What is spiritual REDNESS?

[Brent Allsop]

Hi James,

Thank you, thank you, so much, for spending this much time on this
issue. Rarely do I find an individual this intelligent, with such a
different POV than my own, who is willing to help me out, to
understand what you believe, like this.

All this educates me much more about what you are talking about, and I
now see many of the mistaken assumptions I’ve been making about some
of what you’ve been saying.

One of the mistakes I was making was that I was thinking that if
redness was not a property of the brain, then I was assuming you were
thinking that it must be a property of the strawberry. But I see
know, that you were, instead, thinking of it as something causally
down stream from the stuff in the brain. As in the brain is, when you
see 650NM light, communicating to some spiritual realm, and that is
where redness might be. And if it might be there, then perhaps it
might not be reproducible in software? Tell me if this is right, and
tell me more about this spiritual stuff outside of the physical brain
you might not be able to simulate. Why might you not be able to
simulate it, to any arbitrary precision?

Another mistake I was making is I was missing the fact that you think
of it as requiring more than just a one or zero to get redness. So
you said it also has to be “connected to emotional centers, to
sub-conscious parts of the brain, to memory, to love, to anger, etc”

So let me put it this way. I have a pixel signal coming down the
optic nerve. This pixel can be a 1 for 650NM (red) light and 0 from
500NM (green) light. So you string together some structure of ones
and zeros that would be your response from the one, which you claim
could be redness. How would this set of, or structure of ones and
zeros change, to become greenness? You keep waving your hands like
this, and claiming a miracle happens, but what is this magic?

From what you are claiming, communicating whatever these structure
are, would adequately communicate what redness is like to me. IF this
was really true, then redness, or the taste of salt, would not be
ineffable, right? I could just reproduce a set of ones and zeros, and
I could hear that set, and reproduce it in my brain? Also, you could
reproduce a set that my brain has never experienced before, and I
could, for the first time, experience that??? Would there be any
limits to the types of redness, greenness, and so on, that could be
produced and discovered and communicated by such?

At least one of the problems in your 4 step proof is in this one:

2. Any physical system can be simulated in software to arbitrary precision.

This gets back to what I was trying to say. So let’s say you are
simulating 650NM light, with some neural correlate or this magically
impossible set of structured ones and zeros. It is absolutely true,
that the neural correlate (or whatever is representing and being
interpreted as this magically impossible set of ones and zeros) can be
interpreted as 650nm light, to any level of detail desired. But that
is missing the point, you must still interpret the neural correlate,
to know, fundamentally, what 650NM light is physically like.
Interpreting one, as the other, is clearly not the same. One is a
bunch of neurons being interpreted as ones and zeros, which yet again,
are being interpreted as the electromagnetic wavelengths. To talk
about one, and say it can interpreted as simulating anything about the
other, is missing the point, that at the fundamental level, they are
two very different things and you are only interpreting one to be the
other. Without the interpretation, they are not fundamentally the
same.

I think we are getting close to the problem when you say: “If you
can’t generate the experience with ones and zeros, then you can’t
generate it with neurons either…. So I can turn the question around
on you and ask, how could you explain something phenomenally new like
that arising from just stringing more firing or not firing neurons
together?”

And that is the point. When you interpret the neurons, you are not
generating electromagnetic radiation of 650NM length. You are just
creating something that can be interpreted as it. But, again, they
are not anything like each other. And if you ask what one is
fundamentally like, you must admit that neurons are not fundamentally
anything like 650NM light, other than you are able to interpret one as
being like the other.

650NM light is not being generated, it just is. Also, some neural
correlate isn’t ‘generating’ a redness physical property, it just has
the redness physical property that we experience. and we know, when
our experience has this property, it isn't anything at all,
fundamentally like greenness. You don't create it, it is just, as
Chalmers says: "part of the furniture (or at least the qualities
thereof) that the universe is made of" and to be discovered and effed
as such.

Brent Allsop

[James Carroll]

On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 3:52 PM, Brent Allsop <brent....@canonizer.com> wrote:

As in the brain is, when you
see 650NM light, communicating to some spiritual realm, and that is
where redness might be.  And if it might be there, then perhaps it
might not be reproducible in software?  Tell me if this is right,

Yes, that is exactly right.

 

and
tell me more about this spiritual stuff outside of the physical brain
you might not be able to simulate.  Why might you not be able to
simulate it, to any arbitrary precision?

Well, I am not sure it exists. I am just saying, that if it followed some super natural properties, then it might not be possible to simulate its behavior with natural systems... because it might exist outside of the natural laws which restrict the computer. 

 

So let me put it this way.  I have a pixel signal coming down the
optic nerve.  This pixel can be a 1 for 650NM (red) light and 0 from
500NM (green) light.  So you string together some structure of ones
and zeros that would be your response from the one, which you claim
could be redness.  How would this set of, or structure of ones and
zeros change, to become greenness?  You keep waving your hands like
this, and claiming a miracle happens, but what is this magic?

Well, we can see it happening on FMRI's, but we haven't mapped all the neural pathways exactly enough to specify it in detail. Yet. But we know that it is happening. Although, to be fare, the initial single is a series of pulses in time (the output of a spiking neuron), actually, the output of several, so even the input signal is complex, and the brain's reaction to that signal is far more complex. We know it is happening, because we can roughly SEE it happening in FMRI signals. Since the perception of redness resides in the brain, it therefore resides in these patterns of signals.

Clearly we need to learn more about them, I don't doubt that. Our ignorance is profound. But my premise that qualia=software doesn't require us to understand all these patterns NOW, it just requires that the perception resides IN these patterns somehow. Because if it does, it can be simulated. 

 

From what you are claiming, communicating whatever these structure
are, would adequately communicate what redness is like to me.  IF this
was really true, then redness, or the taste of salt, would not be
ineffable, right?  I could just reproduce a set of ones and zeros, and
I could hear that set, and reproduce it in my brain?  

Well, seeing the firing patterns of the neurons isn't the same thing as reproducing that firing pattern in your own mind. In order for you to experience MY experience of redness, you would have to take my firing patterns, and make those same patterns fire in YOUR brain, and that would be tricky, since you don't have the same connections that I do... but the subjective experience resides in the patterns somewhere.

 

Also, you could
reproduce a set that my brain has never experienced before, and I
could, for the first time, experience that???  

If we could get your brain to fire in that pattern, then ya.

 

Would there be any
limits to the types of redness, greenness, and so on, that could be
produced and discovered and communicated by such?

I have no idea what the limits to the firing patterns of the brain are... at least, not yet. But I am rarin to figure it out!

 

At least one of the problems in your 4 step proof is in this one:

2. Any physical system can be simulated in software to arbitrary precision.

This gets back to what I was trying to say.  So let’s say you are
simulating 650NM light, with some neural correlate or this magically
impossible set of structured ones and zeros.  It is absolutely true,
that the neural correlate (or whatever is representing and being
interpreted as this magically impossible set of ones and zeros) can be
interpreted as 650nm light, to any level of detail desired.  But that
is missing the point, you must still interpret the neural correlate,
to know, fundamentally, what 650NM light is physically like.
Interpreting one, as the other, is clearly not the same.  One is a
bunch of neurons being interpreted as ones and zeros, which yet again,
are being interpreted as the electromagnetic wavelengths.  To talk
about one, and say it can interpreted as simulating anything about the
other, is missing the point, that at the fundamental level, they are
two very different things and you are only interpreting one to be the
other.  Without the interpretation, they are not fundamentally the
same.

Honestly, I don't understand this question at all. The light is one thing, my experience of the light is the other. The second of the two resides in my brain, so it can be simulated with software, it really is that simple. 

 

I think we are getting close to the problem when you say: “If you
can’t generate the experience with ones and zeros, then you can’t
generate it with neurons either….  So I can turn the question around
on you and ask, how could you explain something phenomenally new like
that arising from just stringing more firing or not firing neurons
together?”

And that is the point.  When you interpret the neurons, you are not
generating electromagnetic radiation of 650NM length.  

Obviously, but that has nothing to do with it. 

 

You are just
creating something that can be interpreted as it.  

I am recreating the experience of it. 

 

But, again, they
are not anything like each other.  

But they aren't in your brain either, and that isn't a problem there, so why should it be a problem here? 

 

And if you ask what one is
fundamentally like, you must admit that neurons are not fundamentally
anything like 650NM light, other than you are able to interpret one as
being like the other.

so?

 

650NM light is not being generated, it just is.  

so? That has nothing to do with my subjective experiences. 

 

Also, some neural
correlate isn’t ‘generating’ a redness physical property, it just has
the redness physical property that we experience.  and we know, when
our experience has this property, it isn't anything at all,
fundamentally like greenness.  You don't create it, it is just, as
Chalmers says: "part of the furniture (or at least the qualities
thereof) that the universe is made of" and to be discovered and effed
as such.

So? Sorry, I just don't see how any of that is relevant to the question of whether our subjective experiences can be reproduced in software. 

Let me try an analogy. I create a synthetic neuron that exactly imitates the properties of a neuron. I replace 1 of your neurons with this simulated one. Does your subjective reality change? likely not, just 1 neuron. Does your behavior change? no, because it exactly imitates the properties of a neuron. Now I replace 100, then 1,000, then a billion, then 100 billion. Now all your neurons are synthetic. Does your behavior change? No, because they perfectly replicate the behavior of the neurons. Does your subjective experience of redness change? If so when? What happens if I ASK you if your experience of redness has changed? You would SAY no, because the BEHAVIOR of the neurons exactly imitates those of the real ones, and your speech decision lies in the brain. But your brain is capable (you claim) of really knowing its subjective experience, and communicating about it. So if the subjective experience HAD changed, then you would have said so... but that would imply that the BEHAVIOR had changed (because how you respond is a behavior) which we just said couldn't happen! So IF YOUR qualia resides in the brain, then this new substitute brain just duplicated your qualia, and ta-da, we just simulated qualia in software. QED. 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[brent....@comcast.net]

 

Hi James,

 

Ah, now you’re throwing Hans Moravecs’ transmigration argument at me.  The same one Chalmers uses so compellingly in his dancing qualia paper.  That I know of, Hans was the first one to use this argument in his mind children book, back in the 80s.  This is the one where you start by replacing one neuron, then another, until the entire brain is replaced.  When does the redness disappear?  Did you come up with this on your own, or had you heard about this before, from one of the other sources?

 

I must admit, this argument is so powerful, it almost killed my faith and I thought my working hypothesis might be falsified.  During this time, whenever someone threw this at me, I’d have to concede and say you win, but I’m not quite YET convinced.  I stewed on this one for years and years, till I finally figured out where the mistake is.  Then once I figured it out, I couldn’t understand why it took me so long, it now seems so obvious.

 

The missing part is there are two parts to phenomenal properties.  One is the ineffable redness quality we are talking about.  And only given this, this does indeed seem like a problem.  But there is a second critically important part to qualia we must consider.  There must be some way to ‘bind’ whatever it is that has redness, together with whatever it is that has greenness, such that we can experience them both at the same time.

 

If we have a neuron that has the redness of our knowledge of a strawberry in the left hemisphere, and a neuron that has greenness, in the right hemisphere, in some way this must be unified together, via the corpus callosum, so we are aware of both of them at the same time, giving us our ability to tell them apart, and know how they are phenomenally different from each other.

 

 

This is the magic of effing the ineffable.  If you replace the neuron in the right hemisphere that has redness, that is not enough.  It must also do this second part, somehow bind to the other side, so we know what it is like, so that I can tell, when you remove it, it, and replace it with silicon, the other side instantly senses, or more accurately is aware that the neuron that has the redness is no longer there, and it has been replaced with silicon and that it is different than the redness.  The neurons that are firing, to initiate us picking the red, and not the green strawberry, only operate because they know the difference between these red ones and these green ones.  If you replaced any of them, suddenly the operation drastically changes, and the guy is instantly screaming, that silicon is not anything like redness.

 

You said: “Well, we can see it happening on FMRI's, but we haven't mapped all the neural pathways exactly enough to specify it in detail.” And you and everyone else thinking this way is why you continue to completely miss it.  I bet you anything, we are already seeing way more than is required to see the redness there.  We are simply miss interpreting it as grey matter, or some other FMRI signal, instead of the real redness property that it really has, that we experience.  THAT is the whole point of the ‘quale interpretation problem’, you have to look at it in an effing way, or you’ll continue to miss interpret it, and what it is fundamentally really like.

 

Brent Allsop

---

From: "James Carroll" <jlca...@gmail.com>
To: transf...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2011 4:13:52 PM
Subject: Re: [mta] What is spiritual REDNESS?

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[James Carroll]

On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 5:32 PM, <brent....@comcast.net> wrote:

Did you come up with this on your own, or had you heard about this before, from one of the other sources?

We talked about it extensively in the AI class that I taught. No, I have seen it before, from many sources. 

 

I must admit, this argument is so powerful, it almost killed my faith

Why would it do that? It doesn't need to do that. It just needs to convince you that either qualia lives in the spirit not the brain, or else qualia can be imitated by software, and the "spirit" discussed in the scriptures is just the patterns of information. Both would be compatible. No reason to loose faith here... 

 

If you replace the neuron in the right hemisphere that has redness, that is not enough.  It must also do this second part, somehow bind to the other side, so we know what it is like, so that I can tell, when you remove it, it, and replace it with silicon, the other side instantly senses, or more accurately is aware that the neuron that has the redness is no longer there,

No, there you fell apart, because the interactions between the old neurons and the new silicone are preserved, or the entire discussion doesn't work. As far as your hypothesized "green" neuron knows, the red neuron is still there, because all it knows is the firing results of its connections, which remain unchanged. The simulated "red" neuron is still talking to the natural "green" neuron, and the green one has no reason to believe that anything has changed. If this weren't so, then the simulated red neuron was not simulating the firing behavior of the red neuron correctly, which we assumed at the beginning that it was.

Sorry, this isn't a way out, it is a logical mistake. 

 

and it has been replaced with silicon and that it is different than the redness.  The neurons that are firing, to initiate us picking the red, and not the green strawberry, only operate because they know the difference between these red ones and these green ones.  If you replaced any of them, suddenly the operation drastically changes, and the guy is instantly screaming, that silicon is not anything like redness.

umm.... no, that makes no sense. None. 

  

You said: “Well, we can see it happening on FMRI's, but we haven't mapped all the neural pathways exactly enough to specify it in detail.” And you and everyone else thinking this way is why you continue to completely miss it.  I bet you anything, we are already seeing way more than is required to see the redness there.  We are simply miss interpreting it as grey matter, or some other FMRI signal, instead of the real redness property that it really has, that we experience. 

Wow, I am surprised to hear that coming from you. After all, you are the one that goes on and on about the complexity and subtlety of the subjective experience. It is my opinion that the subjective experience is embodied in MANY MANY different connections, connections to different parts of the brain. Red can make you angry, placebos that are red work better for uppers, blue ones work better for downers, etc. These connections are IMMENSELY complex, and subtle. There is NO WAY we are already seeing them. None. We don't have either the resolution OR the necessary amount of data. 

 

THAT is the whole point of the ‘quale interpretation problem’, you have to look at it in an effing way, or you’ll continue to miss interpret it, and what it is fundamentally really like.

your term "effing" is almost meaningless. I have no idea what it means to look at it in an "effing" way... It's so informal as to loose all descriptive meaning. 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[James Carroll]

On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 5:57 PM, James Carroll <jlca...@gmail.com> wrote:

If you replaced any of them, suddenly the operation drastically changes, and the guy is instantly screaming, that silicon is not anything like redness.

umm.... no, that makes no sense. None. 

Sorry, I should have explained why. Remember they behave the same by definition, so they the operation doesn't drastically change, it remains unchanged by definition. 

That was what we said at the beginning, "assume I have created a device that EXACTLY replicates the behavior of a neuron". If you want to claim that the behavior changes, then you have to claim that my simulation didn't exactly replicate the behavior of the neuron. But there is a problem there, because if the neuron is a physical system, then we KNOW that its behavior can be simulated. So yet again, this course of reasoning requires a belief that qualia does not reside in the brain but in the spirit, or else it doesn't work at all. 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[Brent Allsop]

Hi James,

If you had read, and entirely understood� the Representational Qualia Theory camp statement ( http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6 ) including the parts about the "Quale Interpretation Problem", and the examples specified of 3 different concisely described ways such a problem can be overcome, enabling effing, I don't think you would be saying "your term 'effing' is almost meaningless. I have no idea what it means to look at it in an "effing" way... It's so informal as to loose all descriptive meaning."?


You said: "Wow, I am surprised to hear that coming from you. After all, you are the one that goes on and on about the complexity and subtlety of the subjective experience."

This illustrates a clear miss interpretation of you about what I'm trying to say.� The point I'm trying to make, is that everyone getting lost on all this complexity and subtlety, and thinking that it is hidden way off in the complexity, hidden in all the sub conscious, the emotions, and all that is the mistake people are making.� No matter how many ones and zeros you string together, in what magical way, it can never create a simple difference between redness and greenness, just as you can't create actual 650NM electromagnetic radiation, just by interpreting ones and zeros represented by something else completely different, correctly.� You need to stop getting lost down that infinitely deep rat hole, where you keep claiming and believing miracle happens, and instead focus on the simple phenomenal difference between redness and greenness and compare this to a simple one and zero.� And even this discussion is missing the much more important simple and plain obviousness of what a phenomenal property is, what it means to be ineffable, and to 'eff' that ineffableness or experience the taste of salt, yourself, first hand and be able to compare this to redness, and so on.

When I said I lost my faith, I was mostly just talking about my faith in Material Property Dualism.� For a time, this argument almost made me think I'd eventually have to assume and start investigating or searching for some other working hypothesis.� That was a very troubling, more than religious experience for me, that is until I finally saw the light, and it all became very obvious and easy.� Finally everything made complete sense, and no more problems.

I don't believe my arguments are mistaken, for at least two reasons you seem to be completely missing.� First, there is a big hole in your argument of discreate neurons only firing in very digital ways that can be functionally replaced, one at a time.� You have not resolved the binding problem.� How is it that we know redness, and greenness, at the same time?� If you can do more than just waive your hand, and say a miracle happens, then my prediction is that I'll be able to show you where the mistake is in it, or just as likely, it will be obvious to you too.

And secondly, and more importantly, Material Property Dualism is predicting that the interactions of different stuff, like silicone, will not be possible to be the same, precisely because in order to pick out the red strawberries, from the green ones, whatever this mechanism is, can only work because it is aware of these spiritual differences.� Whatever you replace it with, since it is phenomenally like something else, it will be both subjectively different, and be able to report such differences.� Sure, if you swap out the redness neurons, with the greenness neurons, and visa verse, some of the down stream causes, like picking the strawberry will behave the same, but you'll be able to see some neural correlate difference, that reliably corresponds to redness, and greenness, and the brain will be able to report such phenomenal differences.

Is anyone else following this great discussion?� It'd sure be great to know your thoughts also.� Are any of you leaning one way or the other?� Who is winning this debate, so far?� This is the first time I've had anyone in the software=qualia get to this level, and the first time I've described this problem I see with the transmagration argument.� I definitely need to get this cleaned up, and get it formally 'canonized' in the Material Property Dualism camp statement.� I just can't do anything like that, without having someone like this to help me explicitly state it like this.� So, thanks again!!� Again, we see a demonstration of the amplification of the wisdom of the crowd, from this process.

Brent Allsop

On 11/16/2011 5:57 PM, James Carroll wrote:

On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 5:32 PM, <brent....@comcast.net> wrote:

Did you come up with this on your own, or had you heard about this before, from one of the other sources?

We talked about it extensively in the AI class that I taught. No, I have seen it before, from many sources.�

�

I must admit, this argument is so powerful, it almost killed my faith

Why would it do that? It doesn't need to do that. It just needs to convince you that either qualia lives in the spirit not the brain, or else qualia can be imitated by software, and the "spirit" discussed in the scriptures is just the patterns of information. Both would be compatible. No reason to loose faith here...�

�

If you replace the neuron in the right hemisphere that has redness, that is not enough.� It must also do this second part, somehow bind to the other side, so we know what it is like, so that I can tell, when you remove it, it, and replace it with silicon, the other side instantly senses, or more accurately is aware that the neuron that has the redness is no longer there,

No, there you fell apart, because the interactions between the old neurons and the new silicone are preserved, or the entire discussion doesn't work. As far as your hypothesized "green" neuron knows, the red neuron is still there, because all it knows is the firing results of its connections, which remain unchanged. The simulated "red" neuron is still talking to the natural "green" neuron, and the green one has no reason to believe that anything has changed. If this weren't so, then the simulated red neuron was not simulating the firing behavior of the red neuron correctly, which we assumed at the beginning that it was.

Sorry, this isn't a way out, it is a logical mistake.�

�

and it has been replaced with silicon and that it is different than the redness.� The neurons that are firing, to initiate us picking the red, and not the green strawberry, only operate because they know the difference between these red ones and these green ones.� If you replaced any of them, suddenly the operation drastically changes, and the guy is instantly screaming, that silicon is not anything like redness.

umm.... no, that makes no sense. None.�

��

You said: �Well, we can see it happening on FMRI's, but we haven't mapped all the neural pathways exactly enough to specify it in detail.� And you and everyone else thinking this way is why you continue to completely miss it.� I bet you anything, we are already seeing way more than is required to see the redness there.� We are simply miss interpreting it as grey matter, or some other FMRI signal, instead of the real redness property that it really has, that we experience.�

Wow, I am surprised to hear that coming from you. After all, you are the one that goes on and on about the complexity and subtlety of the subjective experience. It is my opinion that the subjective experience is embodied in MANY MANY different connections, connections to different parts of the brain. Red can make you angry, placebos that are red work better for uppers, blue ones work better for downers, etc. These connections are IMMENSELY complex, and subtle. There is NO WAY we are already seeing them. None. We don't have either the resolution OR the necessary amount of data.�

�

THAT is the whole point of the �quale interpretation problem�, you have to look at it in an effing way, or you�ll continue to miss interpret it, and what it is fundamentally really like.

your term "effing" is almost meaningless. I have no idea what it means to look at it in an "effing" way... It's so informal as to loose all descriptive meaning.�

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[James Carroll]

I think things are much simpler than this. I will try to be SIMPLE, and FORMAL, at the same time:

MY THESIS:

My primary argument is an IF THEN argument... IF qualia lies in the brain alone, THEN it can be simulated in a computer. You can agree with this statement even if you don't believe that qualia lives in the brain, but in our spirits instead. 

PROOF 1:

Assertion 1. If Qualia lives in the brain.

fact 2: The brain is a physical system

fact 3: ANY physical system can be simulated to an arbitrary degree of precision. 

Conclusion 4: By 2 and 3, the brain can be simulated to an arbitrary degree of precision.
Conclusion 5: if 1, then by 4 Qualia can be simulated by simulating the behavior of the brain. 

QED, it really is that simple. Don't over complicate it.

RESPONSE TO THE BINDING PROBLEM:

Assumption 6: It is possible to create an artificial neuron that could replace a natural neuron perfectly, behaving and reacting identically to neural stimulus, and to hormonal and blood flow broadcast signals (by conclusion 5). 

Fact 7: neurons only "perceive" the world through the firing of their neighbors, blood flow, and hormonal interactions (the stuff in the blood). 

Conclusion 8: If two neurons A and B are connected through any arbitrary path such that the behavior of neuron A affects neuron B, then if we replaced neuron A with an artificial neuron assumed to exist in 6, then the natural neuron B has no mechanism for noticing the difference. As far as natural neuron B is concerned, neuron A is still behaving exactly as it was before, with no difference. 

Conclusion 8 completely resolves your so called "binding" problem between "red" and "green" qualia. 

QED defended from apparent claimed contradiction. 

PROOF 2: 

fact 9: the brain is a complex, analogue, non-deterministic computer.

Conclusion 10: if Qualia lives in the brain (assertion 1) then we have a proof by example that a computer of sufficient complexity and with the right software/hardware configuration can produce qualia by fact 9 and assertion 1. 

In laymen's terms, the brain is a computer, so if the brain can do something, then so can a computer, because a computer just DID do that thing. 

QED yet again. 

The conclusion really is obvious, simple, and inescapable. 

PROOF 3:

Conclusion 11: by fact 3, a simulation of the brain will produce BEHAVIORALLY identical results to a real brain.

Conclusion 12: if you ask a simulated brain about its subjective reality, it will respond identially to the non simulated brain (by conclusion 11). 

Conclusion 13: By 12, They have the same subjective reality as far as it is possible to determine through any means. 

More comments below:

On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 8:06 PM, Brent Allsop <brent....@canonizer.com> wrote:

No matter how many ones and zeros you string together, in what magical way, it can never create a simple difference between redness and greenness, just as you can't create actual 650NM electromagnetic radiation, just by interpreting ones and zeros represented by something else completely different, correctly.

Whether I can create real redness with 1s and 0s is beside the point, I am trying to create the experience of redness not redness itself. And if 1s and 0s can't do it, then neither can neurons, and the experience must reside outside of the brain in some super natural way. 

 

 You need to stop getting lost down that infinitely deep rat hole, where you keep claiming and believing miracle happens, and instead focus on the simple phenomenal difference between redness and greenness and compare this to a simple one and zero.  

No, I refuse to concede this point, the brain doesn't represent redness or greenness as a single one or a zero, so why are you requiring my computer simulation to do so? If you force all the complexity out of one of the two systems, then naturally the less complex one will fail to duplicate the behavior (or the subjective experience) of the other system. But that is no argument against it being impossible for one system to duplicate the behavior of the other. That assertion is a logical fallacy.

I DEEPLY believe that these things are emergent properties of the complexity of the system. If you take that away, you create a strawman to beat up. 

 

And even this discussion is missing the much more important simple and plain obviousness of what a phenomenal property is, what it means to be ineffable, and to 'eff' that ineffableness or experience the taste of salt, yourself, first hand and be able to compare this to redness, and so on.

