[ExI] Fwd: Optical illusion tricks you into seeing different colors

Thu May 20 20:10:35 UTC 2021

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: <spike at rainier66.com>
Date: Thu, May 20, 2021, 1:28 PM
Subject: RE: [ExI] Optical illusion tricks you into seeing different colors
To: Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com>
Cc: Cc: <spike at rainier66.com>

Brent you should post this to ExI main list.

Your patience is commendable sir.  This is a good explanation.

spike

*From:* Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com>
*Sent:* Thursday, May 20, 2021 12:17 PM
*To:* spike <spike at rainier66.com>
*Subject:* Re: [ExI] Optical illusion tricks you into seeing different
colors

Hey Spike,

Equations, yes, we can do that, in a way that you can trust, and in a way
will never fail you, even for hallucinations.  And it should be relatively
easy since the only mathematical sign we need is the "=" sign, so we can
create lookup tables or dictionaries, like this dictionary from hexadecimal
RGB values to English words.

0xFF0000  = Red

0x00FF00  = Green.

We'll need more tables than this, so it will need to be more complex than
our naive intuitive notion of what these mean. But hopefully we can take
that step into a world where we distinguish between reality and knowledge
of reality.

Surely, you can intuitively see that even the word 'red' above, conveys no
information of any intrinsic qualities, since we could define red to be
anything we want it to be.

In order to know what the word "red" means, we need to define something
physical, and say THAT is red, with something like this:

0xFF0000   = Red    =

0x00FF00  = Green =

So, are you still with me, now that we have a physical definition of the
word "red"?

If so, next we need to define additional different turns, enabling us to
distinguish between different intrinsic qualities, since if we only use one
abstract word for all things red, that is qualia blind, and can't model
differences between reality and knowledge of reality.

So, in addition to this physical definition table:

red     = anything, like the red square above, which reflects or emits red
light.

green = anything, like the green square above, which reflects or
emits green light.

Can you see that the above description tells us nothing of the true quality
of red?

We need to define some different word like this:

redness     =  the intrinsic quality of spike's visual knowledge of red
things.

greenness =  the intrinsic quality of spike's visual knowledge of green
things.

We can make this more complex model which can now model differences in the
qualities of reality and knowledge of reality with this intuitive image:

Notice that in this image, the color of the real strawberry you are both
looking at is represented as black, since in reality, we are like Mary
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge>, and only know how to describe
the behavior of the strawberry, in that it behaves in a way that it
reflects red light.  In reality, knowing this fact tells us nothing of the
actual quality of this light reflecting behavior we can describe.

OK, the next table further defines this image with:

The person on the left   =  Spike

The person on the right =  someone identical to spike, looking at the same
strawberry, with one important difference.

The person on the left has a singe red/green inversion, in any of the
transducing mechanisms between any of the different representations of red,
anywhere along the causal chain that is perception.

In this case, let's say this inversion has been engineered to be
immediately after the retina, line in our video, long before his knowledge
is rendered into consciousness with phenomenally colored intrinsic
qualities, inverted from the qualities rendered by your non inverted brain.

This proves why we should represent the strawberry with black.  After all,
which color is the right color to attribute to the strawberry, if I, from
birth, have represented red things with your greenness.

The fact is, we don't yet objectively know the intrinsic quality of
anything "out there", simply because the only mapping from our words, is to
what color the strawberry seems to be to us.

But of course, for different people, and for the same people in different
contexts, what color it seems to be, or the quality of our knowledge of
that stuff, can change.

So, now that we have additional terms defined, like Spike's redness and
greenness, we can finally bridge the explanatory gap, and eff the ineffable
nature of redness, between you and your qualitative invert with:

My redness is like your greenness, both of which we call red.

That's a bit more complex than our intuitive qualia blind models, but not
mathematically that hard, is it?

Consciousness: Not a hard problem, just a color problem
<https://canonizer.com/videos/consciousness/>.

On Thu, May 20, 2021 at 10:21 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

*From:* Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com>
*Subject:* Re: [ExI] Optical illusion tricks you into seeing different
colors

On Wed, May 19, 2021 at 10:46 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

…

Of all the qualia discussion that has gone on for decades here, none of
which I understood, this discussion may have triggered a trace of insight.
The same red may create slight differences in chemical responses in the
brain which operate on very certainly different neural networks, to create
an effect all the brains will agree is called red…spike

>…Yay, Spike, You are finally getting it!!  this is exactly what we have
been attempting to describe.

It isn't that hard as long as you distinguishing between reality and
knowledge of reality
<https://canonizer.com/videos/consciousness/?chapter=differentiate_reality_knowledge>
.

Hi Brent,

I do admire your tenacity pal.  You know I think the world of you
personally (that dinner at Extro5 was way cool, ja?)  However you give me
credit for understanding far too soon sir.  Your encouragement is perhaps
described as being prematurely yayey.  I still don’t understand the concept
to any depth, and admit that I will not understand it until we find a way
to write equations for it.  I am an equation guy, not a word guy.  In any
field of engineering (or any other human endevour) which lacked an equals
sign, I was mostly lost and deeply distrustful of any results.  I can’t
help it: equations never let me down.  They tell me the truth.  I rely on
them.  In my freely-acknowledged hardcore objectivist view, any field which
has no equations is not sufficiently advanced.  IN any subjective area, I
don’t pretend to the ability to master it, or even apprentice it.  That’s
why evolution has given us you.

>…Subjectively, as Dennett points out, we can "directly apprehend" the
qualities of our colored knowledge.  But when we objectively observe
things, from afar, through our senses, the information is necessarily
abstracted away from whatever happens to be …

Brent I am glad you are here, me lad.  We need people who get it on that
topic.  I am not one of them, but I admire those who are.

spike
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