From: Brent Allsop (allsop@fc.hp.com)
Date: Tue Feb 22 2000 - 12:42:29 MST
John Clark <jonkc@worldnet.att.net> asked:
> Brent Allsop <allsop@fc.hp.com> Wrote:
>
> >There must be real scientific ways to discover such phenomenal
> >qualities
>
> Why must there be?
I'm not interrested in anything that can't be really or
scientifically observed, reproduced, and so on and so forth.
I know what my salty is like, I know what my red is like, I
know what my warm is like. I definitely know they are not like each
other. My brain merges these sensations into a conscious spirit world
of my awareness in which they can be "felt", compared, and contrasted.
Until what others are "feeling" is similarly merged or effed into my
conscious mind, and I "feel" the real thing, the best I can know is
"abstractly" what the sensations are. Evolution has merged all my
divers phenomenal qualia together so I can compare and contrast and
feel them all first hand. This, to me, is proof that science must be
able to continue this process. When evolution added to the human
conscious mind, the ability to feel color for the first time it proved
that such was possible. There is no reason why science can't expand
on this process and make us "more aware" of things evolution added to
other brains but hasn't yet added to our brain, like "what is it like
to be a bat".... And, like we now continually discover and synthesize
new fundamental elements, I'm betting we will likely discover and
synthesize new "feelings" or qualia that have not yet been "felt"
before.
Are there more possible color qualia which we could use to
represent a larger portion of the electromagnetic spectrum than
visible light in our visible consciousness? I like to hope so. What
could such be like? The science of giving us such enhanced abilities
to "feel" more is what I'm looking for. (I hope we can do more than
just map a color beyond ultraviolet into some color quale I use for
some other wavelength and represent it with that. Something entirely
different then the color qualia I already know and use would be much
better.) Just because such things are "subjective" doesn't mean we
can't apply all the principles of science to them and do what
evolution has already started for us. Science is not limited to
abstract behavior only, it also applies to the phenomenal qualities we
experience, if we'd just attempt to apply science to more than just
the abstract behavior our senses detect and then abstractly represent
with phenomenal qualia. Just because our abstract senses can't "eff"
doesn't mean our mind cann't be expanded, via science, to be able to
"eff" and include other sensations.
Brent Allsop
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:26:58 MST