<div dir="ltr"><br><div>Hi Jason,</div><div><br></div><div>Yes, we've got to at include the ExI list, for Stathis' (and other's?) sake. He is in the more popular <a href="https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Theories-of-Consciousness/8-Functional-Prprty-Dualism">Functionalist</a> camp, which you, like so many, appear to agree with.</div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14.6667px">The </span><a href="https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Theories-of-Consciousness/36-Molecular-Materialism" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color:blue;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14.6667px">Molecular Material</a><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px"> camp just </span></font>considers<font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px"> "philosophical zombies" to be absurd. Especially since they are normally defined in a way that different qualia may or may not 'superven' on top of identical physical reality. this is just absurd and is not scientifically falsifiable. I prefer falsifiable theoretical science to unfalsifiable </span>philosophy<span style="font-size:14.6667px">. Also, as we point out in our video: functionalists are no better than dualists, as they separate qualia from physical reality. Despite how many times I've asked Stathis for a way to falsify his theory, he has yet to describe how functionalism may be falsified. So to me, it is no better than dualism. All he seems to do is qualia, like redness and greenness, aren't possible, because they, themselves are substrate on which consciousness is composed.</span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px">And of course I've considered "tetrachromats" which have 4 primary colors, and shimp that must have a lot more than that. As I always say, I </span>pity<span style="font-size:14.6667px"> the bi (2 primary colors or color blind people) or even worse the achromatic (black and white only) people, and can't wait till I (a mere trichromat) discover what not only it is like for a tetrachromat, but what it is like for all those 16 primary color shrimp. A brain like that is what I want to be uploaded to, and how many more physical colors could be discovered after that???? Even if we discover hundreds, with many thousands of shades of each, that is still a long way from infinite.</span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px">And you still seem to be missing something when you say: "</span></font><font color="#0000ff">in any conscious state one finds oneself [in], one can only ever know... that one state.</font><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px">" and the way you talk about computational binding like: "</span></font><font color="#0000ff">less-than or greater-than comparison operations, equality tests</font><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px">". These kinds of comparisons are always done between specific things or facts of the matter. That's what computation abou tobjects is. Your one composite qualitative experience of the strawberry includes both redness and greenness</span></font><span style="font-size:14.6667px;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">. </span></div><div><img src="cid:ii_l2du1dpd2" alt="3_robots_tiny.png" width="320" height="118"><br></div><div><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px">While it is true, all of these 3 different systems can function the same. In that they can all distinguish between and tell you the strawberry is red, or not. But that is missing the point of the factual qualitative differences of each of these, and the physical qualities they are using to represent these differences, or the fact that their knowledge is intentionally abstracted away from any physical qualities that may be representing them in a way that requires a dictionary. You can't get substrate independence, without a dictionary for each different representation that may or maynot be representing the ones or zeros. Representing knowledge like the fist two does not require a dictionary, which is far more efficient than the 3rd, which does required an additional dictionary. The same way software runs faster directly on physical hardware, vs running on virtual machines (requires a functional mapping dictionary to different functioning hardware).</span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px">Which brings me to the 3rd strongest form of effing the ineffable, which was <a href="https://youtu.be/Uf9SWvs4beE?t=12">portrayed in the movie avatar</a> with Neural ponytails. These could function like the Corpus collosum which can computationally bind knowledge represented in the left hemisphere with knowledge represented in the right. With a neural ponytail like that, you would experience all of the experience, not just half. </span></font><span style="font-size:14.6667px;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">If the first two systems in the above </span><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px">image (one's redness is like your greenness) they would directly experience this difference, just the same as if your left field of vision was looking through red/green inverted glasses. It is called "4. the strongest form" of effing the ineffable, because what you directly apprehend is infallible or cannot be doubted the same way "I think, therefore I am" cannot be doubted.</span></font></div><div><br></div><div><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px">Brent</span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px"><br></span></font></div><div><font face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6667px"><br></span></font></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14.6667px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14.6667px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14.6667px"><br></span></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Apr 24, 2022 at 3:05 PM Jason Resch <<a href="mailto:jasonresch@gmail.com">jasonresch@gmail.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"><div dir="auto"><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 4:17 PM Brent Allsop <<a href="mailto:brent.allsop@gmail.com" target="_blank">brent.allsop@gmail.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"><div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;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;line-height:107%;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">Hi Jason, This is GREAT! You clearly understand a LOT about
