[ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering

Stathis Papaioannou stathisp at gmail.com
Sun Mar 26 22:38:23 UTC 2017


Brent Allsop wrote:

>> You, and john are completely missing the point, and making obvious
mistakes (as it seems to me) by doing so, and not modeling things with
anything in your theory that is redness, such that it is distinguishable
from greenness.  Can you not see that everything you are talking about is
removing the ability to distinguish between anything that is redness and
greenness.  Remember, for Stathis, every time I use the word "glutamate"
you should think of a pattern of neurons firing in a particular
"functional" way, that is a redness experience.  And you have a binding
neuron that can detect the function that is redness, and tell when it is
different than the a different set of neurons, functioning as a greenness
experience.  Remember, that nothing but this particular set of neurons,
firing in exactly the right functional way, outputting the correct
neurotransmitter at the right time will convince the binding neuron/system
that it is redness, which is different than greenness.  So, when you are
representing redness with a 0 (anything that does not have redness), you
must interpret this zero, back into the correct set of neurotransmitters
being fed to the detecting neuron, in the right functional pattern.  And
all ones, anything that is not greeness, must be translated back to the
identical functional set of synapses neurotransmitter firings, before the
not yet replaced binding neuron will say: "Yes that is still redness".  In
other words, when you replace all the redness functions with ones, and all
the greenness functions with zeros, they all must be translated back to the
right set of functional synapses firing, and fed to the binding neuron, for
it to say:  That compost experience is made up of redness and greenness.


>> The mistake in Stathis logic is revealed when he says things like: " It
cannot possibly say "wait, back up, that glycine isn't anything like its
neighbouring redness glutamate", because the neurons controlling speech
will all be firing in exactly the same way as before."  Can you not see how
this is removing any necessary functionality required to distinguish
between redness and greenness?  The binding system, whatever you theorize
it might be, must be able to detect the difference between whatever it is
that is doing the greenness function, and whatever is doing the gredness
function, and whatever is doing a oneness function, and whatever it is that
is doing the zeroness function.  If you present anything to the binding
system, without the proper interpretation mechanism, converting back to the
real redness it can detect, it must be able to fire differently, saying
that is not real redness.  Otherwise you are removing the ability to
distinguish between redness and greenness, whatever it is.


>> Once you replace simple glutamate and glycene, with very complected
things like sets of functioning neurons firing in a particular functional
way, things become so complicated, you can't see the theoretical
qualitative mistakes you are making.  You must remember that your continued
arguments against glutamate not being redness do not apply.  As they only
are redness and greenness in the idealized simplified theoretical world.
As I've said many times, this has nothing to do with the obviously much
more complex real world.  It is just meant as a simplistic model, so you
can think about the fact that there must be something that is doing the
redness function and there must be something that is doing the greenness
function.  And there must be womething that can bind these two together
into a composit qualitative experience that can say: "Yes, those are
qualitatively different" - not fire in the same way, when they are
substituted out and replaced with something else.


>> Earlier, Stathis claimed: "But the comparison of redness and greenness,
or anything else whatsoever that the system does, will necessarily occur
provided only that the substituted part is behaviourally identical"  In
other words, you are saying that there is a way to distinguish between
redness and greenness, as long as it is behaviorally identical. But you
can't see the mistake you are making with this.  If you swap anything being
presented to the binding system, with anything that is not redness,
especially a 1, it must say: "that is not redness"  it cannot say it is
redness, or behave in the same way.  It must behave differently, otherwise
it is not functioning correctly and not able to distinguish qualitative
differences.


Brent, you are ignoring the actual observable behaviour of glutamate in the
neuron. In simplified summary, it is released from the presynaptic neuron,
diffuses across the synapse, binds to glutamate receptors on the
postsynaptic neuron, which causes the postsynaptic neuron to fire. That's
it! That's all that a scientist will see if he examines it! The
postsynaptic neuron and presynaptic neuron may be part of a binding system
detecting red and green but the scientist is ignorant of any of this - all
he is interested in is the observable behaviour of glutamate! Once he
figures this out he can replace the glutamate with another substance that
behaves the same way - diffuses across the synapse, binds to glutamate
receptors and causes the postsynaptic neuron to fire. He tries glutamate
analogue G1 but it's no good: it binds to the receptor but it is a larger
molecule that diffuses too slowly across the synapse, changing the timing
of the neural firing and hence the behaviour of the system. He tries
another molecule, G2, which diffuses across the synapse at the right rate
but doesn't bind to the receptor as well, again changing the timing of
neural firing and the behaviour of the system. He tries yet another
molecule, G3, which is just right - it diffuses across the synapse at the
right rate and has the right affinity for the glutamate receptor. So he
swaps glutamate for G3 and now all the glutaminergic neurons, and hence all
the other neurons in the brain, fire in the same sequence as before. Our
scientist is happy and he goes home to play computer games!

Given the above scenario, do you agree that all the neurons will fire in
the same sequence? If you disagree, what is triggering them to fire
differently that the scientist has failed to observe? Don't say "redness"
or "the binding system" - what specific thing was the glutamate molecule
doing that G3 is not doing, which the scientist missed?

