Dennett and others on qualia

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Roger Clough

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Oct 25, 2012, 8:17:04 AM10/25/12
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Dennett and others on qualia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia#Daniel_Dennett

1) Schroedinger on qualia.

"Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, the experience of taking a recreational drug,
or the perceived redness of an evening sky. Daniel Dennett writes that qualia is "an unfamiliar term for
something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us."[1] Erwin Schr�dinger,
the famous physicist, had this counter-materialist take: "The sensation of colour cannot be accounted for by
the physicist's objective picture of light-waves. Could the physiologist account for it, if he had fuller
knowledge than he has of the processes in
the retina and the nervous processes set up by them in the optical nerve bundles and in the brain? I do not think so." [2]

The importance of qualia in philosophy of mind comes largely from the fact that they are seen as posing a
fundamental problem for materialist explanations of the mind-body problem. Much of the debate over their
importance hinges on the definition of the term that is used,
as various philosophers emphasize or deny the existence of certain features of qualia. As such,
the nature and existence of qualia are controversial.


2) Dennett on qualia

"In Consciousness Explained (1991) and "Quining Qualia" (1988),[19] Daniel Dennett offers an argument against qualia that attempts to
show that the above definition breaks down when one tries to make a practical application of it. In a series of thought experiments,
which he calls "intuition pumps," he brings qualia into the world of neurosurgery, clinical psychology, and psychological experimentation.
His argument attempts to show that, once the concept of qualia is so imported, it turns out that we can either make no use of it in the
situation in question, or that the questions posed by the introduction of qualia are unanswerable precisely because of the special
properties defined for qualia."

Is this the height of arrogance or what ? Dennett essentially says
that qualia do not exist because he cannot explain them.


3) The Nagel argument. The definition of qualia is not what they are, but what they do..
what role they play ion consciusness. On the same page as above,

The "What's it like to be?" argument
Main article: Subjective character of experience

Although it does not actually mention the word "qualia," Thomas Nagel's
paper What Is it Like to Be a Bat?[4] is often cited in debates over qualia.
Nagel argues that consciousness has an essentially subjective character, a
what-it-is-like aspect. He states that "an organism has conscious mental states if and only i
if there is something that it is like to be that organism � something it is like for the organism."

Nagel also suggests that the subjective
aspect of the mind may not ever be sufficiently accounted for by the objective methods of
reductionistic science (materialism). He claims that "[i]f we acknowledge that a physical theory of mind
must account for the subjective character of experience, we must admit that no presently
available conception gives us a clue how this could be done."[6] Furthermore, he states that
"it seems unlikely that any physical theory of mind can be contemplated
until more thought has been given to the general problem of subjective and objective."[6]

4) The zombie argument (from the link already given)

The zombie argument
Main article: Philosophical zombie

" A similar argument holds that it is conceivable that there could be physical duplicates of people,
called "zombies," without any qualia at all. These "zombies" would demonstrate outward behavior
precisely similar to that of a normal human, but would not have a subjective phenomenology.
It is worth noting that a necessary condition for the possibility of philosophical zombies is that
there be no specific part or parts of the brain that directly give rise to qualia�the zombie can only
exist if subjective consciousness is causally separate from the physical brain."







Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
10/25/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen

Alberto G. Corona

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Oct 25, 2012, 9:11:40 AM10/25/12
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I agree.

is there something that can be perceived that is not qualia? It´s
less qualia the shape and location of a circle in ha sheet of paper
than its color?.The fact that the position and radius of the circle
can be measured and communicated does not change the fact that they
produce a subjective perception. so they are also qualia. Then the
question becomes why some qualia are communicable (phenomena) and
others do not? It may be because shape and position involve a more
basic form of processing and the color processing is more complicated?
O is because shape and position processing evolved to be communicable
quantitatively between humans, while color had no evolutionary
pressure to be a quantitative and communicable ?

If everithig perceived is qualia, then the question is the opposite.
Instead of ¿what is qualia under a materialist stance?, the question
is why some qualia are measurable and comunicable in a mentalist
stance, where every perception is in the mind, including the
perception that I have a head with a brain?

2012/10/25 Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net>:
> Dennett and others on qualia
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia#Daniel_Dennett
>
> 1) Schroedinger on qualia.
>
> "Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, the experience of taking a recreational drug,
> or the perceived redness of an evening sky. Daniel Dennett writes that qualia is "an unfamiliar term for
> something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us."[1] Erwin Schrödinger,
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
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>



--
Alberto.

meekerdb

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Oct 25, 2012, 12:38:57 PM10/25/12
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On 10/25/2012 5:17 AM, Roger Clough wrote:
2) Dennett on qualia

"In Consciousness Explained (1991) and "Quining Qualia" (1988),[19] Daniel Dennett offers an argument against qualia that attempts to 
show that the above definition breaks down when one tries to make a practical application of it. In a series of thought experiments, 
which he calls "intuition pumps," he brings qualia into the world of neurosurgery, clinical psychology, and psychological experimentation. 
His argument attempts to show that, once the concept of qualia is so imported, it turns out that we can either make no use of it in the 
situation in question, or that the questions posed by the introduction of qualia are unanswerable precisely because of the special
properties defined for qualia."

Is this the height of arrogance or what ? Dennett essentially says
that qualia do not exist because he cannot explain them

It's not as arrogant as quoting a criticism of Dennett and attributing it to him.

Brent

meekerdb

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Oct 25, 2012, 12:57:11 PM10/25/12
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Good points. The contrast is usually qualia-v-quanta. I think color can be communicated
and we have an "RGB" language for doing so that makes it more quanta than qualia. So
extending your point to Schrodinger, if you're a wine connoisseur you have a language for
communicating the taste of wine. Most of us don't speak it, but most people don't speak
differential equations either. But those are all things that can be shared. The pain of
a headache generally can't be perceived by two different people. But there are
experiments that use small electric shocks to try to produce objective scales of pain. So
I think you are right that it is a matter of having developed the language; I just don't
think color is the best example.

