[ExI] Digital Consciousness .

[Brent Allsop]

No, No, No.  You guys still aren't getting it.  Let me try, yet again, 
in hopefully a better and more complete (thanks to your continued help) 
way of describing what I believe.

This 'third' class of possibilities you are talking about is obviously 
accepted by everyone I know to be absurd.  Yet everyone in your camp 
seems to spend all their time fighting this strawman, as if everyone was 
giving it serious consideration.  James Carroll wrote and published an 
entire paper fighting this straw man 'third' class of epiphenomena 
possibilities idea.  You guys need to stop making fun of everyone not in 
your camp, as if they are talking about this 'third' class of 
possibilities.  Including things where you don't notice fading qualia, 
or any other kind of" epiphenomena" that has no causal correlate in reality.

(Note:  Since I mentioned James Carroll, and his paper, and since I'd 
like his input on this, I've CCed him.  And I've CCed Steven Lehar, in 
case we can get some of his always brilliant feedback on this 
epiphenomena issue.)

Even Chalmers wastes a huge portion of the words in the paper focusing 
on this absurd idea that nobody thinks is in any way important or 
credible, or worth wasting time on.  Because chalmers wastes so much 
time on this possobility, everyone redicules it as if he does give it 
serious consideration.  All this is so frustrating.  That is why 
Canonizer.com is so important, so everyone doesn't waste their time on 
arguments like this, which nobody takes as a serious possibility.

If anyone here is giving this 'third' epiphenomenal class of 
possibilities any serious consideration, please speak up now, so we can 
quickly nip any such absurd idea in the bud, sufficiently so we don't 
have to return to it, yet again.  Either way, will all of you stop 
assuming I do believe in this epiphenomena possibility, and arguing 
against it, assuming you are refuting my working hypothesis by doing so.

Property Dualism theories are predicting that there is very real causal 
properties to a redness qualia, and that through these causal 
properties, they have a huge influence in the world, through our 
consciousness.

Property Dualism is also predicting that these causal properties of 
redness are some necessary and sufficient subset of the causal 
properties we already fully understand, at least abstractly and 
behaviorally (just not yet qualitatively).  We are not predicting there 
is some additional new magic, quantum, or whatever causal properties 
that just haven't been discovered yet.

The qualitative natures of these causal properties, suffer from the 
'quale interpretation problem', making them blind to traditional cause 
and effect based observation, because, by definition, all such 
observation involves multiple arbitrary mediums, being interpreted as 
something they are not in some abstracted way (requiring 
interpretation).  And if you don't know how to properly interpret that 
something is representing a redness qualitative nature, you will be 
blind to it, while still getting the abstracted and or behavioral 
information they are being properly interpreted as representing.

The system will be aware of the phenomenal qualities of both redness and 
greenness, and it will be saying glutamate (or some Functionally active 
pattern, or whatever you predict are the neural correlates of redness) 
is the only thing that has a redness quality to it.  In other words, 
when you look at the system, via abstracting cause and effect based 
observation, all you will see is a high fidelity detector of glutamate, 
that picks it, because of the causal properties of glutamate.  Nothing 
else but real glutamate will produce a "yes, that has my redness 
quality" abstracted response.

Of course, you will be able to implement some additional hardware in the 
system, such as something that will communicate to the system that knows 
what a redness quality is like, and you could do something like, wire it 
so that it knows that this other thing is a greenness quality, (or worse 
some abstracted set of bits, like 0xFF0000, that is meant to be 
interpreted as if it has a redness quality (in addition to interpreting 
as if it is the abstract idea of 'red') despite the fact that it, by 
definition, does not have the redness quality.

Only when you do obviously lying and blatant enginered interpretation of 
things that do not have a redness quality, as if they are something that 
does have a redness quality, will you be able to get the entire system 
to start behaving in a way that can be interpreted as if it really is 
aware of both the qualitative nature of it's knowledge, and the 
abstracted nature.  All of this will have profound and obvious 
'interpretations' being made, and have huge effects on what it will be 
like, subjectively, and qualitatively, for the system - all producing 
very different behavioral responses.

