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

[Robin Hanson]

At 05:51 PM 11/28/2005, Brent Allsop wrote:
> > Whatever additional stuff you find that correlates with phenomenal
> > properties, how will you know that *that* is qualia?  We can already
> > look at brains and see that their activity correlates with phenomenal
> > properties.  How will this new stuff be different, so that we have more
> > confidence that it is qualia?
>
>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.

I don't see why messing physically with brains, perhaps even just via
ingesting odd chemicals, could not produce new phenomenal properties.
So I don't see how making this happen via some new stuff could be taken
as evidence that this new stuff is qualia.



Robin Hanson  rhanson at gmu.edu  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Associate Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
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