Brent

On 10/25/2012 6:11 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
> I agree.
>
> is there something that can be perceived that is not qualia? It�s
> less qualia the shape and location of a circle in ha sheet of paper
> than its color?.The fact that the position and radius of the circle
> can be measured and communicated does not change the fact that they
> produce a subjective perception. so they are also qualia. Then the
> question becomes why some qualia are communicable (phenomena) and
> others do not? It may be because shape and position involve a more
> basic form of processing and the color processing is more complicated?
> O is because shape and position processing evolved to be communicable
> quantitatively between humans, while color had no evolutionary
> pressure to be a quantitative and communicable ?
>
> If everithig perceived is qualia, then the question is the opposite.
> Instead of �what is qualia under a materialist stance?, the question
> is why some qualia are measurable and comunicable in a mentalist
> stance, where every perception is in the mind, including the
> perception that I have a head with a brain?
>
> 2012/10/25 Roger Clough<rcl...@verizon.net>:
>> Dennett and others on qualia
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia#Daniel_Dennett
>>
>> 1) Schroedinger on qualia.
>>
>> "Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, the experience of taking a recreational drug,
>> or the perceived redness of an evening sky. Daniel Dennett writes that qualia is "an unfamiliar term for
>> something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us."[1] Erwin Schr�dinger,
>> if there is something that it is like to be that organism � something it is like for the organism."
>>
>> Nagel also suggests that the subjective
>> aspect of the mind may not ever be sufficiently accounted for by the objective methods of
>> reductionistic science (materialism). He claims that "[i]f we acknowledge that a physical theory of mind
>> must account for the subjective character of experience, we must admit that no presently
>> available conception gives us a clue how this could be done."[6] Furthermore, he states that
>> "it seems unlikely that any physical theory of mind can be contemplated
>> until more thought has been given to the general problem of subjective and objective."[6]
>>
>> 4) The zombie argument (from the link already given)
>>
>> The zombie argument
>> Main article: Philosophical zombie
>>
>> " A similar argument holds that it is conceivable that there could be physical duplicates of people,
>> called "zombies," without any qualia at all. These "zombies" would demonstrate outward behavior
>> precisely similar to that of a normal human, but would not have a subjective phenomenology.
>> It is worth noting that a necessary condition for the possibility of philosophical zombies is that
>> there be no specific part or parts of the brain that directly give rise to qualia�the zombie can only

Craig Weinberg

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Oct 25, 2012, 3:50:38 PM10/25/12
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On Thursday, October 25, 2012 12:57:34 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote:
Good points.  The contrast is usually qualia-v-quanta. I think color can be communicated
and we have an "RGB" language for doing so that makes it more quanta than qualia.  

That doesn't work. RGB coordinates do not help a blind person visualize Red. What we have is a model for the producing optical stimulation that is typically associated with color perception. By contrast, a description of an object as being at a particular longitude and latitude on Earth will be valid for any body which can navigate public space.
 
So
extending your point to Schrodinger, if you're a wine connoisseur you have a language for
communicating the taste of wine.  Most of us don't speak it, but most people don't speak
differential equations either.  But those are all things that can be shared.  The pain of
a headache generally can't be perceived by two different people.  But there are
experiments that use small electric shocks to try to produce objective scales of pain.  So
I think you are right that it is a matter of having developed the language; I just don't
think color is the best example.

This is a total non-starter. You cannot make a brick feel pain by using the right language.

I did a post today on perception which might help http://s33light.org/post/34304933509

In short, qualia is a continuum of private and public significance. The more a particular phenomenon has to to with position and distance, the more public it is. Simple as that.

Craig
 

smi...@zonnet.nl

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Oct 25, 2012, 4:58:28 PM10/25/12
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You can identify a particular qualia with certain computational states
of algorithms. All you need to do to (in principle) decide if a system
is "experiencing the color red" is to see if the right algorithm is
being executed.

Saibal


Citeren Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com>:
>> > 2012/10/25 Roger Clough<rcl...@verizon.net <javascript:>>:
>> >> Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net <javascript:>
>> >> 10/25/2012
>> >> "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen
>> >>
>> >> --
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>> >
>>
>>
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Craig Weinberg

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Oct 25, 2012, 5:11:10 PM10/25/12
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On Thursday, October 25, 2012 4:58:33 PM UTC-4, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:
You can identify a particular qualia with certain computational states
of algorithms. All you need to do to (in principle) decide if a system
is "experiencing the color red" is to see if the right algorithm is
being executed.

That may not even be the case at all. In people who are blind from birth, activity in their visual cortex is perceived as tactile experience.

Craig
 

smi...@zonnet.nl

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Oct 25, 2012, 5:16:30 PM10/25/12
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Citeren Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com>:

>
>
> On Thursday, October 25, 2012 4:58:33 PM UTC-4, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:
>>
>> You can identify a particular qualia with certain computational states
>> of algorithms. All you need to do to (in principle) decide if a system
>> is "experiencing the color red" is to see if the right algorithm is
>> being executed.
>>
>
> That may not even be the case at all. In people who are blind from birth,
> activity in their visual cortex is perceived as tactile experience.
>
> Craig
>

That then means that the right algorithm isn't executed. I don't think
one can argue against this, as having a mathematical description of
Nature implies this.

Saibal
>
>>
>> Saibal
>>
>>
>> Citeren Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com <javascript:>>:
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/TkL-1wgLpZcJ.

Stephen P. King

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Oct 25, 2012, 5:18:30 PM10/25/12
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On 10/25/2012 5:16 PM, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:
> Citeren Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com>:
>
>>
>>
>> On Thursday, October 25, 2012 4:58:33 PM UTC-4, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:
>>>
>>> You can identify a particular qualia with certain computational states
>>> of algorithms. All you need to do to (in principle) decide if a system
>>> is "experiencing the color red" is to see if the right algorithm is
>>> being executed.
>>>
>>
>> That may not even be the case at all. In people who are blind from
>> birth,
>> activity in their visual cortex is perceived as tactile experience.
>>
>> Craig
>>
>
> That then means that the right algorithm isn't executed. I don't think
> one can argue against this, as having a mathematical description of
> Nature implies this.
>
> Saibal
>>
>>
Hi,

I can agree with both of you but I have to ask you, Saibal, what is
it that matches up the math with the first hand experience?

--
Onward!

Stephen


smi...@zonnet.nl

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Oct 25, 2012, 6:01:52 PM10/25/12
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Citeren "Stephen P. King" <step...@charter.net>:
The description of the brain contains in it the information about the
state of the enviroment and the body. The brain is programmed to
maintain the body in some ideal state (or to move toward such a state,
even if it is not attainable).

Then the details of this programming are unknown to us, e.g. we know
that color vision in primates evolved when flowering trees began to
grow fruits, but we don't know how exactly all the neurons are wired in
the brain. So, if you see some color, what exactly happens in your
brain you don't know. Those details therefore exist in a superposition
of all the possibilities (an extremely complicated superposition
entangled with the environment, of course).

This means that the moment you experience a color, you are re-running
the entire evolution that led to color vision. This implements
counterfactuals in which you would have a different sense of color
vision but in which would have had a lower probability of existing.

Then the outcome of observing the color red isn't a "sharp state" it is
a hugely complicated entangled state which are all very close to having
the maximum amplitude. It contains in it the information on the
consequences of the brain having a slightly different wiring and of the
spectrum of the light being slightly different. The effect of all that
is to implement the higher level algorithm that strives for the body to
move toward the ideal body plan at any given moment.