Another critically important issue is how property dualism is predicting 
this stuff can be effed, in various strong and week ways.  In other 
words, once you know the necessary and sufficient causal properties that 
reliably produce a redness quality, you will then know how to interpret 
the abstract informaiton of the behavior you are observing.  This 
grounding of the symbols will then let you know the qualitative nature 
of the redness quality (and it's neural correlate causal properties), 
and not just the abstracted and behavior idea of 'red'.  To say nothing 
of the stronger means of effing the ineffable, where two hemispheres, or 
two brains, are aware of the same causal properties that is behaving the 
way it does, because of the ineffable qualitative nature it has, which 
we can experience.

And, the prediction is, as I believe Stathis has admitted.  Once you 
replace significant portions of the brain (way more than just one 
neuron) with some quite sophisticated interpretation hardware which can 
interpret a serious of ones and zeros that by definition do not have a 
redness quality to them, as one that does, you will never be able to 
eff, or know that the ephiphinomena only you guys think others think 
could exist epiphinominally with such.  All of this will have effing 
profound and obvious causal and subjective behavior, as you attempt the 
neural substitution.

Can we now drop the worthless epiphenomena issue, once and for all, and 
stop wasting everyone's time and assuming anyone that thinks different 
than you is wrong because you think they believe in such, and from now 
on focus on what is important?  And that is what is the set of causal 
(or informational?) properties that has the redness quality we 
experience, which we represent and choose abstract information like 
'red' with because of it's qualitative nature?

Brent Allsop





On 4/28/2013 6:58 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> On 28/04/2013, at 1:55 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 11:08 PM, Stathis Papaioannou
>> <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> As I have explained, it is not fading qualia as such that is the problem.
>>> Qualia would fade and disappear with progressive brain damage. The problem
>>> is fading qualia that you cannot notice and that bring about no change in
>>> behaviour.
>> ### Well, this unnoticeable loss of qualia never happened to me ("I"
>> would have noticed, I am good at feeling my own qualia) but it could
>> be a daily occurrence to billions of humans. However, since all of
>> them seem to be able to interact well with me, whether they
>> unnoticeably (to me and to them) lose their qualia or not, I would be
>> inclined to see it as a minor problem, if any.
>>
>> You may notice the above is tongue-in-cheek but the point I am trying
>> to get across is actually serious. Why would anybody care about
>> something that by definition is completely unconnected to to anything
>> in our lives? (which consist of subjective existence and "objective"
>> behavior, objective in the sense of being the subject of other beings
>> perceptions and thinking)
>>
>> ---------------------
>>
>>> The more serious problem, however, is what it would mean if your qualia can
>>> fade and disappear without you noticing. Your visual cortex could be
>>> replaced with an artificial one you would declare that you could see
>>> normally, describe scenes normally, watch films and are laugh at the funny
>>> parts and be scared at the scary parts. Essentially, this would mean qualia
>>> do not exist, as they make neither a subjective or objective difference.
>>> Would you be happy with that conclusion?
>> ### Describing a scene always involves referring to different qualia
>> ("red" riding hood, "cute" chick), so if you truthfully describe a
>> movie fed through a mechanical device that replaced your visual
>> processing centers, then you, a combination of the mechanical and the
>> neuronal, are experiencing qualia.
> I agree that it would be absurd to say that the qualia are fading if this makes no subjective or objective difference. This is why I think it is impossible to reproduce the behaviour of a brain component without also reproducing any associated consciousness.
>
>>> Even weirder would be if your behaviour was unchanged but you did notice
>>> your qualia had changed. You would desperately be trying to tell everyone
>>> you were blind but your vocal cords would not obey you, and you would
>>> observe helplessly as they said everything was fine and describe perfectly
>>> things you could not see. Would you be happy with that conclusion?
>> ### Now, this situation would require non-equivalent substitution of
>> parts of your mind, and therefore would not be a valid consideration
>> in this context.
> It would mean that you were thinking with something other than your brain, which is not impossible, but does go contrary to all scientific evidence.
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