consciousness, but there are two minor things I believe you are missing.</span></p></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Thank you for saying so and for helping clear up any gaps in my understanding.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;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;line-height:107%;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"><b><font size="4">First off</font></b><span style="font-size:11pt">, let’s distinguish between an elemental
quale(singular) and computationally bound composite qualia(plural). There is LOTS
of other memory stuff bound in with that elemental redness you experience when you look at that red strawberry.</span></span></p></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I agree with this. There were some experiments done recently that found the speed at which one could pick out different colors was related to color names that exist in one's native language. It got me wondering whether the quale of colors might be shaded by labels from one's language centers of the brain.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;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 style="font-size:11pt"> </span></span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">All of this, together is a composite, computationally
bound conscious experience. And sure,
there are an infinite number of different possible composite experiences, just
as there are an infinite number of paintings which can be painted with a finite set
of elemental colors.</span></p></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">True but I think it goes beyond this. The raw qualia of consciousness are, I think, as varied as the objects and relationships that exist in mathematics.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><br></p><img src="cid:ii_l2dpqdaa1" alt="3_robots_tiny.png" width="320" height="118"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><br></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;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 prediction is that there is an elemental quale
level out of which all composite qualia are composed. Just like it is a fact that there is a finite set of physical
elements (at least that we currently know of) there is a finite set of
elemental qualia that all humans have experienced to date. </span></p></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Have you considered human tetrachromats? People with four types of color sensing cones that can distinguish 100s of times more colors than normally sighted humans?</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Also, there are relational differences between the colors. In that black is a singular straw while white cones in various degrees of brightness. Blue can be seen as the subtraction of yellow from white, while red can be seen as the subtraction of green from yellow. So at their basic level, there is no symmetry between the primary colors, they each have a uniquely defined relationship in the three dimensional color space.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;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">(Obviously a falsifiable prediction, but until it is falsified.... we don't yet need more primary colors). </span></p></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">There are so e shrimp, I believe that have 16 different color sensing cones. Does that not mean that in theory their brain could construct a 16 dimensional color space with 16 different primary colors?</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;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
quality you experience when you look at the strawberry in this picture is just
an objectively observable physical fact.</span></p></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I would challenge the assertion that it is a physical fact, on the basis that the number of computational states a brain or computer could instantiate is untethered to the physics of this universe. Any universe in which it is possible to build a computer can instantiate the computational relations that may be found in any brain or computer of any other universe. This is a direct consequence of the "universality" property of computers. Why any computer may compute is independent of it's substrate, material make up, or architecture.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;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 prediction is that there is a finite set of these elemental
intrinsic qualities, like redness and greenness, out of which brains can
compose an infinite number of conscious experiences.</span></p></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">This is an interesting idea. For what it's worth I think it could be true, but I would argue that the "atoms" of consciousness exist at a much lower level than red or green (which seem to require vast resources of billions of neurons to construct our visual field). Instead I think the raw elements of consciousness, if they exist, would be at more fundamental levels:</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">if-statements, less-than or greater-than comparison operations, equality tests, truth tables, etc. I think these operations are the most primitive forms of reacting to or responding to information, and a more complex quale is built up of some combination of these relations that can create arbitrarily complex and large state-spaces.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;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;line-height:107%;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"><b><font size="4">Second</font></b><span style="font-size:11pt">, you made a falsifiable claim: “</span></span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(68,114,196);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">we are only ever
privileged to know "what it is like" in a single particular view at a