Saibal

meekerdb

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Oct 25, 2012, 6:10:49 PM10/25/12
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On 10/25/2012 3:01 PM, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:
> Citeren "Stephen P. King" <step...@charter.net>:
>
>> On 10/25/2012 5:16 PM, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:
>>> Citeren Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com>:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thursday, October 25, 2012 4:58:33 PM UTC-4, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> You can identify a particular qualia with certain computational states
>>>>> of algorithms. All you need to do to (in principle) decide if a system
>>>>> is "experiencing the color red" is to see if the right algorithm is
>>>>> being executed.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> That may not even be the case at all. In people who are blind from birth,
>>>> activity in their visual cortex is perceived as tactile experience.
>>>>
>>>> Craig
>>>>
>>>
>>> That then means that the right algorithm isn't executed. I don't think one can argue
>>> against this, as having a mathematical description of Nature implies this.
>>>
>>> Saibal
>>>>
>>>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I can agree with both of you but I have to ask you, Saibal, what is it that matches
>> up the math with the first hand experience?
>>
>> --
>> Onward!
>>
>> Stephen
>>
>

Good explication

> The description of the brain contains in it the information about the state of the
> enviroment and the body. The brain is programmed to maintain the body in some ideal
> state (or to move toward such a state, even if it is not attainable).

I trust you mean the "programmed" and "ideal" metaphorically: the brain has evolved to
strive for certain states (satisfaction) that were favored by natural selection.

Brent

Craig Weinberg

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Oct 25, 2012, 7:45:12 PM10/25/12
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On Thursday, October 25, 2012 5:16:47 PM UTC-4, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:
Citeren Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com>:

>
>
> On Thursday, October 25, 2012 4:58:33 PM UTC-4, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:
>>
>> You can identify a particular qualia with certain computational states
>> of algorithms. All you need to do to (in principle) decide if a system
>> is "experiencing the color red" is to see if the right algorithm is
>> being executed.
>>
>
> That may not even be the case at all. In people who are blind from birth,
> activity in their visual cortex is perceived as tactile experience.
>
> Craig
>

That then means that the right algorithm isn't executed.
 
No, it means that there may in fact be no algorithm that can be executed in the brain of a person who is blind from birth which will result in visual experience.

I don't think
one can argue against this, as having a mathematical description of
Nature implies this.
This is precisely what I do argue - that no mathematical description of Nature is complete and that all perceptual experience is rooted in an authenticity which transcends rationality.  Comp isn't true. Nature cannot be described in any terms outside of experience itself.

Craig

Roger Clough

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Oct 26, 2012, 7:01:32 AM10/26/12
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Hi Alberto G. Corona

Instead of trying to understand these phenomena under
the materialist function of mind (what they are) it
is IMHO more useful to understand them by what they
do-- create the subjective or mental correlates to
the physical sources. The functional theory of mind
then is the appropriate way to understand the mind.



Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
10/26/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen


----- Receiving the following content -----
From: Alberto G. Corona
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-10-25, 09:11:40
Subject: Re: Dennett and others on qualia


I agree.

is there something that can be perceived that is not qualia? It?
less qualia the shape and location of a circle in ha sheet of paper
than its color?.The fact that the position and radius of the circle
can be measured and communicated does not change the fact that they
produce a subjective perception. so they are also qualia. Then the
question becomes why some qualia are communicable (phenomena) and
others do not? It may be because shape and position involve a more
basic form of processing and the color processing is more complicated?
O is because shape and position processing evolved to be communicable
quantitatively between humans, while color had no evolutionary
pressure to be a quantitative and communicable ?

If everithig perceived is qualia, then the question is the opposite.
Instead of ?hat is qualia under a materialist stance?, the question
is why some qualia are measurable and comunicable in a mentalist
stance, where every perception is in the mind, including the
perception that I have a head with a brain?

2012/10/25 Roger Clough :
> Dennett and others on qualia
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia#Daniel_Dennett
>
> 1) Schroedinger on qualia.
>
> "Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, the experience of taking a recreational drug,
> or the perceived redness of an evening sky. Daniel Dennett writes that qualia is "an unfamiliar term for
> something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us."[1] Erwin Schr?inger,
> if there is something that it is like to be that organism ? something it is like for the organism."
>
> Nagel also suggests that the subjective
> aspect of the mind may not ever be sufficiently accounted for by the objective methods of
> reductionistic science (materialism). He claims that "[i]f we acknowledge that a physical theory of mind
> must account for the subjective character of experience, we must admit that no presently
> available conception gives us a clue how this could be done."[6] Furthermore, he states that
> "it seems unlikely that any physical theory of mind can be contemplated
> until more thought has been given to the general problem of subjective and objective."[6]
>
> 4) The zombie argument (from the link already given)
>
> The zombie argument
> Main article: Philosophical zombie
>
> " A similar argument holds that it is conceivable that there could be physical duplicates of people,
> called "zombies," without any qualia at all. These "zombies" would demonstrate outward behavior
> precisely similar to that of a normal human, but would not have a subjective phenomenology.
> It is worth noting that a necessary condition for the possibility of philosophical zombies is that
> there be no specific part or parts of the brain that directly give rise to qualia?he zombie can only

Roger Clough

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Oct 26, 2012, 7:39:01 AM10/26/12
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Hi meekerdb

Please explain why the criticism of Dennett is wrong.
This is another drive-by shooting of yours.



Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
10/26/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen


----- Receiving the following content -----
From: meekerdb
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-10-25, 12:38:57
Subject: Re: Dennett and others on qualia

Roger Clough

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Oct 26, 2012, 7:51:32 AM10/26/12
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Hi meekerdb

Quanta do exist, and can be measured,
but by definition they can only be experienced as qualia,
(another word for experience) which can't be measured.

Quanta are within spacetime, qualia are beyond spacetime.


Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
10/26/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen


----- Receiving the following content -----
From: meekerdb
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-10-25, 12:57:11
Subject: Re: Dennett and others on qualia


Good points. The contrast is usually qualia-v-quanta. I think color can be communicated
and we have an "RGB" language for doing so that makes it more quanta than qualia. So
extending your point to Schrodinger, if you're a wine connoisseur you have a language for
communicating the taste of wine. Most of us don't speak it, but most people don't speak
differential equations either. But those are all things that can be shared. The pain of
a headache generally can't be perceived by two different people. But there are
experiments that use small electric shocks to try to produce objective scales of pain. So
I think you are right that it is a matter of having developed the language; I just don't
think color is the best example.

