[ExI] Can philosophers produce scientific knowledge?

Stathis Papaioannou stathisp at gmail.com
Mon May 17 22:14:29 UTC 2021


On Tue, 18 May 2021 at 07:22, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Mon, May 10, 2021 at 7:18 PM Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 11 May 2021 at 11:10, Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Yes, but again, let's throw out the irrelevant complexity about what the
>>> person is reporting, whether he is reporting it mistakenly, being forced or
>>> whatever.  Let's just focus on the facts of the matter of the quality of
>>> the experience.  It is ether a fact that the experience is redness, or the
>>> experiences is greenness.  The facts of the matter are dependent on the
>>> quality of the substrate which the subject is experiencing, as knowledge of
>>> the strawberry.  Everything we care about is simply the quality of the
>>> experience, which must remain factually consistent, over space and time.
>>> If the quality of the substrate of the experience changes, this must be
>>> notice.  If not, not noticed, either of which the subject must be aware.
>>>
>>
>> Yes, that’s consistent with everything I have ever said, except for the
>> part about “the quality of the substrate which the subject is
>> experiencing”, because I think it is possible for the substrate to change
>> but the experience to remain the same.
>>
>
> No, No.  Your miss interpreting my words, into you incorrect
> interpretation of what I'm trying to say.  I'm refiring to the quality of
> the knowledge, that must not change, this quality is the substrate,
> representing our knowledge, or it is the quality of the substrate, out of
> which our conscious experience is composed.  Redness quality of experience
> must always be the same redness, throughout space and time, and greenness
> must be different, again throughout space and time.  The fact that you
> represent red things with knowledge that has a redness quality is a fact
> about reality.  It is the quality of this knowledge that is the substrate
> to which I am referring.  What you consciousness is like,  is dependent on
> the quality of that substrate, representing your knowledge.  If it was
> red/green inverted, you could still behave the same, but it remains a fact
> that since the quality of the substrate of your knowledge change, you
> consciousness would be different.
>

If the quality of your experience changed through red-green inversion, then
your behaviour would change: you would say “colours look different to me”,
which is a change in behaviour. If your behaviour did not change, you would
say “colours look the same to me”. So, assuming you are alert and
cooperative, if the quality of your experience changed but your behaviour
did not change, that would mean that you did not notice the change in the
quality of your experience, because either the change was too small to
notice or there was no change. So the rule is: no change in behaviour, no
change in the quality of the experience. And THIS is why qualia cannot be
substrate dependent!

> --
Stathis Papaioannou
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