[ExI] Do digital computers feel?

Brent Allsop brent.allsop at gmail.com
Mon Feb 13 21:19:22 UTC 2017


Hi John,



I’ve touched on this before, but it still seems to be a problem in our
communication.  Within my model, there are multiple types of qualia, there
is composite qualia and elemental qualia.  A composite quale is made up of
lots of elemental qualia bound together.  So, composite Brent redness, has
all my memories of red bound to it.  And composite John red, instead, has
all of Johns memories of red bound to it.  And, there must be some common
elemental qualities from which these complex objects are built.  If you
strip away all the memories of red, and you strip away all other
information, such as yourself perceiving it, and so on, you are left with
just plain and simple redness.  It is very possible that there is some
common qualitative element such as plain redness, that your and my
composite redness qualia share.  Whenever I talk about “effing the
ineffable” I am always assuming and talking about an elemental level, that
can be shared between brains, without the qualia having to be Brent-John
(or a completely different person/set of memories than you and I) redness.


Brent


On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 11:28 AM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 , Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ​> ​
>> I feel like we’re repeatedly saying many things back and forth, but
>> filing to communicate.
>>
>
> ​Me too.​
>
> ​> ​
>> I’m talking about two types of speaking.  There is qualia blind
>> speaking, and there is speaking that is not qualia blind.
>>
>
> ​But when communicating with other human beings (or with anything else)
> you have absolutely positively no way of knowing if the speech is qualia
> blind or not unless you make certain assumptions, such as if the speech is
> intelligent then it is not qualia blind. Fortunately it's easy to determine
> if the speaker is intelligent blind or not, but without the assumption of a
> link between intelligence and qualia you'd have no reason not to conclude
> you're the only conscious thing in the universe.         ​
>
>
>
>> ​> ​
>> You seem to be thinking that all the speaking I’m talking about is qualia
>> blind speaking, and not understanding what I mean by speaking that is not
>> qualia blind.
>>
>>
> ​But how do you know which it is? All you know for certain is that noises
> are issuing from that other person's mouth, to conclude more you need to
> make assumptions that you can NOT prove and will never be able to prove,
> but we all make these assumptions because none of us could function if we
> really believed we were the only conscious being in existence.
>
>
>> ​> ​
>> You are not understanding what might enable someone to be able to make a
>> statement like: “My knowledge of red is like your knowledge of green” in a
>> way that is demonstrably provable to everyone both objectively and
>> subjectively,
>>
>
> ​You are entirely correct and have hit the core of the matter. I do not
> understand how even in theory I could prove
> both objectively and subjectively
> ​ ​
> that
> ​my ​qualia
> knowledge of red is like your
> ​qualia ​
> knowledge of green
> ​.​
>
>
>> ​> ​
>> you don’t seem to understand the implication of being able to connect two
>> brains with binding systems, enabling two brains to eff the ineffable in
>> the strongest undeniable way.
>>
>
> ​Correct again. I do not understand how a new being called Brent Clark
> would know what it's like to be either
> Brent Allsop
> ​ or John Clark.​
>
>
>> ​> ​
>> I talk about a simplistic binding system that is binding two elemental
>> qualitative representations together.  When you replace half the
>> representations of knowledge with something that is qualitatively
>> different, in order for the binding system to behave the same,
>>
>>
> ​Behave the same? ​
>  Brent Clark
> ​ would be something new, he's not going to behave like ​
> Brent Allsop
> ​ nor John Clark.  And the same would be true subjectively, when
> Brent Clark
> ​ looks at a red strawberry he'd have no way of knowing if the qualia he's
> experiencing came from
> Brent Allsop
> ​ or John Clark or from neither and was something brand new experienced by
> nobody else before in the entire history of the world.
>
>
>> ​> ​
>> you must replace all of the knowledge representations being fed to the
>> binding system at the same time you replace the entire binding system. Again,
>> so that the system will behave exactly as you and I agree will happen, as
>> the neural substitution progresses.
>>
>>
> ​If you swap all my qualia knowledge of red with green then ​yes my
> objective behavior will be exactly the same, but my subjective experience
> will be exactly the same too, I couldn't even tell you'd actually done
> anything.
>
>
>> ​> ​
>> I see no evidence that you fully understand the implications of what I’m
>> trying to describe with all this.
>>
>>
> ​You see no evidence of understanding because there is none.
>
>  John K Clark​
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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