Brent

On 10/25/2012 6:11 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
> I agree.
>
> is there something that can be perceived that is not qualia? It?
> less qualia the shape and location of a circle in ha sheet of paper
> than its color?.The fact that the position and radius of the circle
> can be measured and communicated does not change the fact that they
> produce a subjective perception. so they are also qualia. Then the
> question becomes why some qualia are communicable (phenomena) and
> others do not? It may be because shape and position involve a more
> basic form of processing and the color processing is more complicated?
> O is because shape and position processing evolved to be communicable
> quantitatively between humans, while color had no evolutionary
> pressure to be a quantitative and communicable ?
>
> If everithig perceived is qualia, then the question is the opposite.
> Instead of ?hat is qualia under a materialist stance?, the question
> is why some qualia are measurable and comunicable in a mentalist
> stance, where every perception is in the mind, including the
> perception that I have a head with a brain?
>
> 2012/10/25 Roger Clough:
>> Dennett and others on qualia
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia#Daniel_Dennett
>>
>> 1) Schroedinger on qualia.
>>
>> "Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, the experience of taking a recreational drug,
>> or the perceived redness of an evening sky. Daniel Dennett writes that qualia is "an unfamiliar term for
>> something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us."[1] Erwin Schr?inger,
>> if there is something that it is like to be that organism ? something it is like for the organism."
>>
>> Nagel also suggests that the subjective
>> aspect of the mind may not ever be sufficiently accounted for by the objective methods of
>> reductionistic science (materialism). He claims that "[i]f we acknowledge that a physical theory of mind
>> must account for the subjective character of experience, we must admit that no presently
>> available conception gives us a clue how this could be done."[6] Furthermore, he states that
>> "it seems unlikely that any physical theory of mind can be contemplated
>> until more thought has been given to the general problem of subjective and objective."[6]
>>
>> 4) The zombie argument (from the link already given)
>>
>> The zombie argument
>> Main article: Philosophical zombie
>>
>> " A similar argument holds that it is conceivable that there could be physical duplicates of people,
>> called "zombies," without any qualia at all. These "zombies" would demonstrate outward behavior
>> precisely similar to that of a normal human, but would not have a subjective phenomenology.
>> It is worth noting that a necessary condition for the possibility of philosophical zombies is that
>> there be no specific part or parts of the brain that directly give rise to qualia?he zombie can only

Bruno Marchal

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Oct 26, 2012, 9:40:04 AM10/26/12
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On 25 Oct 2012, at 18:57, meekerdb wrote:

> Good points. The contrast is usually qualia-v-quanta. I think color
> can be communicated and we have an "RGB" language for doing so that
> makes it more quanta than qualia. So extending your point to
> Schrodinger, if you're a wine connoisseur you have a language for
> communicating the taste of wine. Most of us don't speak it, but
> most people don't speak differential equations either. But those
> are all things that can be shared. The pain of a headache generally
> can't be perceived by two different people. But there are
> experiments that use small electric shocks to try to produce
> objective scales of pain. So I think you are right that it is a
> matter of having developed the language; I just don't think color is
> the best example.

I disagree here. No qualia are communciable in the sense that quanta,
or numbers, are communicable. We can talk and understand talk on color
only because we bet that we share similar experience in front of
electromagnetic wave with certain wave-length.

But quant are not a problem for comp (even in the materialist frame)
as computer science can expain why machine looking inward discover
true relation having non quantitative contents, and obeying what
people agree on qualia.

Bruno





>
> Brent
>
> On 10/25/2012 6:11 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
>> I agree.
>>
>> is there something that can be perceived that is not qualia? It´s
>> less qualia the shape and location of a circle in ha sheet of paper
>> than its color?.The fact that the position and radius of the circle
>> can be measured and communicated does not change the fact that they
>> produce a subjective perception. so they are also qualia. Then the
>> question becomes why some qualia are communicable (phenomena) and
>> others do not? It may be because shape and position involve a more
>> basic form of processing and the color processing is more
>> complicated?
>> O is because shape and position processing evolved to be communicable
>> quantitatively between humans, while color had no evolutionary
>> pressure to be a quantitative and communicable ?
>>
>> If everithig perceived is qualia, then the question is the opposite.
>> Instead of ¿what is qualia under a materialist stance?, the question
>> is why some qualia are measurable and comunicable in a mentalist
>> stance, where every perception is in the mind, including the
>> perception that I have a head with a brain?
>>
>> 2012/10/25 Roger Clough<rcl...@verizon.net>:
>>> Dennett and others on qualia
>>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia#Daniel_Dennett
>>>
>>> 1) Schroedinger on qualia.
>>>
>>> "Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine,
>>> the experience of taking a recreational drug,
>>> or the perceived redness of an evening sky. Daniel Dennett writes
>>> that qualia is "an unfamiliar term for
>>> something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways
>>> things seem to us."[1] Erwin Schrödinger,
>>> if there is something that it is like to be that organism —
>>> rise to qualia—the zombie can only
>>> exist if subjective consciousness is causally separate from the
>>> physical brain."
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
>>> 10/25/2012
>>> "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen
>>>
>>> --
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>>> Groups "Everything List" group.
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>>> .
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>>> .
>>>
>>
>>
>
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Bruno Marchal

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Oct 26, 2012, 11:00:40 AM10/26/12
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On 25 Oct 2012, at 22:58, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:

You can identify a particular qualia with certain computational states of algorithms. All you need to do to (in principle) decide if a system is "experiencing the color red" is to see if the right algorithm is being executed.

That's right. And it can be done experimentally, so that today it is possible to look at a brain and infer if the person is thinking to some color, or some objects, and it seems possible to decode some visual content in dreams, as related in the last scientific american(*). 

Note that this does not yet explain the relation, and that this is possible despite the qualia can't be identify with the brain state, but associated to it, and all this is natural, and even suggest some high level for such qualia.

Note that the contrary is *not* correct. The qualia itself is not related to any particular relative implementations, but to all of them. This means (through UDA) that the making of the brain has to be eventually itself an invariant common digital pattern belonging to an (infinite) ocean of computations/arithmetical relations.

That's a realm where the physical laws take birth, arithmetico-logically.

The empirical QM-Everett's phenomenon saves comp from solipsism by making physics first person *plural*, by multiplying collection of interacting universal machines, although this aspect of experience is not so clear for all 'after-or-continuing'  lives possible.  It depends on who are we.

Bruno

(*) NEWS: Scientists Read Dreams
Brain scans during sleep were successfully used to decode some of the visual content of subjects' dreams
http://links.email.scientificamerican.com/ctt?kn=26&ms=NDA0NDM4MDgS1&r=NTM5ODMyNTc1NgS2&b=2&j=MTY0Nzk0NDEyS0&mt=1&rt=0 

meekerdb

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Oct 26, 2012, 2:47:53 PM10/26/12
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On 10/26/2012 4:51 AM, Roger Clough wrote:
> Hi meekerdb
>
> Quanta do exist, and can be measured,
> but by definition they can only be experienced as qualia,
> (another word for experience) which can't be measured.

