[extropy-chat] Qualia Bet

Brandon Reinhart transcend at extropica.com
Tue Dec 27 05:20:06 UTC 2005


> This goes straight to the question that Marc and I were  
discussing: should color be considered a primary quality of objects, real  
and intrinsic in the object in some platonic sense?

Hmm. Would it help to talk about qualia that are not related to objects?

I experience "visual snow." This is a condition I have had for as long as I
can remember. It's like television static, overlayed on top of everything I
see. In a dark room, it is vibrant, fast moving, and beautiful. I have had
it so long I rarely think about it consciously, so my brain filters it out.
If I focus on it, I can see colors and patterns that I can't really describe
because they are so rapidly transient I can't grasp them long enough to
label them.

The only reason I don't think this stuff exists in the observed world is
because other people don't see it. I conclude that it is either inside my
eye (which is probably not the case, nothing odd about my eyes have been
observed by optometrists) OR that it is some kind of neurological error.

Either way, these are qualia. It is perceived and has a cause, but it does
not have a material source the same way an orange rind's orangeness has a
material source it can be traced to. There's no "bearing on known physical
reality" here; it may be some side effect of an improperly functioning
electrochemical process in the brain. (I'm not talking about "floaters."
Visual snow is different...)

I'm not sure how to properly work this into a discussion of qualia, but it
seems like it would fit in there somehow. I googled for 'Qualia AND "visual
snow"' and found nothing useful.

Brandon




More information about the extropy-chat mailing list