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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 01/05/2023 22:34, Darin Sunley
wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.704.1682976867.847.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
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<div>Because neural firing patterns don't have a color (they're
mushy gray, just like everything else in the brain), nothing
about their physical properties has a direct causal
relationship with color experiences. Color experiences are
correlated to neural firing patterns, but to flatly declare
that they are caused by neural firing patterns is begging the
entire question [and very probably wrong].</div>
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</blockquote>
<br>
No, colour experiences aren't <i>correlated with</i> or <i>caused</i>
<i>by</i> neural firing patterns, they <b>are</b> neural firing
patterns. How is that not obvious? There's nothing else they could
be. The dynamic information patterns, embodied as neural firing
patterns, are what we call subjective experiences. They probably
need to have a certain structure or degree of complexity in order to
be conscious experiences, and that's something yet to be discovered,
but the general principle is not only sound, but inevitable (if the
patterns just <i>cause</i> the experience, then what is doing the
experiencing? In what are the patterns causing the experience to
happen? Doesn't make sense, does it? No, the patterns are the
experience).<br>
<br>
This is similar to the confusion I mentioned earlier, caused by the
terminology 'my mind'. You don't <i>have</i> a mind, you <b>are</b>
a mind.<br>
<br>
These two misconceptions have the same cause, I think. Dualism. Once
you properly ditch that, these things are blindingly obvious.<br>
<br>
Ben<br>
<br>
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