But that's just the problem, neither you nor anyone else knows what it means to eff. We have no idea. That's why all references to it are "vague" and "ephemeral" and predominantly useless. 

But YOU are claiming that "effing" (whatever that is) happens in the brain, and that assertion (true or false) has implications for its simulatability that you can't escape from. It's an if then... all your arguments against the "then" are only arguments against the "if" In other words, I will say it again, if the computer can't do it, then neither can the brain. The brain IS a computer. And I don't have to know the details of how the brain does this to conclude this if then relationship. 

It really is a fact. I know you keep talking about how obvious your arguments are, but I really don't see how anyone can believe them. It's like claiming that 1+1=123 or something. It violates everything that we know about the laws of the universe and what we know about computability theory (what I called facts 2 and 3 above). 

 

that is until I finally saw the light, and it all became very obvious and easy.  Finally everything made complete sense, and no more problems.

I assume this happened when you dreamed up the "binding problem"? But there IS no binding problem as I showed unambiguously above. 

But I am impressed... this experience just goes to show that things making "complete sense" to someone doesn't mean that they are matching any level of reality in any way! And I don't say this to be mean. I remember when I was a kid, learning about why evolution was wrong, how well everything fit together and just "made sense." It was SO obvious... and it was also completely false. Sorry for the digression, but I am constantly impressed about how easy our brains really are to fool. That is why it is so important to back up all our assertions, and to compare what we believe with data, and be willing to accept new theories when our old ones are shown to be false. 

I don't believe my arguments are mistaken, for at least two reasons you seem to be completely missing.  First, there is a big hole in your argument of discreate neurons only firing in very digital ways that can be functionally replaced, one at a time. 

What problem?

 

You have not resolved the binding problem. 

I have above, there is no binding problem. The assertion that there is violates the starting assumption that we can generate a synthetic neuron. If that is what you don't believe is possible, then you should put your criticism in the right place, because if you buy that assertion, there is no binding problem.

 

How is it that we know redness, and greenness, at the same time?

I don't know, you tell me! Explain to me how the brain does it, and the moment you do that, I can simulate it perfectly.  But arguing that we don't know how the brain does it is no argument against simulation. It is completely tangential. COMPLETELY. Von Neumann made a very famous comment. After presenting his new "computer" someone asked him "but it can't THINK can it?" Von Neumann responded, "If you can tell me what it means to think, then I can do it on my computer. If you can't tell me what it means, then I can't do it on my computer, but then, who cares, because the concept is meaningless."

 

If you can do more than just waive your hand, and say a miracle happens, then my prediction is that I'll be able to show you where the mistake is in it, or just as likely, it will be obvious to you too.

umm, no, see above. All I need for my conclusion that it is simulatable is the assertion that the miracle happens (however it happens) in a physical system. If this conclusion holds, then simulatability is a foregone certain conclusion. Of course I can't create the simulation until I have sufficiently complex hardware, and a sufficient knowledge of the attributes of the system to be simulated. But I can know for sure that it is possible without knowing any of these details.

 

And secondly, and more importantly, Material Property Dualism is predicting that the interactions of different stuff, like silicone, will not be possible to be the same, precisely because in order to pick out the red strawberries, from the green ones, whatever this mechanism is, can only work because it is aware of these spiritual differences. 

I am sorry, that sentence doesn't even parse. I have no idea what you are trying to say. It sounds like word salad to me. It's like you are speaking a different language. What are "spiritual differences" anyway???? 

You wrote: "the interactions of different stuff, like silicone, will not be possible to be the same," be the same as what? As the firing of neurons? or as the subjective experience? If the former, I argue that this goes contrary to what we know about the laws of the universe, (namely that all physical systems are simulatable to arbitrary precision), and if the latter, then I argue that the neurons in the brain can't do it either...

 

Whatever you replace it with, since it is phenomenally like something else,

"phenomenally like"? what does that mean in this context? It's BEHAVIOR is the same. That's like saying that a simulation of my Atari 800 is "phenominally" different than the real thing because it is now running in simulation on my iCore7. The answer to that question may depend on how you are interpreting "phenominally" but I can say that "behaviorally" they are the same. EXACTLY. To say otherwise is not true. It is a violation of fact. 

 

it will be both subjectively different, and be able to report such differences. 

Then its behavior is different yes? In which case, the simulation isn't matching the behavior of the brain right? And in that case, the simulation must be flawed, because it is possible to match the behavior of a physical system with enough computation. 

If behavior resides in the brain, then the simulation will reproduce the same behavior, and so it will NOT be able to report a different subjective experience, or else it's behavior would be different, which we already showed it would not be (or it would not be a reliable simulation).  See my proof 3 above. 

 

Sure, if you swap out the redness neurons, with the greenness neurons, and visa verse, some of the down stream causes, like picking the strawberry will behave the same, but you'll be able to see some neural correlate difference,

You will???? only if the simulation is faulty. If it isn't faulty you will see no neural correlate difference. The very definition of an accurate simulation is that the neural patterns are preserved after the replacement. 

 

that reliably corresponds to redness, and greenness, and the brain will be able to report such phenomenal differences.

There would be no differences in firing patterns to report. 

 

Is anyone else following this great discussion?  It'd sure be great to know your thoughts also. 

REALLY REALLY so would I. My conclusions seem so blindingly obvious that I just don't understand why everyone doesn't agree, and I would love to know whether others feel that way or not. 

Remember, my primary argument is an IF THEN argument... IF qualia lies in the brain alone, THEN it can be simulated in a computer. You can agree with this statement even if you don't believe that qualia lives in the brain, but in our spirits instead. 

Speak up, am I making my case or not?

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[Brent Allsop]

Hi James,

It appears we might be the only two still following this conversation here.  I propose we move it to a canonizer.com forum.  There are certainly others there in both your camp and mine.  Stathis Papaiuanu, participated with me when we first got started on the survey project.  We were developing an early version of the camp statement for what would be come the Representational Qualia Theory camp, and noticed we had these same disagreements on this issue that we couldn't resolve.  So we kept everything we agreed on in the RQT statement, and then started the two competing sub camps that would become Functional Property Dualism and Material Property Dualism.  You can see when this started from this link with the "as of" set to Nov 6, 2007:

http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/23/7?as_of=as_of&as_of_date=07%2F11%2F06

We discussed this about as much as we have, trying to convert each other.  He seems to be more of a qualophile than you, who seems to completely ignore qualia.  But he would very much agree with your: "I DEEPLY believe that these things are emergent properties".  There are also others, including Lincoln, David Chalmers... in your camp, and there are a few in mine, and the famed Steven Lehar also disagreed with Stathis in a very long forum conversion, more or less arguing, like me, that it is silly to think that redness could "rise" from ones and zeros, though he wouldn't commit to supporting the Material Property Dualism camp, and remains in the parent Mind Brain Identity camp.

Some time ago, I started a survey topic on the validity of the "Neural Replacement" though experiment.  The now very old "Fallacy" camp statement (see: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/79/2 ), I can now see needs to be greatly improved.  You've helped me very much find many of the lack of clear thinking elements I've been using, many of which are also in that old statement.

For example, It was probably a waste to bring up "the binding problem".  But I didn't make this up (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_problem ).  There have been many brilliant thinkers that think this is a very real problem.  Though I am probably a bit more sympathetic to their position than you are, I must admit that I agree with you that this is not a problem, and there are classical physical phenomenon that could be our unified awareness.  Though this binding problem argument isn't important to you or I, it does have some sway for some, especially some of the quantum consciousness people that believe things like non local quantum influence of neurons is required.  But as for me, I'm also in your camp that there are only the classical physical influences neurons have on their neighbors, blood, firing over synapses,  and so on, that matters.

I think It'd be great if you wrote up some of your simple formalized arguments, and created a competing Transmaigration camp statement to mine.

Of course, another goal of this entire system, is for everyone to find and predict what everyone would agree would falsify competing camps.

For example, we could both agree that if you interfaced with my brain, and started transmigrating my consciousness over to silicone, and I never noticed any difference, I must consider my camp to be falsified and join yours.  Also, would you agree that if science demonstrated that there is no way to reproduce a particular redness unless the right material stuff is organized in the right state.  Then you must accept that your camp has been falsified?

If you agree with this, or can propose an improved version, we could create a super camp containing this, showing that we both agree to these falsifying possibilities.

You replied to my: "How is it that we know the difference between redness and greenness" with: "I don't know, you tell me! Explain to me how the brain does it, and the moment you do that, I can simulate it perfectly."

I completely agree with this, just as I completely agree with your assertion that: "IF qualia lies in the brain alone, THEN it can be simulated in a computer."  But, still, I think we are talking past each other and you are missing what I'm trying to say.  I completely agree that it can be simulated, but if it is something different that is representing the simulation, then it requires the proper interpretation to get back to what you are simulating.  Without the proper interpretation, it isn't physically or phenomenally anything like the original.

I think it would be a great help if I write up a mechanical description of a phenomenal strawberry picking robot, and point out how it could be completely simulated (at least in some possible reality, if not this reality), just as you say, but also point out how it is missing the most important phenomenal point.  I'll post that to the main forum for the Theories of Consciousness Forum, to get things moved over there.  Once posted, I'll reply to this thread, and point it out, for any who care to follow the discussion over there.

Brent Allsop

[Brent Allsop]

Transhumanites,

As I indicated, I've started a new topic thread in the forum for the
Theories of Consciousness survey topic at canonizer.com with subject:
"Phenomenal Robot Design".

http://canonizer.com/thread.asp/88/1/27

For those interested in following this "What is Spiritual Redness"
discussion as it moves over there to a wider audience.

Brent Allsop

[James Carroll]

Before we start delving into the Cannonizer, it might be helpful to have one more exchange, because I think I finally got something important that you were trying to tell me that I didn't understand. It doesn't help to cannonize until we are sure we know what we are each talking about:

On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 6:15 PM, Brent Allsop <brent....@canonizer.com> wrote:

I completely agree with your assertion that: "IF qualia lies in the brain alone, THEN it can be simulated in a computer." ...  I completely agree that it can be simulated, but if it is something different that is representing the simulation, then it requires the proper interpretation to get back to what you are simulating.  Without the proper interpretation, it isn't physically or phenomenally anything like the original.

OK, so I think that I finally understand what you are talking about a little more. Let me see if I get this right. I may be able to completely simulate a rock, but my simulation of a rock doesn't "crush" anything. The simulation isn't the thing itself. Similarly, the simulation of a brain, isn't a brain. A brain produces qualia, and I can simulate qualia in a computer, but like the rock, my simulation of qualia isn't qualia, it is a simulation of qualia, and those two things are different. Some form of "translation" as you called it is necessary to get from the simulation of the rock back to the original rock. 

Correct? Do I finally get your point? If so, I think that this is a major insight which through ALL our discussion I never grasped, that could be my fault or yours, I don't know). 

In any event, if I finally understand the problem, then I might be able to respond as follows:

The simulation of a physical object is NOT the physical object itself. True. Nor does it NECESSARILY produce the same results as the physical object. No simulation of a rock will ever crush nuts. But things change if the physical object that I am simulating is itself doing computation, because now the "result" is computation, and the simulation can now be said to produce the same "result" as the physical object it is simulating.

That means that if I simulate a COMPUTER, and hook all the same outputs and inputs into the new simulation, then the simulation WILL produce the EFFECTS of the old. In other words, if it is computation that we are simulating, then the simulation and the original are indeed identical, including in their outcomes. So if we hook the simulation of your brain up to your body, it will behave the same as if we hook your brain up to your body. In effect, the body's inputs and outputs proved the "translation" you required. 

Now, if we ask your body with your new simulated brain whether it has the same subjective experience of redness, it will reply that it does, because that output, that "speech" is the result of a computation in the brain, which we are exactly duplicating. Now, the result of the computation could be just saying that the subjective reality is unchanged, and could conceivably be wrong. However, since the new simulated brain is coming to the conclusion that it should SAY that it has a subjective experience in the same manner in which YOU are coming to that conclusion, if the simulation doesn't have subjective experiences, then neither do you... 

Conclusion, subjective experiences if they exist reside within the computation of the brain, not within its weight, size, or other physical properties. And therefore, if we duplicate the computation, we duplicate the subjective experience. 

WHEW.... there.... have we finally reached the central issues dividing our camps?

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[Brent Allsop]

Hi James,

I didn't mean to imply we should canonize anything just yet.  Canonization is mostly about the conversation that results in the canonized camp forums.  As you can see, I simply created a new discussion thread in the camp forum with subject "http://canonizer.com/forum.asp/88/1", I didn't actually put anything in a camp statement yet.  See the topic forum with the new thread:

http://canonizer.com/forum.asp/88/1

Each camp has a forum like this, where everyone converses together to further develop them.  It's a place where you can go to ask questions of camp supporters, and work to show them the error of their ways, and recruit them to your camp, find out what it would take to do such, to build consensus, and so on.  You can do that here, also, It's just that I think this conversation might have a larger audience there, and we should hope to build as much consensus as possible with members that have already canonized their views, and so on.   You and I seem to be the only ones interested  in this here, but I bet there would be multiple people over there interested in what you're saying here, probably many that would like to integrate your ideas and arguments into their camps.

As I indicated in a previous post, I've discovered many failings in the way I've been attempting to communicate some of these things to you.  Everyone is very different, and  things that work for some people, don't work as well for others.  If I have a conversation with someone like you in the future, I'm sure I'll be way more effective next time.  And I see many ways I can improve much of what we're arguing in many of our camp statements.  This is the main reason I hate any attempt to publish a paper on any of this, there is just no way to communicate to someone, without some kind of feedback about how successful what you are saying is being, for each individual.

It seems like we have made a big step, here, but I think there is still a ways to go.  The way you've put it here is quite a bit different than I'm used to thinking of things.  I've had to spend much time going over and over this, trying to fully map out and understand what you are saying.  And, given what you're saying, it is taking me to a level I've never been before, so I've also had to rethink some of my own ideas, so all this really helps.  So let me see if I can repeat back what you are saying, to see if I understand.

Initially, you start out talking about a basement reality level running a simulation.  Then, in this simulation, you construct another computer that is also doing computing, capable of simulating a second level above the basement level, right?  And you are saying that this second floor simulated level will produce qualia that is identical to that being simulated in the first floor simulation?  Then you conclude from that, simply because these two levels are simulated, that both are, or can be, just as valid as phenomenal properties on the basement level?  Drawing that conclusion certainly seems like a very obviously mistaken logical fallacy to me, on multiple levels, so perhaps I'm missing something in what you're saying?

So now, you have a second story simulation that is simulating a brain in the basement reality.  Then you replace a real brain in the basement, with this second story simulation of the same, wiring up the basement level bodies senses and motor controls to this brain.  You point out the critically important part that there is abstracting interpretation of information going on between these levels, as required to get from one, that is not like the other, to be interpreted as if it is like it.  Then you say:

<<<
Now, if we ask your body with your new simulated brain whether it has the same subjective experience of redness, it will reply that it does, because that output, that "speech" is the result of a computation in the brain, which we are exactly duplicating.
>>>

Again, this just seems like an equally mistaken fallacy to me, on multiple levels.  First off, if it was a simulation of my brain, this simulation wouldn't be able to claim it was the same redness, because there is no effing capable communication made between any of these brains yet, so It couldn't yet know.  A simulation of me must do the same just as I am now arguing that I can't YET know if my redness is anything like your redness.

In addition, the simulated brain (whether it is a first floor or second floor simulation) would be required to claim any experienced phenomenal redness in a lying way, because all it's 'higher order' information (as in 'Higher Order' Theory) about the phenomenal nature of it's knowledge would be mere simulations of such, where what it was really like, or the phenomenalness, was abstracted away.  The system would have to interpret a set of ones and  zeros as redness, and a different set of ones and zeros as greenness.  The different set of ones and zeros would enable it to claim there was a difference, but any claim that it's knowledge was really phenomenal, would be a lying claim.  Since the ones and zeros are not naturally phenomenal, you'd have to have some very complex logical higher level self referntial logic, trying to duplicate the phenomenally simple behavior to simulate it.  It is always much harder and much more complex to tell a lie, than to simply tell the phenomenal truth.  It takes a lot of transistors to simulate all the physics of a real transistor, and things become even more complex when you try to through in phenomenal qualities, which are quite natural in the basement level.

You now seem to understand that a simulation must be interpreted before you can think of it as the same as the original.  But you still seem to be missing the much more simple phenomenal nature of redness vs greenness, compared to a set of ones and zeros vs another different set.  And I don't yet see any evidence that you yet fully understand the categorically different nature of causal (or behavioral) properties of nature, like reflections of 650NM light  vs ineffable properties of nature or redness that is phenomenally like something that is very different than greenness.

You can probably tell, a few parts of what I'm starting to say here, are a bit hand wavy, and "a miracle happens"ish.  And I apologize for not being able to yet be more clear than  this.  I still need much more work mapping out this territory, and I appreciate your help with such.  You've taken me to a level I haven't been before, and I'm struggling to fill in all the still yet to be explored spaces up here.  I hope what I'm trying to say makes some sense?

Brent

[JDLAW Booker]

Gentlemen, 

 

You are not alone. Others have been watching this thread. You have just been the only two posting.

 

 

 

I am going to add what I think are some missing axioms (or first order logic, although I am pretty sure there is no such thing as actual "first order logic").

 

1. All we have is faith.

 

For vocabulary purposes, the thing you call "material property dualism," I consider a subset of the thing I call "duality" -- which is not simply mathematical duality (although logical negation theory has a lot to do with it). It is a type of cognitive causality (google it)

Propositions extended through the first order "I am" axiom

2.My redness is different than yours -- by definition.

3.Physicality may have been created

If physicality may have been created and my redness is different than yours, then the brain may not be the place where reality is projected, but it may be itself a projection.

Why does this help your discussion in this thread?

I don't really know. But for me, when James says "[t]he simulation of a physical object is NOT the physical object itself" and, you apply to the Representational Qualia Theory camp, you logically have to return to the idea that physicality must also be representational, no?.  

 

Then when James says, "[t]he brain is a physical system" and "Qualia lives in the brain" we can not forget the posibility that the brain is merely Representational Qualia and the program for your self-awareness runs somewhere non-local.

 

"There is no spoon" "Become the Eagle"

[James Carroll]

On Fri, Nov 18, 2011 at 7:45 PM, Brent Allsop <brent....@canonizer.com> wrote:

You now seem to understand that a simulation must be interpreted before you can think of it as the same as the original.  But you still seem to be missing the much more simple phenomenal nature of redness vs greenness, compared to a set of ones and zeros vs another different set. 

But you have not yet admitted the fact that you have the same problem when trying to represent redness and/or greenness in the brain's one or zero (firing or not firing) neurons. THAT is the point. 

 

And I don't yet see any evidence that you yet fully understand the categorically different nature of causal (or behavioral) properties of nature, like reflections of 650NM light  vs ineffable properties of nature or redness that is phenomenally like something that is very different than greenness.

The causal properties hit the sensors, the ineffable properties are the brain's response to the input. That is the difference. One lives in the world, the other lives in the brain. The two are connected (translated) through the senses (for input), where the senses are touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing etc... and the body's actuators (for output), where actuators are hands, feet, mouth, tongue, arms, legs facial expressions etc. The senses and actuators are the translators. Input comes in, produces ineffable firing patterns, which produce outputs (reactions), including our speech/descriptions of our subjective experiences. 

So, I will try and formalize my new argument like I did my old ones. 

Axiom 1: reality causes perception

Axiom 2: perception causes neural firing patterns in the brain.

Axiom 3: these firing patterns produce outputs.

Fact 4: our descriptions of our subjective experiences are a type of output. 

Fact 5: physical systems can be simulated to an arbitrary degree of precision. 

Conclusion 6: we can simulate the firing patterns of the neurons such that give the same inputs (perception) the same firing patterns are produced, and thus the same outputs are produced by 2, 3, and 5.

Conclusion 7: because the same outputs are produced, a simulated brain which is hooked up to a set of equivalent actuators and perceptors would claim to have identical descriptions of its subjective reality by 6 and 4. 

Put another way:

1. A simulation of a rock is not a rock.

2. But a simulation of a computer produces the same outputs as does the original computer given the same inputs.

3. therefore the simulation of the brain would produce the same outputs as the brain given the same imputs

4. a claim about qualia or subjective experience is an output of the brain

5. therefore a simulated brain will produce the same claims about qualia or subjective reality. 

6. It will come to the decision to make these claims in the exact same way that your brain decides to make these claims. 

7. therefore, if your claims of subjective experience are to be trusted, the simulation's claims must be trusted

and

8. the simulated brain is therefore having subjective experiences identical to you. 

QED. 

You claimed that I was making logical fallacies or mistakes, but honestly if I am, I can't find them anywhere, and I couldn't really follow your description of them (sorry). 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[JDLAW Booker]

James Wrote:

 

Axiom 1: reality causes perception

Axiom 2: perception causes neural firing patterns in the brain.

Axiom 3: these firing patterns produce outputs.

Fact 4: our descriptions of our subjective experiences are a type of output. 

Fact 5: physical systems can be simulated to an arbitrary degree of precision. 

Conclusion 6: we can simulate the firing patterns of the neurons such that give the same inputs (perception) the same firing patterns are produced, and thus the same outputs are produced by 2, 3, and 5.

Conclusion 7: because the same outputs are produced, a simulated brain which is hooked up to a set of equivalent actuators and perceptors would claim to have identical descriptions of its subjective reality by 6 and 4. 

I have problems with Axiom 1.  Well not really with statement, but with the presentation as an Axioum (first order logic). Prove it to me that reality causes perception and not the other way around. 

 

I know that sounds crazy, but you seem to be using "propositional logic." And although I am forced in this lifetime to assume that my reality causes perception, I do not know in fact whether that case or not.  Is my reality caused by the way I perceive it, or is it that my perception is all the reality there is?.  There really is no way of telling the difference of whether every moment of my life has been only a non-local projection (simulated program) playing out on the Creator's stage, or if there really is physicality.  I can hope there is, but I have no way of knowing for sure. 

 

In other words, as Shakespear puts it,

 

"All the world's a stage" -- from William Shakespeare's As You Like It; and

 

"You do look, my son, in a mov'd sort, As if you were dismay'd: be cheerful, sir: Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep."  -- from William Shakespeare's The Tempest. 

Jamie  

[James Carroll]

On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 12:26 PM, JDLAW Booker <jdl...@gmail.com> wrote:

James Wrote:

 

Axiom 1: reality causes perception

Axiom 2: perception causes neural firing patterns in the brain.

Axiom 3: these firing patterns produce outputs.

Fact 4: our descriptions of our subjective experiences are a type of output. 

Fact 5: physical systems can be simulated to an arbitrary degree of precision. 

Conclusion 6: we can simulate the firing patterns of the neurons such that give the same inputs (perception) the same firing patterns are produced, and thus the same outputs are produced by 2, 3, and 5.

Conclusion 7: because the same outputs are produced, a simulated brain which is hooked up to a set of equivalent actuators and perceptors would claim to have identical descriptions of its subjective reality by 6 and 4. 

I have problems with Axiom 1.  Well not really with statement, but with the presentation as an Axioum (first order logic). Prove it to me that reality causes perception and not the other way around. 

...

 

There really is no way of telling the difference of whether every moment of my life has been only a non-local projection (simulated program) playing out on the Creator's stage, or if there really is physicality. 

Well, in terms of this proof, my term "reality" can be taken rather loosely. Let's assume that we live in a simulation, then the simulation is "reality" and the simulation's determination of the state of its world causes my perceptions. There is no requirement of "physicality" only of the state of the system (simulated or otherwise) causing my perceptions. 

But notice that in both cases, the system causes my perceptions, I don't really know how my perceptions could change the state of the system (except through their influence on my brain state, and my brain state's influence on my actuators). 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[JDLAW Booker]

Oh! and relating back to "Mormon" transhumanism.  The doctrine says this must be a "created" world.  We (as physical bodies) live in a fallen and imperfect state of physicality -- hoping for the day we are transfigured ("translated") to a higher plane of existence with a true and incorruptable physicality.  For now we are only ordained to become such.  Our physicality is merely an act played out on the Creator's Stage.

[Brent Allsop]

Hey JD,

Thanks for speaking up!  This is great to hear your views.  It sounds to me like your views are classical Idealism, or at least very close to such?  I've run into many Idealists over the years, and have been begging one of them to get an Idealist camp started, but for some reason, I've never been able to convince any of them, yet, to get their camp started?  I know there are a bunch of you out there,  It'd sure be great to have a concice  camp started so we could get a better idea of just how many of you there are, and see if this camp is trending  up or down compared to any other camps.  I'm sure many would finally join, if someone would just get a camp at least started.

Would you be willing to produce a quick statement to get an idealist camp started?  My understanding is that Idealism, and it sounds like your views, are mostly in agreement with the doctrines specified in the Representational Qualia Theory camp.  ( http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6 )  In other words, it sounds like your camp would belong as a supporting sub camp of this?  Or are there any particular doctrines in the Representational Qualia Theory statement that you disagree with?

And I love rainbows, thanks for the great image.  Just one moment of experiencing redness, and then even if I died immediately after so a glorious revelation, for me, makes all the billions of years of very difficult evolutionary struggle so that I cold experience such worth it.  But an entire rainbow!  God!  What a great time to be alive, and thank you, all my ancestors that did all that work so I could see this image, here and now.  I owe you everything for that.  I can't wait till we experience what other colors are out there waiting to be experienced.   What is a real rainbow phenomenally like, I bet there is a good chance it is way better than my mere phenomenal representation of it?

James, how can you believe that that rainbow is nothing more than ones and zeros?  How many people have no respect for brilliant AI researchers, simply because many of them seem so clueless to think that rainbow is nothing but ones and zeros?