Well that's the point isn't it. Quanta are what can be shared, and they can be shared when
there is enough intersubjective agreement on qualia to infer and bet on the quanta.

>
> Quanta are within spacetime, qualia are beyond spacetime.

I think that's a confusion. Spacetime is a construct; part of the language of quanta. It
is inferred because of agreement about qualia: "Do you see that tree to the left of that
house?" "Yeah, I see it."

Brent

meekerdb

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Oct 26, 2012, 3:22:46 PM10/26/12
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 10/26/2012 6:40 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 25 Oct 2012, at 18:57, meekerdb wrote:
>
>> Good points. The contrast is usually qualia-v-quanta. I think color can be
>> communicated and we have an "RGB" language for doing so that makes it more quanta than
>> qualia. So extending your point to Schrodinger, if you're a wine connoisseur you have
>> a language for communicating the taste of wine. Most of us don't speak it, but most
>> people don't speak differential equations either. But those are all things that can be
>> shared. The pain of a headache generally can't be perceived by two different people.
>> But there are experiments that use small electric shocks to try to produce objective
>> scales of pain. So I think you are right that it is a matter of having developed the
>> language; I just don't think color is the best example.
>
> I disagree here. No qualia are communciable in the sense that quanta, or numbers, are
> communicable. We can talk and understand talk on color only because we bet that we share
> similar experience in front of electromagnetic wave with certain wave-length.

We only agree on numbers and counting because we distinguish objects in the same way.
Otherwise your mother could not have taught you to count.

Brent

Bruno Marchal

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Oct 27, 2012, 8:07:37 AM10/27/12
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On 26 Oct 2012, at 01:45, Craig Weinberg wrote:



On Thursday, October 25, 2012 5:16:47 PM UTC-4, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:
Citeren Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com>:

>
>
> On Thursday, October 25, 2012 4:58:33 PM UTC-4, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:
>>
>> You can identify a particular qualia with certain computational states
>> of algorithms. All you need to do to (in principle) decide if a system
>> is "experiencing the color red" is to see if the right algorithm is
>> being executed.
>>
>
> That may not even be the case at all. In people who are blind from birth,
> activity in their visual cortex is perceived as tactile experience.
>
> Craig
>

That then means that the right algorithm isn't executed.
 
No, it means that there may in fact be no algorithm that can be executed in the brain of a person who is blind from birth which will result in visual experience.
I don't think
one can argue against this, as having a mathematical description of
Nature implies this.
This is precisely what I do argue - that no mathematical description of Nature is complete

I agree, but today we know that there is no mathematical description of arithmetic capable of being complete.








and that all perceptual experience is rooted in an authenticity which transcends rationality. 

That can be shown as necessary when you assume comp. 




Comp isn't true.

The reductionist conception of comp is not true.



Nature cannot be described in any terms outside of experience itself.

What is "Nature" ?

Bruno



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Bruno Marchal

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Oct 27, 2012, 8:58:13 AM10/27/12
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On 26 Oct 2012, at 13:01, Roger Clough wrote:

> Hi Alberto G. Corona
>
> Instead of trying to understand these phenomena under
> the materialist function of mind (what they are) it
> is IMHO more useful to understand them by what they
> do-- create the subjective or mental correlates to
> the physical sources. The functional theory of mind
> then is the appropriate way to understand the mind.


The usual critics against comp and functionalism is that it makes the
qualia and subjectivity secondary, or epiphenomenal, when it does not
simply eliminate them.

Indeed, explaining why Margaret took her hand out quickly from the
oven in functional terms, means given an explanation by the causal
relationships (nerves communication, information handling, sensory
entry and motor outputs) realisaing a function (preserving and
protecting the hands, here). Such type of explanation makes the
subjective aspect epiphenomenal, like having no real purpose.

But the word "function" is ambiguous, and clearly so in computer
science where it can have an intensional meaning (code, machine,
number) and/or an extensional meaning (input-output, behavior, fixed
point in some structure). When a function is realized in nature or
relatively to a universal number in arithmetic, it can be shown that
he will use both aspect, and the quanta/qualia distinction exploits
this 'ambiguity'. Quanta concerns measurable and sharable quantity,
and qualia concerns measurable but not sharable possible quality.

I tend to avoid the term functionalism. It has a large spectrum of
interpretations, from high level computationalism (Putnam), to some
version of non-comp by using non computable *functions*, recoverable
or not by oracles, or first person indeterminacy. Most are weakening
of comp.

Now comp gives the math do proceed below or above comp, and make
precise the type of weakening or strengthening of comp. Some variants
of comp have equivalent "universal machine" concept, like when you
weaken with the notion of oracles, for example. Other loss the
"universality" notion. In basically all of the them, when you weaken
the ontological, you make more complex the epistemological, and vice
versa.

Are open to do a bit of math?

Bruno
>> To post to this group, send email to everything-
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> Alberto.
>
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Craig Weinberg

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Oct 27, 2012, 8:59:11 AM10/27/12
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On Saturday, October 27, 2012 8:08:01 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 26 Oct 2012, at 01:45, Craig Weinberg wrote:



On Thursday, October 25, 2012 5:16:47 PM UTC-4, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:
Citeren Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com>:

>
>
> On Thursday, October 25, 2012 4:58:33 PM UTC-4, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:
>>
>> You can identify a particular qualia with certain computational states
>> of algorithms. All you need to do to (in principle) decide if a system
>> is "experiencing the color red" is to see if the right algorithm is
>> being executed.
>>
>
> That may not even be the case at all. In people who are blind from birth,
> activity in their visual cortex is perceived as tactile experience.
>
> Craig
>

That then means that the right algorithm isn't executed.
 
No, it means that there may in fact be no algorithm that can be executed in the brain of a person who is blind from birth which will result in visual experience.
I don't think
one can argue against this, as having a mathematical description of
Nature implies this.
This is precisely what I do argue - that no mathematical description of Nature is complete

I agree, but today we know that there is no mathematical description of arithmetic capable of being complete.


I agree with that too. I would say that my prediction is that the infinities of arithmetic and the infinities of Nature overlap in topology-logical algebra, and they underlap in experience-qualia (which is the canonical conjugate of the former, i.e. 'entopic-eidetic' gestalt). Entopic refers to hallucinations which are repeating visual patterns, which seem to directly present neural mechanisms visually while eidetic hallucinations are about rich visual tableaus which inspire character or plot driven interpretations (delusions, stories). I'm only borrowing these terms to make it less cumbersome than 'apocatastatic trans-rational algebra' and 'a-merelogical non-spatial transduction', but I don't want to borrow the connotation of illusion with them. To the contrary, the experiences of being informed and formed are the only source of realism in the cosmos. Illusion is a matter of density of significance and scope of participation, which I am saying arise from the interaction between the entopic-eidetic 1p and topological-algebraic 3p.









and that all perceptual experience is rooted in an authenticity which transcends rationality. 

