<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><br><div>Hi Jason,</div><div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Sep 26, 2026 at 11:28 PM 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"><div><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Sep 25, 2026, 5:29 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" 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"><div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family:Aptos,sans-serif;font-size:11pt;background-color:transparent">Hi Jason,</span></div><div dir="ltr">
<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. </p></div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">That is wonderful to hear Brent. That is a great application of AI. :-) I appreciate your engagement and in particular thank you and co-pilot for the many great ideas below, more to say:</div><div dir="auto"><br></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"><div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Aptos,sans-serif"> 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></div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">That is good news (to me), it means it is a scientific theory we can test and falsify, so we're not idly speculating in pure philosophy.</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 dir="ltr"><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></div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The paper does have an explicit mention of this idea under "11.3 Challenges for nonfunctionalist theories" where I give the example of using different material substrates, I.e. silicon, germanium or carbon to build a computer that emulates a conscious mind, and whether this could manifest any difference in demonstrated behavior.</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>You're leaving out the most important 'function' of consciousness: its ability to apprehend what physical properties are like. i.e. the ability to answer questions like: What is redness like for you? or, "My redness is like your greenness, both of which we call red."</div><div> </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 dir="auto"><span style="background-color:transparent">This is under substrate intrinsicism, which is the general name I use for theories like yours that say a particular material is needed. I recently learned there is another theory not unlike yours, called Russellian Monism, which also holds that the "what" of what something is made of is what carries the consciousness properties rather than the "how" of the dynamical behavior. I am working on an updated version of the paper to discuss Russellian Monism. I think this new paper actually can explain where the intuition comes from in novel way.</span></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Here is what the currently available version of my paper (not the new one) offers as a challenge to substrate intrinsicism:</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">"Substrate intrinsicism. Computation is specified abstractly: a physical imple-</div><div dir="auto">mentation must realize the relevant state transitions, but it requires no particular</div><div dir="auto">material. Conway’s Game of Life makes this vivid: its simple, fully specified local</div><div dir="auto">rules support a universal Turing machine (Rendell, 2016). Consider three computers</div><div dir="auto">implementing the same high-level process, one in silicon, another in germanium, and a</div><div dir="auto">third in carbon-nanotube transistors. Suppose every distinction, transition, access rela-</div><div dir="auto">tion, and temporal dependency constitutive of the center is preserved. Their materials,</div><div dir="auto">energy use, and microscopic histories differ, but nothing in the implemented process</div><div dir="auto">unfolds differently. The same alternatives become available, enter the same comparisons</div><div dir="auto">and memories, and guide the same judgments and actions. To assign them different</div><div dir="auto">experiences solely because their materials differ would make phenomenal character</div><div dir="auto">vary without any difference the processes themselves could encounter."</div><div dir="auto"></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">In short, there's no "causal path" available through which any difference in experience could be made know. To the process. Nothing different would enter its memories, and no differences would be reflected in its speech. All the internal states of its mind program are one for one identical, so then, in what could the phenomenal difference consist in and how could the subject come to know this difference?</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"><div dir="ltr">
<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></div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I don't have a clear picture of how a process could use or access these intrinsic qualities.</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>We simply know there is some process that can 'subjectively bind' 2 or more elemental qualities into one unified gestalt subjective experience.</div><div>We can objectively observe all this, it's just that the resulting descriptions of the qualities' behavior don't tell you what they are like.</div><div>We simply need to ask questions like: "Which of all those descriptions is a description of redness?"" and we need the resulting dictionary between the subjective and the objective.</div><div> </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 dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The move Russellian Monism takes is to say the same intrinsic qualities that explain consciousness are what drive the dynamics of physics. But I think this also leaves us at an explanatory dead end. Physics doesn't give us access to intrinsic properties, so no physical experiment could ever tell us anything about them, why they work the way they do, or how they connect to any third person observable dynamical physical effect.</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"><div dir="ltr">
<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></div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">States this way, the only difference between your theory and mine is a matter of scale. You say a phenomenal state it is identical to a low level state, whereas I say a phenomenal state identical with a high level state.</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 dir="ltr">
<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></ul></div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Yes this is the example I give with the silicon, germanium and carbon nanotube transistors. It is a different micro physical state, but the same high level informational/computational state.</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"><div dir="ltr"><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">A perfect functional duplicate (e.g., a digital
emulation) <b>might lack redness</b>, even if behavior and knowledge are
preserved.</li></ul></div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">But if behavior is preserved by running the same high level program, how could any behavioral difference enter the picture? </div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>As I was saying, you ask the system, "What is redness like for you?" And there must be some set of physics that constitutes that redness. If it cannot aprehend the physical qualities on which it is instantiated, it isn't functioning correctly.</div><div><br></div><div> </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 dir="auto">If no behavioral change occurs, then how then could this test reveal any difference in the phenomenal experiences of the computers based on different substrates? How do we discover of any of them lack redness or experience redness differently when the behavior is known a priori to be identical?</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">This is why my paper takes the path of justifying the theory abductively (from the wide number of facts it can explain) </div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Again, you're leaving out the simple fact that consciousness apprehends physical properties.</div><div><br></div><div> </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 dir="auto">thereby showing it is a powerful and useful theory. This is a limitation all theories of consciousness face, because each of us is trapped in our own view, we can never see what anyone else sees. So unlike most theories in science which depend on repeatable objective results, consciousness theories (being designed to describe the subjective) can't use many of the standard scientific methods.</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"><div dir="ltr"><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">Neural replacement could preserve all functional
organization but still <b>lose qualia</b> if the intrinsic physical
property is not reproduced.</li></ul></div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">My new paper (will be ready in a few days) makes some powerful arguments against this possibility (of maintaining organizational equivalence but losing qualia i.e. zombies).</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 dir="ltr"><ul style="margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0in" type="disc">
</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></div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Essentially where your theory and mine diverge comes down to whether the intrinsic redness sits below the "substitution level" or above it.</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Yes. We are simply making different predictions about the nature of qualities, and it is up to the experimentalists to demonstrate which theory is false.</div><div> </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 dir="auto"> If it is a high level property that sits above the substitution level, then your theory and mine can be seen as equivalent. But if the property sits below, that is, it it is some feature or property of a thing that can be used to build a universal Turing machine, then when sitting in this space as a building block of a computer it must necessarily exist below the substitution level for any program this computer runs. It would then be causally isolated from having any effect on the process, and whether this property is present or not at that low level, makes no difference to the evolution of this program. It will unfold the same way regardless.</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 dir="ltr">
<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></div></div></blockquote></div></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I might suggest as something to try: take all of your writings and thoughts on your theory of consciousness and ask a frontier model AI to put it together in an organized paper in a similar manner as I did for my ideas. I started using OpenAI but recently switched to Claude Fable and have found it far better and faster. It can do much more in each step without messing things up and builds new PDFs in seconds rather than minutes. It's ability to research and find relevant citations in the literature is also quite good (though not perfect). I think this will make your ideas much easier to share with certain people, and you will also learn a lot from the experience (I certainly did). It will help you frame your own ideas relative to others in the field, point out people who have agreed with or defended ideas like your own, point out challenges similar theories face, and can recommend how to go about testing your theory.</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Thanks, this is very helpful. I've gotten started on this, and it is very helpful.</div><div> <a href="http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"></a><br>
</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div>