[extropy-chat] Qualia should be blatantly obvious, very simple, and crystal clear.

[Brent Allsop]

Samantha Atkins,

 > Says you.  Please explain the difference.  It looks pretty empty to me.

Yes, you must be missing something or not 
thinking about this theory of perception and 
phenomenal properties in the right way because it 
should be blatantly obvious, very simple, and crystal clear.

Here is a big part of the way I think about it.

First lets construct a robot with stereoscopic 3D vision.

Lets give this robot 2 stereoscopic cameras that 
are an order of magnitude higher resolution than 
our own eyes.  These two cameras produce two 
pixel arrays of data that represents two 2D 
pictures of a strawberry it is looking at.  Lets 
also say the color depth of this information is 
also an order of magnitude deeper than the color 
depth we can perceive.  Lets give this robot some 
powerful parallel image processing machinery that 
can real time construct from these two 2D video 
images a 3D model of the strawberry.  Lets 
represent this 3D model with a simple 
high-resolution 3D array and call each point in 
the array a color “voxel” for volume picture element.

So, the final result is - for each point on the 
surface of the strawberry that reflects 700 
nanometer light, the corresponding voxel in this 
array in the mind of our robot has an abstract 
number representing red – something like 
FF0000.  Of course this number can be represented 
by everything from voltages on a set of wires or 
pits on a CD, to wholes punched in paper – and in 
fact anything in physics that can assume a 
causally detectable state with sufficient 
resolution will suffice.  So the only important 
part of this abstract information is its numeric value: FF0000.

Now, lets say we want our robot to be “self 
aware” so when it sees its arms it also produces 
a model of numbers in this same array that 
represent the location of its real arms that are 
able to pick up the strawberry.  In fact lets 
give it internal sensors of its entire self so 
there is a fairly complete model of itself in 
this same 3D array.  So, since it has knowledge 
of itself we can say it is self-aware.  And since 
all the visual knowledge is an order of magnitude 
greater resolution and depth than what we are 
visually aware of we can claim that the robot is 
an order of magnitude more visually aware of the strawberry than we are.

Now an interesting property of this poor robot – 
as we have designed it for efficiency purposes – 
is that it is being deceived.  It thinks its 
knowledge of the strawberry is the real 
strawberry and its knowledge of its arms picking 
up its knowledge of the strawberry are its real 
arms.  Especially since they track each other so 
accurately.  But we, the designers, know better 
and leave it at that – having faith that the 
robot will eventually be able to figure out how 
things really are on its own after philosophizing 
about how it might be directly aware of anything 
beyond its cause and effect eyes for centuries.

Now, when we look at a theory of ourselves, and 
how we are consciously aware of things we 
perceive – we can imagine that we might have very 
many similarities to this robot.  We have two 
eyes with reasonable resolution.  We have a 
powerful parallel image processing system that is 
able to convert 2 2D stereoscopic images into 3D 
information.  And for every corresponding point 
on the strawberry that our robot friend 
represents with FF0000, we represent the same 
point in our conscious world with – drum roll please – the quale red.

Now, if it is not crystal clear to you that the 
quale red we use to represent this information in 
our conscious world has some very important 
fundamental differences or if you will 
“qualities” from the abstract number our robot 
uses – then again – there is something about this 
theory of perception, consciousness, and qualia 
that you are missing or not properly thinking 
about.  Because it should be blatantly obvious, 
very simple, and crystal clear.  At least it 
seems that way to me when I think of it this way.

Brent Allsop