Spirits (was RE: [extropy-chat] Qualia Bet.)

[Jef Allbright]

Sorry--One wrong word in my previous statement.  Corrected below.
- Jef

On 12/2/05, Jef Allbright <jef at jefallbright.net> wrote:
> On 12/2/05, David McFadzean <davidmc at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 11/28/05, Brent Allsop <allsop at extropy.org> wrote:
> >
> > > When, in your field of vision you see a patch of red, next to a patch of
> > > green, next to a patch of a new phenomenal property that you have never
> > > experienced before (say a tetrachromat is effing to you who is a normal
> > > trichromat) you will know you are effing.  Even if it is turtles all the way
> > > down (yea right!) who will care?  Right?
> >
> > I don't think so. Let's assume that we experiment with a real effing machine.
> > We find a group of stones that all look like the same colour (blue) to us
> > normal trichromats but a tetrachromat is able to separate the stones into
> > two groups. We can tell the tetrachromat perceives them differently because
> > they can repeatedly separate them into the same groups even if they are
> > first randomized outside the tetrachromat's sight. Let's assume that the
> > distinction becomes obvious to normal trichromats if an ultraviolet
> > light is used to illuminate the stones.
> >
> > Now we hook you up the tetrachromat with the effing machine and find that
> > you too can repeatedly separate the stones into two groups in normal light.
> > Before they all looked blue, but when hooked up to the effing machine they
> > appear to you as dark blue and light blue. So you separate the stones and your
> > choices are validated after with the ultraviolet light.
> >
> > So does that mean you experienced the same qualia as the tetrachromat?
> > There is no way to tell. It is possible, but it is also possible the
> > tetrachromat
> > sees the stones as dark green and light green, or as yellow and orange, or
> > as rough and smooth, or as warm and cold, or something else we have no
> > words for.
> >
> > So even if the effing machine works it still doesn't tell us what it
> > like to be a tetrachromat.
> >
>
> It's more subtle than that.  There is no homunculus within, observing
> relative differences in qualia as if there were such a reference
> frame.  The only way for anyone-including the system itself--to know
> what the system experiences is by interrogating the system.
>
> - Jef
>