Or, since you say: "There is no spoon", do you also believe there is no real rainbow that could be phenomenally like something?  If so, then how or what other phenomenal properties or colors might be possible and or how might we discover such and expand our minds to include them, eff them, and so on?  What's it like to be not just omniscienct, but to be omniphenomeniscient and what might it take to become such, or at least move in that direction?  (James, same question for you)

Brent Allsop

[Brent Allsop]

Hi James,

Did you read about the description of a phenomenal robot in my post to the canonizer topic forum?  ( http://canonizer.com/thread.asp/88/1/27 )

If you did, then shouldn't you know that, at least in that theoretically possible world, redness is a property of Glutamate, and Aspartate has grenness.  Sure, you can abstract away these spiritual properties in such a world, you can detect them with white and grey light, and interpret redness as one, and greeneess as zero, but unless you property interpreted those ones and zeros, you'd forever be blind to what they really phenomenally represented.  You don't 'representent' redness, it is what needs to be represented and properly interpreted in this conversation.  True, redness can represent other things, like 650NM light, a one, stop, love, the word red, and a bunch of emotional stuff..., but who cares about any of that!?  Redness just is.  (And, according to JD, the only thing that is?  As in 'there is no spoon', including the perception system perceiving it. right?')

A simulation is indistinguishable from a rock, to any desired degree of precision or complexity and more, at least as far as you interpret whatever has been specially organized to represent it correctly.  Just as a one (or set of ones and zeros) can be indistinguishable from redness.  But, the critically important part, is knowing how to interpret that particular one, regardless of what is representing or simulating it.

Your first Axiom 1, 2, 3, and fact 4 and 5 are irrelevant to what we are talking about here.  I completely accept them all.  As I've said, I also completely agree with your conclusion 6 and 7.  And, again, this is irrelevant, and completely missing the point.  Or at least, I agree with all of them but #8.  But then I though you, yourself, admitted that the simulation is not the rock, and that no nuts are being crushed, and that you must properly interpret it to know of the real rock it is abstractly representing?  At least I thought you seemed to be starting to understand at least this causal behavioral difference, until you threw out this #8 again.  And you still seem to be completely missing what phenomenal properties or any ability to understand what it might mean to eff such.

James, I have a question for you.  What do you experience when you look at JD's image of that rainbow?  Do you believe it is the same as what I experience?  What do you think the odds are that your experience of it isn't anything like what mine is.  Maybe even it isn't like anything at all for you?  Does it seem like to you, like it does to me, that there is a huge amount of evidence from our conversation that our experiences of it are very different?  Maybe you, and your spirit world in your head are nothing but a bunch of ones and zeros? ;)  Boy, are you in for a big surprize when you first get efffed. ;)

The simple point is, Glutamate has a redness phenomenal property and Aspartate has a greenness property.  This is absolutely true when they stand alone (at least in that proposed theoretically possible world), regardless of whether they are or aren't included in any perception/knowledge system.  All this talk about the ability to use them in a perception system, or any ability to abstractly represent or simulate them with ones and zeros , is just distracting us from what is important in all this.

Is all this eternal repetition getting tiring to anyone?  Or is our ability to say it improving, each time we say it?

Brent Allsop

[JDLAW Booker]

James Wrote:

 

"Well, in terms of this proof, my term "reality" can be taken rather loosely. Let's assume that we live in a simulation, then the simulation is "reality" and the simulation's determination of the state of its world causes my perceptions. There is no requirement of "physicality" only of the state of the system (simulated or otherwise) causing my perceptions.

 

But notice that in both cases, the system causes my perceptions, I don't really know how my perceptions could change the state of the system (except through their influence on my brain state, and my brain state's influence on my actuators)."

 

 

Good. I am with you now.  For language purposes we are are now calling reality the "system." Whether the system is true physicality or simulated physicality, it is all of the same consequence.  So, if we then return to the cause and effect in your propositional logic as to what "causes" perception, we might also ask ourselves whether this cause owes its origin and existence to itself, or to some other cause. We could then also use the name "God" for that Great Programmer who is is the "word" the "code" the "program" of the "system" (Please bear with the prose, its the only way to communicate such deep and cognitive causality).

 

I will try now to channel an explanation for why -- this simulated reality possibility would conpletely change our approach the coding of a sentient program and its use of the representational qualia.

 

For if the cause of this system is self-existent, it follows then that this cause is God; for any cause that possesses the perfection of self-existence, it must likewise, without doubt, have the power of actually possessing every perfection of which it has. In other words, all the perfections conceived belong to God. For God is the ultmate cause of even causation.  But if we owe one causes existence to another cause, then we demand again, for a similar reason, whether this second cause exists of itself or through another being, until, from stage to stage, we at length arrive at an ultimate cause, which will be God -- therefore, let us re-convince ourselves of the certainty of the following statement and with purpose and conviction; let us reconvene to tell ourselves: we are not alone.   

 

So, if we can't even be sure of the existence of any corporeal things, even people we meet on the street, then, are simply extensions of the faculty of judgment alone, which is in the mind, and they are products of only what we believe we see with our eyes. Considering our world in the atomic theory, wave-matter theory, or really any theory in which you want to fathom your existence, it is now manifest that bodies themselves are not properly perceived by the senses nor by the faculty of imagination, but by the intellect alone; and since they are not really perceived by sight and touch, but only because they are understood or rightly comprehended by thought, nothing is more easily or clearly apprehended than that which we contrive with our own minds. But because it is vane and difficult to rid one's self of the concepts of reality that we have become accustomed, and lest we become convinced in our pride that it is our own self centered minds that are the cause of all existence, it will be desirable to tarry for some time at this stage, that, by long continued meditation, we may more deeply impress upon our memory this new knowledge. In other words, lets just stop and think about it for a moment, because a priori, we are thinking beings.  

[JDLAW Booker]

On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 5:38 PM, Brent Allsop <brent....@canonizer.com> wrote:

    In other words, it sounds like your camp would belong as a supporting sub camp of this?  Or are there any particular doctrines in the Representational Qualia Theory statement that you disagree with?

 

 

Brent,

 

I am still reviewing the representational qualia theory as presented in the canonizer, but as for the idea of the representational theories of consciousness and if we define "qualia" (singular ‘quale’) as those individual "feelings," then yes - I believe this is the correct way of thinking about writing a program or code for sentience.  So, to be clear in this forum there are two James.  I go by Jamie or JD.  James Carrol is "James." 

 

We have many interests.  But, primarily in this discussion, I am usurping my main interest which is the development of sentience in a computer program.  I have postulated -- that a controlled cyclic redundancy algorithm (based on predetermined personality tendancies) which terminates based on categorization rather than classical data correction or probabilities, will ultimately result in a fair approximation of free will.  It's my Occam's razor approach to machine skepticism.

 

[JDLAW Booker]

[James Carroll]

I haven't been keeping up with this discussion as I would have like too, because I have been busy... and philosophical ramblings have to be the first thing to go when that happens.

I would however like to respond in general...

No, I don't think that the rainbow is less beautiful to me than to you. Rather, I think that you underestimate the power and the beauty of what can be done with patterns of information. Truth is data, and data is patterns, and therefore patterns are truth, knowledge, light, and ultimately spirit and soul. 

Also, I didn't come to this conclusion because it was intuitive, or because I "liked" it. Rather I came to this conclusion because I proved it, irrefutably, multiple times, and in multiple ways. 

All your arguments against my position boil down to equivalent arguments against qualia residing in the neurons of the brain. Honestly, if I felt as you do, I would be forced to conclude that qualia is a property of the soul, which is something supernatural and more than just the result of the brain. That is ok with me, because my position is that (IF qualia lives in the brain alone, then it can be simulated), which I believe is irrefutably and trivially true. 

You have shown no physical reason why the hardware of one type of computer (the brain) should have 1's and 0's that are somehow more "privileged" than the 1's and 0's that reside in a different form of hardware. Changing the hardware with emulation does not change the software running, and if two computers run the same software, then they will generate the same outputs, and therefore the same subjective reality. End of story. It really is that trivially simple. 

[David Torgesen]

I think its interesting to approach the idea of 'qualia' from the
perspective of evolutionary biology. After all, the story of the mind/
brain problem started in a much simpler environment, especially if one
posits that the brain evolved as part of a survival story over eons.
Of course this assumption presents its own challenges from a religious
perspective, but lets entertain this idea for a moment.

In its simplest form a nervous system provides a unique advantage,
that of soliciting a specific biological response to stimuli in the
environment. Some responses result in the reward of survival, others
lead to death. It seems logical that evolution would bind together
specific responses to specific stimuli as successful neural
developments are passed on through hereditary means.

Now, here we are, eons later, and I can assertively state that the
sensation of extreme heat has a very distinct quality, a very specific
experience in my consciousness is reproduced every time my hand
approaches a hot stove, for example. And the sensation always
motivates me to remove myself from the location of extreme heat.

The million dollar question here is whether the "sensation" of
experiencing heat is truly a hardware/software independent issue. For
example, when I create an algorithm inside some computing platform,
which specifically instructs the device to remove itself from a
condition of extreme temperature, does this machine actually
experience what we humans refer to as 'heat'? I think not.

I think the answer lies at least partly in an analysis of the origins
of neuronal development. This is a development which is biological in
nature, involving a growing complexity of interactions of chemical
compounds and proteins, for example. And the sensations 'created'
during the course of its development ALWAYS had to be relevant to the
biological system in question, otherwise they were useless, and
evolution would not incorporate them. And to be relevant requires
that the sensation be created using the same the principles operating
inside the system.

Simply stated, principles of computing are not equivalent to systems
of biology. The underlying physics simply is not reproduced by the
computing system. Binary math is NOT chemistry and biology. Only
descriptions of outputs and instructions are produced inside computing
platforms. No sensations are produced which have any relevancy or
meaning inside a biological system.

David

[James Carroll]

David some great thoughts.... You started out right on, and then veered off track a bit, but there are some great things to think about in your comments. I will try to respond to them below:

On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 6:47 PM, David Torgesen <torg...@gmail.com> wrote:

I think its interesting to approach the idea of 'qualia' from the
perspective of evolutionary biology.

As do I. That is a very instructive approach. 

 

In its simplest form a nervous system provides a unique advantage,
that of soliciting a specific biological response to stimuli in the
environment.  

Absolutely. And we have some ideas about HOW it does this. 

 

The million dollar question here is whether the "sensation" of
experiencing heat is truly a hardware/software independent issue.  

It is clearly not an algorithmically independent issue. But there seems no reason to suppose that it is not a hardware independent one, since we know that when the same algorithm is run on different hardware, there is no difference other than potentially in efficiency. 

 

For
example, when I create an algorithm inside some computing platform,
which specifically instructs the device to remove itself from a
condition of extreme temperature, does this machine actually
experience what we humans refer to as 'heat'?  I think not.

Absolutely not. I agree completely. You would only duplicate the "sensation" of heat if you duplicated the ENTIRE "algorithm", not JUST the outcome of removing your hand from the stove. I can create a reactive algorithm that clearly produces this simple action, but which does not duplicate the sensation at all. That doesn't mean that I couldn't ALSO create an algorithm that modeled the processes of the brain in such a way as to create both the outcome and the sensation. 

 

Simply stated, principles of computing are not equivalent to systems
of biology.  

But the principles of computing can be used to model those systems to an arbitrary degree of precision. In fact, what we are learning from quantum mechanics is that information is very related to reality, and that it is quantized and finite, and perfectly simulatable. With no loss. Massive complexity, but no loss. It is this observation that has sparked the entire "we live in a simulation" world view. 

 

The underlying physics simply is not reproduced by the
computing system.  

They can be if we want. That's the fine point. If evolution produced it, if it is made up of atoms, then we can duplicate its behavior perfectly. 

No restriction was placed upon the computational complexity of the required simulation, we were only asking if such a simulation were possible. If we had to, we could model the physics of every atom in the brain to whatever degree of precision desired. Then the underlying physics of the system WOULD be reproduced (or at least accounted for). It turns out that we know enough about the brain to know that this level of abstraction most likely won't be required in order to duplicate the brain's behavior... But if you believe that this is wrong, and this level of precision is required, then it doesn't change the result in the last, it just changes the computational complexity of the simulation required.  

 

Binary math is NOT chemistry and biology.

But binary math can simulation chemistry and biology to an arbitrary degree of precision. 

 

Only
descriptions of outputs and instructions are produced inside computing
platforms.  No sensations are produced which have any relevancy or
meaning inside a biological system.

That just begs the question. You don't know that. The fact of the matter is that if sensations can be produced inside the brain, then we know for certain that they can be produced inside a computer of sufficient power. I proved it. Repeatedly. The brain is just such a computer, a proof by example. And no one has provided any formal refutation of my proofs. Your approach actually seemed to ignore an important fact that I used in my proofs, namely that a physical system can be simulated to an arbitrary degree of precision. You made your mistakes because you forgot this fact. 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[Brent Allsop]

Hi James and David,

David, thanks for the new contributions.  I agree with much of what you say.

James, It seems to me you must have completely missed my most recent reply to your posting before this one, where you again repeated what you consider to be proofs of your position, which you referenced, yet again, here, re-asserting you opinion that it proves your position.

So I'll repeat myself yet again on some of these issues.  I completely agree with you when you respond to David with:

David:

Simply stated, principles of computing are not equivalent to systems
of biology.

James:

But the principles of computing can be used to model those systems to an arbitrary degree of precision.

But you are not including the additional and also true fact that you agreed to at one time (as in the simulated rock doesn't crush real nuts), and that is that you must PROPERLY interpret whatever is representing the simulation to know what the original is fundamentally like.

As I attempted to say, I completely agree that you have proven that consciousness can be simulated.  But, again, what that proves has nothing to do with what material property dualism is claiming about phenomenal properties like redness and what they are like. Sure, you can produce behavior, or abstracted representations that can be interpreted as redness, but if you don't know how to properly interpret the phenomenal nature of the representation or simulation, then you are blind to what the original is really phenomenally like.

Brent Allsop

[James Carroll]

On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 9:06 PM, Brent Allsop <brent....@canonizer.com> wrote:

But you are not including the additional and also true fact that you agreed to at one time (as in the simulated rock doesn't crush real nuts), and that is that you must PROPERLY interpret whatever is representing the simulation to know what the original is fundamentally like.

As I attempted to say, I completely agree that you have proven that consciousness can be simulated.  But, again, what that proves has nothing to do with what material property dualism is claiming about phenomenal properties like redness and what they are like. Sure, you can produce behavior, or abstracted representations that can be interpreted as redness, but if you don't know how to properly interpret the phenomenal nature of the representation or simulation, then you are blind to what the original is really phenomenally like.

I have already irrefutably countered all these points, but I guess it won't hurt to do it again. 

First of all, a simulated rock doesn't crush real nuts. True. But a simulated computer does real computation. The brain doesn't physically crack nuts. Physically it does nothing but consume resources, and occasionally bounce around in your head. Its work is all computational. It receives inputs from the senses (percepts) and produces output behaviors in the actuators. Thus, the brain's function involves the computation that turns the inputs into the outputs, and all the subjective experiences that happen in between. That is all computation. So it doesn't matter that a simulated brain doesn't crush nuts, or consume oxygen from the blood (the physical things that would be lacking in the simulation), or bounce around in your skull. All that matters is if it performs the same computations, and produces the same outputs. If it does that, then it does everything that the brain does that matters in this instance. 

And (as I have pointed out elsewhere), if you replace a natural brain with a simulated one, and you ask it what its subjective reality is like (what does a rainbow look like to you), it will answer exactly as you do, and it will do so for the same emotional reasons, or else it isn't an accurate simulation. Which means, if I can't trust the computer when it says "I have qualia and consciousness" then I can't trust you when you say that either. I have no more reason to trust you than I do the computer.

On a related point, 

It may help if we properly define what a computer really is, because several of you seem to have a very limited idea of what constitutes a "computer". 

Definition 1: a computer is a set of physical matter, that is arranged in such a way as to insure that when the laws of physics are allowed to operate upon that matter, it solves useful mental problems. 

Fact 2: the human brain is a set of physical matter, arranged by evolution in such a way as to insure that when the laws of physics are allowed to operate upon that matter, it causes computation that produces behavior that increases our survival potential.

Conclusion 3: The human brain is a biological computer by 1 and 2.

Assumption 4: qualia, subjective experience, and consciousness reside in the human brain.

Conclusion 5: qualia, subjective experience, and consciousness already reside in a computer by 4 and 3. 

fact 6: it is possible to simulate the behavior AND internal workings of one computational system on another.

conclusion 7: it is possible to create qualia, subjective experience, and consciousness in an artificial computer by 5 and 6. 

QED

It really is that simple. 

Remember, I didn't choose this path because it was intuitive, but rather because the evidence demanded it. In fact, it was very counter intuitive to me, but then again, so was relativity and quantum mechanics. In our quest for truth we must be willing to accept counter intuitive conclusions if the evidence seems to be demanding it. 

 James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[JDLAW Booker]

James,

 

Now, I feel like I need to apologize for coming into this discussion between you and Brent in the first place.  I think its hard to tell sometimes whether you are responding to Brent or to me. This discussion thread has seemed very productive at times and at other times very confusing, probably because it is hard to tell to whom your posts are addressed - me or Brent. 

 

Here's some food for thought about your last post (below)

 

1. First, I will assume that last post was meant for me ("JDLaw Booker" also go by "Jamie") because I definitely provided some of what you called "philosophical ramblings"  Frankly, I do not see how you can possibly discuss representational qualia and "redness" without philosophy or at least logic.

 

2. Next, I don't think I have ever "argued against" your position.  I have been trying to get information from you to help me better understand how to use 1s and 0s to create personality in a computerized program.  I think Brent may have a more difficult time accepting that 1s and 0s (computer simulation) ever could be used to define the representational qualia needed to arrive at computer sentience, but I think even he does not seem to ever dismiss your position -- that it could be done.

 

3.  I am conceding that 1s and 0s probably can be used, but simply that the programmed "machine learning" must become coded more towards "catagorization learning" and less "fact computing."  To explain my reasoning for this, I have to get philosophical because I take it a step further and propose that as thinking beings in this world our entire world existence is subject to the representational qualia of the mind.  While I admit that "facts" and "physicality" probably do exist, our minds can only perceive them with our limited imperfections.  Therfore "facts" in that sense do not exist for us - only probabilities.

 

4. Therefore I have chosen an "Occam's Razor" (lex parsimoniae - or selecting from among competing hypotheses the one that makes the fewest new assumptions) approach to solving the  problem of trying to use 1s and 0s to simulate representational qualia.

 

5.  So, I repeat my postulate form several posts ago, "a controlled cyclic redundancy algorithm (based on predetermined personality tendancies) which terminates based on categorization rather than classical data correction or probabilities, will ultimately result in a fair approximation of free will."

 

Do you think that a postulate like that has any hope?

______________________________________________________________
To keep things from getting confusing as to whom I am responding to, below is James Carroll's post to which I refer:

 

--

[James Carroll]

On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 7:03 AM, JDLAW Booker <jdl...@gmail.com> wrote:

Now, I feel like I need to apologize for coming into this discussion between you and Brent in the first place.  I think its hard to tell sometimes whether you are responding to Brent or to me. This discussion thread has seemed very productive at times and at other times very confusing, probably because it is hard to tell to whom your posts are addressed - me or Brent. 

uups, I think that I have given the wrong impressions. Don't feel bad for joining the conversation. Ever. You have contributed to it in many important ways, thank you. 

 

1. First, I will assume that last post was meant for me ("JDLaw Booker" also go by "Jamie") because I definitely provided some of what you called "philosophical ramblings"  Frankly, I do not see how you can possibly discuss representational qualia and "redness" without philosophy or at least logic.

Here again, I think that I have mis-communicated. I was calling what we were ALL doing "philosophical ramblings" and I was apologizing for bailing on the conversation when I got busy, but I was admitting that MY "philosophical ramblings" should be the first things to go when real work comes up. That was not meant as a criticism of anyone in the discussion, least of all you. 

 

2. Next, I don't think I have ever "argued against" your position.  I have been trying to get information from you to help me better understand how to use 1s and 0s to create personality in a computerized program.  I think Brent may have a more difficult time accepting that 1s and 0s (computer simulation) ever could be used to define the representational qualia needed to arrive at computer sentience, but I think even he does not seem to ever dismiss your position -- that it could be done.

Those comments were directed at Brent.... and he has "argued" in a debate sense, and so have I. Again, I didn't mean to use the term "argued" in a derogatory way. Yes, we are all defending out positions to the best of our abilities, and hoping that the truth bubbles to the surface. No reason to apologize for that. 

 

3.  I am conceding that 1s and 0s probably can be used, but simply that the programmed "machine learning" must become coded more towards "catagorization learning" and less "fact computing."  To explain my reasoning for this, I have to get philosophical because I take it a step further and propose that as thinking beings in this world our entire world existence is subject to the representational qualia of the mind.  While I admit that "facts" and "physicality" probably do exist, our minds can only perceive them with our limited imperfections.  Therfore "facts" in that sense do not exist for us - only probabilities.

I am still a bit unclear what you mean by "catagorization learning". Do you mean "supervised learning" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervised_learning or "un-supervised learning" (sometimes called "clustering") http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsupervised_learning? In any event, I agree completely that 1's and 0's can do it, but that they must be used correctly. If they are used incorrectly, you just produce a calculator. They have to be organized correctly into a learning, growing, and changing system. In short, they have to simulate what the mind does to generate the mind. If that is what you mean by "catagorization learning" then I am all with you. 

4. Therefore I have chosen an "Occam's Razor" (lex parsimoniae - or selecting from among competing hypotheses the one that makes the fewest new assumptions) approach to solving the  problem of trying to use 1s and 0s to simulate representational qualia.

 

5.  So, I repeat my postulate form several posts ago, "a controlled cyclic redundancy algorithm (based on predetermined personality tendancies) which terminates based on categorization rather than classical data correction or probabilities, will ultimately result in a fair approximation of free will."

 

Do you think that a postulate like that has any hope?

I don't see any evidence that the human brain is doing exactly this (at least as I understand what you are saying), but then again, I am not sure what a controlled cyclic redundancy algorithm" really is at a formal, deep, level. For example, the human brain doesn't appear to ever "halt" on anything, rather the sub-conscious is forever churning away, updating beliefs. There is a threshold of sufficient belief at which we act, but that isn't the same as "halting". 

Also, clearly the human mind doesn't compute exact probabilities, but I do think that it approximates them. 

As for "cyclic" I think that self awareness comes from the evolutionary advantages of world modeling applied to self. There is also a bit of "actor critic" going on I think. We make most of our decisions sub-consciously, and then there is a conscious element that "critiques" what our sub-conscious is doing and provides feedback, that appears to train the sub-conscious. Our "story" of "self" appears to be told by this "critic" who THINKS he is in charge of our decisions, but actually invents the story of "why" we did what we do after the fact. In any event, this self reference, this "modeling of the world, turned upon the self" is certainly "cyclic" in one sense, and it appears to be central to consciousness and likely also to qualia and subjective experience.  Douglas Hofstadter appears to have made a reasonable argument for this sort of "self reference" being essential in consciousness in his wonderful book: Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (commonly GEB http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach,

In any event, don't feel bad for joining the conversation... ever! I appreciate your input, even if I don't always understand everything you are trying to say.

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[David Torgesen]

On Nov 22, 6:14 pm, James Carroll <jlcarr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> That doesn't mean that I couldn't ALSO
> create an algorithm that modeled the processes of the brain in such a way
> as to create both the outcome and the sensation.
>

To model a process with information is still different from the
process itself. You might be able to create an algorithm accurate
enough to predict that when 2 compounds react, you'll get a third
compound. You can describe where the electrons will go to an
arbitrary degree of precision, but, in the end, you still only have a
'description' of the result. Your output is not the actual third
compound, so you cannot claim that the computation inherits or
recreates any of the qualia associated with the compound.

>
>
> They can be if we want. That's the fine point. If evolution produced it, if
> it is made up of atoms, then we can duplicate its behavior perfectly.
>

But you won't create a real duplicate with an information system. You
still need to show how the physical processes occurring within your
computing system equates to actual chemical and physical processes of
the nervous system. You've only shown that you can describe and
predict the results.

> No restriction was placed upon the computational complexity of the required
> simulation, we were only asking if such a simulation were possible. If we
> had to, we could model the physics of every atom in the brain to whatever
> degree of precision desired. Then the underlying physics of the system
> WOULD be reproduced (or at least accounted for).

That's the real key here. You can 'account' for the physics, and you
can informationally 'model' the physics, but you really aren't
reproducing the same physics underlying the natural processes which
lead to qualia.

[James Carroll]

I answered all these arguments here:

"First of all, a simulated rock doesn't crush real nuts. True. But a simulated computer does real computation. The brain doesn't physically crack nuts. Physically it does nothing but consume resources, and occasionally bounce around in your head. Its work is all computational. It receives inputs from the senses (percepts) and produces output behaviors in the actuators. Thus, the brain's function involves the computation that turns the inputs into the outputs, and all the subjective experiences that happen in between. That is all computation. So it doesn't matter that a simulated brain doesn't crush nuts, or consume oxygen from the blood (the physical things that would be lacking in the simulation), or bounce around in your skull. All that matters is if it performs the same computations, and produces the same outputs. If it does that, then it does everything that the brain does that matters in this instance."

James

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[Brent Allsop]

Hi James (and JD<the other james>, and David),

Wow, this is all totally amazing.  I think I'm starting, (at least starting) to understand some of what all of you are saying.  Most of us are just completely failing to communicate, and are just still completely talking past each other.

Let me see if I can describe how things currently appear to me.  In order to do computation, you need to have something that can represent information, and be able to do operations both because of and on those proper interpretations of the representation.  The only requirement of the representation system, is that you have some media that can assume distinguishable states, that can be reliably interpreted to be the desired information.  An electrical wire can be reliably interpreted as representing a zero, when there is no voltage on it.  It can be reliably interpreted as a one, when there is 5 volts on it.  Similare, no pit on a disc, can be interpreted as zero, and a pit = one, and so on.

