<div dir="auto"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container" dir="auto"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Sep 29, 2026, 1:11 PM Brent Allsop 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:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><br><div>Hi Jason,</div><div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><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" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">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" rel="noreferrer">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"></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div></blockquote></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">[Snip]</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container" dir="auto"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><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="auto"><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></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">But note it is your assumption that consciousness is the apprehension of physical properties, rather than apprehension of higher level properties.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">While I allow that we can do much to discover the nature of one person's qualitative structure, as well as perform experiments on ourselves and how changing ones brain affects one's own experience, for reasons I make clear in the paper, direct comparison of the type you say "your redness is like my greenness" I don't see as possible.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">But perhaps in your conversations with AI on how to construct a test, you could work out how a neural ponytail could relay the same experience to two minds.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">But as I see it, the neural ponytail argument supports functialism. Let's say we have a sample of some physical thing that has this redness property sitting in a petri dish on a table. Then we have a long neural ponytail connected to this petri dish to directly interface with this redness material and the other end connected to someone like Mary who has never seen red because she lives in a black ad white room all her life.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">When we hook her up, she explains ahh, so that is what red is. But then, we connect the neural pony tail to another petri dish, this time containing elemental greenness. And she says ooh, I like green even more.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">But then: just what is the neural pony tail transmitting from the dish to her brain? None of the elemental redness or greenness leaves the petri dish, none of it flows through the neurons of the ponytail tail. The only thing that could change is the pattern of firings. Is this how you see it working?</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">If so, what changes if we preserve the same pattern of neuron firings in the other end of the ponytail, but without the elemental redness or greenness, would that same pattern of firing not induce Mary to have the same behavior? If not, how can she directly apprehend what is at the other end of the ponytail other than by some psychic ability?</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Or is your idea that the pony tail extends her brain so that it directly feels redness and greenness by direct contact with it? So then, is the feeling and experiencing of green happening only at the neurons in the petri dish and not in her visual cortex?</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">[Snip]</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container" dir="auto"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><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"><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></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I think a useful exercise to understand the functionalist view is to put yourself back a few hundred years ago and imagine a scientist asking the same sorts qustions about life as you do about consciousness, questions like: "What in the description of all these tissues, humors, and organs, is the description of life?"</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">It would then be strange for the ultimate answer to turn out to be some specific material or force or property inherent to some tissue.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Rather, the answer turned out to rest on a number of high level functional capacities, of metabolism, reproduction, growth and repair, etc. rather than a new force or different kind of matter. It turned out what separated life from non-life was not the kind of matter, only how it was arranged. That is the functionalist view on what separates consciousness from non conscious, how a particular system is arranged and organized, rather than how it is constituted.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">[Snip]</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container" dir="auto"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><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"></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. </div></div></div></blockquote></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Here is an example that might help you see my understanding of what redness could be.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">An autonomous vehicle is in a sense "nothing but" a bunch of electronics. And yet, it can do things like "recognize a stop sign". But recognizing stop signs isn't a property of electronics as the field of electronics is generally understood.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">If new properties like stop sign recognition can emerge when we put a lot of electronics together in a particular kind of organization, then could it not also be the same for cases like recognizing red vs. green? Where a new property (redness) emerges from putting a bunch of neurons together in a particular kind of organization, rather than it being an innate fundamental property of the low level individual neurons?</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">We accept "emergence" for explaining how we get life from dead atoms, or stop sign recognition out of a bunch of transistors, why assume redness cannot be an emergent property as well?</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container" dir="auto"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div> If it cannot aprehend the physical qualities on which it is instantiated, it isn't functioning correctly.</div></div></div></blockquote></div><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container" dir="auto"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><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></div></blockquote></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">If you deleted "physical" in the above sentence I would agree. I see this as similar to saying "life consists of chemical properties." True in a sense, but it does more to obscure than illuminate.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container" dir="auto"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><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></div></blockquote></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I am very anxious to see the result when you were ready to share!</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Jason</div></div>