[extropy-chat] Consciousness is a process in multi-dimensional time! [Was: Qualia Bet]

[gts]

On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 00:28:26 -0500, Marc Geddes <marc.geddes at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> Right.  Proto-Qualia exist in objects.  Qualia does exist objectively,  
> but *not* as a primary property of physical objects.

I want to call these proto-qualia 'objective qualia' and say that it takes  
a suitably equipped being to detect them. I want to say fried green  
tomatoes are objectively green (at least before they are fried) and that  
any being with eyes to see should be able to see their green-ness.

I want to reject the notion of a Cartesian Theater in which we represent  
the external world to ourselves via something analogous to a subjective  
movie screen, and say instead that the mind experiences the world  
directly. As I mentioned in another message, the Cartesian Theater leads  
to an infinite regress. If I am the 'little person' or 'homunculus' inside  
my head who watches these subjective movies about my external world, then  
shouldn't I have yet another subjective movie and another homunculus  
inside my homunculus? And so on and so on? :)

This is not to say we have no mental models of ourselves in the world. I  
think we do have these models but that they are tools of intelligence  
rather than of awareness. I think we experience the world and then form  
mental models about our experience.  The mental models help us solve  
problems. They help us (or our  future AI robots) to answer the question,  
"What should I do about my experience?" but they are not prerequisites to  
experience.

So are these proto-qualia platonic? Seems reasonable to me. This makes  
them objective, even if we may dispute whether they are really 'in' the  
objects of our experience. I would say they are in the object in the same  
way that the idealized platonic sphere is 'in' a baseball.

> I can eliminate a subjective component from my definition.  Let me define
> Qualia as composed of a combination of a Meme and an object.

Do you ever question your theory for reason of it being so complicated?  
Seven-aspect neutral monism?? What are these seven different aspects of  
the one neutral stuff? I confess I have not yet studied your paper in  
detail, but perhaps you can give me a hint.

-gts