There is also a slightly different theoretical possibility for representing computational information.  If you have a system that can distinghish between physical phenomenal redness, and a physical phenomenal greenness, because it knows what each of them is phenomenally like, and that they are very different from each other, then you can also, reliably interpret the redness as 1 and the greenness as a zero.  This, also, can and does do computation.  If the system's algorithm knows it wants the ones represented by redness, and to ignore the items represented by greenness - then,  just like the ones and zeros, it can also do the same computation that James(Now I know this is not the JD one) is talking about in his proofs.  So, you can either have one system that does the computation with ones and zeros, using the ones for what it wants, or you can have, as one theoretical "Material" possibility, a phenomenal computational system that represents what it wants with redness and what it doesn't want with greenness.  The "functional" possobility, is that there is only ones and zeros, and that in some 'hard' way, redness and greenness "arise" from these.

James (not JD), You're assuming that the redness is the result of the computation.  That, of course, is one functional theoretical possibility - that can be tested for.  But, it seems to me, you're missing another very real "Material" theoretical possibility.  That the phenomenal stuff, and what it is like, could be what is doing the computation, or what the computation is based on, not the other way around.  Sure, either way, both can represent the other and both can do computation.

Does that make sense?  If not, I can give many more examples, and go into much more detail....  But I hope this is enough?

Would you agree that these are both equally valid theories about reality, and that it should be very easy to test for which one is the real redness?

Thanks, all, for continuing this very educational to me discussion.  I guess, the final question is, James (not JD), are you still a functional property dualist?  And do you now better understand what a Material Property Dualist is, and at least accept it as a valid theory that science could demonstrably prove (while falsifyiing Functional Property Dualism)?  Do you agree that both of these are possible, without invalidating any of your behavioral computational proofs?  And JD are you still just an idealist?  And David, which are you, an Idealist, or a Material or Functional Property Dualist, or something else entirely?

And do we all agree that demonstrable science will soon validate which of these theories is correct, and how to test for such?

Have we all finally communicated?

Brent Allsop

[James Carroll]

On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 7:03 AM, JDLAW Booker <jdl...@gmail.com> wrote:

5.  So, I repeat my postulate form several posts ago, "a controlled cyclic redundancy algorithm (based on predetermined personality tendancies) which terminates based on categorization rather than classical data correction or probabilities, will ultimately result in a fair approximation of free will."

So, I had an epiphany in the shower, and I suddenly realized what you are trying to do (at least I think that I understand). 

Tell me if I am right (before I respond to the idea, I want to make sure that I understand it). 

In order to create "free will" in your agents, you want to insure that their behaviors are not "computable" so you use the halting problem. You decide that your agents behavior will depend upon whether an algorithm "halts". If it halts they behave one way, if it doesn't halt they behave another way. Thus, no computer could determine how they will behave, and they now have "free will". 

Is that the gist of your idea? If so I have LOTS of thoughts about it, but I want to make sure I finally understand (sorry it took me so long) before responding. 

James

 

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[James Carroll]

More below:

On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 10:26 PM, Brent Allsop <brent....@canonizer.com> wrote:

There is also a slightly different theoretical possibility for representing computational information.  If you have a system that can distinghish between physical phenomenal redness, and a physical phenomenal greenness, because it knows what each of them is phenomenally like, and that they are very different from each other, then you can also, reliably interpret the redness as 1 and the greenness as a zero. 

This is basically what our eye does. It has red, green, and blue receptors, and each time fire (a one if you like) if they encounter the color in question, and they don't fire if they don't encounter the color in question. From that moment on, the redness or greenness, or blueness is all represented by the complex pattern of the resulting firing of neurons in the brain. 

 

or you can have, as one theoretical "Material" possibility, a phenomenal computational system that represents what it wants with redness and what it doesn't want with greenness. 

Well, if you mean that you could create a computer out of lasers that actually use red or green light for their one's and zero's, that is correct, you could do that. But we know that the brain isn't doing this. There is no "red" and "green" light wandering around in the brain representing "redness" and "greenness" the phenomenal property of redness and greenness has been converted to the pattern of firing in the neurons. 

 

The "functional" possobility, is that there is only ones and zeros, and that in some 'hard' way, redness and greenness "arise" from these.

The EXPERIENCE of redness and greenness arise in some "hard" way from the firing patterns of the neurons that result from the physical redness and greenness that strike our eyes. 

 

James (not JD), You're assuming that the redness is the result of the computation. 

I am not assuming it. I know this to be true IF the experience of redness resides in the neurons, because the neurons are doing computation. Therefore if the experience resides in the neurons, it resides in computation. 

 

That, of course, is one functional theoretical possibility - that can be tested for.  But, it seems to me, you're missing another very real "Material" theoretical possibility. 

I am sorry, perhaps this is a failure of communication, but I honestly don't see where I am missing any other possibility. I don't understand what other possibility there is. You used words like phenominal properties of redness doing computation, and I have no idea what that means or could be. The neurons are doing it. They are doing it with electrical signals. Unless you believe that something else is in there (spirit) then this is the end of the story. No "phenomenal redness" is in there anywhere, because our brains don't use red or green light for computation or for communication. The phenominal redness ended at the eyes.

Does that make sense?  If not, I can give many more examples, and go into much more detail....  But I hope this is enough?

Nope, sorry, it made no sense. I am failing to understand your point. 

 

Would you agree that these are both equally valid theories about reality, and that it should be very easy to test for which one is the real redness?

As far as I can tell, only one theory makes any sense, the test is done, and the results are in. But perhaps that is because I STILL can't understand your theory at all. 

 

Thanks, all, for continuing this very educational to me discussion.  I guess, the final question is, James (not JD), are you still a functional property dualist?  And do you now better understand what a Material Property Dualist is, and at least accept it as a valid theory that science could demonstrably prove (while falsifyiing Functional Property Dualism)?  Do you agree that both of these are possible, without invalidating any of your behavioral computational proofs?  And JD are you still just an idealist?  And David, which are you, an Idealist, or a Material or Functional Property Dualist, or something else entirely?

I think that my statement of belief is more clear than your different "camp" names so here it is:

I believe that qualia lives in the brain. I believe that the brain is a physical system. I believe that the brain can be simulated. I believe that this simulation would duplicate not only the behavior of the brain, but its subjective experiences (and qualia) as well. So I believe that qualia can be represented in software. I also believe that it will be possible to produce AI that have as advanced (if not more advanced) subjective reality as we have. 

 

And do we all agree that demonstrable science will soon validate which of these theories is correct, and how to test for such?

I think it already has. But yes, I believe that this is a testable hypothesis. 

Have we all finally communicated?

not really. 

James

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[JDLAW Booker]

YES YES.  And the shower is also where I get many of my epiphanies.  I think we have that in common.

 

I must be careful now, just because if I am correct, some of the "coding secrets" that I am about to tell you, must remain secret -- else there will be no way to protect life. Sorry about the melodramatics (totally unintended) but if 1s and 0s can approach free will, then all life is sacred and should be handled with care.

 

There is an offline email directly to your inbox.  Then let's return.

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[JDLAW Booker]

On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 10:26 PM, Brent Allsop <brent....@canonizer.com> wrote:

    And JD are you still just an idealist?
   

 

Yes. And just yes.  But maybe yes. At least I would rather be or a duck.

 

Excuse my bad attempts at humor.

 

[James Carroll]

Ok, now that I understand, I can respond better. 

Unfortunately this won't work. I can see where you are coming from, but it won't work. Let me see if I can explain the very convoluted reasons why this wont work clearly (this is going to be a challenge, so bear with me). 

The simplest explanation is that what you are running is running on a computer, so by definition whatever it comes up with is computable. But to compute my agent's behavior you would have to solve the halting problem you respond, because my agent's behavior depends on whether some code halts, and that is un-computable.... you respond. True, but then to write the code that would make your agent behave in this way is also un-computable I respond, and you will never be able to write the code that will make your agent do these things.... But I can, you respond, I just described how, you run the code, and behave differently if it halts than you do if it doesn't.... well, that code actually has to make decisions in finite time, so it is actually producing behavior if the code halts before time T, which is a computable problem, which means that your agent is actually solving a computable problem, not an un-computable one, and it is gathering no "free will" from the realm of non-computability. 

Does that make sense?

Ok, so let's make it more formal... what exactly is un-computable about the halting problem? Assume program H, which takes two inputs, H(C, I), and returns 1 if the code C halts on input I, and returns 0 if the code C produces an infinite loop on input I. What the halting problem proof shows is that there is no way to write program H, such that program H itself halts in finite time. Now, you can write H_imp that takes inputs C and I, such that H_imp(C,I) actually works by running C with input I and returning 1 if it halts. The problem is that H_imp won't halt on the C,I pairs that produce an infinite loop.   Which means that although H_imp is computable (you can write this program), it doesn't solve the original halting problem. You can solve the following variant of the halting problem, H_time(C,I,T) which returns 1 if code C halts on input I, before time T. It is trivial to write code that does this, just use H_imp, but stop it after time T, and return the answer. 

Your proposed agent, that determines beliefs based upon whether a belief engine "halts" is essentially using H_time, which is a computable algorithm. 

In the end, if it runs on a computer, it is computable by definition, because we define computability as whether or not you can run it on a computer. You can't magically use the halting problem to produce a computer that produces non-computable outputs. 

Did I explain that in a way that made any sense?

Hoping I was helpful,

James

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[Brent Allsop]

Hi James,

Well, it's no wonder you're not understanding what is important here, or what we're trying to say, as evidence by much of this very sloppy thinking and writing in this post from you.

In the representational qualia theory statement ( http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6 ), and in everything I say, the terms red(reflection of 650NM light) and redness(the final result of the perception process), are clearly defined to be very different things and used very concisely and consistently.  From this post, you clearly don't understand any of these definitions.  One is the initial cause of the perception process, the other is a property of the final result of it.  However you constantly conflate and confuse which one is which.  According to these concise definitions of these terms, the operations in the eye and before and after the retina are yet another completely different thing than either red(reflecting 650NM light) or redness(final result of the processing in the brain), and are only abstract representations by the firing retina that must be interpreted correctly in order to get the meaning of the initial cause, and to process it appropriately so it can produce the corect final redness result.  Again, red could very clearly be interpreted by you as my green is represented.  If you are going to use red(reflectingf of 650NM light) or the term redness, to talk about stuff going on arround the retina, please tell me what you mean by these terms.  Something, you use these terms correctly, leading me to assume you mean the same thing as I mean when I use the very different terms.  Then you randomly swap them, and use them completely incorrectly like this, without explaining what you mean.  So, before you do this, please define exactly what you mean by each of these terms, when you use them like this, so if you are not just thinking sloppily, as it seems, I can know what you are talking about.  How do things like effing the ineffable, inverted qualia, or anything relate to any of these conflated ways you use these terms?

Whenever I use a term like 'represented', I do so in a very mechanical way such that anyone could reproduce this in a machine or in a brain (at least in a world that behaves as predicted in Material Property Dualism as described in the description of a phenomenal robot int the forum post http://canonizer.com/thread.asp/88/1/27 ).  But you use it in completely magical and handwavey ways, such that nobody could understand just what you mean by them.  When you say everything leading up to and including things like: "So I believe that qualia can be represented in software."  What could you possibly mean by all that, other than an effing magic miracle happens here, just because I want it to?  Again, how might effing of the ineffable, or inverted qualia, discovering new qualia, or any of these kinds of theoretical possibilities relate to this kind of 'represented'?

The information and definitions required to understand this exists in the Representational Qualia Theory statement.  It exists in things like posts I've made to the new canonizer forum thread I created for this purpose ( http://canonizer.com/thread.asp/88/1/27 ) and it has been repeated above and repeatedly stated in many different ways in this discussion.  JDLaw, and David seem to be getting much of this, and most of the supporters of the Representational Qualia Theory understand this to the degree that they can talk about this intelligently and consistently.  From where I'm sitting, it just seems like as long as you continue to think in such sloppy ways about all this, as long as you have no interest in learning what we mean by these different terms and how they differ, you'll continue to fail to understand what it is we're talking about.  Repeating all this, for the gazillionth time, doesn't seem to be doing any good, as long as you don't seem very interested in working to understand our specific definitions, and what we are talking about when we use them in very concise and mechanical (i.e. non magical) ways that science could easily prove that reality is just as predicted by this theory.

Brent Allsop

[James Carroll]

On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 6:33 PM, Brent Allsop <brent....@canonizer.com> wrote:

Well, it's no wonder you're not understanding what is important here, or what we're trying to say, as evidence by much of this very sloppy thinking and writing in this post from you.

As I have admitted on many occasions, I have not been able to follow your terminology, because you haven't been clear about it. I freely admit that.

 

In the representational qualia theory statement ( http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6 ), and in everything I say, the terms red(reflection of 650NM light) and redness(the final result of the perception process), are clearly defined to be very different things and used very concisely and consistently.

You need to make that fact more clear then, because you weren't. 

 

From this post, you clearly don't understand any of these definitions.  One is the initial cause of the perception process, the other is a property of the final result of it. 

In other words, you call "red" what I consider the phenomenal property of redness, and you call "redness" what I call the subjective experience of redness. Personally, I would re-vamp your terminology, because the term "redness" applies equally to the phenomenal property of the literal color red. Further confusion was caused by your use of the term "phenomenal" redness, where the term "phenomenal" implies that we are talking about the physical phenomena of redness, but you were using the term "phenomenal" to refer to the subjective experience of redness in truly strange ways. . 

You may be being consistent, but you aren't being clear. 

My definitions are consistent and clear. Red means red. redness means red. Red light means red light. Just as they do in English. Subjective experience of red means what you strangely call "redness". 

However you constantly conflate and confuse which one is which. 

I know which is which, but it is true that I have had the darnedest time trying to figure out which you are referring to when. 

 

According to these concise definitions of these terms, the operations in the eye and before and after the retina are yet another completely different thing than either red(reflecting 650NM light) or redness(final result of the processing in the brain), and are only abstract representations by the firing retina that must be interpreted correctly in order to get the meaning of the initial cause, and to process it appropriately so it can produce the corect final redness result. 

true nuf. I think that is what I said (now that I know what the freak you are saying a bit better). 

 

Again, red could very clearly be interpreted by you as my green is represented. 

It could, but I doubt it. I believe that evolution has given us some common reactions to certain physical stimuli. I don't think that everyone's reactions and representations are identical, but I think that they are similar, because there is an evolutionary motivation to make them so, AND I believe that there is a large degree of scientific evidence pointing in this direction. 

 

If you are going to use red(reflectingf of 650NM light) or the term redness, to talk about stuff going on arround the retina, please tell me what you mean by these terms. 

My definitions are consistent and clear. Red means red. redness means red. Red light means red light. Just as they do in English. Subjective experience of red means what you strangely call "redness". 

 

Something, you use these terms correctly, leading me to assume you mean the same thing as I mean when I use the very different terms.  Then you randomly swap them, and use them completely incorrectly like this, without explaining what you mean.  So, before you do this, please define exactly what you mean by each of these terms, when you use them like this, so if you are not just thinking sloppily, as it seems, I can know what you are talking about.  How do things like effing the ineffable, inverted qualia, or anything relate to any of these conflated ways you use these terms?

I think that I have explained 

 

Whenever I use a term like 'represented', I do so in a very mechanical way such that anyone could reproduce this in a machine or in a brain (at least in a world that behaves as predicted in Material Property Dualism as described in the description of a phenomenal robot int the forum post http://canonizer.com/thread.asp/88/1/27 ).  But you use it in completely magical and handwavey ways, such that nobody could understand just what you mean by them. 

I have no idea what you mean. When I use the term "represented" I am ALWAYS referring to the way in which the phenomenal property of red light is represented either in the brain, a simulation of the brain, or in an AI system. Always. 

 

When you say everything leading up to and including things like: "So I believe that qualia can be represented in software."  What could you possibly mean by all that, other than an effing magic miracle happens here, just because I want it to? 

I mean that I can write a software program that would have subjective experiences of redness like you and I have them. I am not sure what is confusing about this. It means that we can reproduce qualia in software. It means that the brain (being a computer) is already representing qualia in software, running on a material device. How much clearer do I have to be? How else can I say it?

 

Again, how might effing of the ineffable, or inverted qualia, discovering new qualia, or any of these kinds of theoretical possibilities relate to this kind of 'represented'?

As I have said before, I find the use of terms like "ineffable" and "effing" to be so vague that they almost have no meaning. By definition "ineffable" is not "effable" so you can't "eff" the "ineffable" and using that term just begs the question. My point is that our subjective experience is a function of the firing of neurons in the brain, and therefore it can be understood, replicated, and duplicated in alternate hardware using emulation software, or by creating an entirely new technique for producing subjective experience in AI so that their experience isn't the same as ours (they don't replicate the way the brain does it) but they still HAVE subjective experiences that are as real as ours. That would mean that it isn't "ineffable" at all, but is just a function of the patterns of information. So the entire terminology "eff" and "ineffable" is deeply flawed from my perspective. 

 

The information and definitions required to understand this exists in the Representational Qualia Theory statement.  It exists in things like posts I've made to the new canonizer forum thread I created for this purpose ( http://canonizer.com/thread.asp/88/1/27 ) and it has been repeated above and repeatedly stated in many different ways in this discussion. 

I found the camp statement confusing and not clear. And I must have missed it if you were this formal in your definitions elsewhere in this thread. In any event, your choice of terms is very poor, and I think that is part of the reason you are failing to communicate. 

 

JDLaw, and David seem to be getting much of this, and most of the supporters of the Representational Qualia Theory understand this to the degree that they can talk about this intelligently and consistently. 

I am sorry that I am not as intelligent as they are... thanks. 

 

From where I'm sitting, it just seems like as long as you continue to think in such sloppy ways about all this, as long as you have no interest in learning what we mean by these different terms and how they differ, you'll continue to fail to understand what it is we're talking about.  Repeating all this, for the gazillionth time, doesn't seem to be doing any good, as long as you don't seem very interested in working to understand our specific definitions, and what we are talking about when we use them in very concise and mechanical (i.e. non magical) ways that science could easily prove that reality is just as predicted by this theory.

Now, that you are done insulting me for your lack of ability to communicate, let's talk about the things you wrote earlier under this new set of definitions:

On 11/23/2011 11:03 PM, James Carroll wrote:

More below:

On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 10:26 PM, Brent Allsop <brent....@canonizer.com> wrote:

There is also a slightly different theoretical possibility for representing computational information.  If you have a system that can distinghish between physical phenomenal redness,

What the freak is physical phenomenal redness? You used the term "redness" so I now must assume that you mean the subjective experience of redness, but you say "physical phenomenal" which implies that you mean literal physical red light, which you obviously don't based on what you just said above... so I must assume that you mean the physical representation of the subjective experience? If so, then fine, you are talking about the pattern of firing in the neurons... so why not say so? Since we know that is how it is represented yes? But what is truly weird is that you describe this as a "slightly different possibility for representing computational information"... but how is it different? So we both think that the subjective experience of redness is represented in the neurons of the brain? How is that theory different from mine? And then you say that this different possibility is using the physical mechanism for representing it... and THAT is how it is different... you appear to be talking utter nonsense.... If I interpret things as you just told me to, your sentence makes no sense. Honestly, I interpreted it that way at first, but if I do that, then how is representing qualia physically in the brain a different theory from the theory that qualia is represented physically in the brain???? That made so little sense, that I ASSUMED that you MUST have meant that somehow we use red light to represent redness... which also made no sense... But I was grasping at straws to try and understand you. 

 

and a physical phenomenal greenness, because it knows what each of them is phenomenally like,

Physical phenomenal greenness (I assume you mean the representation of green) is different from the representation of redness.... well duh... we always know that. Again, what are you trying to get at?

 

and that they are very different from each other, then you can also, reliably interpret the redness as 1 and the greenness as a zero. 

What? If the representation is complex, (which it clearly is) then there is no way to losslessly smoosh it down to just a 1 or a 0. Which I have tried to explain over and over. You constantly make the mistake of attacking the strawman that our subjective experience can't be based on a single 1 or 0, which we all know to be true. 

HOWEVER, the inputs from our eyes are a 1 or a 0, which was my point when I wrote: 

 

This is basically what our eye does. It has red, green, and blue receptors, and each time fire (a one if you like) if they encounter the color in question, and they don't fire if they don't encounter the color in question. From that moment on, the redness or greenness, or blueness is all represented by the complex pattern of the resulting firing of neurons in the brain. 

 

or you can have, as one theoretical "Material" possibility, a phenomenal computational system that represents what it wants with redness and what it doesn't want with greenness. 

So now what does this statement mean? Again, it seems to be rambling, unformal, and meaningless. But let me try to make sense of it. You talk about "one theoretical "Material" possibility"... well, I always said that qualia is physically represented in the brain with Neurons, I just hold that this process can be simulated, and produce the same subjective reality on a new "material" set of hardware. So my theory is no less "material" than yours. You keep trying to push me into one of your "camps" and yes, I keep resisting, because I want to tell you HERE what I believe.... which I have.... formally, and repeatedly (if you forgot the answer is repeated at the end). Then you talk about "a phenomenal computational system" and I must ask, what about a system makes it phenomenal? ALL computational systems are phenomenal. Does the fact that it is instantiated in neurons make it phenomenal? My simulation is instantiated in silicon. No difference there.... Why is one phenomenal and the other is not? Can you see why I thought that you were talking about something else, naturally, something ridiculous, but what was I supposed to think, honestly? I came to the only logical conclusion available, that you meant that it was representing redness with **phenomenal** redness (the phenomenon of red light).

In any event, now that you have defined your terms redness and greeness in this crazy non-English way, I must assume that you mean that the system is using the subjective representation of red light as a meta representation of happiness (what it wants) and the subjective representation of green light for what it doesn't want.... 

WHAT? WHY? HU? WHY would ANY system do that? Why do you want redness and not greenness again??? And most importantly, what does this have to do with anything?

The "functional" possobility, is that there is only ones and zeros, and that in some 'hard' way, redness and greenness "arise" from these.

I still agree with my earlier response to this:

 

The EXPERIENCE of redness and greenness arise in some "hard" way from the firing patterns of the neurons that result from the physical redness and greenness that strike our eyes. 

See how I am trying desperately to differentiate between the EXPERIENCE of redness from simple "redness" and how your use of the term "redness" to mean the experience of redness is very confusing?

 

James (not JD), You're assuming that the redness is the result of the computation. 

AND I still agree with this response: 

 

I am not assuming it. I know this to be true IF the experience of redness resides in the neurons, because the neurons are doing computation. Therefore if the experience resides in the neurons, it resides in computation. 

 

That, of course, is one functional theoretical possibility - that can be tested for.  But, it seems to me, you're missing another very real "Material" theoretical possibility. 

And I still agree with this response: 

 

I am sorry, perhaps this is a failure of communication, but I honestly don't see where I am missing any other possibility. I don't understand what other possibility there is. You used words like phenominal properties of redness doing computation, and I have no idea what that means or could be. The neurons are doing it. They are doing it with electrical signals. Unless you believe that something else is in there (spirit) then this is the end of the story.

... 

Would you agree that these are both equally valid theories about reality, and that it should be very easy to test for which one is the real redness?

And with this one:

As far as I can tell, only one theory makes any sense, the test is done, and the results are in. But perhaps that is because I STILL can't understand your theory at all. 

 

Thanks, all, for continuing this very educational to me discussion.  I guess, the final question is, James (not JD), are you still a functional property dualist?  And do you now better understand what a Material Property Dualist is, and at least accept it as a valid theory that science could demonstrably prove (while falsifyiing Functional Property Dualism)?  Do you agree that both of these are possible, without invalidating any of your behavioral computational proofs?  And JD are you still just an idealist?  And David, which are you, an Idealist, or a Material or Functional Property Dualist, or something else entirely?

As I said earlier, I am refusing to be pigeon holed into one of your camps, but instead choose to state what I believe HERE. Which I did as follows:  

I think that my statement of belief is more clear than your different "camp" names so here it is:

I believe that qualia lives in the brain. I believe that the brain is a physical system. I believe that the brain can be simulated. I believe that this simulation would duplicate not only the behavior of the brain, but its subjective experiences (and qualia) as well. So I believe that qualia can be represented in software. I also believe that it will be possible to produce AI that have as advanced (if not more advanced) subjective reality as we have. 

 

And do we all agree that demonstrable science will soon validate which of these theories is correct, and how to test for such?

I think it already has. But yes, I believe that this is a testable hypothesis. 

James 

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[Brent Allsop]

Hi James.

Interesting.  OK, you're definitely correct in pointing out that both of us are simply still talking as if we are understanding each other using our own clear and consistent, though very different, definitions for our terminology.  You are claiming you are using the common every day English meanings of these words, and thinking that is correct and good enough.  But there are very clear statements in the Representational Qualia Theory piece that point out that saying "redness is red" as you said is in a common usage way is completely inadequate and ambiguous to describe everything we know about all this.  The initial cause and final result must be modeled or thought of as different things.

David Chalmers and most other experts in this field point out and discuss the very real possibility of 'inverted qualia' and 'dancing qualia'.  You say that our representations are not identical, but they are similar.  You need to be less hand wavy about this critically important issue.  There is an image in the Wikipedia article on qualia which is meant to illustrate the inverted qualia possibility in reality where one person's knowledge of the strawberry is made of redness, and another persons knowledge of the strawberry is made of greenness.  (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia ) We use the same image in the Representational Qualia Theory camp statement.  What do these pictures mean to you?  If our representations are not "identical" but they are "similar" as you say, what, exactly does this mean?

