[extropy-chat] qualia

[Jeff Davis]

--- Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 23, 2005 at 02:47:14PM -0500, gts wrote:
> 
> > Neuroscience falls under the general rubric of
> *physicalism* referenced  
> > several times in the article.
> 
> Oh, it is so easy to deny reality
>
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/trey-ellis/the-right-hasnt-cornered_b_7876.html
> anything that doesn't kill you immediately doesn't
> obviously exist.
> Nyah, nyah, I don't see you. Ksht.
>  
> > It seems physicalism can tell us nothing about the
> subject. It cannot tell  
> 
> Right. Empirical science is totally useless, agreed.
> All that pesky knowledge, and the
> artifact trappings. Burn them all, I say. Smash
> them, and go back to nature.
> Naked, with a pointy stick, in the Serengeti.

Go Eugene!  Sometimes I just love this list.

> 
> > us what is like to be a bat, or what it is like
> for Brent to see the color  
> > red.
> 
> It is relatively easy to make you feel how to like
> to be a bat, by gradually turning
> you into a bat (such a technology will eventually
> exist). Unfortunately, by turning
> you back into a human you will no longer remember,
> unless you'd settle for some fake
> memories (or decide to remain a bat a priori). But
> then, taking mind-altering drugs 
> is much easier, so why bother?

Yeah, baby!  We're out of the box now. :-}

And I'm thinking, it you could switch back and forth
rapidly from human to bat to human to bat maybe then
you'd get some hint, as a human, as to the nature of
'batness'.  

As unimaginative, unbold, and unoriginal as it may be,
I would like to start with switching to female.  Check
out the 'feel' of that.  The regular feel, not the PMS
feel,...at first anyway. 
>  
> > "If physicalism is to be defended, the
> phenomenological features must  
> > themselves be given a physical account. But when
> we examine their  
> > subjective character it seems that such a result
> is impossible. The reason  
> 
> What does this suppose to mean? If my denial of
> reality is to be defended,
> I can be burned at a stake with a cherubic,
> subjective smile on my lips? 
> 
> > is that every subjective phenomenon is essentially
> connected with a single  
> > point of view, and it seems inevitable that an
> objective, physical theory  
> > [i.e., any argument from neuroscience] will
> abandon that point of view."
> 
> I think my other shoe is a hippo. It seems, my other
> foot has abandoned
> that point of view, and is now objectively missing.

The box disappears from view over the virtual yet
physical horizon.

> > Correct me if you like, Brent, but your theory
> seems to be physicalist, at  
> > least in so much as it seems to reject mind-body
> dualism. And as Nagel  
> 
> I emphatically refoot the shoe-sandal dualism as
> physicalist in its toe-nailture.
> Pedo-oral inserts <muffled mumble>

"We'll meet again
Don't know where, don't know when
But I'm sure we'll meet again some sunny day."*

*Dr. Strangelove reference
 
> > states here, "If physicalism is to be defended,
> phenomenological features  
> > must themselves be given a physical account." This
> what we've been asking  
> > you to do.
> > 
> > >Them philosophers are totally bat-guano.
> > 
> > :) But empirical science seems just as lost here.
> 
> No, empirical science has no trouble tickling your
> brain to evoke all
> kind of interesting experiences.
> 
> Can telling fancy stories do such stupid tricks?
> 
> Thought not.

So, concluding for the moment our exi-box
peregrinations, we return, refreshed perhaps, to our
comfortable and familiar home turf.  There, we repose
thoughtful, leaning against the once-confining box
which now takes the aspect of a child's playpen. Once
protective and otherwise useful to us in our infancy,
it is now transformed to a monument, an armrest, and a
vantage point, from whence we gaze upon our new "box",
the unplumbed universe with its seen limits and its
unseen mysteries.

Bigger than a breadbox.

Best, Jeff Davis

     Aspiring Transhuman / Delusional Ape
           (Take your pick)
                 Nicq MacDonald




	
		
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