Could I get some upvotes for my answer to this question?

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Brent Allsop

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Aug 6, 2023, 8:20:11 AM8/6/23
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John Clark

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Aug 9, 2023, 5:42:33 AM8/9/23
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On Sun, Aug 6, 2023 at 8:20 AM Brent Allsop <brent....@gmail.com> wrote:
I don't understand what you mean when you say that people are"qualia blind". Everybody (and natural selection too) is blind to qualia, except for those that they themselves are experiencing, the qualia that other people experience can only be inferred from behavior. And exactly the same thing could be said about the qualia experienced by an AI. 

John K Clark 


Brent Allsop

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Aug 9, 2023, 10:37:49 AM8/9/23
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Hi John,
The left hemisphere of your brain does more than just "infer from behavior", the nature of the qualities in your right hemisphere.


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John Clark

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Aug 10, 2023, 3:33:14 PM8/10/23
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On Wed, Aug 9, 2023 at 10:37 AM Brent Allsop <brent....@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi John,
The left hemisphere of your brain does more than just "infer from behavior", the nature of the qualities in your right hemisphere.

The person I'm talking to right now doesn't know and will never know what it would be like to be just the left hemisphere of Brent Allsop's brain if the Corpus callosum was cut and there was no connection with the right hemisphere. 

 John K Clark

Brent Allsop

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Aug 10, 2023, 3:47:37 PM8/10/23
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This answer from a smart person like you is completely surprising to me.  As it seems so completely and obviously wrong.  The visual knowledge of my right field of vision is in my left hemisphere, and vice versa.  I know, now, that redness (the quality of my knowledge of strawberries) is the same in both hemispheres, since I can experience them both at the same time.  If there was a cut, such that the two hemispheres of knowledge were no longer computationally bound into one unified subjective experience.  They were effectively two isolated non computationally bound sets of subjective knowledge of subjective awareness of half of what I could see (there would more or less be two isolated half consciousnesses in each half of the brain.  I would still know, and remember that redness was the same before, so I would still surely know it was still the same, even though the two hemispheres have been separated (and consciously removed from each other.)


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John Clark

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Aug 10, 2023, 4:22:59 PM8/10/23
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On Thu, Aug 10, 2023 at 3:47 PM Brent Allsop <brent....@gmail.com> wrote:

> This answer from a smart person like you is completely surprising to me.  As it seems so completely and obviously wrong.  The visual knowledge of my right field of vision is in my left hemisphere, and vice versa. 

So my right hemisphere has no knowledge of my right field division and the left no knowledge of the left, but even if they did it would make no difference because the data may be the same but the way one hemisphere alone would process the data would be quite different than the way both hemispheres working together would process it.  

> I know, now, that redness (the quality of my knowledge of strawberries) is the same in both hemispheres, since I can experience them both at the same time. 

But the "I" referred to in the above is not the left hemisphere and is not the right hemisphere either, it is both. So Mr. I has no idea what it would be like to be just one. It works the other way too.  I have no idea what it would be like to be John Clark if he had experienced a massive stroke and I hope I never find out.  Other than a vague feeling that things used to be better, the brain damaged John Clark wouldn't know what it was like when he was healthy.  And I don't think you could do any better if you had a similar experience.    

 > They were effectively two isolated non computationally bound sets of subjective knowledge of subjective awareness of half of what I could see (there would more or less be two isolated half consciousnesses in each half of the brain.  I would still know, and remember that redness was the same before,

Who is the referent of the personal pronoun "I" in the above? It certainly isn't the Brent Allsop I'm talking to right now who has two working hemispheres and an uncut Corpus callosum.

 John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis
els



 

On Thu, Aug 10, 2023 at 1:33 PM John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Aug 9, 2023 at 10:37 AM Brent Allsop <brent....@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi John,
The left hemisphere of your brain does more than just "infer from behavior", the nature of the qualities in your right hemisphere.

The person I'm talking to right now doesn't know and will never know what it would be like to be just the left hemisphere of Brent Allsop's brain if the Corpus callosum was cut and there was no connection with the right hemisphere. 

 John K Clark

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Brent Allsop

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Aug 10, 2023, 6:29:50 PM8/10/23
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On Thu, Aug 10, 2023 at 2:23 PM John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Aug 10, 2023 at 3:47 PM Brent Allsop <brent....@gmail.com> wrote:
> This answer from a smart person like you is completely surprising to me.  As it seems so completely and obviously wrong.  The visual knowledge of my right field of vision is in my left hemisphere, and vice versa. 