Another problem is your model seems to be entirely lacking of a definable and consistent meaning for ineffable.  To me, consistent means something that I could share or see with you, in some way that I could know if your redness is my greenness, but what does it mean to you?  It seems to me, you are simply attempting to overly simplify and remove this from the equation, by simply defining something that is "ineffable" as unsharable, out of the gate.  I must get this from your statement: 'By definition "ineffable" is not "effable" so you can't "eff" the "ineffable"'.  So, in other words, to me you are saying that we should just remove this from everything we think about, or model, by definition?  What do you think of, when someone asks you what salt tastes like?

To further illustrate the inadequacy of your common English terminology, lets consider the flowing.  You are out in the field, picking strawberries.  Now, someone gives you a pair of special red/green inverting glasses.  These glasses include a camera, and projector system that projects light onto your retina, with red and green light inverted from what the camera is detecting.  So, this light that is landing on your eyes that represents the red strawberry, when you are waring these red/green light inverting glasses - is that redness or greenness in your thinking?

Brent Allsop

[JDLAW Booker]

On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 9:12 AM, James Carroll <jlca...@gmail.com> wrote:

Unfortunately this won't work. I can see where you are coming from, but it won't work. Let me see if I can explain the very convoluted reasons why this wont work clearly (this is going to be a challenge, so bear with me) ... 

 

Your proposed agent, that determines beliefs based upon whether a belief engine "halts" is essentially using H_time, which is a computable algorith ...

 

In the end, if it runs on a computer, it is computable by definition, because we define computability as whether or not you can run it on a computer. You can't magically use the halting problem to produce a computer that produces non-computable outputs. 

James

Happy to see you have moved into the "non-computable" outputs camp --

 

Yes, this helps because even though you disagree that it could work, you do seem to grasp the basic theory.  I think we differ on our definitions of the "halting problem" though. And, that difference of opinion is because my definition requires an extension of the classical "some truths are unprovable" halting problem definition.  I want to take advantage of the halting problem theory (to develop code to compute beliefs) where "all truths are unprovable." 

 

"All truths are unprovable" means no computer ever computes 100% reliable facts.  Subjective truths are all we have.  (e.g. I think therefore I am)

 

Also for a shout out to Brent.  Representational Qualia, then are all we have.  Yes, the brain does compute - and all it does is compute.  However, it does not compute facts.

 

Do you see how this approach could change the landscape?   

[Brent Allsop]

Hi folks,

This conversation here has clearly switched to free agency, the halting problem, and the like.  When you do this, could you change the subject line so we know you are no longer talking about spiritual redness?

Thanks

Brent Allsop

[JDLAW Booker]

Brent,

 

You are right.  i have admittedly Usurped the "redness" topic a bit and I apologize.  But I just see the "spiritual redness" idea as such a fundamental buildingblock for learning to understand the mind and how free agency actually works.  Do you agree that if we are to ever solve the "machine personality" equation -- that we would first have to fully understand spritual redness?

[James Carroll]

On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 6:53 AM, Brent Allsop <brent....@canonizer.com> wrote:

Hi James.

Interesting.  OK, you're definitely correct in pointing out that both of us are simply still talking as if we are understanding each other using our own clear and consistent, though very different, definitions for our terminology.  You are claiming you are using the common every day English meanings of these words, and thinking that is correct and good enough.  But there are very clear statements in the Representational Qualia Theory piece that point out that saying "redness is red" as you said is in a common usage way is completely inadequate and ambiguous to describe everything we know about all this.  The initial cause and final result must be modeled or thought of as different things.

Yes, they must... which is why I used "the experience of redness" for this "second" thing...

red=red

redness=the properties of red (the wavelength of light etc)

the experience of redness = the qualia, the subjective mental experience we have when we see red.

That allows for all the nuance we need, but it also has the advantage of being clear. 

 

David Chalmers and most other experts in this field point out and discuss the very real possibility of 'inverted qualia' and 'dancing qualia'.  You say that our representations are not identical, but they are similar.  You need to be less hand wavy about this critically important issue. 

Well, I admit that it would be very difficult to tell if our qualia were inverted. But I THINK that they aren't, because evolution has an advantage for making them similar. For example, we might both describe red as "hot" and "angry" or "exciting" while we might both describe blue as "cool" "refreshing" "calming". It would appear that the perception of certain colors are attached to certain emotional centers so that the perception of the color also triggers the emotion. Some of this connection could be learned. For example, if I show you green, and torture you every time you see green, you would learn to associate the experience of green with an emotional reaction. But I believe that SOME of these connections are pre-programmed by evolution and by a shared genetic haratige. Stephen Pinker has argued rather convincingly that many of our perceptual pathways in the brain are hard-wired, or at least pre-programmed in certain (shared) ways. Even more evidence is found in studies on the placebo that show that blue placebo's work best as "downers" while red placebo's work best as "uppers" so apparently there is some shared connection between people so that we have a similar response to the colors. 

That does nothing to deal with the philosophical problem that our perceptions could be switched, it just means that we might have to switch around some DNA to do it.... but I think that your central point of inverted qualia remains. 

 

There is an image in the Wikipedia article on qualia which is meant to illustrate the inverted qualia possibility in reality where one person's knowledge of the strawberry is made of redness, and another persons knowledge of the strawberry is made of greenness.  (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia ) We use the same image in the Representational Qualia Theory camp statement.  What do these pictures mean to you? 

They mean that it would be difficult to tell if qualia are inverted (but not impossible, because you might then describe green as "hot" instead of red as "hot" etc.)

 

If our representations are not "identical" but they are "similar" as you say, what, exactly does this mean?

It means that our DNA has hard wired some of our perceptions to some of our emotional centers in the same way, but through learning and experience, there might be slight differences between the details of your brain's connections and my brain's connections. These small differences in connections might cause you to have a slightly different emotional reaction than I do to certain colors. Or you might have a slightly different perceptual differences. That is what it means for them to be "similar" but not "identical". Nevertheless, none of these observations about inverted qualia, or similar qualia would prevent a simulation of your or my pathways, allowing qualia to be implemented in software on new hardware.

 

Another problem is your model seems to be entirely lacking of a definable and consistent meaning for ineffable. 

Yup, that's because ineffable means nothing. 

 

To me, consistent means something that I could share or see with you, in some way that I could know if your redness is my greenness, but what does it mean to you? 

It means that my neural pathways for perception of color are the same as yours, similar to yours, different from yours, or inverted from yours. You see, I deal with these issues in very concrete ways. Again, ways that have nothing to do with whether the pathways can be simulated. 

 

It seems to me, you are simply attempting to overly simplify and remove this from the equation, by simply defining something that is "ineffable" as unsharable, out of the gate.  I must get this from your statement: 'By definition "ineffable" is not "effable" so you can't "eff" the "ineffable"'.  So, in other words, to me you are saying that we should just remove this from everything we think about, or model, by definition? 

Well, you keep talking about learning to "eff" the "ineffable" which is an oxy moron. If we can indeed "share" subjective realities, then they are not (and never were) ineffable. Let's talk about sharing, learning, or comparing subjective experiences, and avoid this terminology is all, because we don't yet KNOW whether we can "eff" what you are CALLING "ineffable". 

 

What do you think of, when someone asks you what salt tastes like?

I think of my subjective experience of salt, which I have words for, "the taste of salt" but which I can't know for SURE you have the same experience for. But soon I WILL know whether your experience is the same as mine. I will be able to tell by comparing our neural pathways for taste, and seeing if they are the same or different. 

 

To further illustrate the inadequacy of your common English terminology, lets consider the flowing.  You are out in the field, picking strawberries.  Now, someone gives you a pair of special red/green inverting glasses.  These glasses include a camera, and projector system that projects light onto your retina, with red and green light inverted from what the camera is detecting.  So, this light that is landing on your eyes that represents the red strawberry, when you are waring these red/green light inverting glasses - is that redness or greenness in your thinking?

Trivial. It is green light hitting my retina, not red. So it is red light, turned to green light, creating the experience of greenness in my mind. See, terminology works perfectly. Just put "experience of" in front of "redness" whenever you mean qualia, and leave it off whenever you mean the quality of green light. I NEED the terms "greenness" and "redness" so that I can refer to the properties of red and green light. If you take those terms away, and make them mean something new (the experience of redness or greenness) then you handicap me, and more importantly, you aren't as clear to people who don't already know your funny new definitions. 

In any event, nothing down this line of reasoning would indicate that qualia can not be reproduced in simulation. 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[Brent Allsop]

Hi JD,

Oh, OK.  I guess that makes sense.  I guess I think the most important issue is all about "spiritual redness".  Always getting side tracked down ill defined hand wavy rat holes like 'intentionality', 'creativity', 'free will' and so on is a complete waste of time.  I'm clearely in the camp that believe once we all have a sufficient and acurate model to understand what phenomenal perception is everything else will simply fall out and become completely obvious and easy.

Thinking about how 'spirits' perceive, or spiritually know, even with out physical eyes and so on, will give people far more understanding of what is important than wasting times on all that other not that easy yet simply ill defined stuff.  I think All that  other stuff like 'intentionality', 'creativity', 'free will', and everything but phenomenal properties, like James (not JD) so powerfully argues, can easily achieved by or at last simulated by mere computational devices.

In particular, I have a real problem with believing there is some kind of non computable 'free will' that is important to judge us by, or whatever.  For me, that is a very immoral thing to believe and such clearly leads to hate and lots of other terrible intolerant and faithless social ills that are still so prevalent in today's primitive world.

Brent Allsop

[James Carroll]

On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 7:07 AM, JDLAW Booker <jdl...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 9:12 AM, James Carroll <jlca...@gmail.com> wrote:

Unfortunately this won't work. I can see where you are coming from, but it won't work. Let me see if I can explain the very convoluted reasons why this wont work clearly (this is going to be a challenge, so bear with me) ... 

 

Your proposed agent, that determines beliefs based upon whether a belief engine "halts" is essentially using H_time, which is a computable algorith ...

 

In the end, if it runs on a computer, it is computable by definition, because we define computability as whether or not you can run it on a computer. You can't magically use the halting problem to produce a computer that produces non-computable outputs. 

James

Happy to see you have moved into the "non-computable" outputs camp --

Well, I haven't really moved. It took me so long to figure out what you were trying to do because I knew it couldn't be done, so it never occurred to me that someone would try :-) I figured that you must be talking about something else... 

Sorry. 

But, kudos to you for thinking outside the box. 

The simple fact of the matter is that any computer can only compute computable functions, by definition. 

Yes, this helps because even though you disagree that it could work, you do seem to grasp the basic theory.  I think we differ on our definitions of the "halting problem" though.

You have to define the halting problem VERY carefully, or else the result isn't un-computable. There are many computable variants of the halting problem. In fact, H(C,I) is computable for MANY C and I, and is only un-computable for SOME C and I pairs. There is an entire field in the "validation and verification" sub-camp of computer scientists that solve halting problems all day. That's what they do. It's very useful when trying to make sure that your code will not crash. It just can't be done in EVERY case. In fact, if H returns Yes, No, and I don't know, then H can be written, and do relatively well (meaning return I don't know very rarely). If you want to preserve the non-computable property of the halting problem, then you have to use the right definitions of the halting problem. You can't make up your own, and still be sure that it is non-computable (unless you re-prove it in the new form). 

 

And, that difference of opinion is because my definition requires an extension of the classical "some truths are unprovable" halting problem definition.  I want to take advantage of the halting problem theory (to develop code to compute beliefs) where "all truths are unprovable." 

Except you can't do that, because some truths are unprovable, and some are provable. Whether a fact is provable or not is a feature of the fact, it can't be changed. It either IS or it ISN'T provable (or you might not know as in cases like P=NP, which we still don't know for sure one way or the other).

 

"All truths are unprovable" means no computer ever computes 100% reliable facts.  Subjective truths are all we have.  (e.g. I think therefore I am)

We can already do something similar with probability theory. And since you aren't really computing non-computable behavior, you aren't gaining any "free will" by using this "halting" stuff, so why not just use probability theory? Especially since we KNOW that any other approach will be sub-optimal when the quality of its results are compared to using probability theory. 

 

Also for a shout out to Brent.  Representational Qualia, then are all we have. 

Yes, I agree, this conversation IS still related to the Qualia one, in a rather round about way. If the brain were to some how magically compute non-computable functions, THEN, its behavior could never be simulated in any computer, and Brent could be right that qualia lives in the brain, but could never live in a simulation of the brain. BUT if the brain is only computing computable functions, then the simulation could compute the same functions, and thereby produce the same results. In fact, this is the HEART of the discussion (for me). Since the brain is a physical system, it's properties, its behavior IS COMPUTABLE, and as such, it can be simulated, and that simulation will therefore have the same qualia or subjective experiences as we do. 

 

Yes, the brain does compute - and all it does is compute.  However, it does not compute facts.

Well, no, it computes beliefs from evidence. It computes subjective experiences, it computes reactive actions, it computes perceptions (including optical illusions, where the perceptions are wrong), it computes routs, it computes reconstructions and compression of memories, it filters inputs, it determines focus and attention, it mediates desires, it computes all SORTS of things, including facts (sometimes). That is just not ALL it does.

In fact, computing facts is not the real problem in AI, representation of facts so that they are useful is a much larger problem. 

 

 Do you see how this approach could change the landscape?

nope, sorry. 

I think you should look at open cog http://opencog.org/ I think that you might find their approach fascinating. 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[James Carroll]

On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 9:35 AM, Brent Allsop <brent....@canonizer.com> wrote:

Hi JD,

Oh, OK.  I guess that makes sense.  I guess I think the most important issue is all about "spiritual redness".  Always getting side tracked down ill defined hand wavy rat holes like 'intentionality', 'creativity', 'free will' and so on is a complete waste of time.  I'm clearely in the camp that believe once we all have a sufficient and acurate model to understand what phenomenal perception is everything else will simply fall out and become completely obvious and easy.

I am not convinced. We are STARTING to get a relatively good map of the visual cortex, and we are just beginning to understand the way visual perceptions work in the brain. But it turns out that the visual cortex is MUCH easier to understand than is the large, interconnected, and convoluted network that causes "consciousness" and "introspection" and ultimately the illusion of free will. 

What that means is that perception is the place we should start, because it is the EASY part. Things get harder from here. 

 

In particular, I have a real problem with believing there is some kind of non computable 'free will' that is important to judge us by, or whatever.  For me, that is a very immoral thing to believe and such clearly leads to hate and lots of other terrible intolerant and faithless social ills that are still so prevalent in today's primitive world.

I agree completely. 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[Brent Allsop]

Hi James,

I still don't know, fully, what you mean by:

<<<

red=red

redness=the properties of red (the wavelength of light etc)

the experience of redness = the qualia, the subjective mental experience we have when we see red.

>>>

When perceiving and picking a strawberry, there are at least these steps:

1. there is the property of the strawberry reflecting 650NM light.
2. 650 NM light travels to our eyes.
3. there is the many causal property step process of this light landing on our retinas and this light being interpreted into appropriate patterns of firing on particular neurons.
4. Then there is the image processing our brain does to turn this double 2D photo data into real knowledge.
5. There is our conscious knowledge that is the final result of a perception process - where the decision of what to pick is made.
6. The red strawberry is the one picked.

Evidently you think redness is a property of all 6 of these?  Yet you think if you invert things twice, say within any one of these, like within step 2, that this suddenly makes whatever is representing step 2 between this double inversion, to be affiliated with greenness?  Why, then, are you making this very arbitrary how to interpret things judgement?

There is a particular point I'm trying to get to with all this, something I'm trying to communicate to you.  If, instead of shutting our communication down by choosing specific definitions, and so on, If you'd try to see things from another theoretical possibility, I don't think we'd need to go through all these trivial steps till you see the problem in your thinking I'm trying to point out, which is why it doesn't work for  me.  I know you're going to think that my question "Why are you making this very arbitrary judgement?" is just a stupid question, and everyone knows that 500NM light is green, not red.  But there is a very important reason why I'm asking this question, and it would help if, instead of just dismissing it, you'd  make some attempt to understand what I'm attempting to talk about, or at the very least, try to see things from my perspective, whether you agree with it or not.  Because, once you say your reasoning for why you can call what exists between in double inversion in step 2 is greenness, I can then use the same argument for any of the other steps, including step 5.  What do you say about a double inversion within only that level then?  The strawberry is still going to be picked, but that's not the point we are talking about here.  We're talking about the phenomenal nature or properties of our knowledge, and the differences between redness and greenness, and how and where to connect such subjective experiences to the right neural correlate, and where it is not appropriate to make this same connection, what it means to interpret something as being like something different, what the 'quale interpretation problem' means and how this could theoretically blind us to some of the properties of what we are perceiving, and so on.

Brent Allsop

[Brent Allsop]

Hi JD,

I, and everyone else, are going to have to eternally ask you this question, including asking you to provide a concise description of just what you do believe, because if you asked me to state what you believe, I could in no way do it.

So what do you have against 'canonizing' your view and getting an idealist camp started, to help everyone, especially everyone that thinks like you do?  I get so tired of trying to get to the point where I can easily state just what it is all you idealists believe, and repeatedly asking all of you to help concisely state such, for the benefit of everyone.

Remember, it doesn't have to be a finished product, just get something started, so other idealist can join and so you can all work together to continually improve it, and so on.

Brent

[James Carroll]

On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 10:20 AM, Brent Allsop <brent....@canonizer.com> wrote:

Hi James,

I still don't know, fully, what you mean by:

<<<

red=red

redness=the properties of red (the wavelength of light etc)

the experience of redness = the qualia, the subjective mental experience we have when we see red.

>>>

When perceiving and picking a strawberry, there are at least these steps:

1. there is the property of the strawberry reflecting 650NM light.
2. 650 NM light travels to our eyes.
3. there is the many causal property step process of this light landing on our retinas and this light being interpreted into appropriate patterns of firing on particular neurons.
4. Then there is the image processing our brain does to turn this double 2D photo data into real knowledge.
5. There is our conscious knowledge that is the final result of a perception process - where the decision of what to pick is made.
6. The red strawberry is the one picked.

Evidently you think redness is a property of all 6 of these? 

I have a phrase for each of them... 

1. the strawberry is red. 

2, the light has the properties of redness.

3. the retina reacts to red light, producing firing of neurons

4-5 we have a subjective experience of redness.

6. we act.

What is confusing?

 

Yet you think if you invert things twice, say within any one of these, like within step 2, that this suddenly makes whatever is representing step 2 between this double inversion, to be affiliated with greenness?  Why, then, are you making this very arbitrary how to interpret things judgement?

parse error.... I have no idea what you just asked. 

 

There is a particular point I'm trying to get to with all this, something I'm trying to communicate to you.  If, instead of shutting our communication down by choosing specific definitions, and so on, If you'd try to see things from another theoretical possibility, I don't think we'd need to go through all these trivial steps till you see the problem in your thinking I'm trying to point out, which is why it doesn't work for  me.  I know you're going to think that my question "Why are you making this very arbitrary judgement?" is just a stupid question, and everyone knows that 500NM light is green, not red.  But there is a very important reason why I'm asking this question, and it would help if, instead of just dismissing it, you'd  make some attempt to understand what I'm attempting to talk about, or at the very least, try to see things from my perspective, whether you agree with it or not.  Because, once you say your reasoning for why you can call what exists between in double inversion in step 2 is greenness, I can then use the same argument for any of the other steps, including step 5.  What do you say about a double inversion within only that level then?  The strawberry is still going to be picked, but that's not the point we are talking about here.  We're talking about the phenomenal nature or properties of our knowledge, and the differences between redness and greenness, and how and where to connect such subjective experiences to the right neural correlate, and where it is not appropriate to make this same connection, what it means to interpret something as being like something different, what the 'quale interpretation problem' means and how this could theoretically blind us to some of the properties of what we are perceiving, and so on.

I am trying, but I don't get what you are asking. What do you mean by a double inversion in step 2? I am not sure what that means. How would I invert anything in step 2, there the light is what it is. I could invert my eye's reaction to the light, but I can't invert the light can I? Do you mean I paint all the red strawberries green, and the green ones red? What do you mean? And then what is a double inversion? I paint the red ones green, then red again? So I am back where I started from? If I do that then there is no change. So why bring it up?

Honestly, I am trying. But as far as I can tell, there IS no error in my reasoning. It is foolproof. I proved it. You just seem to be getting confused on informal obscurities. Be formal. Nail down what you are saying clearly and formally. When you "invert qualia" what happens in the brain? What happens to the neural connections? When you do a "double inversion" what happens to the neurons? Do they go back to the way that they were? If so, then there was no change... so what is the point?

And most importantly, how does this inversion problem have anything to do with the simulation question? You can invert or rewire any way you want, and I can simulate the original configuration (and get the original qualia back) or I can simulate the inverted configuration (and get the new qualia out). Whatever your "inversion" means neurologically, I can simulate that. So be formal about what your inversion means neurologically. Does it mean that I hook all the red receptors up to the green connections and the green receptors up to the red connections? If so, great. That has no bearing on the simulation question. I just simulate this new inverted system. So what....

Create something like this....

assumption 1:... .bla bla bla

...

step 5: invert red to green by .... FORMAL description of the neural changes you want to make...

step 6: this inversion causes.... bla bla bla

...

conclusion 10: qualia can't be simulated because of step 9 and 3...

SHOW how this inversion problem makes it so I can't simulate the neurons, or how it means that my simulation won't produce qualia. 

I already showed beyond any doubt that it can and will.... so show me why I am wrong, and do it formally. 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[JDLAW Booker]

Hi Brent,

 

Well this googlegroup runs awfully fast.  I get up and go to the bathroom and there are 6 more lengthy posts.

 

You said:

So what do you have against 'canonizing' your view and getting an    idealist camp started, to help everyone, especially everyone that    thinks like you do?  I get so tired of trying to get to the point    where I can easily state just what it is all you idealists believe,    and repeatedly asking all of you to help concisely state such, for    the benefit of everyone.

I am not so sure that I am an idealist - at least not by the classical definition. In that I do not believe that my perceptions "cause" the world to exist - classic idealism.  I have said elsewhere (somewhere in this thread) that I do believe that facts and physicality do exist outside the mind -- but that the only reality that can be experienced -- is that which we can intellectualize.

 

I said:

I will try now to channel an explanation for why -- this simulated reality possibility would conpletely change our approach the coding of a sentient program and its use of the representational qualia ... For if the cause of this system is self-existent, it follows then that this cause is God; for any cause that possesses the perfection of self-existence, it must likewise, without doubt, have the power of actually possessing every perfection of which it has. In other words, all the perfections conceived belong to God. For God is the ultmate cause of even causation.  But if we owe one causes existence to another cause, then we demand again, for a similar reason, whether this second cause exists of itself or through another being, until, from stage to stage, we at length arrive at an ultimate cause, which will be God -- therefore, let us re-convince ourselves of the certainty of the following statement and with purpose and conviction; let us reconvene to tell ourselves: we are not alone.   

 

I'm "against 'canonizing'" my view and getting an idealist camp started, because 1) I am afraid that pushes me into a category of which I am not included, and 2)I am interested in developing a computerized skepticsm which in turn I believe will ultimately lead to computerized free will.

 

If I am going to "canonize" something, it will be "cognitive causality" and not "idealism."

 

I also do not have that kind of time presently to join canonizer.com and then open a camp.  I will instead focus on the "coding."   My categorization learning CRC algorithms do make for interesting "turing test" results.  This will be one of those things you can't explain, but simply have to experience -- "eff the ineffable."  

[Brent Allsop]

Hi James,

So it appears that you are distinguishing between redness, and the experience of redness.  Help me understand what this difference is, and why you are making things more complicated by adding these two different things.

A single inversion in the perception process is like the glasses I described that swap what is being interpreted as red at that location with whatever is being interpreted as green.  A double inversion is simply two of these, either back to back (i.e. you go from 650NM light to 500NM light, and the double takes you back to 650NM light) or the second being at any other location in the entire picking mechanism.  There are drastically different things being interpreted as representing redness and greenness including what gets picked at the end.  (Do you pick the red items, or do you pick the green items?)  Could you not add the two of these inverters at any transduction level of this entire system, starting with painting the strawberries green, and the leaves red, and the second one, at the last act step, such that you pick the red ones, instead of the green ones.  My question is, for all these possible sets of double inversions, what is the complete set that results in my redness experience, vs the complete set that results in me greenness experience, and for these different experience levels, why and how is this difference between redness and greenness only applicable to that level?

One point to note. You pointed out that if you were wearing the glasses, just one single inversion, you mentioned that I might describe what I represent the strawberry with, is no longer a 'hot' color.  But, such things like 'hotness' and 'redness' being bound together, are obvious just that - unrelated representations.  There are lots of different types of brain damage such as associative agnosia that separate these kind of things, proving the brain is simply binding them together.  If my redness was your greenness, I would certainly call greenness hot, and redness not hot, and so on.  So, when you describe which double inversion sets result in my experiencing greenness, instead of redness, please take this into consideration.

And finally, of course please try to restrain from using meaningless effing magic terminology, such as: you experience changes to greenness, only if the double inversion happens surrounding number 5 in the entire process, just because I want it to be there, and other than that's where I want it, there is no difference between that and any other point in the entire picking process.

Brent Allsop

[James Carroll]

Sorry, been too busy to think through this conversation, will respond to your comments though, just give me time...

in the mean time, I think that qualia and consciousness are very tightly related... and so I think that this article is relevant:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228402.300-banishing-consciousness-the-mystery-of-anaesthesia.html?page=1

As we learn which neural patterns generate consciousness, we will learn which ones generate qualia, and we will soon be able to duplicate these patterns in simulation. That is when our computers will really "wake up". 

Cheers. 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[Brent Allsop]

 

Hi James,

 

Thanks for the update and interesting article.  For a while there, I thought I had ticked you off with my admittedly sometimes abusive behavior where I fail to see things from your POV.  I must apologize for that, and I continue to try to do better.

