Re: BATS (was:Qualia and communicability)

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spudb...@aol.com

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Apr 11, 2021, 6:02:38 PM4/11/21
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My conjecture was basically employing a fancy neural net that would transmit vision, hearing, and sensation, to the researcher. Smell is something a biologist would need to work on since it's complex. This would be used not to control Mr. Bat, but to relay the bat's experiences to the human. Based on reception, alone, we'd get more info on what it is like being a bat? As in, "By golly, that mosquito sure tasted good," or, "That wind is nice."


On Sunday, April 11, 2021 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
That would be of some interest but I think it would fail to communicate what it is like to be a bat because of the inability to act as a bat.  I'm not sure your brain could learn to interpret visual input if it were not able to correlate it with touch and movement.

Brent

On 4/11/2021 11:06 AM, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:
Alternatively, let's do a thought experiment here, a pretend. Pretend that we are neuroscientists, and that we have lots  of research cash to spend? We have computer engineers at our disposal to design devices for us. So, we attach some sort of neural probes of highly advanced design, to bats, and a receiver of the signal to humans. The bats send and the humans receive, with the help of computer technology, transceivers, and all the rest. Thus, a human learns at least somewhat, what it's like to be bat. Sending the info from Human to a Bat would likely constitute torture, so let's not do that!


-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com>
To: Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sat, Apr 10, 2021 11:27 am
Subject: Re: BATS (was:Qualia and communicability)



On Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 6:28 AM John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Apr 9, 2021 at 6:31 PM Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

> They {bats} could in some sense even feel the surfaces with such sonar: is the surface smooth or rough, hard or soft, etc. Sound reflects differently from different types of surfaces. 

Yes.

> Would they feel these surface differences as colors, 

What you mean is, would they sense these surface differences as I SEE colors?

> or would it feel more like tactile sensations? 

What you mean is, would they sense these surface differences as I FEEL surfaces? The answer to both questions is a resounding NO. A particular bat senses surfaces not as you do but as a particular bat does. The only way Jason Resch Could ever know what it's like to be a particular bat would be for Jason Resch to turn into that bat, and even then he wouldn't know because then he wouldn't be Jason Resch anymore, he'd be a bat. And even a bat doesn't know what it's like to be another bat.


I agree generally with the idea that bat sonar sense could be completely alien to both our sight and our touch.

And while I can't know what it's like to be a bat anymore than a bat can know what it's like to be me, we can't rule out the existence of super-states of consciousness, perhaps possessed by Jupiter brains, which would be able to simultaneously hold in mind and compare different brain states, just as our vision can simultaneously look upon two faces and compare them.

If you could be this supermind then you might be able to know what it's like to be a bat and how that's different from being John.

Jason




John K Clark
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