single particular instant.</span><span style="font-size:11pt;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;line-height:107%;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;line-height:107%;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">Then you backtracked with this:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;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;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(68,114,196);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">“If certain functions or
behaviors require a first person experience/experiencer, then this may provide
a method by which we could study or at least detect consciousness in others.</span>”</p></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I don't consider that a backtrack. My first point is only meant to say: in any conscious state one finds oneself, one can only ever know and that one state. Even a consideration of a memory is just a particular case of a single conscious state existing at one moment in time.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">My second point is meant to suggest my belief that philosophical zombies are impossible. Though false appearances of "non conscious actions that appear consciously driven" can exist for arbitrarily long lengths of time, they become exponentially unlikely to continue with increasing time.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The impossibility of zombies has consequences for many theories of mind, including molecular materialism.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Does molecular materialism predict philosophical zombies are possible?</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;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;line-height:107%;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">I’m in the <a href="https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Theories-of-Consciousness/36-Molecular-Materialism" style="color:blue" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">Molecular
Material</a> camp which is predicting you are not quite backtracking in the right way. As I said, above, the quality your brain uses
to represent red things with is just a physical fact. It is only a matter of
time till we objectively discover exactly what your redness is. Once we objectively know that, (that will give us the required dictionary for the term "your redness") we will then be able to objectively observe whether this is the same definition for "my redness"</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:11pt">. And this is only the "1. Weakest form of effing the ineffable." There are also the "2: stronger firms?", and "3: Strongest forms" of effing the ineffable.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:11pt"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:11pt">For
more information about the difference between “<b>perceiving</b>” physical facts vs “<b>directly
apprehending</b> intrinsic qualities of knowledge”, check out the “</span><a href="https://canonizer.com/videos/consciousness/?chapter=differentiate_reality_knowledge" style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:11pt;color:blue" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">Differentiating
between reality and knowledge of reality</a><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:11pt">” chapter in our video.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;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></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Thank you. I agree there's a difference between reality and knowledge of reality, though by definition the only parts of reality that can be known is the knowledge of reality (in other words, those that emerge as states of consciousness).</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Perhaps this is the basis of the Hindu belief that Brahman (all of reality) is Atman (all of consciousness).</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">P.S. I noticed in my reply I accidentally dropped the extropy chat list. Feel free to copy that list in your reply, or we can keep this one to one, whatever your preference may be.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Jason</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Apr 24, 2022 at 10:00 AM Jason Resch <<a href="mailto:jasonresch@gmail.com" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">jasonresch@gmail.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"><div dir="auto"><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 4:09 AM Brent Allsop <<a href="mailto:brent.allsop@gmail.com" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">brent.allsop@gmail.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"><div dir="ltr"><br><div>Hi Jason,</div><div><br></div><div>You had a long list of attributes in one of your replies to that list.</div><div><br></div><div><b style="color:rgba(0,0,0,0.87);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">Consciousness is:</b><div dir="auto" style="color:rgba(0,0,0,0.87);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><ul><li>Awareness of Information</li><li>A knowledge State</li><li>An Infinite Class (infinite possible variations and permutations, configurations)</li><li>A requirement for: Experience, Thought, Feeling, Knowing, Seeing, Noticing (can any of these things exist absent consciousness? E.g. some part of system that acts like it knows must really know.)</li><li>An activity (not a passive state of 0s and 1s, operations/behavior/actions give meaning and context to information and how it is processed and what it means)</li><li>Is it a recursive relationship? A model of environment including self?</li><li>Is it undefinable?