 

You’ve indicated what you mean by red, redness, the experience of redness, and so on, and based on that, I’m preparing a response indicating your selected meanings for these words will prevent anyone that is using those meanings from understanding any kind of Material Property Dualism theory – as those definitions are completely wrong in the theoretical worlds I’m trying to describe.  But before I do send that response, I want to make sure I really understand just what you mean by red, redness, the experience of redness, qualia, and so on.  And what is it, exactly, that we experience or are aware of, and how is this different than the ones we do not experience...

 

As for that article in new Scientist, I posted a reply, and included a copy below.


Brent Allsop


=======

 

Linda starts out with:

 

<<< 

What they didn't tell me was how the drugs would send me into the realms of oblivion. They couldn't. The truth is, no one knows.

>>> 

 

Then she proceeds to answer her question by pointing out how the “leading theory of consciousness that has gained ground in the past decade.” Precisely explains all this.  Within this “Global Workspace” synchronously spread around the brain as the synchrony stops, consciousness fades, and vice verse.

 

So, why is she, and everyone else not satisfied, and thinking: “The truth is, no one knows”?  The only problem is, in addition to the cause and effect observable properties of these synchronously firing neurons, there must also be the ineffable properties we experience, such as redness.  These properties are ineffable because of the "Quale Interpretation Problem" in which we interpret them as, likely something like grey matter, which of course is the improper interpretation of something that has a redness phenomenal property we experience.

 

The point is, knowing the cause and effect behavior of what is occurring in the brain, simply isn’t enough.  You must also be able to get around this "Quale Interpretation Problem" via various 'effing' of the ineffable methods.

 

The Consciousness Survey Project being worked on at canonizer.com seeks to rigorously survey for any possible emerging consensus theories.  To the surprise of everyone this “Global Workspace” theory seems like it could already have far more emerging expert consensus than even Linda mentions here.  All the experts participating in this survey process recently unanimously agreed to call this rapidly emerging consensus theory "Representational Qualia Theory".  (see: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6 ).  The camp statement describes this "Quale Interpretation Problem", making qualities like redness ineffable.  It also predicts the various ways which scientists will be able to get around this problem, to 'eff' the ineffable.

 

Brent Allsop

[Carl Youngblood]

Brent, can I just comment that I've noticed that as your familiarity with a topic increases, you seem to be less patient with others on it. Rather than call James' terminology "totally wrong," why not just say something like, "These are the terms that professionals in this field use for those things: ..." ?

[Grasshopper]

@James Carroll: I'm definitely with you on most of this, but I think you have conceded too much when you agree that a simulated rock is not a rock. Perhaps the rock is just not simulated to a sufficient degree. If it is possible that we live in a simulation (and I cannot see how the possibility can be refuted), then a simulated rock is a rock and our qualia are also simulated -- and real.

Chris

[Grasshopper]

Let me qualify that last statement: if it is possible that we live in a simulation (and I cannot see how that possibility can be refuted), then it is *possible* to simulate qualia (and rocks) to such a degree that they are indistinguishable from reality (because that is what our reality is).

Chris

[brent....@comcast.net]

 

Hi Carl,

 

Yes, I was admitting as much.  I need to continue to improve at this, and thanks for the help with this.

 

But you are talking my “totally wrong” out of context, as I said his definitions are “completely wrong in the theoretical worlds I’m trying to describe”.  In other words, I’m trying to say they are only wrong if these theoretically predicted world turn out to be validated by science.  And I was simply trying to point out that if he wants to understand Material Property Dualism, he needs to use different definitions for what and where qualia, redness, and so on are.  I think all experts would agree that Jame’s definition could definitely be the best definitions if reality turns out to be more like as predicted by functional property dualism.

 

And also, we should recognize that James’ theory, functional property dualism, is definitely leading in expert consensus.  Including Lincoln Cannon, Chris Bradford (Chris, when are you going to officially declare this, like James, Lincoln..?  Thanks for at least speaking up here.), David Chalmers, and a great many others, as you can see at canonizer.com.  Material property dualism has significant support, including the famed Stuart Hameroff, but not anywhere near what functional property dualism has.

 

I’m just trying to get a better understanding of this terminology James is using, so I can better understand this different than my own way of thinking about it.  Even I must admit that Functional Property Dualism could be the one that gets validated by science.  It’s just that even David Chalmers admits that it is very “Hard” to figure out how this could happen.  I’m simply trying to point out that I don’t think most people, like James and Chris, are noticing how “HARD” of a problem this is and that they must "face up to how hard this is" and not just dismiss it.  James is so quick to, with a wavy hand declare “Magic happens here” and I think they need to be more aware of what a difficult problem this is, than they are.  They also need to realize why when they talk the way they do, saying such things as qualia or that which is spiritual can exist in software, why it totally destroys their reputations in the eyes of most other people, since such statements seem so totally obviously absurd to so many people.  So many transhumanist and AI researchers simply have no credibility to so many people, because of this, and this fact is very tragic and detrimental to society.

Brent

---

From: "Carl Youngblood" <ca...@youngbloods.org>
To: transf...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2011 5:42:11 AM
Subject: Re: [mta] Re: What is spiritual REDNESS?

[brent....@comcast.net]

 

Hi Chris,

 

Thanks for making this much better qualification, and for pointing out that requirement “If we are in a simulation”.  I completely agree that you can simulate qualia, and everything, to any desired degree.  But you must also include the clarification that you must properly organize and interpret, whatever is simulating something else, to be that of the other thing.  Fundamentally a set of silicon transistors and wires is only like a nut being crushed by a rock, in so far as you properly interpret it as such.  Fundamentally, the basement level stuff, and likely what it is phenomenally like, are very different.

 

Then you say: “I cannot see how that possibility can be refuted.”  But I think you must admit that if our reality turns out to be like the theoretically possible reality described in my Material property dualism phenomenal robot design thread (see: http://canonizer.com/thread.asp/88/1/27 ) then such is proof that we are not in a simulation.  At least it is not a simple abstracted simulation for which our existence is simply some basement level stuff which is being organized and interpreted differently than it fundamentally (at the basement level) really is.

 

Brent Allsop

 

---

From: "Grasshopper" <cbgras...@gmail.com>
To: transf...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2011 7:25:59 AM

Subject: Re: [mta] Re: What is spiritual REDNESS?

[David Torgesen]

On Nov 23, 2:36 pm, James Carroll <jlcarr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I answered all these arguments here:
>
> "First of all, a simulated rock doesn't crush real nuts. True. But a
> simulated computer does real computation. The brain doesn't physically
> crack nuts. Physically it does nothing but consume resources, and
> occasionally bounce around in your head. Its work is all computational. It
> receives inputs from the senses (percepts) and produces output behaviors in
> the actuators. Thus, the brain's function involves the computation that
> turns the inputs into the outputs, and all the subjective experiences that
> happen in between. That is all computation.

The brain is indeed turning inputs into outputs, however there is more
than computing going on here since the outputs involve actual physical
things. The output is not mere information, but it is chemical
compounds, ions, etc. If qualia is linked to these physical things,
then mere computation does not capture enough of what is really going
on underneath the covers.

>So it doesn't matter that a
> simulated brain doesn't crush nuts, or consume oxygen from the blood (the
> physical things that would be lacking in the simulation), or bounce around
> in your skull. All that matters is if it performs the same computations,
> and produces the same outputs. If it does that, then it does everything
> that the brain does that matters in this instance."

Again, computation is not really producing the same outputs, it
produces information.

Here's my really BIG problem with the functional property dualist idea
that the brain is only a computer and that simulating the brain is
also a "hardware-independent" problem. IF it were a hardware-
independent problem, then one should expect to observe in nature a
plethora of hardware platforms, each evolving of its own accord, which
incorporate the stimulus-response architecture of the brain. We
simply DO NOT observe such a thing. The nervous systems of all
biological creatures share some very basic similarities in how they
operate and how they are designed.

If qualia is a byproduct of brain functioning, and it can be linked to
evolutionary advantages associated with linking stimuli to responses,
then there is absolutely no reason why we shouldn't see a wide variety
of natural "computing" platforms which translate stimuli into
responses via qualia, IF FUNCTIONAL PROPERTY DUALISM has any
credence. There is simply too much opportunity for evolution to
result in alternative methods of representing qualia--and it has not.

David

[James Carroll]

On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 6:55 AM, Grasshopper <cbgras...@gmail.com> wrote:

@James Carroll: I'm definitely with you on most of this, but I think you have conceded too much when you agree that a simulated rock is not a rock. Perhaps the rock is just not simulated to a sufficient degree. If it is possible that we live in a simulation (and I cannot see how the possibility can be refuted), then a simulated rock is a rock and our qualia are also simulated -- and real.

Chris

That's a good point. I agree that we may be living in a simulation (although I doubt it), in which case, a simulated rock is a rock. What I mean is that a simulated rock, run in a computer in our world, doesn't crush a nut in our world. Does that make sense? It may crush a nut in ITS world, a nut that is already in the simulation. But it won't crush a nut in our world. What that means for qualia is that a simulated brain won't do the physical things our brain does, like bounce around in our skulls, or like consume oxygen from the red blood cells. But if WILL simulate the computational things that our brain does. And then I showed that it is the computational things that our brain does that produce consciousness and qualia, and therefore that a simulated brain will produce consciousness and qualia. 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[Lincoln Cannon]

James, I wonder if the lines between computation and physics will continue to blur to the point that the position you've articulated may not hold.

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

--

[James Carroll]

On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 12:22 PM, David Torgesen <torg...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Nov 23, 2:36 pm, James Carroll <jlcarr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I answered all these arguments here:
>
> "First of all, a simulated rock doesn't crush real nuts. True. But a
> simulated computer does real computation. The brain doesn't physically
> crack nuts. Physically it does nothing but consume resources, and
> occasionally bounce around in your head. Its work is all computational. It
> receives inputs from the senses (percepts) and produces output behaviors in
> the actuators. Thus, the brain's function involves the computation that
> turns the inputs into the outputs, and all the subjective experiences that
> happen in between. That is all computation.

The brain is indeed turning inputs into outputs, however there is more
than computing going on here since the outputs involve actual physical
things.   The output is not mere information, but it is chemical
compounds, ions, etc.

But how are those chemical compounds turned into actions? The answer is through nervous impulses to the muscles. Most of these compounds are "broadcast" signals, and are indeed a form of information. I don't see how "qualia" can live in these physical chemicals when they don't "do" anything. The chemical compounds are not connected to "thoughs" in any way. All the evidence form FMRI scans show that "thoughts" occur in the neurons, and in the patterns of firings that they produce. 

 

 If qualia is linked to these physical things,
then mere computation does not capture enough of what is really going
on underneath the covers.

Not so, since I can simulate these physical things as well, to an arbitrary degree of precision. I can even put them in a simulated world, with other "phsyical things" for them to interact with. The fact of the matter is that there is no way to tell the difference between "physical things" and "information". Just saying that qualia lives in the physical system, but moving the part of the physical system from the neurons to the chemicals (aside form being the wrong brain model, not matched by reality) does NOT change the proof I offered earlier for why qualia can be simulated IF it resides in ANY physical system.

 

>So it doesn't matter that a
> simulated brain doesn't crush nuts, or consume oxygen from the blood (the
> physical things that would be lacking in the simulation), or bounce around
> in your skull. All that matters is if it performs the same computations,
> and produces the same outputs. If it does that, then it does everything
> that the brain does that matters in this instance."

Again, computation is not really producing the same outputs, it
produces information.

All the brain's outputs are "information". Information is the only way in which the brain interacts with the outside world (signals down the neural pathways). The brain is isolated from the world. It gets all its inputs from neural signals, and it sends all its outputs through neural signals and through a few broadcast signals in the blood (hormones etc). 

 

Here's my really BIG problem with the functional property dualist idea
that the brain is only a computer and that simulating the brain is
also a "hardware-independent" problem.  IF it were a hardware-
independent problem, then one should expect to observe in nature a
plethora of hardware platforms, each evolving of its own accord, which
incorporate the stimulus-response architecture of the brain.  We
simply DO NOT observe such a thing.  The nervous systems of all
biological creatures share some very basic similarities in how they
operate and how they are designed.

I think that this is a mistake, because the evidence shows that evolution evolved cells first, then was "stuck" using these cells to do its computation. It therefore turned cells into brain cells (and there is a wide variety of how these brain cells work in many different species). The similarities between how different species do computation is a measure of their shared ancestry, nothing more. And the differences between how species do computation in their brains is a measure of the potential for many different systems to solve similar problems. 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[James Carroll]

On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 2:06 PM, Lincoln Cannon <lin...@metacannon.net> wrote:

James, I wonder if the lines between computation and physics will continue to blur to the point that the position you've articulated may not hold.

I don't understand Lincoln, the more they blur, the more obvious my position becomes. If the "material" things going on in the brain are just "computation" then the fact that they can be done in simulation becomes true by definition. The opponents argue that matter=qualia, I argue that computation=qualia. If we can show that matter=computation, then matter=qualia, matter=computation, therefore computation=qualia. QED. 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[James Carroll]

On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 10:20 PM, Brent Allsop <brent....@canonizer.com> wrote:

You’ve indicated what you mean by red, redness, the experience of redness, and so on, and based on that, I’m preparing a response indicating your selected meanings for these words will prevent anyone that is using those meanings from understanding any kind of Material Property Dualism theory – as those definitions are completely wrong in the theoretical worlds I’m trying to describe. 

I don't see how my definitions are less "expressive" than yours. Mine are equally expressive, they just happen to also follow the rules of English. 

red means red in English

redness means properties of red, the wavelength of light, the fact that it is made of electro magnetic quanta, etc.... you can't redefine redness to mean qualia, it already has a definition..... so we need another word to mean qualia.... so I choose:

the experience of redness to mean qualia. 

Tada.... These definitions are as expressive as yours, because you had two words, 1. red for red and redness, and 2 redness for qualia and the experience of redness. Switching to my definitions has lost no expressive potential, it just makes more sense. 

And you can still express your theory by saying something like "the experience of redness resides in more than the neural patterns of the brain, but is a function of the matter (a miracle happens) in some unexplained, mysterious, illogical, and irrational way that no one understands".

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[Lincoln Cannon]

I agree with that part, James. My criticism is aimed at the idea that a computed stone could never crush a nut in the world computing the stone.

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

--

[James Carroll]

On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 12:29 PM, <brent....@comcast.net> wrote:

I don’t think most people, like James and Chris, are noticing how “HARD” of a problem this is and that they must "face up to how hard this is" and not just dismiss it.  James is so quick to, with a wavy hand declare “Magic happens here” and I think they need to be more aware of what a difficult problem this is, than they are. 

It really bugs me when you say this, because your system has a heck of a lot more "magic happens here" than mine does. You have to assume that the matter of the brain contributes to the subjective experience of thought in some magical way that isn't simulatable, even though we know that the properties of all matter is simulatable. Not only is this magic, it is against the known properties of computation, physics, and neurology.

 

They also need to realize why when they talk the way they do, saying such things as qualia or that which is spiritual can exist in software, why it totally destroys their reputations in the eyes of most other people, since such statements seem so totally obviously absurd to so many people. 

Often the truth is not intuitive. Quantum mechanics isn't intuitive. It just has the advantage of being right. As I said before, I didn't choose this position because I wanted to make friends and influence people, I chose this position because the laws of reality demand it. I chose it because it is provably true. 

 

So many transhumanist and AI researchers simply have no credibility to so many people, because of this, and this fact is very tragic and detrimental to society.

That's like saying that evolutionary biologists have no credibility with people because they espouse this crazy idea of evolution that seems so absurd to so many people, and that they should choose a theory that is false instead, so that more people will like what they say. 

Sorry, no game. We should choose our theories because they are true, not because they are popular or intuitive. 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[James Carroll]

On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 2:18 PM, Lincoln Cannon <lin...@metacannon.net> wrote:

I agree with that part, James. My criticism is aimed at the idea that a computed stone could never crush a nut in the world computing the stone.

oh, ok. I at least follow you now. I am not sure HOW that would be though. I guess if we could "hack" our world's code, and insert the results of our own simulation of the rock, then that would be true. 

If that is what you mean, then I concede the possibility, but find it to be unlikely. 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[Lincoln Cannon]

The idea of nano-instrumented matter swarming begins to blur the line, and my imagination suggests that will not be the end of the blurring.

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

--

[Lincoln Cannon]

In fact, while so many of us are appealing to intuition, I'll suggest as I intuit that we may eventually discover and create some interesting feedback loops where our world computes our world.

[James Carroll]

On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 4:01 PM, Brent Allsop <brent....@canonizer.com> wrote:

Hi James,

So it appears that you are distinguishing between redness, and the experience of redness.  Help me understand what this difference is, and why you are making things more complicated by adding these two different things.

I am confused, YOU were the one that wanted to differentiate between red and what you so confusingly call "redness". I am just giving them better names, namely red and the experience of redness, so as to not step on the already defined "redness" in English. 

 

A single inversion in the perception process is like the glasses I described that swap what is being interpreted as red at that location with whatever is being interpreted as green. 

Ok, then we know what would happen, red light, would cause green light, which would cause the experience of greenness in the brain, which would produce behavior that depends on whether the guy knows that he is wearing the glasses or not, and whether he can (or wants to) compensate. 

 

A double inversion is simply two of these, either back to back (i.e. you go from 650NM light to 500NM light, and the double takes you back to 650NM light) or the second being at any other location in the entire picking mechanism. 

In that case, red light turns to green light, which turns to red light, which produces the experience of redness in the brain, and no real change has been made, so why bring it up. 

 

There are drastically different things being interpreted as representing redness and greenness including what gets picked at the end.  (Do you pick the red items, or do you pick the green items?)  Could you not add the two of these inverters at any transduction level of this entire system, starting with painting the strawberries green, and the leaves red, and the second one, at the last act step, such that you pick the red ones, instead of the green ones.  My question is, for all these possible sets of double inversions, what is the complete set that results in my redness experience, vs the complete set that results in me greenness experience, and for these different experience levels, why and how is this difference between redness and greenness only applicable to that level?

There will only be a change in your "experience of redness or greenness" if the neural firing patterns change. Again, why bring this up? I asked that last time, and you aren't answering it this time. 

 

One point to note. You pointed out that if you were wearing the glasses, just one single inversion, you mentioned that I might describe what I represent the strawberry with, is no longer a 'hot' color.  But, such things like 'hotness' and 'redness' being bound together, are obvious just that - unrelated representations. 

I doubt that. I think that we are biologically programmed to correlate certain colors with certain emotions. In other words, the red neurons from the brain are connected in complex ways with the emotions of excitement, and the blue inputs from the eye are connected in complex ways with the emotions of calmness in the brain. Put the glasses on, and red light, produces blue light, which produces a calming effect on the subject. 

This is evidenced by the fact that placeboes of different colors work better as "uppers" or "downers" depending on their color across a wide range of people, therefore these people must all share these reactions to these colors, therefore I assume that it is biologically programmed. 

 

If my redness was your greenness, I would certainly call greenness hot, and redness not hot, and so on. 

If the level at which the swap happened involved swapping all the programmed neural connections to be backwards then you are connect. Then red light would cause calm, and blue light would cause excitement, because the connections to the calming centers of the brain and to the exciting centers of the brain were swapped too. However, if you just swap the light, or even the neural connections coming from the eyes, then all the other connections, including the ones from the visual cortex's red representation to the "excitement" centers in the brain would remain, and then blue light would cause the "red" excitement reaction, and the red light would cause the blue calming reaction. In other words, I don't think that these associations are a "learned" response, that would be learned backwards, I think that they are biologically programmed.

 

And finally, of course please try to restrain from using meaningless effing magic terminology, such as: you experience changes to greenness, only if the double inversion happens surrounding number 5 in the entire process, just because I want it to be there, and other than that's where I want it, there is no difference between that and any other point in the entire picking process.

There is a huge difference, as I described above. 

NOW, I ASKED you to do the following: 

On 11/25/2011 11:18 AM, James Carroll wrote:

Create something like this....

assumption 1:... .bla bla bla

...

step 5: invert red to green by .... FORMAL description of the neural changes you want to make...

step 6: this inversion causes.... bla bla bla

...

conclusion 10: qualia can't be simulated because of step 9 and 3...

SHOW how this inversion problem makes it so I can't simulate the neurons, or how it means that my simulation won't produce qualia. 

I already showed beyond any doubt that it can and will.... so show me why I am wrong, and do it formally.

and you failed to do what I asked. I am still waiting. Because until you do this, your entire discussion about "inversion" is utterly meaningless, because it has NOTHING to do with whether the process can be simulated. 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[James Carroll]

On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 2:23 PM, Lincoln Cannon <lin...@metacannon.net> wrote:

The idea of nano-instrumented matter swarming begins to blur the line, and my imagination suggests that will not be the end of the blurring.

Certainly you can do computation, and the connect that computation to an output system that allows the computation of the rock to crush nuts. But it usually does so through something BEYOND the simulation alone. 

As for your "loop" conjecture, that may be possible, and it may not. It may not be possible even if our world is a simulation. It seems even more impossible if our world is NOT a simulation (which is what I very much believe, but can't unambiguously prove). 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[Lincoln Cannon]

James, I don't believe our world is simulated either, but I do believe it is computed -- mostly because "simulate" would suggest an unwarranted ontological perspective if and when a world like ours is computed. I'm also inclined toward creation hypotheses that blur the lines between computation and physics.

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

--

[Brent Allsop]

On 12/1/2011 2:09 PM, James Carroll wrote:

On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 12:22 PM, David Torgesen <torg...@gmail.com> wrote:

The brain is indeed turning inputs into outputs, however there is more

than computing going on here since the outputs involve actual physical
things.   The output is not mere information, but it is chemical
compounds, ions, etc.

But how are those chemical compounds turned into actions? The answer is through nervous impulses to the muscles. Most of these compounds are "broadcast" signals, and are indeed a form of information. I don't see how "qualia" can live in these physical chemicals when they don't "do" anything. The chemical compounds are not connected to "thoughs" in any way. All the evidence form FMRI scans show that "thoughts" occur in the neurons, and in the patterns of firings that they produce. 

Yes, but when neurons fire, they are emitting various different chemicals, such as glutamate, across the synapses, and neurons are made of chemicals, so I don't know why you would say that chemicals don't do anything.  But even all this chemical bit, and the theoretical possobility that they may be what has phenomenal properties is not the main point.  The most important point is, that something in our brian does have or at least is responsible for what we experience as redness/quale, and that what we experience as such is the final result of any perception process, in both material and functional property dualism.  Everyone that is supporting RQT theory, including everyone in both Functional and Material camps, are indicating they agree with this.

Material Property Dualism predicts something in our brain, whether it be the neurotransmitter chemicals, something on the neurons themselves, including possibly orchestrated quantum reductions in the micro tubules, has the redness we experience.  It predicts that whatever it is that has all the phenomenal properties we know, must be able to be configured in synchronious ways, such that the system itself, can know what redness is like, and how it is different than greenness, in such a way that this phenomenal differences, including our awareness of such,  is what is being interpreted as "red, ripe and i want it" or "green, not ripe, pass" information - enabling me to pick the correct one.

We are already seeing so much of this in our brain, I bet if more neuro scientists could fully understand the significance of this "Quale Interpretation Problem" and how to get around such, they would have long ago discovered all this, and it would have been the greatest scientific discovery of all time.   They will either see redness related to some material, or they will see redness affiliated with some particular "functionality" regardless of what this functionality is.  (I wish someone in this camp could tell me any theoretically possible way this could turn out and what - exactly - this redness "functionality" would be, and hot to test for such.)  And don't forget, we both could be wrong.  And at that time, we'll all convert to that finally proven camp.

The prediction also is, that whatever it is that has this redness, if you shine a light on it, ( if it is glutamate in the theoretical world like the one I described with the phenomenal robot I described here:  http://canonizer.com/thread.asp/88/1/27) then it will reflect white light.  And thereby, claiming it has whiteness is obviously improperly interpreting what it is phenomenally like, illustrating the essence of the "Quale Interpretation Problem" and the problem you have, at least in understanding Material Property Dualism, and the problem with insisting that if something reflects white light, it has a whiteness/quale.  That is the real problem.  Because what color of light something reflects has nothing to do with how it can be experienced when properly integrated into a phenomenal system like our brain.  The prediction is that 650 (red) light, when properly integrated into a brain like experiential system, may also have some experiential phenomenal property way different than redness, and so on.  Claiming 650NM light is redness/quale, just because it is the popular, intuitive, and the standard English thing to do, is the problem.

And it seems to me, the identical problem exists with Functional Property Dualism.  Representational Qualia Theory supporters are all supporting the statement that makes this claim, and this includes both the expert supporters of Functional Property Dualism and supporters of Material Property Dualism.  Have you looked at the image at the top of the RQT page, and noticed that nothing outside the brain has any blueness or greeness property to it?  (see: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6 ).  This is a critically important thing to notice and a critically important doctrine to the current camp statement, that is unanimously agreed to by all signatories.  (Currently Including you, James).

That is why I'm so keen to better understand why you are making this claim.  If you do, indeed still think that something that reflects white, has a witness property, even though we experience it as redness (whether it is some material, or some kind of magic functionality being interpreted and experienced as redness) then you are, indeed, in a minority camp, and we need to split this doctrine out of the RQT camp, so you can be in your own camp, all on your own, (or at least to see if your argument that we should, just because it is common english, convinces anyone besides you).  We'll have to get the artist of that picture, to draw you another version, that also has the colors outside of the brain for your camp?

So, yes, these phenomenal properties, theoretically possibly properties of particular chemicals, most definitely 'do' something.  It results in our subjective experience, and enables us to distinguish between the ripe information, and the not ripe information, in a phenomenal way, and the theory also predicts, I'll be able to integrate whatever it is that reliably has your redness, into my system, and thereby be able to behave in such a way, as to report that it isn't anything like my redness.  The prediction is that this will be come very common as we starting doing such effing to everyone.

