Superintelligence Software

From: Brent Allsop (allsop@swttools.fc.hp.com)
Date: Fri Aug 07 1998 - 14:24:38 MDT


"Joe E. Dees" <jdees0@students.uwf.edu> replied:

> The same wavelength can appear to be different colors to the
> perceiver, depending upon such factors as ambient lighting and
> contiguous hues.

        Exactly! But this apperition that "appears" to the perceiver,
or his knowledge, whether altered or not, is still something. And
what this is is a quale. True, ambient lighting and contiguous hues
can alter our neural processes resulting in the various different
particular apperitions that "appear" or the particular knowledge that
results, but what appears, or the perceivers knowledge is what it is.

> Until we deal with the holistic gestalt nature of perception in its
> own top-down terms and not in the atomically analytical fragmented
> manner we are accustomed to using, we will never approach an
> understanding of the process. Joe

        Yes, I can agree here. Qualia isn't just a set of physical
blocks that our brain uses to build our conscious world of awareness.
The way it is all unified (i.e. I know that red is very different than
the smell of a rose...) is also important.

                Brent Allsop



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