That can be shown as necessary when you assume comp. 


Sure, which is part of why I don't assume comp. Where we disagree I think is that I don't think that it is possible to escape the universal 3p context, even if we may not locally think we should be able to tell the difference. No spoofed 3p simulation is good enough to substitute for the universe forever. Because 1p is trans-rational, it has a better nose for imitation than it can consciously understand. I think maybe this is where Godel fits in. Intuition and real participation begin where numbers leave off.




Comp isn't true.

The reductionist conception of comp is not true.

If I extend the definition of comp to include the trans-rational grounding of participation and perception, then there isn't enough left of comp to say if it's true or not.
 



Nature cannot be described in any terms outside of experience itself.

What is "Nature" ?


The apocatastatically rejoined perception of everythingness as capitulated by some fragmented collections of somethingness. Something like that.

Craig
 

Bruno Marchal

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Oct 27, 2012, 9:01:08 AM10/27/12
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On 26 Oct 2012, at 13:51, Roger Clough wrote:

> Hi meekerdb
>
> Quanta do exist, and can be measured,
> but by definition they can only be experienced as qualia,
> (another word for experience) which can't be measured.
>
> Quanta are within spacetime, qualia are beyond spacetime.


Not with comp (in the precise form "yes doctor" + Church Thesis). In
that case quanta are also beyond space-time, like the numbers.

Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



Bruno Marchal

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Oct 27, 2012, 12:30:18 PM10/27/12
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On 27 Oct 2012, at 14:59, Craig Weinberg wrote:



On Saturday, October 27, 2012 8:08:01 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 26 Oct 2012, at 01:45, Craig Weinberg wrote:



On Thursday, October 25, 2012 5:16:47 PM UTC-4, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:
Citeren Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com>:

>
>
> On Thursday, October 25, 2012 4:58:33 PM UTC-4, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:
>>
>> You can identify a particular qualia with certain computational states
>> of algorithms. All you need to do to (in principle) decide if a system
>> is "experiencing the color red" is to see if the right algorithm is
>> being executed.
>>
>
> That may not even be the case at all. In people who are blind from birth,
> activity in their visual cortex is perceived as tactile experience.
>
> Craig
>

That then means that the right algorithm isn't executed.
 
No, it means that there may in fact be no algorithm that can be executed in the brain of a person who is blind from birth which will result in visual experience.
I don't think
one can argue against this, as having a mathematical description of
Nature implies this.
This is precisely what I do argue - that no mathematical description of Nature is complete

I agree, but today we know that there is no mathematical description of arithmetic capable of being complete.


I agree with that too. I would say that my prediction is that the infinities of arithmetic and the infinities of Nature overlap in topology-logical algebra, and they underlap in experience-qualia (which is the canonical conjugate of the former, i.e. 'entopic-eidetic' gestalt). Entopic refers to hallucinations which are repeating visual patterns, which seem to directly present neural mechanisms visually while eidetic hallucinations are about rich visual tableaus which inspire character or plot driven interpretations (delusions, stories). I'm only borrowing these terms to make it less cumbersome than 'apocatastatic trans-rational algebra' and 'a-merelogical non-spatial transduction', but I don't want to borrow the connotation of illusion with them. To the contrary, the experiences of being informed and formed are the only source of realism in the cosmos. Illusion is a matter of density of significance and scope of participation, which I am saying arise from the interaction between the entopic-eidetic 1p and topological-algebraic 3p.









and that all perceptual experience is rooted in an authenticity which transcends rationality. 

That can be shown as necessary when you assume comp. 


Sure, which is part of why I don't assume comp. Where we disagree I think is that I don't think that it is possible to escape the universal 3p context, even if we may not locally think we should be able to tell the difference. No spoofed 3p simulation is good enough to substitute for the universe forever. Because 1p is trans-rational, it has a better nose for imitation than it can consciously understand. I think maybe this is where Godel fits in. Intuition and real participation begin where numbers leave off.

On the contrary, Gödel + comp explains why the numbers, in relation with each others,  already leave off the numbers.








Comp isn't true.

The reductionist conception of comp is not true.

If I extend the definition of comp to include the trans-rational grounding of participation and perception, then there isn't enough left of comp to say if it's true or not.

Comp true means only "I survive with an artifical digital brain".



 



Nature cannot be described in any terms outside of experience itself.

What is "Nature" ?


The apocatastatically rejoined perception of everythingness as capitulated by some fragmented collections of somethingness. Something like that.


Lol


(Are you really trying to help?)

Bruno



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Roger Clough

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Oct 28, 2012, 6:19:33 PM10/28/12
to everything-list
Hi Bruno Marchal

Yes, my error, quanta are in spacetime too.

I'm still adjusting to some of these concepts.


Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
10/28/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen


----- Receiving the following content -----
From: Bruno Marchal
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-10-27, 09:01:08

Bruno Marchal

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Dec 23, 2012, 11:29:56 AM12/23/12
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We only can distinguish objects in the same way because we have brain
which can use numbers and count, in the universal way.



> Otherwise your mother could not have taught you to count.

I still feel guilty how much I made my mom suffering on this.

1, 2, What!?!, I stopped already at 2. What is that? Why?

With the amoeba I got acquainted with the 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, ... idea.

But it will take me the reading of Nagel & Newman "Gödel's proof" to
get the 0, 1, 2, 3, ... profoundness, and to decide to study
mathematics instead of biology.

Bruno



>
> Brent

meekerdb

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Dec 23, 2012, 6:31:21 PM12/23/12
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On 12/23/2012 8:29 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 26 Oct 2012, at 21:22, meekerdb wrote:
>
>> On 10/26/2012 6:40 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
>>> On 25 Oct 2012, at 18:57, meekerdb wrote:
>>>
>>>> Good points. The contrast is usually qualia-v-quanta. I think color can be
>>>> communicated and we have an "RGB" language for doing so that makes it more quanta
>>>> than qualia. So extending your point to Schrodinger, if you're a wine connoisseur
>>>> you have a language for communicating the taste of wine. Most of us don't speak it,
>>>> but most people don't speak differential equations either. But those are all things
>>>> that can be shared. The pain of a headache generally can't be perceived by two
>>>> different people. But there are experiments that use small electric shocks to try to
>>>> produce objective scales of pain. So I think you are right that it is a matter of
>>>> having developed the language; I just don't think color is the best example.
>>>
>>> I disagree here. No qualia are communciable in the sense that quanta, or numbers, are
>>> communicable. We can talk and understand talk on color only because we bet that we
>>> share similar experience in front of electromagnetic wave with certain wave-length.
>>
>> We only agree on numbers and counting because we distinguish objects in the same way.
>
> We only can distinguish objects in the same way because we have brain which can use
> numbers and count, in the universal way.