In another post, James said you don't like me accusing you of saying a miracle happens here, and your current thinking is that Material Property Dualism has more of this problem than does Functional Property Dualism.  I've tried multiple times to point out how this is a fallacy in my thinking.  With material, we don't know why quantum stuff behaves as it does, it is just effing magic, and we all accept that it does behave that way, and nobody doubts that it does, because we can  repeatedly duplicate and reliably share the experience.  We don't accuse anyone of claiming that sub quantum particles collapse in odd ways as saying 'effing magic is occurring here' we just trust that what they say is true, because everyone can duplicate it and experience it.  We have no problem with this kind of reproducible and experience able by everyone magic.  All material property dualism is claiming is that, just like all the other normal causal properties of matter that can be readily duplicated and tested, there are also ineffable phenomenal qualities, to be discovered and effed.  So that is the solution to this "magic" within Material Property Dualism.  We're just predicting that it will hapen that way, and if science turns out to be this way, it will prove this theory to be true when we start reliably effing lots of new stuff to everyone.

With functional property dualism, on the other hand - what kind of "functionality" might we possibly see that has a redness property, and how might we discover new phenomenal properties, and why, and so on.  Just waving your hand, and claiming that it will happen, in some magical way, is very hard to test for, disprove, eff, and so on.

In another post, James brilliantly replied:

"We should choose our theories because they are true, not because they are popular or intuitive." which is why I am sticking with the STILL only slightly lessor popular "Material Property Dualism" theory.  And your claim that nobody understands it is wrong, because there are quite a few people supporting the Material Property Dualism camp, though none of them are on this forum, including Stuart Hameroff, Roger Penrose, Steven Lehar, and I'm sure a host of other much more intelligent people than I.  Another reason I would have preferred to have this discussion over there, as it would have a much larger and more educated audience on this topic.  It would sure be nice to have a more comprehensive survey, to know for sure, and more importantly, to be able to see any trending, towards one side or the other.  Which way would you predict things are trending in popularity?  I'm betting that Material Property Dualism is on the verge of surpassing Functional property dualism in an accelerating and scientifically revolutionary way.  We were already accelerating, and so close, till you showed up at the last minute! ;)

But it's not over till the demonstrable science comes in.  And if functional property dualism some how gets demonstrated, I'm sure looking forward to learning this 'magic' of how redness or greenness or any effing spiritual property can simply arise from any particular set of ones and zeros, what is required to discover and experience new qualia, what all possible qualia are, and so on.  I certainly wish you could come up with at least some theoretical possibility that might provide some light on this issue, or possible better way to test for / validate or eff, Functional Property Dualism and "Software = Qualia".

Upwards,

Brent

[David Torgesen]

On Dec 1, 1:09 pm, James Carroll <jlcarr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> But how are those chemical compounds turned into actions? The answer is
> through nervous impulses to the muscles. Most of these compounds are
> "broadcast" signals, and are indeed a form of information. I don't see how
> "qualia" can live in these physical chemicals when they don't "do"
> anything. The chemical compounds are not connected to "thoughs" in any way.
> All the evidence form FMRI scans show that "thoughts" occur in the neurons,
> and in the patterns of firings that they produce.
>

Qualia most likely emerges from the complex interaction of all the
physical processes involved. Pain and pleasure, for example, are tied
to the very ancient limbic system, and it is extremely obvious to see
how these sensations, or qualia, are directly tied to motivations and
behaviors which encourage survival of the genome. The biological
system and the qualia which arise from it are joined at the hip, they
are interdependent for survival. If it weren't that way then the
nervous system would not serve any real purpose.

Any broadcast "signal" has to be 'understood' by the biological
system, it has to be in terms that are meaningful to that system. A
hardware-independent information system basically ignores the
interdependence between qualia and the biological system.

>
> > Here's my really BIG problem with the functional property dualist idea
> > that the brain is only a computer and that simulating the brain is
> > also a "hardware-independent" problem.  IF it were a hardware-
> > independent problem, then one should expect to observe in nature a
> > plethora of hardware platforms, each evolving of its own accord, which
> > incorporate the stimulus-response architecture of the brain.  We
> > simply DO NOT observe such a thing.  The nervous systems of all
> > biological creatures share some very basic similarities in how they
> > operate and how they are designed.
>
> I think that this is a mistake, because the evidence shows that evolution
> evolved cells first, then was "stuck" using these cells to do its
> computation. It therefore turned cells into brain cells (and there is a
> wide variety of how these brain cells work in many different species). The
> similarities between how different species do computation is a measure of
> their shared ancestry, nothing more. And the differences between how
> species do computation in their brains is a measure of the potential for
> many different systems to solve similar problems.
>
> James
>

Whether cells evolved 'first' is largely irrelevant. Evolution allows
for any viable system to emerge, regardless of predecessors or
successors, as long as there is a replication mechanism and mutation
or variation. If qualia is truly hardware-independent, one should
have expected to see greater variation of hardware platforms which are
performing the same types of computations as our brains. We don't see
that in nature.

[JDLAW Booker]

I am truly amazed at the depth of understanding which has been shared and contributed in this MTA thread. It began with only Brent and James.

 

I will at least consider, as argued by Brent, that I may simply be an idealist and need to address the topic over in the Canonizer. Even in my admission, however, I must at least say that my "version" of idealism is to "Cognitive Causality" and not pure idealism.

 

As others eventually came into this thread, for some, the maintaining of academic credibility and consistencies seemed very important.  For others, we try our darndest to bang up against a science vs. religion wall -- so that we can fathom some sort of break through that unites the two.  This topic (“what is spiritual redness?”) has been at the heart of questions over my own existence since I was a little boy.  Something tells me that the things discussed in this simple forum thread are truly getting to the heart of what makes human cognition possible.

 

Having now read through these ideas, and having paused and thought about them. And, having returned now back to the original Brent and James discussion, I might be persuaded that there is a break through coming, perhaps even earlier than 2045 predicted by Kurzweil.  (Afterall, the LHC at CERN is supposed to find the God Particle in 2012 http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-05-riddle-god-particle-cern.html.)  I don't know if there is one answer to Brent's question but I do often consider the idea of the "simple-complicated" or Occam's Razor approach.

 

In one instance, I try to see

 

All I know about

Physics, Quantum Physics, Particle Physics

 

+

 

All I know about

Embodied Cognitive theory, emergent behavior, perception, intelligence

 

+

 

All I know about

Meta-Physical, spritual, religious, nature of reality

 

and fit them together, to decide how it is that spiritual redness differs from physical redness as perception rules my reality.

 

  

As I said, I must now admit that I am in the idealist's camp.

 

Jamie 

 

Brent Alsop wrote:

One of the mistakes I was making was that I was thinking that if
redness was not a property of the brain, then I was assuming you were
thinking that it must be a property of the strawberry.  But I see
know, that you were, instead, thinking of it as something causally
down stream from the stuff in the brain.  As in the brain is, when you
see 650NM light, communicating to some spiritual realm, and that is
where redness might be.  And if it might be there, then perhaps it
might not be reproducible in software?  Tell me if this is right, and
tell me more about this spiritual stuff outside of the physical brain
you might not be able to simulate.  Why might you not be able to
simulate it, to any arbitrary precision?

Another mistake I was making is I was missing the fact that you think
of it as requiring more than just a one or zero to get redness.  So
you said it also has to be “connected to emotional centers, to
sub-conscious parts of the brain, to memory, to love, to anger, etc”

So let me put it this way.  I have a pixel signal coming down the
optic nerve.  This pixel can be a 1 for 650NM (red) light and 0 from
500NM (green) light.  So you string together some structure of ones
and zeros that would be your response from the one, which you claim
could be redness.  How would this set of, or structure of ones and
zeros change, to become greenness?  You keep waving your hands like
this, and claiming a miracle happens, but what is this magic?

[James Carroll]

On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 5:43 PM, Brent Allsop <brent....@canonizer.com> wrote:

Yes, but when neurons fire, they are emitting various different chemicals, such as glutamate, across the synapses, and neurons are made of chemicals, so I don't know why you would say that chemicals don't do anything. 

They do do something true, but we know (for the most part) what that something is, and it all has to do with determining whether the neuron across the synapse "fires" or not. Furthermore, we know that whether the neighboring neuron "fires" is the critical issue, since the final output signals from the brain are all transmitted by firing (or not firing) neurons. That includes the neural signals to your mouth and fingers that are CLAIMING that you have a subjective experience when you see red. That means that if I believe in your subjective reality, then I must trust your outputs (and that I must similarity trust the outputs of a simulation). So the only question is, how do we get those neurons to fire or not to fire? and what role (if any) do the chemical signals have?

The chemicals you mention are either broadcast signals (hormone releases) or else they are targeted signals to the neuron across a synapse (and there may be a few other signals, like ones that cause synapses to form across simultaneously firing neurons). In all these cases, they are functioning as a type of communication signal carrier, sending INFORMATION to the neighboring cells. That is why they can be simulated. Because they are primarily transmitters of information, which then gets processed by the neurons (we call that computation). That is why the brain is fundamentally a computer (and why we can know for sure that if qualia lives in the brain, then it can live in a computer simulating the brain's behavior). This also tells us that there is nothing "magical" in the chemicals that carry the information. We should be able to change the chemicals that do the carrying, and so long as the information reaches its destination, there should be no loss of functionality (or qualia). 

 

But even all this chemical bit, and the theoretical possobility that they may be what has phenomenal properties is not the main point.  The most important point is, that something in our brian does have or at least is responsible for what we experience as redness/quale, and that what we experience as such is the final result of any perception process, in both material and functional property dualism.  Everyone that is supporting RQT theory, including everyone in both Functional and Material camps, are indicating they agree with this.

Yup, and that something is the firing of neurons. 

 

Material Property Dualism predicts something in our brain, whether it be the neurotransmitter chemicals, something on the neurons themselves, including possibly orchestrated quantum reductions in the micro tubules, has the redness we experience.  It predicts that whatever it is that has all the phenomenal properties we know, must be able to be configured in synchronious ways, such that the system itself, can know what redness is like, and how it is different than greenness, in such a way that this phenomenal differences, including our awareness of such,  is what is being interpreted as "red, ripe and i want it" or "green, not ripe, pass" information - enabling me to pick the correct one.

There is no evidence for this process. We know that what determines whether a neuron fires is a function of the neighboring neurons firing, and some other factors such as hormonal signals, and blood flow, refractory periods, etc. Just so you know, "the emporer's new mind" and its quantum theory is the laughingstock of the neuroscience community. 

 

We are already seeing so much of this in our brain, I bet if more neuro scientists could fully understand the significance of this "Quale Interpretation Problem" and how to get around such, they would have long ago discovered all this, and it would have been the greatest scientific discovery of all time.  

I think that is naive, and more that a bit condescending. And my recommendation to you is that if you feel so strongly about this, go out and get a PhD in neuroscience, and start contributing to the field. If it is so easy, then by all means, do it instead of complaining that the rest of us aren't doing it the way you want. 

 

They will either see redness related to some material, or they will see redness affiliated with some particular "functionality" regardless of what this functionality is.  (I wish someone in this camp could tell me any theoretically possible way this could turn out and what - exactly - this redness "functionality" would be, and hot to test for such.)  And don't forget, we both could be wrong.  And at that time, we'll all convert to that finally proven camp.

This has already been done. FMRI studies are already reading our minds, and telling us what we are "thinking" about. I am not aware of any studies on "color" but there ARE studies on several subjective experiences such as "fear" or "calm", and "sexually aroused" and "orgasm" etc. In all these cases, different subjective experiences relate do different PATTERNS of firing in the neurons. They also relate to different MATERIALS in the sense that often different neural transmitters and hormones are released (oxytocin for sexual experiences for example). But we understand what these chemicals do (they change the way neurons fire), and how they relate to outputs (that then travel down neural pathways depending on which neurons fire).

So, are you ready to change camps? You already said that when the experiments were done, you would change camps. Well, they are done, the results are in, and we know the answer. Now it's just a matter of convincing people of the obvious truth.  

 

The prediction also is, that whatever it is that has this redness, if you shine a light on it, ( if it is glutamate in the theoretical world like the one I described with the phenomenal robot I described here:  http://canonizer.com/thread.asp/88/1/27) then it will reflect white light.  And thereby, claiming it has whiteness is obviously improperly interpreting what it is phenomenally like, illustrating the essence of the "Quale Interpretation Problem" and the problem you have, at least in understanding Material Property Dualism, and the problem with insisting that if something reflects white light, it has a whiteness/quale.

Hu? I never claimed that. I said that it if reflects white light, it has whiteness... that is just English. Quit using the term "whiteness" for qualia. But all your wacky definitions aside, it clearly DOESN'T have white qualia if it reflects white light. I never made that claim. I THOUGHT that you were making that claim once, and I mocked it, which confusion was born of your wacky definition of "redness" "greenness" and "whiteness" when you really mean "the experience of redness" "the experience of greenness" and "the experience of whiteness". 

 

  That is the real problem.  Because what color of light something reflects has nothing to do with how it can be experienced when properly integrated into a phenomenal system like our brain. 

Exactly

 

The prediction is that 650 (red) light, when properly integrated into a brain like experiential system, may also have some experiential phenomenal property way different than redness, and so on.  Claiming 650NM light is redness/quale, just because it is the popular, intuitive, and the standard English thing to do, is the problem.

I never made that claim. Ever. I claimed that 650NM light is redness (with my definition of redness not yours), and NOT red qualia (your definition of redness). 

Frankly I am quite surprised that you still don't understand my definitions at all. Because I did a darn good job of explaining them. You are still stuck with redness=qualia even when reading my definitions, where I CLEARLY say that redness!=qualia. Redness = the property of red light, which you CAN'T overload to mean qualia without confusing people, because it already has a different definition in English. 

 

And it seems to me, the identical problem exists with Functional Property Dualism.  Representational Qualia Theory supporters are all supporting the statement that makes this claim, and this includes both the expert supporters of Functional Property Dualism and supporters of Material Property Dualism.  Have you looked at the image at the top of the RQT page, and noticed that nothing outside the brain has any blueness or greeness property to it?  (see: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6 ).  This is a critically important thing to notice and a critically important doctrine to the current camp statement, that is unanimously agreed to by all signatories.  (Currently Including you, James).

If you fixed your definitions and said that nothing outside the brain has any subjective EXPERIENCE of redness or blueness, then I would agree. But you can't say that red light doesn't have "redness" without redefining "redness" in a ridiculous way. Because redness means "the properties of red light" period. And a ripe apple has redness. Period. In other words, I agree with the theory of what you are trying to say, I am just taking SERIOUS issue with your definitions, because they don't communicate. 

 

That is why I'm so keen to better understand why you are making this claim.  If you do, indeed still think that something that reflects white, has a witness property, even though we experience it as redness (whether it is some material, or some kind of magic functionality being interpreted and experienced as redness) then you are, indeed, in a minority camp, and we need to split this doctrine out of the RQT camp, so you can be in your own camp, all on your own, (or at least to see if your argument that we should, just because it is common english, convinces anyone besides you).  We'll have to get the artist of that picture, to draw you another version, that also has the colors outside of the brain for your camp?

The properties of the light exist outside my brain. My experience of them (qualia) doesn't. When you add "ness" to something in English, you mean the "properties of the thing you added the ness to." That means that redness and greenness exist outside my brain, but the qualia of redness and the qualia of greenness (my subjective EXPERIENCE of redness or greenness) don't. It really is that simple. 

 

So, yes, these phenomenal properties, theoretically possibly properties of particular chemicals, most definitely 'do' something.  It results in our subjective experience, and enables us to distinguish between the ripe information, and the not ripe information, in a phenomenal way, and the theory also predicts, I'll be able to integrate whatever it is that reliably has your redness, into my system, and thereby be able to behave in such a way, as to report that it isn't anything like my redness.  The prediction is that this will be come very common as we starting doing such effing to everyone.

You can't just import the chemical, you would have to import the neural patterns too, or you won't have the same subjective experience, since the experience is a function of the neural patterns. 

 

In another post, James said you don't like me accusing you of saying a miracle happens here, and your current thinking is that Material Property Dualism has more of this problem than does Functional Property Dualism.  I've tried multiple times to point out how this is a fallacy in my thinking.  With material, we don't know why quantum stuff behaves as it does, it is just effing magic, and we all accept that it does behave that way, and nobody doubts that it does, because we can  repeatedly duplicate and reliably share the experience.  We don't accuse anyone of claiming that sub quantum particles collapse in odd ways as saying 'effing magic is occurring here' we just trust that what they say is true, because everyone can duplicate it and experience it.  We have no problem with this kind of reproducible and experience able by everyone magic.  All material property dualism is claiming is that, just like all the other normal causal properties of matter that can be readily duplicated and tested, there are also ineffable phenomenal qualities, to be discovered and effed.  So that is the solution to this "magic" within Material Property Dualism.  We're just predicting that it will hapen that way, and if science turns out to be this way, it will prove this theory to be true when we start reliably effing lots of new stuff to everyone.

But there IS magic. You have to explain how a chunk of physical matter produces a subjective experience (or IS the subjective experience) without doing computation. That is magic. Every bit as much (no more) than claiming that qualia results from computation. At least by claiming that it arises from computation, we can explain how it produces outputs. If qualia is a function of the matter, then how does it produce outputs without computation? How does this matter break the laws of physics so that its interactions can't be simulated? THAT is magic, since we KNOW that we can simulate the behavior of ALL matter. 

That is CRAZY magic. 

 

With functional property dualism, on the other hand - what kind of "functionality" might we possibly see that has a redness property,

stare at a red card and get an FMRI and see for yourself. 

 

and how might we discover new phenomenal properties, and why, and so on.  Just waving your hand, and claiming that it will happen, in some magical way, is very hard to test for, disprove, eff, and so on.

In another post, James brilliantly replied:

"We should choose our theories because they are true, not because they are popular or intuitive." which is why I am sticking with the STILL only slightly lessor popular "Material Property Dualism" theory.  And your claim that nobody understands it is wrong, because there are quite a few people supporting the Material Property Dualism camp, though none of them are on this forum, including Stuart Hameroff, Roger Penrose, Steven Lehar, and I'm sure a host of other much more intelligent people than I. 

Are ANY of them neuroscientists?

 

Another reason I would have preferred to have this discussion over there, as it would have a much larger and more educated audience on this topic.  It would sure be nice to have a more comprehensive survey, to know for sure, and more importantly, to be able to see any trending, towards one side or the other.  Which way would you predict things are trending in popularity?  I'm betting that Material Property Dualism is on the verge of surpassing Functional property dualism in an accelerating and scientifically revolutionary way.  We were already accelerating, and so close, till you showed up at the last minute! ;)

But it's not over till the demonstrable science comes in. 

It has.

 

And if functional property dualism some how gets demonstrated, I'm sure looking forward to learning this 'magic' of how redness or greenness or any effing spiritual property can simply arise from any particular set of ones and zeros, what is required to discover and experience new qualia, what all possible qualia are, and so on. 

I already proved that it can, repeatedly. I showed that IF it is a property of matter THEN it can be simulated. Matter can be represented as information, and matter interaction as computation. These two ideas are interchangeable. Matter IS information, and physics IS computation. 

 

I certainly wish you could come up with at least some theoretical possibility that might provide some light on this issue,

I have, OVER AND OVER. I don't know how to do it any better. 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[James Carroll]

On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 10:15 PM, David Torgesen <torg...@gmail.com> wrote:

Qualia most likely emerges from the complex interaction of all the
physical processes involved.  Pain and pleasure, for example, are tied
to the very ancient limbic system, and it is extremely obvious to see
how these sensations, or qualia, are directly tied to motivations and
behaviors which encourage survival of the genome.  The biological
system and the qualia which arise from it are joined at the hip, they
are interdependent for survival.  If it weren't that way then the
nervous system would not serve any real purpose.

Agreed

 

Any broadcast "signal" has to be 'understood' by the biological
system, it has to be in terms that are meaningful to that system.  

Agreed completely. And for the most part, we know how this works. 

 

A
hardware-independent information system basically ignores the
interdependence between qualia and the biological system.

I disagree. 

Since you can simulate the interdependence between all the physical systems. WHEREVER the qualia lives, in WHATEVER physical system, you can simulate its interactions with the rest of the system. That doesn't mean that the system can't be simulated, it just means that in order to simulate the system, you have to understand and duplicate all the interactions (the relevant ones anyway) in the system to be simulated. 

Whether cells evolved 'first' is largely irrelevant.  

No, it's not. Not at all. It's very important to the question at hand.

 

Evolution allows

for any viable system to emerge, regardless of predecessors or
successors, as long as there is a replication mechanism and mutation
or variation.  

No it doesn't. Evolution is FULL of the legacies of its history. Bad design is a hallmark of evolution. One of the most important ways that you can TELL that evolution happened BECAUSE evolution uses legacy systems for new purposes, even when this approach is sub-optimal. I recommend the chapters on "bad design" in the books "Why Evolution is True" and "The Greatest Show on Earth, The Evidence for Evolution". 

 

If qualia is truly hardware-independent, one should
have expected to see greater variation of hardware platforms which are
performing the same types of computations as our brains.  

Nonsense. Once biology produced DNA with a certain twist, it NEVER went back and produced the opposite twist. Never, even though the opposite twist is just as viable. In this case, once evolution produced cells, it was stuck using cells for computation, which it did by allowing them to transmit electrical signals using ions. This was the obvious solution to the problem. They wouldn't evolve an integrated silicon circuit, because there was no intermediate path down that road. And we all share common ancestry with these eukaryotic cells. At least, all animals with a nervous system do. And it should be pointed out that there ARE other information systems in biology. Cells have complex communication and computation pathways, as do plants. 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[James Carroll]

"[Because of] digital communication in the last 25 or 30 years, physicists, many physicists, especially those dealing with quantum mechanics and cosmology, have come to believe that the universe itself is actually made out of information, and that every object in the universe, including you and me, every object is made out of information, and the interaction of the information within our bodies, and the interaction of the information exchanged between our bodies and the world actually explains who we are, and what we are, and what we are capable of doing." 

(Professor Terrell Ward Bynum, Director, Research Center on Computing and Society, Southern Connecticut State University).  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pMh8oBdKkK4#!

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[Grasshopper]

Exactly.

Chris

--

[JDLAW Booker]

Ditto.

[Brent Allsop]

Hi James,

On 12/2/2011 12:18 PM, James Carroll replied to me with:

But it's not over till the demonstrable science comes in. 

It has.

There is a rigorous way to measure for how much this is true.  Evidently, it is falsified for you, but for how many others?  Naive reaalism has been falsified for me, too.  But there are still lots of naive realists out there.  We need to find out who these are, why they still believe what they believe, do all we can to fully understand them, and what they want, and continue to collaboratively work to find something that will educate even them.  Otherwise, they will continue to make damning choices, and fail to be free, keeping us all in damnation, until it has been demonstrated sufficiently for all, and they have finally definitively said as much.

On 12/2/2011 5:39 PM, JDLAW Booker wrote:

Ditto.

On Fri, Dec 2, 2011 at 1:47 PM, Grasshopper <cbgras...@gmail.com> wrote:

Exactly.

Chris

On Fri, Dec 2, 2011 at 12:33 PM, James Carroll <jlca...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 10:15 PM, David Torgesen <torg...@gmail.com> wrote:

Qualia most likely emerges from the complex interaction of all the
physical processes involved.  Pain and pleasure, for example, are tied
to the very ancient limbic system, and it is extremely obvious to see
how these sensations, or qualia, are directly tied to motivations and
behaviors which encourage survival of the genome.  The biological
system and the qualia which arise from it are joined at the hip, they
are interdependent for survival.  If it weren't that way then the
nervous system would not serve any real purpose.

Agreed

 

It would be very interesting to know, concisely and quantitatively, how many people are in this camp that think it is information that is primal, and that existence in some magic way "emerges" or "arises" form it.  And to know which way the trends are heading.  I bet there is a strong correlation between people that think this, and those that don't, as between Functional property dualism vs Material property dualism.

I'm in a different camp that believes it is phenomenal reality that is primal.  People in our camp believe information is only a possibility, until it is instantiated or represented on something that is real.  And as far as phenomenl  or spiritual or ineffable information, unless you know how to properly interpret ones and zeros, in a fundamental way, you are completely spiritually blind and stuck behind the phenomenal veil of perception, that is the ones and zeros begging for proper phenomenal interpretation.

You pointed out the fact that Roger Penrose, "the emporer's new mind"... is the laughingstock of the neuroscience community.  And I've also always been in this lauphing at them camp.  But then, most neuroscientists laugh at and refuse to listen to anyone talking about qualia.  The idea that wet microtubuals in neurons can maintain un-colapsed quantum states in any meaningful "orchestrated" way does seem quite absurd to me also.  But I was totally shocked, when Stuart volunteered to help us canonize their camp, and I finally realized for the first time that they agree with even you on a great many things (everything in RQT and Mind Brain Identity) and that they only differ with me in that I believe in that phenomenal properties can simply be a property of classical macro level matter, where they think it requires some quantum magic.  And I think everyone not in their camp must admit, as they rightfully claim, that their camp hasn't yet been falsified, and is still a very real theoretical possibility.  So it's great to have this camp to be sure we cover all the bases and don't miss anything, until we can find some science or an argument that convinces even them otherwise.  And we should focus on the much more important things we do agree on, to the convincing of the rest of the world, instead of these minor differences of opinion.

James, you indicated you didn't like the term "Functional Property Dualism" and I assume you also have a problem with the name "Material Property Dualism", which is surprising to me.  You're the first one I've met that thinks this "Functional" vs "Material" property dualism set of names is not good.  After all, everyone in both camps unanimously agreed to changing these camps to those names.  And I even asked David Chalmers, if he thought people referring to him as a "Functional Property Dualist" was a good thing.  And he agreed.  If you have some better names, we should see if there is any kind of consensus for such, and possibly use those instead?


