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

Brent Allsop allsop at extropy.org
Thu Dec 1 16:43:32 UTC 2005



Eugene Leitl,

> On Thu, Dec 01, 2005 at 02:24:35AM -0700, Brent Allsop wrote:
> 
> > represents with FF0000, we represent the same
> > point in our conscious world with ? drum roll please ? the quale red.
> 
> No. We represent that as a neuronal activity pattern.
> The robot has no more internal view of its hardware
> layer than you have of your pink and squishy wetware
> layer between your ears.

Ahhh!  This is the type of response I was hopping to get from this post.  As
I suspected, you are missing a key piece of this theory.  And to me this
statement clearly shows what it is you are missing.

Now notice, I am not saying this qualia theory is absolutely the one that
will turn out true when the scientific evidence finally comes in.  (But I am
still willing to bet that it is and that in 10 years, because of this effing
evidence I claim will show up by then, you will understand.)

To understand this theory - and to understand what qualia is within this
theory you must understand something that statements like this reveal you
have no clue about.

Of course there is a "neuronal activity pattern" - this is part of the
theory (I prefer to call this a "neural correlate").  But what I am talking
about here is the view of things from our subjective perspective.  I am
talking about how we have been architected to know what this information is
like - at least from a subjective point of view.  If you understood this
concept properly you would not say something like "the robot has no more
internal view of its hardware layer than you have of your pink and squishy
wetware."

If you ask the robot what his representation of red is like, and if it was
architected to be honest and aware of it, it will say something like "Duu, I
represent red with FF0000."  We are most definitely architected such that we
know what our representations are "like" at least from a subjective point of
view.  Our knowledge of the difference between red and green is what enables
us to be consciously or subjectively aware of the red strawberry amongst the
green leaves.  When you ask a person a question like - "if you assumed this
qualia theory of perception is like reality - what would you say your brain
represents red with in your consciousness awareness?"  And if this person
did indeed correctly understand this theory (and or if this theory turned
out to be true and this person was well experienced in effing new qualities
he had never experienced before) - he would say something more like: "If
this qualia theory of perception is right (or as effing has demonstrably
proved to me), the quale red, due to its ineffable nature, cannot be
adequately described to you through abstract communication.  You must
experience it yourself, so that your subjective architecture can know about
such things, to know what it is phenomenally like."

Are we making progress?  Does this help?

Brent Allsop






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