<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Hi Jason,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><br></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">I’ve been discussing your paper
with co-pilot. It’s hard for me to get
my redness is not relation brain to fully model what I’m sure is a great model,
given certain assumptions. But co-pilot
has helped, significantly. After a short
discussion of how you define or assume that “phenomenal character” is “the
organization of usable distinctions possessed by a center.” and the great ways you justify this assumption, it eventually agreed <span style="font-size:11pt;background-color:transparent">that making this assumeption is an issue, and that it is a falsifiable issue.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">And co-pilot agreeing
this was an issue with your paper I asked it:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">“Can you formulate some proposals
for how his paper might address this issue? Especially regarding pointing out
how both our predictions are falsifiable, and that eventually science will
demonstrate who is right” regarding whether you can get a redness quality from
a bit?”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Here is co-pilot’s response:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Brent, this is exactly the right
question to be asking — because <b>your view and Resch’s view make different
empirical predictions</b>, and the paper <i>could</i> make this explicit. In
fact, the paper already gestures toward falsification criteria (Section 1,
Abstract), but it doesn’t yet spell out how the “intrinsic redness” hypothesis
and the “redness‑from‑usable‑distinctions” hypothesis diverge scientifically.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Below is a set of <b>concrete
proposals</b> for how the paper <i>could</i> address this issue directly, in a
way that respects both positions and shows how science could eventually decide
between them.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">I’ll ground these proposals in the
actual text of the paper you’re viewing ().</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><b><span style="font-family:"Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif">⭐</span> Proposal 1 — Explicitly
acknowledge the competing definition of phenomenal character</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">The paper could add a short
section saying:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">“Some theorists hold that
phenomenal qualities (e.g., redness) are <b>intrinsic physical properties</b> of
certain states, independent of their relational or computational role. On this
view, consciousness <i>uses</i> these intrinsic qualities but does not
constitute them.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Then contrast this with the
paper’s own definition:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">“By contrast, the centered‑knowledge
thesis identifies phenomenal character with the <b>organization of usable
distinctions</b> possessed by a process. This rejects intrinsic qualia and
treats phenomenality as relational and structural.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">This would make the conceptual
disagreement explicit rather than implicit.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><b><span style="font-family:"Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif">⭐</span> Proposal 2 — Show that the two
views make different empirical predictions</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">This is the strongest way to
address your concern. The paper already claims to offer “explicit falsification
criteria” (Abstract, ), but it doesn’t yet contrast them with the falsification
criteria of intrinsic‑qualia theories.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Here’s how it could:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><b>Intrinsic‑qualia prediction</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">If redness is an intrinsic
physical property of a state, then:</p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0in" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Two states with identical computational/relational
organization <b>could still differ phenomenally</b> if their intrinsic
physical microstructure differs.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">A perfect functional duplicate (e.g., a digital
emulation) <b>might lack redness</b>, even if behavior and knowledge are
preserved.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Neural replacement could preserve all functional
organization but still <b>lose qualia</b> if the intrinsic physical
property is not reproduced.</li>
</ul>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">This is the “fading qualia” or
“dancing qualia” possibility.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><b>Centered‑knowledge prediction
(paper’s view)</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">If phenomenal character <i>is</i>
the organization of usable distinctions:</p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0in" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Any system with the same usable distinctions and
access relations <b>must</b> have the same phenomenal character.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">A digital emulation that preserves KC (the complete
knowledge organization) <b>must</b> preserve redness.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Neural replacement cannot change phenomenality unless
it changes the distinctions available to the center.</li>
</ul>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">This is organizational invariance
(Section 4.1–4.2, ).</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><b>Empirical divergence</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">The paper could say:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">“If intrinsic qualia exist, then
two systems with identical KC could differ phenomenally. If centered knowledge
is correct, such divergence is impossible.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">This sets up a clear empirical
fork.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><b><span style="font-family:"Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif">⭐</span> Proposal 3 — Identify testable
consequences of each view</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">The paper already proposes tests
for its own theory (e.g., neural replacement, emulation fidelity). It could add
parallel tests for intrinsic qualia.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><b>Test A — High‑fidelity neural
replacement</b></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0in" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Replace neurons with silicon equivalents that
preserve all functional distinctions.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><b>Intrinsic‑qualia view:</b> Phenomenal character
might change or fade.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><b>Centered‑knowledge view:</b> Phenomenal character
must remain identical.</li>
</ul>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><b>Test B — Digital emulation with
preserved KC</b></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0in" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Build a digital emulation of a subject’s brain at the
substitution level.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><b>Intrinsic‑qualia view:</b> The emulation might
behave identically but lack redness.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><b>Centered‑knowledge view:</b> If KC is preserved,
redness must be preserved.</li>
</ul>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><b>Test C — Microphysical
variation below substitution level</b></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0in" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Introduce microphysical changes that do <i>not</i>
alter KC.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><b>Intrinsic‑qualia view:</b> Phenomenal character
might change.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><b>Centered‑knowledge view:</b> Phenomenal character