We bet it is universal and that seems to work (most of the time) - but the same is true of
representing colors by numbers. We do it that way, instead of representing numbers by
colors, because our discrimination of colors is not quite as good as our discrimination of
objects (e.g. some people are color blind).

Brent

>
>
>
>> Otherwise your mother could not have taught you to count.
>
> I still feel guilty how much I made my mom suffering on this.
>
> 1, 2, What!?!, I stopped already at 2. What is that? Why?
>
> With the amoeba I got acquainted with the 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, ... idea.
>
> But it will take me the reading of Nagel & Newman "G�del's proof" to get the 0, 1, 2, 3,

Bruno Marchal

unread,
Dec 24, 2012, 5:36:51 AM12/24/12
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
We don't have to bet the brain is (Turing universal), we can prove it.
We bet on Church thesis, simply.

Bruno



>
> Brent
>
>>
>>
>>
>>> Otherwise your mother could not have taught you to count.
>>
>> I still feel guilty how much I made my mom suffering on this.
>>
>> 1, 2, What!?!, I stopped already at 2. What is that? Why?
>>
>> With the amoeba I got acquainted with the 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, ...
>> idea.
>>
>> But it will take me the reading of Nagel & Newman "Gödel's proof"

Roger Clough

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Dec 24, 2012, 9:45:58 AM12/24/12
to everything-list
Hi Bruno Marchal

No doubt you are right, except that the brain is physical,
while, as I understand it, a UTM is mental.


[Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net]
12/24/2012
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen

----- Receiving the following content -----
From: Bruno Marchal
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-12-24, 05:36:51
Subject: Re: Dennett and others on qualia
>> But it will take me the reading of Nagel & Newman "G?el's proof"

meekerdb

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Dec 24, 2012, 1:30:29 PM12/24/12
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 12/24/2012 2:36 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
We don't have to bet the brain is (Turing universal), we can prove it.

Can we? How would you prove than every person's brain can compute every computable function?

Brent

John Mikes

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Dec 24, 2012, 3:16:41 PM12/24/12
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
Bruno and Brent:

we  T H I N K  we have an idea what 'qualia' may be and ACCEPT our figment on 'quanta' (i.e numbered 'objects'  - figments as well). 
None of the two(?) are closer to the essence (read: 'truth') we just got better used (evolved?) to quantitative thinking and language concerning such because it seemed simpler to follow in primitive life. Now, with Bruno's highly developed apparatus in arithmetics, quanta (numbers!) look like a 'reality' as compared to our still flimsy ideas about other qualia. Yet qualia they are (in a quantizing sense)
Language development went in parallel with a mental development. 
This asymmetry may be the base for Bruno's:
 "No qualia are communicable in the sense that quanta, or numbers, are communicable."  
No OTHER qualia, that is - as Brent remarked.

Turing (universal) and Church (thesis) are compatible products of the presently developed state of the human mind, evolved as some justification (base?) for the workings of the latest and still holding) version. 
They comfort the finite thinking (even in the infinite inclusions) which is our restricted way to apply human logic and 'ascertainable' reality. \

John M

 

On Mon, Dec 24, 2012 at 5:36 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 24 Dec 2012, at 00:31, meekerdb wrote:

On 12/23/2012 8:29 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 26 Oct 2012, at 21:22, meekerdb wrote:

On 10/26/2012 6:40 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 25 Oct 2012, at 18:57, meekerdb wrote:

Good points.  The contrast is usually qualia-v-quanta. I think color can be communicated and we have an "RGB" language for doing so that makes it more quanta than qualia.  So extending your point to Schrodinger, if you're a wine connoisseur you have a language for communicating the taste of wine.  Most of us don't speak it, but most people don't speak differential equations either.  But those are all things that can be shared.  The pain of a headache generally can't be perceived by two different people.  But there are experiments that use small electric shocks to try to produce objective scales of pain.  So I think you are right that it is a matter of having developed the language; I just don't think color is the best example.

I disagree here. No qualia are communciable in the sense that quanta, or numbers, are communicable. We can talk and understand talk on color only because we bet that we share similar experience in front of electromagnetic wave with certain wave-length.

We only agree on numbers and counting because we distinguish objects in the same way.

We only can distinguish objects in the same way because we have brain which can use numbers and count, in the universal way.

We bet it is universal and that seems to work (most of the time) - but the same is true of representing colors by numbers.  We do it that way, instead of representing numbers by colors, because our discrimination of colors is not quite as good as our discrimination of objects (e.g. some people are color blind).

We don't have to bet the brain is (Turing universal), we can prove it. We bet on Church thesis, simply.

Bruno





Brent




Otherwise your mother could not have taught you to count.

I still feel guilty how much I made my mom suffering on this.

1, 2,  What!?!, I stopped already at 2. What is that? Why?

With the amoeba I got acquainted with the 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, ... idea.

But it will take me the reading of Nagel & Newman "Gödel's proof" to get the 0, 1, 2, 3, ... profoundness, and to decide to study mathematics instead of biology.

Bruno




Brent

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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Bruno Marchal

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Dec 26, 2012, 4:45:57 AM12/26/12
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By teaching them to reduce combinators, which is very simple, or by teaching them to play the Game Of Life, or to interpret a LISP Expression, or more simply by teaching them how to add and multiply natural numbers. If they succeed in one of those task, they can emulate any Universal Turing Machine, and are proved to be themselves Turing Universal. With comp that is enough to conclude that their brain is Turing universal.

Bruno



Bruno Marchal

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Dec 26, 2012, 4:57:52 AM12/26/12
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John,

On 24 Dec 2012, at 21:16, John Mikes wrote:

Bruno and Brent:

we  T H I N K  we have an idea what 'qualia' may be and ACCEPT our figment on 'quanta' (i.e numbered 'objects'  - figments as well). 
None of the two(?) are closer to the essence (read: 'truth') we just got better used (evolved?) to quantitative thinking and language concerning such because it seemed simpler to follow in primitive life.

But there are tools in math to handle qualities too, like modal logic.

Such tools cannot create qualia, nor perhaps explain them completely, but Earth Geography cannot create Earth, nor explain it completely, and is still useful.



Now, with Bruno's highly developed apparatus in arithmetics, quanta (numbers!) look like a 'reality' as compared to our still flimsy ideas about other qualia. Yet qualia they are (in a quantizing sense)
Language development went in parallel with a mental development. 
This asymmetry may be the base for Bruno's:
 "No qualia are communicable in the sense that quanta, or numbers, are communicable."  
No OTHER qualia, that is - as Brent remarked.

We can know our own qualia, but it is not clear if we can communicate about them even to ourselves. We can experience them, or live them.