So my right hemisphere has no knowledge of my right field division and the left no knowledge of the left,

No.  Half of the colorness qualities forming the "bubble world" in your head is one hemisphere, the rest is in the other hemisphere .  It is all computationally bound into one unified experience, so both hemispheres are aware of the colors in the other, as one unified experience.

We're talking of the neural engineering work people will be doing in less than 100 years.  As we've discussed before, we will be computationally binding brains together with neuro ponytails, uploading ourselves into avatar bodies (won 't need space suites in space...) and all that.  Any part of your subjective knowledge could be engineered to be computationally bound into any sets of any of that.  Surely you'll be able to gind just the colorness qualities, or you may or may not want to include any of the other colorness qualities that would also be bound into your experience of the colorness qualities in your bubble world.  If we wanted, It will be possible to have me and you, with a super brain that is a merged mind of both of us, and our histories, memories, and anything else we wanted to include in the subjective experience.  So, what, you don't think we'll ever be doing any and all of that kind of stuff?
 
but even if they did it would make no difference because the data may be the same but the way one hemisphere alone would process the data would be quite different than the way both hemispheres working together would process it.  

> I know, now, that redness (the quality of my knowledge of strawberries) is the same in both hemispheres, since I can experience them both at the same time. 

But the "I" referred to in the above is not the left hemisphere and is not the right hemisphere either, it is both. So Mr. I has no idea what it would be like to be just one. It works the other way too.  I have no idea what it would be like to be John Clark if he had experienced a massive stroke and I hope I never find out.  Other than a vague feeling that things used to be better, the brain damaged John Clark wouldn't know what it was like when he was healthy.  And I don't think you could do any better if you had a similar experience.    

 > They were effectively two isolated non computationally bound sets of subjective knowledge of subjective awareness of half of what I could see (there would more or less be two isolated half consciousnesses in each half of the brain.  I would still know, and remember that redness was the same before,

Who is the referent of the personal pronoun "I" in the above? It certainly isn't the Brent Allsop I'm talking to right now who has two working hemispheres and an uncut Corpus callosum.

 John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis
els



 

On Thu, Aug 10, 2023 at 1:33 PM John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Aug 9, 2023 at 10:37 AM Brent Allsop <brent....@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi John,
The left hemisphere of your brain does more than just "infer from behavior", the nature of the qualities in your right hemisphere.

The person I'm talking to right now doesn't know and will never know what it would be like to be just the left hemisphere of Brent Allsop's brain if the Corpus callosum was cut and there was no connection with the right hemisphere. 

 John K Clark

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John Clark

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Aug 11, 2023, 7:51:59 AM8/11/23
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On Thu, Aug 10, 2023 at 6:29 PM Brent Allsop <brent....@gmail.com> wrote:

>> So my right hemisphere has no knowledge of my right field division and the left no knowledge of the left,

> No.  Half of the colorness qualities forming the "bubble world" in your head is one hemisphere, the rest is in the other hemisphere .  It is all computationally bound into one unified experience,

Sure, you don't consciously know which hemisphere any particular thought originates from and you don't need to know because there is an intimate connection between the two brain halves so it doesn't matter. But if the Corpus callosum is cut and there is no longer a connection between the two hemispheres then nothing is unified anymore and there would not be one conscious experience going on inside a head, there would be two, and those experiences would NOT be identical. And although I'll never be able to prove it, my strong hunch is the combined conscious experience of both of them put together would be less than the single conscious experience the brain had before it was damaged. And that's why I don't want my Corpus callosum to be cut.

By the way, I stopped watching the above video as soon as it said "we have conscious knowledge of ...." because I wanted to shout, what's with this "we" business? 

> If we wanted, It will be possible to have me and you, with a super brain that is a merged mind of both of us, and our histories, memories, and anything else we wanted to include in the subjective experience.  So, what, you don't think we'll ever be doing any and all of that kind of stuff?

It's only a matter of time before something like that becomes technologically possible but as I've mentioned before, neither of us would know what Mr. Brent Clark is experiencing when he looks at a red tomato, and neither he nor his brother Mr. John Allsop would know what it's like to be John Clark or Brent Allsop.

John K Clark
 
 

William Flynn Wallace

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Aug 11, 2023, 10:52:06 AM8/11/23
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neither of us would know what Mr. Brent Clark is experiencing when he looks at a red tomato, john    It's not as if you know nothing.  You can make a pretty damn good guess.  bill w

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