</li><li>Word origin: "con" (together/with/unified/united) "scious" (knowledge): unified knowledge</li><li>It exists in the abstract informational state, not in the material</li><li>A meaningful interpretation of information</li></ul><div><b>Information is:</b></div></div><div dir="auto" style="color:rgba(0,0,0,0.87);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><ul><li>A difference that makes a difference</li><li>A comparison, differentiation, distinction</li><li>Specification / Indication</li><li>Negative entropy</li><li>A decrease in uncertainty</li><li>A probability of being in different states</li><li>Bits, digits, a number (representations of information)</li><li>A subspace of a larger space</li><li>A state of a finite state machine</li><li>Requires an interpreter (A system to be informed) to be meaningful</li></ul><div><b>A subject is:</b></div></div><div dir="auto" style="color:rgba(0,0,0,0.87);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><ul><li>A system to be informed</li><li>A processor of information</li><li>A <span style="color:rgb(60,64,67);background-color:rgb(253,226,147)">knower</span> (a believer)</li><li>An inside viewer</li><li>A first-person</li><li>A possessor of knowledge</li><li>An interpreter of information</li><li>A modeler of environment or self (or both)</li></ul><div><b>Knowledge is:</b></div></div><div dir="auto" style="color:rgba(0,0,0,0.87);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><ul><li>An apprehended truth</li><li>A true belief (bet)</li><li>Not always shareable (when self-referential)</li><li>A relationship between two objects or object and itself</li></ul><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><img src="cid:ii_l2d00itf0" alt="3_robots_tiny.png" width="320" height="118"><br></div><div>In addition to all 3 of these systems being able to tell you something is red, each could also be engineered do everything in your list.</div><div><br></div><div>Consciousness is less about functionality, than it is about "what is it like".</div></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I can agree with this statement. However we are only ever privileged to know "what it is like" in a single particular view at a single particular instant.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">When studying the plausible existence of this phenomenon in others, we are limited to analyzing third person observable properties, such as material composition, information content, and activities such as function and behavior.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">If certain functions or behaviors require a first person experience/experiencer, then this may provide a method by which we could study or at least detect consciousness in others.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="auto" style="color:rgba(0,0,0,0.87);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><div><br></div><div>A redness quality is not an intrinsic quality of the strawberry, it is a quality of your conscious knowledge of a strawberry. </div></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I agree redness is a feature that exists only in some conscious minds.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I believe there are infinite ways a mind can be organized and therefore sn infinite number of possible qualia. There's no fundamental limit on the number of colors that could exist and be perceived, even the number of primary colors is in theory infinite. What any of them "look like" comes down entirely to the mind in question.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="auto" style="color:rgba(0,0,0,0.87);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><div> The only difference between the first 2 is a red green signal inverter in its optic nerve, changing the definition of redness for that one. You need a dictionary to know what the word red means. The intrinsic colorness quality your brains represents knowledge of red things with is your definition of the word red.</div></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Then there's really no common meaning of the word red, given the different brains involved, just as there's no common meaning of the taste of cilantro (which tastes like an herb to some people and like soap to other people).</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="auto" style="color:rgba(0,0,0,0.87);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><div><br></div><div>All 3 could also be minimally engineered so that all they can do is tell you the strawberry, nothing more, including most of the stuff in your list. But I would still classify the first two as conscious, since both of their conscious knowledge is like something. The first one's redness is like your redness, the second one's is like your greenness, and the third one represents knowledge with strings of ones and zeros, all of which you need a dictionary to first know what the hardware representing each one or zero is, and after that, again, to know what the word 'red', made up of strings of those ones and zeros represents. </div></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Though perhaps differently consciousness, would you still say the third one is conscious? Is it like something to be able to discriminate between two or more possibilities and know which one it is? Even if that knowledge is of a single bit, is that not some small element of conscious awareness for which it is something to be like?</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Jason</div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="auto" style="color:rgba(0,0,0,0.87);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><div><br></div></div></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Apr 23, 2022 at 11:55 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</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"><div dir="ltr">I recently posted this question recently to the <a href="https://groups.google.com/g/everything-list/c/Ga8KWzjM_dk" rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">everything list</a>, but I know many here are also deeply interested in the topic of consciousness so, I thought I should post it to this group too. My question was:<div><br></div><div>These "artificial life" forms, (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq_mdJjNRPT11IF4NFyLcIWJ1C0Z3hTAX" rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">seen here</a>), have neural networks that evolved through natural selection, can adapt to a changing environment, and can learn to distinguish between "food" and "poison" in their environment.<div><br></div><div>If simple creatures like worms or insects are conscious, (because they have brains, and evolved), then wouldn't these artificial life forms be conscious for the same reasons?</div><div><br></div><div>Why or why not?</div></div><div><br></div><div>Jason</div></div>
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