On 27 March 2017 at 04:10, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Hi Stathis,
>
>
> You, and john are completely missing the point, and making obvious
> mistakes (as it seems to me) by doing so, and not modeling things with
> anything in your theory that is redness, such that it is distinguishable
> from greenness.  Can you not see that everything you are talking about is
> removing the ability to distinguish between anything that is redness and
> greenness.  Remember, for Stathis, every time I use the word "glutamate"
> you should think of a pattern of neurons firing in a particular
> "functional" way, that is a redness experience.  And you have a binding
> neuron that can detect the function that is redness, and tell when it is
> different than the a different set of neurons, functioning as a greenness
> experience.  Remember, that nothing but this particular set of neurons,
> firing in exactly the right functional way, outputting the correct
> neurotransmitter at the right time will convince the binding neuron/system
> that it is redness, which is different than greenness.  So, when you are
> representing redness with a 0 (anything that does not have redness), you
> must interpret this zero, back into the correct set of neurotransmitters
> being fed to the detecting neuron, in the right functional pattern.  And
> all ones, anything that is not greeness, must be translated back to the
> identical functional set of synapses neurotransmitter firings, before the
> not yet replaced binding neuron will say: "Yes that is still redness".  In
> other words, when you replace all the redness functions with ones, and all
> the greenness functions with zeros, they all must be translated back to the
> right set of functional synapses firing, and fed to the binding neuron, for
> it to say:  That compost experience is made up of redness and greenness.
>
>
> The mistake in Stathis logic is revealed when he says things like: " It
> cannot possibly say "wait, back up, that glycine isn't anything like its
> neighbouring redness glutamate", because the neurons controlling speech
> will all be firing in exactly the same way as before."  Can you not see how
> this is removing any necessary functionality required to distinguish
> between redness and greenness?  The binding system, whatever you theorize
> it might be, must be able to detect the difference between whatever it is
> that is doing the greenness function, and whatever is doing the gredness
> function, and whatever is doing a oneness function, and whatever it is that
> is doing the zeroness function.  If you present anything to the binding
> system, without the proper interpretation mechanism, converting back to the
> real redness it can detect, it must be able to fire differently, saying
> that is not real redness.  Otherwise you are removing the ability to
> distinguish between redness and greenness, whatever it is.
>
>
> Once you replace simple glutamate and glycene, with very complected things
> like sets of functioning neurons firing in a particular functional way,
> things become so complicated, you can't see the theoretical qualitative
> mistakes you are making.  You must remember that your continued arguments
> against glutamate not being redness do not apply.  As they only are redness
> and greenness in the idealized simplified theoretical world.  As I've said
> many times, this has nothing to do with the obviously much more complex
> real world.  It is just meant as a simplistic model, so you can think about
> the fact that there must be something that is doing the redness function
> and there must be something that is doing the greenness function.  And
> there must be womething that can bind these two together into a composit
> qualitative experience that can say: "Yes, those are qualitatively
> different" - not fire in the same way, when they are substituted out and
> replaced with something else.
>
>
> Earlier, Stathis claimed: "But the comparison of redness and greenness, or
> anything else whatsoever that the system does, will necessarily occur
> provided only that the substituted part is behaviourally identical"  In
> other words, you are saying that there is a way to distinguish between
> redness and greenness, as long as it is behaviorally identical. But you
> can't see the mistake you are making with this.  If you swap anything being
> presented to the binding system, with anything that is not redness,
> especially a 1, it must say: "that is not redness"  it cannot say it is
> redness, or behave in the same way.  It must behave differently, otherwise
> it is not functioning correctly and not able to distinguish qualitative
> differences.
>
>
> Brent
>
>
>
>
>
> On 3/24/2017 8:36 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
>
> On Sat., 25 Mar. 2017 at 9:07 am, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> Hi Status,
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 2:50 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> I think you imagine that if glutamate is changed and glutamate is
>> responsible for red qualia, then distal parts of the system (such as those
>> reporting red qualia) will change even if all the physical interactions of
>> the glutamate substitute are the same. But that is impossible.
>>
>>
>>
>> Ha, with this I think I’ve caught you in another clear example of the
>> isolationist mistake you are making.
>>
>>
>>
>> If glutamate was redness, then the one neuron representing the one voxel
>> element representing the one spot on the surface of the strawberry, would
>> be firing on all of its many, maybe even tens of thousands of its
>> downstream synapses with glutamate.  And if you changed glutamate, with
>> glycene in any one of those synapses, the entire system would be screaming:
>> “Wait, back up, that glycine isn’t anything like it’s neighboring redness
>> glutamate, until you replace that incorrect glycine in that one synapse,
>> and interpreted it qualitatively correctly, by interpreting it back to real
>> redness, um I mean real glutamate.  Then you would have to repeat this
>> same problem, until you replace all the glutamate, um a mean redness
>> detectors in the entire brain, all in one big substitution step, and only
>> then replace the entire comparison system, including all memory of
>> glutamate, I mean redness, with glycine.  And only then, with that
>> massive substitution (it sucks how this massive substitution requirement
>> always gets left out of your simplistic example), would you finally be able
>> to have it substituted to be a qualia (or oneness and zeroness) invert
>> where greenness, and all memory of such, has been replaced with redness,
>> (or oneness) and visa versa.
>>
>
> If you replace glutamate with glycine then yes, the whole system would be
> screaming that something was terribly wrong,  because glycine will have no
> effect on glutamate receptors. Not only will any redness detection function
> fail, but the whole brain will probably stop working and the subject will
> die. That is why you have to do a more elaborate replacement: glutamate
> with glycine, glutamate receptors with glycine receptors (simplistically -
> you have to also make sure that the glycine receptors operate the same ion
> channels etc. as the glutamate receptors). Once you do this, the whole
> brain will work in the same way as before the substitution. It cannot
> possibly say "wait, back up, that glycine isn't anything like its
> neighbouring redness glutamate", because the neurons controlling speech
> will all be firing in exactly the same way as before.
>
>
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-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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