From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Date: Fri Dec 03 1999 - 12:46:24 MST
On Fri, 3 Dec 1999, Robin Hanson wrote:
> >> I wrote about defining a sentience quotient...
>
> I don't understand how this helps. Even if we could objectively
> determine an SQ for all objects, how does that tell us what it
> feels like to be a rock? And I have strong doubts that one can
> objectively assign a bits/sec number to objects like rocks.
>
Well, if we assume that the heat flow through a rock as it sits
in the sun constitutes some very unconscious "feeling", I can
imagine what that is like if I lie on the beach doing my best
rock imitation (thinking about nothing). But I still have
an awareness of what it is like to not be a rock, so I can
probably never feel *exactly* like a rock.
I would propose that the SQ may serve as a partial basis
for criteria that you might require to achieve qualia equivalence
in diffferent entitites. I don't think the rock could get the
qualia of the plant or the human (or vice versa) because of the
large differences in SQs. I would be more willing to accept that
a human, dolphin and elephant "might" be able to experience the
qualia of each other because of their similar SQs.
I'm not sure that SQ equivalence is a sufficient criteria for
qualia matching. I can imagine a desktop computer with a SQ
someplace between that of a bumblebee and a mouse but I really
doubt they have equivalent qualia. However, if you could get
down to the nuts and bolts of how neural nets represent qualia
I think you could get your desktop computer to hold those of
the bumblebee and perhaps the mouse. And with some really
complex neuron/biotech hacking, you might be able to get the
bumblebee or mouse to experience being a souped up adding machine.
Though moving qualia between fundamentally different architectures seems
to be kind of like asking "when is a simulation the real thing"?
For that question I don't have an answer.
In specific answer to your question, knowledge about SQ does
not tell you what it feels like to be a rock, it may only
offer partial constraints on whether it is *possible* for one
thing to "know" what it is like to feel like another thing.
Robert
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