[ExI] Fwd: Paper on "Detecting Qualia" presentation at 2015 MTA conference

Sun Feb 1 12:52:12 UTC 2015

On 1 February 2015 at 08:41, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at canonizer.com
<javascript:;>> wrote:
>
> Hi Stathis,
>
> It's great to hear from you.  And the target audience of this paper, is
> intelligent people like you, so I really need help understanding how best
to
> comunicate to people with this POV.  So, thank you for reading, and for
> jumping in here.
>
> You are using untestable not well defined metaphysical terms when you talk
> about "consciousness" like this:  "this will never be able to tell you if
> the subject being studied really is conscious".
>
> When you use the term "conscious" you are talking about composit qualia,
or
> all of what conscoiusness is, as something that is not easily completely
> sharable in it's entirety.  And you are providing no way to falsify any
such
> assertions.   All I hear you saying is that consciousness is not
> approachable via science.

Aspects of consciousness, or if you prefer of qualia, can certainly be
investigated scientifically, and a large part of neuroscience and
psychology is devoted to doing just this. However, it is impossible to
investigate scientifically if someone actually has qualia and what those
qualia are like.

> What I am trying to say, is that you can break composite "consciousness"
and
> composite qualia down to elemental qualities, like redness and greenness.
> And that there is some kind of binding mechanism that binds them together,
> so that you can be aware of redness and greenness, at the same time, and
> know how qualitatively different they are.  Like when a painter makes a
> composit painting, using elemental color qualities, I am saying that you
can
> break conscoiusness down to effable, detectable, elemental qualities.

I think you can break down consciousness in this way, but I don't think you
can directly detect qualia.

> On 1/31/2015 7:37 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
>
> >Suppose, for example, you hypothesise that CMOS sensors in digital
cameras
> > have colour qualia. You could show experimentally the necessary and
> > sufficient conditions for certain colour outputs, but how would this
help
> > you understand what, if anything, the sensor was experiencing? If you
tried
> > connecting it to your own brain and saw nothing, how would you know if
that
> > was because the sensor lacked qualia or because it doesn't interface
> > properly with your brain?
>
>
> You are thinking about this at the wrong level.  CMOS systems can only do
> intelligent operations if they have hardware that is interpreting that
which
> does not have consistent ones and zeros, as if it did.  And it certainly
> doesn't have anything like an elemental redness quality at that abstractly
> operating, interpreted from it's diverse intrinsic physical qualities
level.
>
> But, there is the possibility, that some stuff like CMOS, does have an
> intrinsic qualitative nature, that can be bound up with other qualities
the
> way our brain binds things with redness and greenness up.  And
interpreting
> the way CMOS acts as only colorless ones and zeros, is being blind to the
> qualitative nature that it could have.  Zombie information can represent
> everything about the qualitative nature of CMOS, but you can only know
what
> the qualitative nature of the same is, if you interpenetrate, correctly,
> what you are detecting, not some interpreted pieces of zombie information
we
> think of it as having.

If you claim to be able to detect qualia then what test do you propose to
use to decide whether CMOS sensors have "an intrinsic qualitative nature"
or not?

[SP]
> The other point I would like to make is that (it seems to me) you have
> misunderstood the neural substitution thought experiment you describe near
> the end of the paper. Suppose glutamate is responsible for redness qualia,
> and you replace the glutamate with an analogue that functions just like
> glutamate in every observable way, except it lacks the qualia. The subject
> will then accurately describe red objects, say he sees red, and honestly
> believe that he sees red. How would you show that he does not actually see
> red? How would you know that your own red qualia were not eliminated last
> night while you slept by installing such a mechanism?
>
>
> No, you know I fully understand this argument.  Chalmers points out
multiple
> possible ways science could demonstrate what happens, subjectively, when
you
> do this neural substitution.  You only consider the view that it will be
> possible to do it, just as described, so there is a conundrum.  So if your
> interpretation, leads to such contradictions, then you are going down the
> wrong path.  Why do you refuse to consider any other possibility?
>
> Chalmers points out there is a vanashing qualia and fading qualia options
> you are not considering.  I don't like the way he describes these, because
> they are very metaphysical and non testable predictions about what is
> happening.  So, if you assume a 3 color world, like that described in the
> paper, the theory makes testable predictions about how the qualitatively
> consciousness scientists will discover, when they do the neuro
substitution
> experiment.  Nothing they present to the binding system will ever have a
> redness quality, except that which really has redness, so it will be a
kind
> of vanishing qualia.