Turing (universal) and Church (thesis) are compatible products of the presently developed state of the human mind, evolved as some justification (base?) for the workings of the latest and still holding) version. 

Yes, and that is why we use the comp theory. 

Note that the evidences for Church thesis are very big. Peope like Rosen who believes it is false are poorly convincing. We have two kind of evidences: 
- the empirical one (all definitions of the computable functions appear to be equivalent, 
- the closure of the partial computable functions for the Cantor diagonalization procedure.

Anyway, in science, we can only propose theories, and if we are lucky enough someone will find us wrong and proposes a better theory.




They comfort the finite thinking (even in the infinite inclusions) which is our restricted way to apply human logic and 'ascertainable' reality. \

The assumption that we are relatively finite, in the 3p sense, is really the essence of comp. It *is* our assumption. Then logic can help to study our relations with the (many) infinities which confront all universal machines.

Best,

Bruno




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meekerdb

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Dec 26, 2012, 2:58:51 PM12/26/12
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But that doesn't show they can compute every computable function; some functions will take too much memory space and some computations are very long so there will inevitably be mistakes.

Brent


Bruno



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meekerdb

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Dec 26, 2012, 3:03:27 PM12/26/12
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On 12/26/2012 1:57 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
John,

On 24 Dec 2012, at 21:16, John Mikes wrote:

Bruno and Brent:

we  T H I N K  we have an idea what 'qualia' may be and ACCEPT our figment on 'quanta' (i.e numbered 'objects'  - figments as well). 
None of the two(?) are closer to the essence (read: 'truth') we just got better used (evolved?) to quantitative thinking and language concerning such because it seemed simpler to follow in primitive life.

But there are tools in math to handle qualities too, like modal logic.

Such tools cannot create qualia, nor perhaps explain them completely, but Earth Geography cannot create Earth, nor explain it completely, and is still useful.



Now, with Bruno's highly developed apparatus in arithmetics, quanta (numbers!) look like a 'reality' as compared to our still flimsy ideas about other qualia. Yet qualia they are (in a quantizing sense)
Language development went in parallel with a mental development. 
This asymmetry may be the base for Bruno's:
 "No qualia are communicable in the sense that quanta, or numbers, are communicable."  
No OTHER qualia, that is - as Brent remarked.

We can know our own qualia, but it is not clear if we can communicate about them even to ourselves. We can experience them, or live them.

But if CTM is true (or even a good model) we can represent the qualia by quanta and so communicate them.

Brent

Bruno Marchal

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Dec 27, 2012, 6:40:50 AM12/27/12
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On 26 Dec 2012, at 20:58, meekerdb wrote:

On 12/26/2012 1:45 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 24 Dec 2012, at 19:30, meekerdb wrote:

On 12/24/2012 2:36 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
We don't have to bet the brain is (Turing universal), we can prove it.

Can we? How would you prove than every person's brain can compute every computable function?

By teaching them to reduce combinators, which is very simple, or by teaching them to play the Game Of Life, or to interpret a LISP Expression, or more simply by teaching them how to add and multiply natural numbers. If they succeed in one of those task, they can emulate any Universal Turing Machine, and are proved to be themselves Turing Universal. With comp that is enough to conclude that their brain is Turing universal.

But that doesn't show they can compute every computable function; some functions will take too much memory space and some computations are very long so there will inevitably be mistakes.

That's the fate of ALL universal number. They have NEVER enough memories. The available 'tape' is always too much short. They always feel like having something more to say. And they always make mistake, unless they are ideally correct, a condition which is met only in the universal number's mind.

Computable does not mean, concretely computable. That would makes addition and multuplication NOT computable, as nobody can add the 10^10000 first digits of PI.

Bruno




Brent


Bruno



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Bruno Marchal

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Dec 27, 2012, 6:44:14 AM12/27/12
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We cannot for a reason similar to the fact that we cannot define arithmetical truth in arithmetic. A qualia is never definable in term of quanta (in comp + classical definition of knowledge). 

This is intuitive and amenable to thought experience, like the experience of the blind Mary which studies many books on color and qualia and still has any clue what it is like to be a seeing person.

Bruno



Brent

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meekerdb

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Dec 27, 2012, 2:13:31 PM12/27/12
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On 12/27/2012 3:40 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 26 Dec 2012, at 20:58, meekerdb wrote:

On 12/26/2012 1:45 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 24 Dec 2012, at 19:30, meekerdb wrote:

On 12/24/2012 2:36 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
We don't have to bet the brain is (Turing universal), we can prove it.

Can we? How would you prove than every person's brain can compute every computable function?

By teaching them to reduce combinators, which is very simple, or by teaching them to play the Game Of Life, or to interpret a LISP Expression, or more simply by teaching them how to add and multiply natural numbers. If they succeed in one of those task, they can emulate any Universal Turing Machine, and are proved to be themselves Turing Universal. With comp that is enough to conclude that their brain is Turing universal.

But that doesn't show they can compute every computable function; some functions will take too much memory space and some computations are very long so there will inevitably be mistakes.

That's the fate of ALL universal number. They have NEVER enough memories. The available 'tape' is always too much short. They always feel like having something more to say. And they always make mistake, unless they are ideally correct, a condition which is met only in the universal number's mind.

Computable does not mean, concretely computable. That would makes addition and multuplication NOT computable, as nobody can add the 10^10000 first digits of PI.

Bruno

Right, it makes 'computable' an approximate notion.  But then that breaks the chain of inference that fundamental physics is inconsistent with CTM.

Brent

meekerdb

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Dec 27, 2012, 2:14:47 PM12/27/12
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On 12/27/2012 3:44 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
This is intuitive and amenable to thought experience, like the experience of the blind Mary which studies many books on color and qualia and still has any clue what it is like to be a seeing person.

I think Dennett is right when he says our intuition is unreliable in such a case.

Brent

Bruno Marchal

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Dec 28, 2012, 1:29:22 PM12/28/12
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It makes "concretely computable" an approximate notion. 

 Computable, on the contrary, is made 100% mathematical, once we assume Church's or Turing's thesis.

Your laptop, and your brain can be said to approximate the immaterial machine(s) you are, in the comp picture. Like a quantum field approximates your brain, and arithmetic approximates the quantum fields, etc.

We still have to understand why the quantum fields seems to get the right "comp"-measure.


But then that breaks the chain of inference that fundamental physics is inconsistent with CTM.

Fundamental physics has not been shown inconsistent with CTM.

Metaphysical physicalism has been shown inconsistent with CTM, and this by using the mathematical non approximate use of computable.


Bruno



Bruno Marchal

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Dec 28, 2012, 1:44:26 PM12/28/12
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Then, that's only an unreliable intuition.

Bruno




Brent

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