From: Brent Allsop (allsop@fc.hp.com)
Date: Sun Mar 18 2001 - 16:29:28 MST
"Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@aeiveos.com> commented:
> No, let us be very clear about this. Simulated beings are quite
> likely to require significantly greater resources than "real"
> beings.
I didn't intend to imply anything about how difficult it is to
simulate beings. Surely simulations can simulate even qualia. All
I'm saying is a representation or a model is not the same is the real
thing and you must map the model back to the original to get the true
meaning from the model. And this is especially true as far as
phenomenal qualities are concerned.
> Perhaps we can say "conscious knowledge" is a short-term "executing"
> neuronal pattern. If I go to sleep tonight, I will wake up tomorrow
> with "mostly" the same memories. However my conscious thought
> pattern may think that everything my conscious thought pattern
> tonight is thinking was completely wrong.
I believe your going of on another tangent here. I think,
initially, we should focus on involuntary direct representations of
our primary senses, like sight and color. Once we understand this,
then we'll have the tools to understand these much more complex kinds
of voluntary thought patterns, memories, love, security...
> Re: synathesia
> In this case you have "cross-wiring" -- the experiences
> that are associated with "red" the red signal somehow get
> associated with "salt" as well (or instead).
Precisely. My point was, someone could alter a clone person
to use different qualia to represent reality. They could use various
tastes to represent colors and visa versa. Such a clone could be just
as intelligent, but surely his subjective experience would be
drastically different. His effing of his representation of salt would
be different than what we use. And this is what is important when
trying to understand what consciousness is, and what it is like.
> I myself would find it fascinating to put salt on my tongue, and be
> wired into the other person's perceptions such that my memory of
> "red" gets stimulated. That is going to be the world we are
> entering with high-bandwidth mind-meld communications availability.
> Its going to be very scary and very rewarding at the same time.
What is there to be scared of? I so much look forward to
wiring my brain to others so they can eff their sensations to me. "Oh
THATS what salt tastes like for you!? It's very different for me."
some of us could conceivably say. And it will be so rewarding to
expand our conscious spirit world with qualia none of us have ever
experienced before. And enlarging our spirit world to contain much
more size and resolution.... It'll be so exciting to merge spirit
worlds and share spirit worlds.... Once we discover qualia and start
effing like all this the world will soon become very very different
than it is now, where we are all isolated and spiritually trapped
inside our own skulls.
> The experiences perceived by the brain are "physical" phenomena. To
> argue that they cannot be quantified and communicated (if that is
> what you are suggesting) is to argue that there is some "magic"
> afoot.
Today's science is entirely focused on cause and effect. This
is because our senses are entirely cause and effect. Our senses can
only abstractly model what they are sensing, hence we can not know
what reality out there is really like, other than the effect it has on
our senses. Within such a limited scinece qualia re magic. But they
are not any more magic than any other physical phenomenon. There is
simply some physical stuff that is our brain that has phenomenal
qualities. You can't discover these qualities through traditional
senses or any science based solely on them. One must experience them
in their own consciousness, such that they can be compared and
contrasted to the qualia we already know, before one can know "what
they are like"...
Brent Allsop
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