[ExI] are qualia communicable?
Ben Zaiboc
ben at zaiboc.net
Sun Apr 16 10:52:46 UTC 2023
On 15/04/2023 23:01, Giovanni Santostasi wrote:
> Another even deeper mystery that the communicability of qualia is how
> the brain creates an I.
Oh, I thought that was simple. In it's essentials, anyway. I'm sure the
details of the implementation are pretty complex, but the principle, as
I understand it, is just that in amongst the many models we make, of the
external world and other agents etc., there's a model of the agent doing
the modelling. This model is referred to as 'I', just like the model of
my cousin is referred to as 'Brian'. So when we say "Brian is going to
the shops", we are making a prediction involving the 'Brian' model, and
when we say "I am going to the shops" we are making a prediction
involving the 'I' model (which of course encompasses the system doing
the predicting). So you could call it a 'self-referential model'.
Or is this obvious and trivial, and you're talking about the details of
how this is done?
If you mean the actual implementation, then I doubt anyone knows just
yet. It's a general question about how the brain creates and manipulates
models, especially models of agent systems. Probably quite high in the
layers of abstraction, so analysing it in terms of neuronal connections
will be difficult.
But once we know how the brain creates models in general, we'll know
what an 'I' is, as it's just another model.
(Some models will be simpler than others, but going by how the brain
works in general, and the massive duplication it uses, I doubt if a
self-model will be that much different from a model of your room. Bigger
and more complex, yes, but using the same principles).
Ben
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