[extropy-chat] Qualia Bet.

[gts]

On Thu, 01 Dec 2005 22:10:05 -0500, Robin Hanson <rhanson at gmu.edu> wrote:

> I think it is more accurate to say that we are built to assume that we  
> have
> direct experience.  Our brain is made to tell us that of course we have  
> it. But assuming something is different from having evidence of it.

Seems true to me. Obviously for example we don't have direct experience of  
light... if we have experience of color at all then it's experience of the  
electro-chemical signal sent up the optic nerve to the visual center in  
the back of the brain.

My field of vision seems to be near the front of my brain, somewhere near  
the general vicinity of my eyes, but actually it's in the back of my  
brain. Obviously an illusion.

I think it's true that qualia are in some sense abstractions or mental  
constructs (after all, what else could they possibly be?), but I wonder if  
they have objective reality in a rational or Platonic sense, in the way  
that numbers seem to. If so then perhaps they *are* communicable, similar  
to the way 1+1=2 is communicable.

-gts