It's not problematic imagining that the qualia would vanish if the
substitution were made with parts lacking the redness quality. What is
problematic - and the entire point of the experiment - is that the qualia
would vanish **without either the subject or the experimenters noticing
that anything had changed**.

> The critical part of the neuro substitution experiment, is adding in the
> hardware interpereters, for every piece of hardware replacing the
knowledge
> being represented with qualitative properties.  Sure, you know how to
> interpret what the zombie knowledge represents, it can be thought of as
> behaving the same way.  And, once you replace the binding mechanism, and
all
> that does have true qualitative nature, it will be possible to think of it
> as being the same thing.  But, by definition, the zombie information will
> not have redness, it can only be interpreted as and thought of, as if it
> does.
>
> And sure, this is a very simplistic theory.  But the prediction is, that
> this is just an example of how to cross the qualitative knowledge boundary
> in one possible world.  And the prediction is, that a simple variation on
> this theory will make it possible to bridge this knowledge gap in the real
> world.
>
> Does any of that help?
>
> Brent Allsop
>
>
>
>
> On 1/31/2015 7:37 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
>
>
> On Saturday, 31 January 2015, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at canonizer.com
<javascript:;>>
> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 1/30/2015 7:43 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote:
>>
>> One side of this debate says that subjective experiences are
metaphysical.
>> So I have two comments:
>>
>> 1 - How does one go about proving the existence of something
metaphysical?
>> By proving that physical causes don't exist for that experience?  Isn't
>> that trying to prove a negative?
>>
>> 2 - Since nothing has ever been shown to be metaphysical (no way to
>> measure it), why would one ever start from that as an assumption?  Why,
in
>> fact, believe in anything at all metaphysical, in the most literal sense?
>> Demons and angels?  Ghosts?  (It does seem that many people will believe
in
>> these things rather than what science says.  If anyone has any doubt
that we
>> are an intellectually flawed species, just look at that fact.)
>>
>> In short, there seems to me to be no way to establish that metaphysical
>> causes exists for anything.  At least, no scientific way.  Playing with
>> words, thought experiments, and just sheer sophistry don't do the job.
>>
>>
>> Either you didn't read the paper entitled "Detecting Qualia"
>> (
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vxfbgfm8XIqkmC5Vus7wBb982JMOA8XMrTZQ4smkiyI/edit?usp=sharing
)
>> or you didn't understand any of it.   You must have at least read the
title:
>> "Detecting Qualia", but evidently you refuse to understand what most
people
>> understand such to mean, as proof by you asserting that there is "no way
to
>> measure it".  Since you don't seem to get it, I guess I'll have to
explain
>> it to you:  Detecting, is the same as measuring, and if it is
detectable, it
>> is physical, and experimentally demonstrably to all to be physical, just
>> like all physics.
>>
>> Brent Allsop
>
>
> Dear Brent,
>
> I've read the paper. Maybe I haven't understood it properly, but it seems
to
> me that the main thing you have in mind when talking about "effing the
> ineffable" is the neural correlates of consciousness, and this will never
be
> able to tell you if the subject being studied really is conscious, let
alone
> what the actual conscious experience is like.
>
> Suppose, for example, you hypothesise that CMOS sensors in digital cameras
> have colour qualia. You could show experimentally the necessary and
> sufficient conditions for certain colour outputs, but how would this help
> you understand what, if anything, the sensor was experiencing? If you
tried
> connecting it to your own brain and saw nothing, how would you know if
that
> was because the sensor lacked qualia or because it doesn't interface
> properly with your brain?
>
> The other point I would like to make is that (it seems to me) you have
> misunderstood the neural substitution thought experiment you describe near
> the end of the paper. Suppose glutamate is responsible for redness qualia,
> and you replace the glutamate with an analogue that functions just like
> glutamate in every observable way, except it lacks the qualia. The subject
> will then accurately describe red objects, say he sees red, and honestly
> believe that he sees red. How would you show that he does not actually see
> red? How would you know that your own red qualia were not eliminated last
> night while you slept by installing such a mechanism?
>
>
>
>
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>

--
Stathis Papaioannou

-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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