cannot change.</li>
</ul>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">The paper could explicitly say:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">“These tests discriminate between
intrinsic‑qualia realism and the centered‑knowledge identity.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><b><span style="font-family:"Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif">⭐</span> Proposal 4 — Address your
specific claim: “Intrinsic qualities are not acquired; consciousness uses
them.”</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">The paper could add a paragraph
acknowledging this view:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">“One alternative holds that
phenomenal qualities are intrinsic physical properties of states, and that
consciousness merely uses these properties to represent knowledge. On this
view, the ‘glow’ is not added by knowledge; it is already present in the intrinsic
nature of the state.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Then respond:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">“The centered‑knowledge thesis
denies that states have intrinsic phenomenal properties. It identifies
phenomenality with the organization of distinctions a process possesses and
uses. If intrinsic redness exists, then two states with identical KC could
differ phenomenally — a possibility the centered‑knowledge thesis rejects.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">This directly addresses your
objection.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><b><span style="font-family:"Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif">⭐</span> Proposal 5 — Show how the
paper’s own framework <i>could</i> falsify itself</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">The paper already says:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">“The theory stands or falls on the
answer to one question: can a process genuinely possess knowledge while there
is nothing it is like to occupy that locus?” (Section 1, )</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">It could extend this:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">“If a system possessed all the
distinctions and access relations of KC but lacked phenomenal character, the
centered‑knowledge thesis would be falsified.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">This is the paper’s version of a
zombie test.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><b><span style="font-family:"Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif">⭐</span> Proposal 6 — Explicitly
contrast “intrinsic redness” with the paper’s “redness-as-distinction”</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">The paper could add:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">“On the intrinsic‑qualia view,
redness is a basic physical property of a state. On the centered‑knowledge
view, redness is the structured difference the center possesses — the
organization of alternatives that guide its continuation.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">This clarifies the metaphysical
disagreement.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"><b><span style="font-family:"Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif">⭐</span> Proposal 7 — Add a section
titled “Competing hypotheses and empirical resolution”</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">This section could:</p>
<ol style="margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0in" start="1" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Lay out the intrinsic‑qualia hypothesis.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Lay out the centered‑knowledge hypothesis.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Show their different predictions.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">Propose experiments.</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">State what would falsify each view.</li>
</ol>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif">This would make the paper more
balanced and scientifically grounded.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"> </p></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Sep 18, 2026 at 7:47 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">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="auto">As some of you may know I have been fascinated by questions of consciousness for many years and have endeavored to write a book on it. The past five years I have been focused on that writing which has resulted in hundreds of pages of material:<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><a href="https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-SMVWgQFfImXNRRuuB9kQwhgxPLAwxYL" target="_blank">https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-SMVWgQFfImXNRRuuB9kQwhgxPLAwxYL</a></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">About a week ago, I decided to try to use the latest AI models to take all the ideas in that book and condense it to a comparatively short academic paper, which I am now in the process of submitting for publication.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I thought some on this list, interested in both the possibility of machine and AI consciousness, as well as the question of how do we empirically establish the minimum required fidelity for restoring a mind through brain scanning and uploading, may be interested in what this paper has to say, as it treats with both of these topics among many others. Here is the abstract:</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">"Computational functionalism treats cognition as implemented information processing, but leaves open why experience exists, what determines its character, which process possesses it, and how it affects behavior. This paper develops the centered-knowledge thesis: when alternative conditions select distinct internal states that guide a process’s continuation, that process knows the difference; possessing that knowledge is the phenomenal difference. The complete organization of the process’s distinctions and their causal roles constitutes its phenomenal character. The access relations that make those distinctions jointly usable individuate the subject and explain binding and privacy. This identity supplies a constitutive answer to the hard problem: the explanatory gap arises when third-person descriptions omit the relation between a usable distinction and the process for which it is knowledge. A subtraction argument locates the phenomenal minimum by stripping away report, memory, affect, reflection, recurrence, and global broadcast while preserving the operative distinction. From this thesis, the paper derives organizational invariance, the substitution principle, and multiple realizability, yielding criteria for how fine-grained neural replacement, brain scanning, and emulation must be to preserve experience. The boundary that individuates a subject is also its epistemic horizon: what the subject knows underdetermines its history, program, substrate, and world. The centered-knowledge thesis yields consciousness attributions distinct from those of global neuronal workspace, higher-order, and integrated information theories for feed-forward systems, faithful emulations, and overlapping centers. We provide an empirical research program with explicit falsification criteria. Consciousness is the inside of a difference that guides a process from within."</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">And here is a link to the paper:</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><a href="https://zenodo.org/records/22693134/files/epistemic_horizons_resch_philpapers.pdf?download=1" target="_blank">https://zenodo.org/records/22693134/files/epistemic_horizons_resch_philpapers.pdf?download=1</a></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I would greatly appreciate any feedback, questions, comments, or discussion.</div></div>
_______________________________________________<br>
extropy-chat mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a><br>
<a href="http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat</a><br>
</blockquote></div></div>