From: Brent Allsop (allsop@fc.hp.com)
Date: Mon Dec 20 1999 - 16:59:37 MST
Jeff nordahl <jnordahl@hotmail.com>,
Being someone that believes in the importance of qualia I
really like a bunch of what you've been saying. I haven't had time to
follow the entire discussion you've all had so forgive me if I've
missed something important.
As usually happens, most of such discussion get lost in the
irrelevant complexity of intelligence. This discussion, to me, is
suffering from this. We should forget intelligence, the kind of music
we can produce.... and just focus on the simple idea of representing
simple information. A color detecting machine at the local paint
store can both detect and represent far more color resolution than we
can. It can look at something and remember what color something is
and tell us what color something is far better than any human can.
So, it's representations are far more powerful or intelligent than our
own. But I think it is obvious that, though the color detecting
machine is far more intelligent than us, color wise, it's abstract
representations are nothing like what we use to represent the same
simple information. The complexity of intelligence has nothing to do
with it, there is no "mathematical threshold" nothings "supervines" or
emerges.... We simply use something phenomenal to represent light of
particular wave lengths while the paint machine uses anything that can
assume a distinguishable state to abstractly and mechanically
represent the same thing in a much different way. One is phenomenally
like something, the other doesn't really matter what it is or what it
is like as long as it is mapped to the proper output for that color.
Jeff said he wants to be uploaded "Even if qualia is an
illusion". And I think you touched on an important problem with this
idea with:
> There seems to be a trend by those anti-qualiaists to define the
> world in two realms. 1. the physical real world where we *believe*
> that we should trust our qualia for practical matters like avoiding
> cars that are about to run over us & 2. the realm where we *BELIEVE*
> that our qualia is an illusion and does not exist. In your efforts
> to nullify Cartesian Dualism, it seems as though you have created an
> equally (if not more) awkward dualism between the UPPER CASE and
> lower case realms.
The important idea is: what is an illusion. An "illusion" is
simply an inaccurate representation of it's referent. If we put some
kind of filter in front of the sensor of a color detecting machine,
it's representations would think it was one color, when in reality it
is another. To the machine it would seem to be a different color.
That is all an illusion or seeming is. If one only "believes" they
have qualia, there must be some information that is this inaccurate
(if it is inaccurate) believing. It makes no sense to say we only
seem to have qualia, because that is like saying I have a conscious
phenomenal representation of what conscious phenomenal representation
are that inaccurately represents reality. A color detecting machine
can inaccurately represent in it's brain the color of something it is
looking at just as I can have information in my mind that doesn't
accurately represent it's referent. Still, the important thing is,
these two types of representation, which both can be mistaken, are
very obviously different. One is phenomenal, the other is merely
abstract. Saying we only think we have qualia is like saying I have
qualia that falsely represent whether or not I have qualia.
I believe ken said:
> perhaps you are hoping to hold on just long enough for us to find a
> way to program weird ineffable stuff?
We must remember that just because qualia is ineffable now, it
will not always be so. Surely one of the things that will come along
with uploading will be the ability to augment our brains to have
generic qualia producers. Some type of effing observation device will
observe neural behavior in one persons mind and determine that a
particular qualia exists in that persons consciousness. It will then,
in the augmented brain of the effing observer, produce the same
qualia. Upon which the observer, which could possibly be an AI that
only had abstract "zombie" representations until it had the qualia
producing "effing" device installed would say: "Oh that's what salt
tastes like." It might then admit that all the other times it said
this identical thing it was lying and didn't really know what it was
like, but this time it is telling the truth. If we objectively knew
what a salty sensation really was, we could look inside it's brain and
see if the proper phenomenon that was a salty sensation was really
occurring and know if it was really lying or not.
Brent Allsop
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