words for different sets of physical properties or
qualities. I use the word “red” as a label
for the physical property of anything that reflects or emits 650 NM light. I use the word “redness” as a label for a
very different set of physical properties or qualities. It is a label for a set of physical qualities
we can be directly aware of, as something our brain uses to represent knowledge
with. This physical quality can be used
to represent any type of knowledge. A
bat could use it to represent echolocation knowledge. Some people could use it to represent green
knowledge, and so on. To say “Redness is
a function of red” is, again, completely qualia blind and ambiguous. Qualitatively, I have no idea what you are
talking about. Are you talking about your redness, or my redness which is like your grenness?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Tononi’s idea of “redness = PHI(red)” is also
completely sloppy, definition wise. Is he
talking about one person’s redness, which may be another’s greenness….? As I was saying, this, and everything else is
completely qualia blind.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Take the name of the neurotransmitter
glutamate, for example. We know this is
a label for a particular set of physical properties. We also have abstract descriptions of
glutamate's atomic makeup, and how it behaves in synapses. But, again, all of this abstract information
about glutamate is also just functional.
It provides no qualitative meaning.
We know how glutamate behaves in a synapse, but what is that glutamate
behavior qualitatively like? If you
think of the qualitative definition of the word redness, and the qualitative definition
of the word glutamate, you should realize that these could be abstract labels
for the same set of physics. Not realizing this is qualia blindness.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">The ONLY thing that provides qualitative
meaning to anything is subjective experience, or our ability to directly experience some of the physics in our brain.
ALL objectively observed information is purely abstract, and devoid of
any qualitative meaning. We can’t talk
about consciousness in any way, until we start thinking clearly, and non-ambiguously
about the qualitative meaning of words.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Max Tegmark asserts the existence of some “perceptronium”? Even if there was such a thing, all objective
observations of such would be purely functional, while direct experience of
such functional descriptions would be qualitative. Proposing new physics buys you nothing about
consciousness, as long as you remain qualia blind, and fail to make the
qualitative connections. Once you are no
longer qualia blind, you realize you don’t need any new physics. You just need to think, clearly and
qualitatively, about what we already know of current physics.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">We simply must see people start using multiple
words to talk about different physical qualities. Red for something that reflects or emits red
light, and redness for a very different set of physical qualities, which could
be a quality of anything we already know about, objectively, in the brain, like glutamate.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Jun 27, 2019 at 9:05 AM Stuart LaForge <<a href="mailto:avant@sollegro.com">avant@sollegro.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><br>
Quoting Brent Allsop:<br>
<br>
> I’ve been confronting Naive Realists bleating completely qualia <br>
> blind (only use one word ‘red”, instead of multiple words like red <br>
> and redness to talk about different physical properties and <br>
> qualities.) rhetoric on places like quora and reddit.<br>
<br>
Redness is the knowledge of red. Consciousness is like a <br>
physical/mathematical function by which information becomes knowledge <br>
which is system-integrated information. Redness is thereby a function <br>
of red. To borrow Tononi's notation, redness = PHI(red). What is the <br>
distinction between consciousness and the ability to actively learn? I <br>
have trouble of seeing one. In some respects, the point of <br>
consciousness seems to be to find out what happens next.<br>
<br>
> Sometimes it is so frustrating that so many people just can’t think.<br>
<br>
It is only frustrating if you think about it. Just kidding of course, <br>
but if you need to reach people like that, then try appealing to their <br>
emotions. It often works better than logic. Logic is overrated anyhow. <br>
If you start with incorrect premises, then you reach wrong <br>
conclusions. GIGO applies to people as well as learning machines.<br>
<br>
> After feeling so dirty, and frustrated with so little progress, with <br>
> so many, it is so nice to be pulled back up in the clouds, trying to <br>
> keep up with you guys taking me where I’ve never been before.<br>
> Thanks everyone, for providing such an inspiring forum, for so many <br>
> continued years, and for restoring my faith in humanity so often.<br>
<br>
You have done your part to make the list an interesting forum, Brent, <br>
so one list member to another thank you as well.<br>
<br>
Here is a paper about consciousness by physicist Max Tegmark you might <br>
like entitled "Consciousness as a State of Matter". I notice you don't <br>
have him or that particular camp set up on Canonizer.<br>
<br>
<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1401.1219" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://arxiv.org/abs/1401.1219</a><br>
<br>
He is a little all over the place, but his ideas are interesting and <br>
overlap some of mine. I still have to see if I can reconcile our maths <br>
but that will take time.<br>
<br>
Stuart LaForge<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Stuart LaForge<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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</blockquote></div>