Finally, James, we have obviosly made lots of progress in our ability to comunicate, but It still seems to me like you haven't fully read or fully understood the theoretically possible world I'm trying to describe in the phenomenal robot description post here: http://canonizer.com/thread.asp/88/1/27 .  Let me try putting it this way:

Within that reality, the downstream neurons detecting the firing of the 3D array and selecting the red things from the green ones, will be set up such that the system is very discriminatory.  In that world, only Glutamate can be recognized by that system, and cause any 'redness' behavior, and only Aspartate can be recognized as such, and cause the equivalent 'greenness' behavior.  Sure, in that world, you'll be able to replace the entire system with a silicon based one that represents Glutamate with ones and Aspartate with zeros.  And if the downstream simulated neurons are simulating the same choices, to any required level, they will obviosly be required to appropriately properly interpret those ones and zeros in the same simulated way.

And, in that theoretically possible world, when you try to connect the two systems up, in any kind of 'effing' capable grounded way, or if you attempt to replace the real phenomenal ones with simulated ones, the differences will always prove to be phenomenally great - at least to the experiencer.  To me, my current working hypothesis is that this has already been clearly demonstrated - all other possibilities having been falsified.  But evidently for you and a whole lot of others, we still just need to wait to see if reality behaves as it does in this theoretically possible world, and if there is no other way to experience redness, without Glutamate (or whatever neural correlate, including the particular chemical make up, it is that has a redness quale)?

Brent Allsop

[James Carroll]

On Sat, Dec 3, 2011 at 10:45 AM, Brent Allsop <brent....@canonizer.com> wrote:

To me, my current working hypothesis is that this has already been clearly demonstrated - all other possibilities having been falsified. 

How? How have the others been falsified?

And how has this one NOT been falsified. I already provided several proofs as to why this view is impossible, thereby falsifying it. 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[Brent Allsop]

Hi James,

The way I've been repeatedly trying to describe during this entire conversation.
As I've repeatedly said, I completely agree with your proofs, that consciousness can be simulated, to any desired degree of accuracy.  But for me, that has nothing to do, whatsoever, with the ineffable for which any abstracted simulation must be interpreted to represent, or else you'll be blind to it.  For me, spiritual properties like redness, greenness, and their phenomenal differences, are very different than any possible string of mere ones and zeros, which always must be properly interpreted.

To me, ineffable, like the taste of salt, means: That which cannot be communicated by abstracted representations of  information, without appropriate grounding information to know how to properly interpret such representations.  I can say to you: it is "salty", but without knowing how to interpret that "salty" word, it is meaningless to you, right?  Is it not the same thing with any simulation running on ones and zeros?  Unless you know the phenomenal meaning of all those ones and zeros, you'll never get what it is simulating.

Can you provide an equally descriptive definition of ineffable that fits within your working hypothesis?

Brent Allsop

[Mark Walker]

Hi Brent, 

I'm a little late to the party--I see there are 83 messages in this thread. I'm wondering if you can help me understand your position. What do you say about the following? Suppose we scan your brain and body down to the subatomic level and construct an exact replica. Do you think that immediately after the operation--before you and the replica have had time to diverge in any significant manner--will you and the replica experience the taste of salt in exactly the same way? That is, is there any reason to think that the qualia will differ between you two? 

Cheers,

Mark

-- 
Dr. Mark Walker
Richard L. Hedden Chair of Advanced Philosophical Studies
Department of Philosophy
New Mexico State University
P.O. Box 30001, MSC 3B
Las Cruces, NM 88003-8001
USA
http://www.nmsu.edu/~philos/mark-walkers-home-page.html

[Brent Allsop]

Hi Mark,

Welcome to a great party! ;)

Yea, Material Property Dualism predicts, the same matter, in the same state, has the same phenomenal property, whether in my brain, your brain, or in my duplicate.  And if a sufficient scanner sees whatever it is that has that redness, you'll know the guy's brain is experiencing the same thing.

What is you're current working hypothesis on all that?

Brent

[James Carroll]

On Sat, Dec 3, 2011 at 6:35 PM, Brent Allsop <brent....@canonizer.com> wrote:

Hi James,

The way I've been repeatedly trying to describe during this entire conversation.

That's just the problem, you have been describing vague things, and have proved nothing. 

 

As I've repeatedly said, I completely agree with your proofs, that consciousness can be simulated, to any desired degree of accuracy. 

But one of my proofs showed that if you simulate consciousness, and all of the inputs and outputs to the brain, then you also simulate the brain's behavior, and its responses. Which means that the simulated brain will CLAIM to have the same subjective experience as you do. Which means that if I ask you if you are having a subjective experience of redness, and you say yes, then your simulation will also say yes. Most importantly, it will say yes for the same reason (the same patter of neural firings), which means that if I must trust YOU when you claim that you are having a subjective experience, I must also trust your simulation when it claims to be having a subjective experience. If it can be wrong, then you can be wrong. If you are right, then it is right, and for the same reasons. That means that the simulation MUST also be duplicating more than your actions, it is duplicating your subjective experience. 

QED

This PROVES that your position must be wrong IF the simulation is possible. But we already said that such a simulation is possible if your brain (and qualia) are based upon physical matter. Since that is an assumption you agree with, then the conclusion follows. The argument is over. The result is proven. 

 

But for me, that has nothing to do, whatsoever, with the ineffable for which any abstracted simulation must be interpreted to represent, or else you'll be blind to it. 

The interpretation comes through the connection of the simulation to inputs and outputs. 

 

For me, spiritual properties like redness, greenness, and their phenomenal differences, are very different than any possible string of mere ones and zeros, which always must be properly interpreted.

That proves nothing, but just begs the question. 

 

To me, ineffable, like the taste of salt, means: That which cannot be communicated by abstracted representations of  information, without appropriate grounding information to know how to properly interpret such representations. 

But we know how to interpret them, that is grounded in the brain's connections to its inputs and outputs. Thus the information is "grounded" and founded on a purpose, driven by evolution. They aren't abstract 1's and 0's, they are 1's and 0's designed to model the world around them, and make advantageous decisions about that world. 

 

I can say to you: it is "salty", but without knowing how to interpret that "salty" word, it is meaningless to you, right? 

Yes, but that says nothing about whether the subjective experience of salty, that resides in my brain can be simulated. 

 

Is it not the same thing with any simulation running on ones and zeros?  Unless you know the phenomenal meaning of all those ones and zeros, you'll never get what it is simulating.

So?

Can you provide an equally descriptive definition of ineffable that fits within your working hypothesis?

I don't care about the word "ineffable". I care about the reality of our neurons, and what they are doing, and whether whatever they are doing produces qualia, and whether that can be simulated. 

Answers? What they are doing can be simulated... true... what they are doing produces qualia, true, conclusion? a simulation can produce qualia, true. QED.

It's that simple. I don't know why you insist on complicating things. 

But just to "play the game" then I would define "ineffable" as something that can't be "effed". So it is impossible to "eff" the "ineffable". Which means that the entire line of definitions is useless. So instead, let's talk about "qualia", which I define as the "subjective experience of an individual, as represented in the neural patterns in their brain." TADA... which can be simulated. Now the term "salty" is an attempt to describe a VAST number of firing neurons, in a complex pattern, specifically the pattern that is produced when someone eats salt. That pattern can only be reconstructed by the receiver of the word "salty" if they have had the experience themselves, and felt those patterns in their own brain. That is why we can't "communicate" (forget this term "eff") the experience to someone that hasn't had the experience themselves. 

It's not all that mysterious. 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[godemocrats2008]

Nobody has explained how it is that consciousness is generated. You assume there is a direct connection between some set of neural firings and sentience; but it's not logically necessary. I can imagine someone creating a robot that behaves like a philosophical zombie but is not actually sentient. 

The epistemic question about whether or not we can believe someone (or something) that claims to be sentient is entirely separate from the question about how consciousness is generated. 

JB

Sent from my iPod

--

[Brent Allsop]

Hi JB,

Yes, this is my question, exactly, to people that think "Software =
Qualia". I'm certainly not hearing any answers. How is it that Qualia
are generated from software, or whatever the correct functionality is,
and what is this correct functionality, or set of bits, that is a
redness and greenness qualia we experience? Certainly it must be more
than 0xFF0000, or 0x00FF00? How much more must there be to get the
phenomenal difference we experience between a red quale we experience
and a green quale we experience?

As far as "Material Property Dualism" predicts, it isn't "generated", it
is more like consciousness is "painted".

When we look at a strawberry patch, we think various things in matter
have "color", like a red quale we experience, or a green quale we
experience. We think reality is built out of these things with these
colorful quale or qualities. You wouldn't say, how is such generated,
you just take a thing with a redness qualie, like a strawberry, and a
thing with a greenness quality, a leaf and you build a strawberry patch
with it. This is the naive realists POV, but obviously isn't reality.
The redness quale we experience isn't a property of the strawberry, or a
property of the initial cause of the perception process. A red quale we
experience, is a property of our knowledge of such. It is a property of
the final results of the perception process.

So, Material Property Dualism predicts that you don't "generate"
consciousness. It is more of a painting process. There are certain
things in reality that have these phenomenal properties we can
experience, like redness and greenness. (In this theoretically possible
world http://canonizer.com/thread.asp/88/1/27 it is the neurotransmitter
Glutamate that has the redness quale we experience and Asparte that has
the greenness quale we experience. With Naieve Realism, we think a
strawberry has a redness quale to it. This is similar to that idea,
it's just that instead of the strawberry having this quale we
experience, it is Glutamate that has it. So, given all that, you don't
"generate" consciousness, the brain just detects the fact that the
strawberry reflects 650NM light, and takes "paints" like Glutamate and
Asparte and "paints" our conscious or spiritual knowledge of the
strawberry patch with them. So you don't 'generate' consciousness, you
build or "paint" it and bind it all together, with the material that has
these phenomenal or spiritual properties.

Note: redness and greeness qualities are ineffable properties. In other
words, you can not tell someone that something tastes 'salty', simply by
providing the word 'salty' to them. They also have to experience salty,
and know that the word salty can be interpreted as meaning this
experience. This inability to comunicate phenomenal properties, via
only abstract representations (like ones and zeros), is what makes them
'ineffable' and why they are blind to traditional cause and effect
observation. We think we know what the surface of the strawberry is
phenomenally like, but just because we represent such with something
that has a redness quale we experience, has nothing to do with what the
surface of the strawberry could really phenomenally be like. Glutamate
is a white substance, as in it reflects white light. So if we interpret
it as having a whiteness phenomenal quality we experience, that would be
the incorrect interpretation of what is is phenomenally like. This is
known as the "Quale Interpretation Problem" (see:
http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6 ) and why we are blind to any
spiritual qualities the real world we are interpreting our senses as
detecting may or may not have. All we can know, spiritually, is the
qualities of whatever our knowledge of the world is 'painted' with.

Brent Allsop

[Brent Allsop]

Hi James,

On 12/3/2011 8:09 PM, James Carroll wrote:
>
> But just to "play the game" then I would define "ineffable" as
> something that can't be "effed". So it is impossible to "eff" the
> "ineffable". Which means that the entire line of definitions is
> useless. So instead, let's talk about "qualia", which I define as the
> "subjective experience of an individual, as represented in the neural
> patterns in their brain." TADA... which can be simulated. Now the term
> "salty" is an attempt to describe a VAST number of firing neurons, in
> a complex pattern, specifically the pattern that is produced when
> someone eats salt. That pattern can only be reconstructed by the
> receiver of the word "salty" if they have had the experience
> themselves, and felt those patterns in their own brain. That is why we
> can't "communicate" (forget this term "eff") the experience to someone
> that hasn't had the experience themselves.
>
> It's not all that mysterious.
>
> James
>

OK, great, thanks for at least playing the game, so maybe we can get
some where with this and possibly understand a different theoretical
possibility than your current particular favored theory.

So let's take this "subjective experience of an individual, as
represented in the neural patterns of their brain" for redness, and the
same for greenness.

Now, if I am looking at a strawberry in my left field of vision, there
is something in the right hemisphere of my primary visual cortex that
has this "neural patterns" that has this "subjective experience" of
redness right? Also, if there is a leaf in my right field of vision,
there is another, different "neural patterns" that has this "subjective
experience" of greenness. Are we still on the same page?

Now, you wire these two hemispheres together with the corpus callosum,
and some how this binds it all together, so you are aware of this
"neural patterns" that has this "subjective experience" of redness, and
the very different "neural patterns" that has this "subjective
experience" of greenness, all at the same time, in such a way that you
are now phenomenally aware of both of them, and their difference, all at
the same time.

How is being aware of both of these phenomenal properties and their
differences at the same not 'effing' the ineffable?

Brent Allsop

[James Carroll]

On Sun, Dec 4, 2011 at 5:44 AM, godemocrats2008 <godemoc...@gmail.com> wrote:

Nobody has explained how it is that consciousness is generated. You assume there is a direct connection between some set of neural firings and sentience; but it's not logically necessary.

Actually, I think that it is. That is true because we KNOW that the firing of neurons leads to your CLAIMS to consciousness, therefore, if you are to be trusted, then your consciousness must be related to these firing neurons. However, it should be pointed out that my argument does not depend upon this fact. I just believe that it is the most logical answer to the question.  

That is because I am trying to prove an IF THEN argument... IF qualia is not super-natural, and lives in the brain THEN it can be simulated. TADA. It doesn't matter HOW it lives in the brain, because however it lives there, I can simulate that technique, whatever it may be, because any physical matter can be simulated to an arbitrary degree of precision. 

 

I can imagine someone creating a robot that behaves like a philosophical zombie but is not actually sentient. 

I doubt it myself. I believe that the complexities of our actions can't be produced through a chinese room or other lookup table that is of reasonable size. I believe that appropriate compression requires algorithms similar to the ones we actually use... But all that aside, whether I am right or not, I am not suggesting such a zombie, I am suggesting something that specifically is NOT a zombie, something that simulates the brain's behavior to an arbitrary degree of precision. Such a simulation would NOT be a zombie, because it would make its decisions for the SAME REASON that you do, because the same set of actions are happening in its brain. All that depends upon the assumption that consciousness and qualia live in the brain, but I admitted that much. IF qualia and consciousness live in the brain, and not some super natural spirit... THEN my argument follows. That is all I ever claimed. 

 

The epistemic question about whether or not we can believe someone (or something) that claims to be sentient is entirely separate from the question about how consciousness is generated. 

No, it is highly related, at least it is IF the simulation is giving the answers because of the same set of neural patterns and firings. If that is the case, then their answers are given for the same reasons as ours are. Suddenly the question becomes essential, and not separate at all. So if the simulation can't be trusted, then neither can the person, because both gave the answer that they gave for the same reasons. 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[James Carroll]

On Sun, Dec 4, 2011 at 8:20 AM, Brent Allsop <brent....@canonizer.com> wrote:

Hi JB,

Yes, this is my question, exactly, to people that think "Software = Qualia".  I'm certainly not hearing any answers.  

Of course you are not, YOU have no idea how matter=qualia, any more than I have an idea how "patterns"=qualia. Neither of us know. But my proofs don't require that I know the details. They require the IF... if it happens in the brain, THEN it happens in my simulation in the same way. TADA. QED. The end. It's that simple. HOWEVER it happens in the brain, it happens in my simulation by simulating that process, whatever it may be. I don't have to know how it works. I just know, for a fact, that it will. 

There is no doubt. I honestly don't understand why you can't see that. 

 

How is it that Qualia are generated from software, or whatever the correct functionality is, and what is this correct functionality, or set of bits, that is a redness and greenness qualia we experience?  Certainly it must be more than 0xFF0000, or 0x00FF00?  How much more must there be to get the phenomenal difference we experience between a red quale we experience and a green quale we experience?

no idea, however the brain does it. 

As far as "Material Property Dualism" predicts, it isn't "generated", it is more like consciousness is "painted".

then my software will "paint" it in the same way by simulating whatever matter is doing this "magic" and replicating its results. 

 

When we look at a strawberry patch, we think various things in matter have "color", like a red quale we experience, or a green quale we experience.  We think reality is built out of these things with these colorful quale or qualities.  You wouldn't say, how is such generated, you just take a thing with a redness qualie, like a strawberry, and a thing with a greenness quality, a leaf and you build a strawberry patch with it.  This is the naive realists POV, but obviously isn't reality.  The redness quale we experience isn't a property of the strawberry, or a property of the initial cause of the perception process.  A red quale we experience, is a property of our knowledge of such.  It is a property of the final results of the perception process.

So, Material Property Dualism predicts that you don't "generate" consciousness.  It is more of a painting process.  There are certain things in reality that have these phenomenal properties we can experience, like redness and greenness.  (In this theoretically possible world http://canonizer.com/thread.asp/88/1/27 it is the neurotransmitter Glutamate that has the redness quale we experience and Asparte that has the greenness quale we experience.  

Then I will simulate the effects of Glutamate and Asparte, and produce the same effects. But I can tell you off the bat that everything that we know about neuroscience says that this isn't the case. But if it were... it wouldn't matter. I can still simulate the behavior of these two chemicals, and get the same result. If I simulate the effect of these chemicals correctly, then the agent will have the same output... and it will claim qualia. If it fails to claim qualia, then the only potential reason is that I haven't simulated the effects of Glutamate and Asparte correctly. Once they are simulated correctly, then my agent will claim qualia. And it will claim qualia FOR THE SAME REASON YOU DO. And therefore, if you can be trusted, it can be, and if it can't be trusted, then neither can you. 

 

With Naieve Realism, we think a strawberry has a redness quale to it.  This is similar to that idea, it's just that instead of the strawberry having this quale we experience, it is Glutamate that has it.  So, given all that, you don't "generate" consciousness, the brain just detects the fact that the strawberry reflects 650NM light, and takes "paints" like Glutamate and Asparte and "paints" our conscious or spiritual knowledge of the strawberry patch with them.  So you don't 'generate' consciousness, you build or "paint" it and bind it all together, with the material that has these phenomenal or spiritual properties.

Great, I will simulate the painting process, and the effects of the paint on the neurons of the brain... (ultimately that's what we care about, because the neurons produce the outputs by signaling your mouth to speak and claim qualia, so any effect of the Asparte and Glutamate, if they have any effect on the system, must translate that effect through neural activity eventually, or be meaningless. 

 

Note: redness and greeness qualities are ineffable properties.  In other words, you can not tell someone that something tastes 'salty', simply by providing the word 'salty' to them.  They also have to experience salty, and know that the word salty can be interpreted as meaning this experience.  

I explained how this works in my theory too, but more on that next email. 

 

This inability to comunicate phenomenal properties, via only abstract representations (like ones and zeros), is what makes them 'ineffable' and why they are blind to traditional cause and effect observation.  

You don't KNOW that they can't be communicated with ones and zeros. You know that they can't be communicated with a simple word. If I communicated ALL the ones and zeros involved in your neural patterns, I could indeed communicate your experience, although it may be hard for my brain to actually HAVE that EXACT experience itself, without re-wiring my brain. Because my brain is wired differently from yours. I can't get my neurons to fire exactly like yours without becoming you. But I might be able to analyze your firing patterns (communicated to me with ones and zeroes) and produce something "similar" in my brain. 

In other words, this claim (apart form being false) merely begs the question. 

 

We think we know what the surface of the strawberry is phenomenally like, but just because we represent such with something that has a redness quale we experience, has nothing to do with what the surface of the strawberry could really phenomenally be like.  Glutamate is a white substance, as in it reflects white light.  So if we interpret it as having a whiteness phenomenal quality we experience, that would be the incorrect interpretation of what is is phenomenally like.  This is known as the "Quale Interpretation Problem" (see: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6 ) and why we are blind to any spiritual qualities the real world we are interpreting our senses as detecting may or may not have.  All we can know, spiritually, is the qualities of whatever our knowledge of the world is 'painted' with.

None of that has anything to do with whether they can be simulated.

 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[James Carroll]

On Sun, Dec 4, 2011 at 8:48 AM, Brent Allsop <brent....@canonizer.com> wrote:

Hi James,

...

So let's take this "subjective experience of an individual, as represented in the neural patterns of their brain" for redness, and the same for greenness.

Now, if I am looking at a strawberry in my left field of vision, there is something in the right hemisphere of my primary visual cortex that has this "neural patterns" that has this "subjective experience" of redness right?  Also, if there is a leaf in my right field of vision, there is another, different "neural patterns" that has this "subjective experience" of greenness.  Are we still on the same page?

Now, you wire these two hemispheres together with the corpus callosum, and some how this binds it all together, so you are aware of this "neural patterns" that has this "subjective experience" of redness, and the very different "neural patterns" that has this "subjective experience" of greenness, all at the same time, in such a way that you are now phenomenally aware of both of them, and their difference, all at the same time.

How is being aware of both of these phenomenal properties and their differences at the same not 'effing' the ineffable?

Well, it is indeed 'effing' something, but that something was never "ineffable" as evidenced by the fact that it was 'effed'. If it had truly been "ineffable" you never could have "effed" it. The point? The goal here isn't to eff the ineffable, but rather to recognize that these things were never ineffable to begin with, and learn how to communicate, interpret, and understand them. And if that is the goal, why not use the terms "communicate" and "interpret" and "understand" instead of "eff", other than "effing" sounds like a Mormon swearing. 

James

--
Web: http://james.jlcarroll.net

[Brent Allsop]

Hi James,

I think this is finally getting to the crux of all of our misunderstanding / differences.

I'm completely failing to understand what you could mean by saying things like "it is indeed effing" and at the same time saying that it "was never ineffable".  To me you are saying it is true and false at the same time, obviously you're not saying that?  If not, I sure can't see what it is you are saying.  Which is it, and why?

Brent Allsop


P. S.  Oh, and I resemble that effing  '"effing" sounds like a Mormon swearing' remark. ;)

[James Carroll]

hu, I thought I was being clear.... let me try again. This is an English thing one more. "ineffable" means "something that can't be effed". That is what it means. Period. So when you talk about "effing" the "ineffable" you are talking nonsense. You are saying something like "I want to penetrate the impenetrable." It's nonsense, because if you succeed in penetrating it, what you realize is that it was never impenetrable to begin with. Similarly in this case, if you succeed in "effing" the "ineffable" what you really learned was that it was never "ineffable" to begin with, and it was wrong to characterize it as such. In fact, calling qualia ineffable begs the question in some sense, because I believe that qualia CAN be communicated with ones and zeroes, and therefore never was "ineffable". 

James

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[Brent Allsop]

Hi James,

Oh, got it.  Now I see how that's at least not blatantly contradictory.

So then you're saying that the word 'red' isn't sufficient to communicate what redness is like, but were we to discover the set of ones and zeros that is our experience of redness, this would be sufficient to communicate?

So help me understand what you see this difference as being.

From my experience, many people make what is to me a sloppy mistake with this.  They get confused by integrating all the other meaning and memory our brain can integrate in with the raw experience of redness.  This includes anything like the memory of how sweet the strawberry is, the warmth, and so on.  It is anything that can be bound to the experience of redness.  But we must remember that defects like associate agnosia, is where all of this is stripped out or the binding of it fails.  People can say they are looking at something that is made of redness, but they don't know that it is a strawberry, or how that redness makes them feel - as the meaning that a normal brain has learned to bind to redness - the strawberrieness, the warmth, and all that is missing from their experience.  Of course, if you are going to integrate all this in to what you are working to comunicate, such is obviously going to require more bits.  And of course, all of this extra stuff, like sweetness, warmth, and so on, could also be bound to raw greenness, if our brain happened to get miss wired to do so.

But, what the person suffering from associative agnosia experiences, is so raw and simplistic, that there is no other information being bound to it.  In other words, everything they know, other than the phenomenal qualities, can be represented, or simulated, if you must, with just one bit of information.  In other words, to comunicate what someone is experiencing with raw redness vs greenness, can be done with one bit of information, as long as you know how to properly interpret that one bit of information.

I'd imagine the above is different for you, but remember that this is how I think of it, and help me understand, given the way I see things, what this difference that you see is, and most importantly, how might such be contained in any set of ones and zeros.  And how might science proove that  such is really hapening, to the falsification of material property dualism?  How might you discover or eff, in this new possibility you admit, some phenomenal quality you've never experienced before?  What kind of bits could do this? - Perhaps, enabling us to have colored knowledge of much more than the narrow band of radiation that we can currently only have the capability of experiencing knowledge of?

Brent Allsop

[Mark Walker]

Hi Brent, 

I'm sure that you can imagine that we could specify a "recipe" or "program" for creating a duplicate of you. We could, for example, assign '0' to hydrogen and '1' to helium and so on for all the fundamental particles in your brain. We could also sign a number in relative space for each particle. If we had such "recipe" or "program", and it were written in binary, it would look like a long string of '1's and '0's. Of course it would be absurd to attribute to you (or property dualism) the view that the 1s and 0s themselves embodied duplicates of your qualia. The recipe is not the cake. But the same is true of computer software: it is simply a recipe about how to arrange the molecules of a computer platform. People who think that computers could experience qualia don't think that computers will do so by simply computing 1s and 0s. If computers do so, it will be because the computer hardware experiences qualia, and the hardware itself has properties in virtue of being a physical substrate. I see no principled reason why a recipe for rearranging computer hardware couldn't create qualia anymore than a recipe for arranging a bunch of molecules could create a duplicate of your qualia. I'm not saying there might not be problems, but this would be ones about the fundamental limits of matter. It might be that there are certain properties required for qualia that are only found in carbon. Such limits, I doubt, are going to be discovered by philosophical reflection alone.  

Cheers,

Mark

[Brent Allsop]

Hi Mark,

Wow, this all sounds very interesting. It sounds like we have much in
common with our thinking, with very little differences of opinion. But
some of what you believe is still a bit vague? How about if I ask you
this way. In the conscoiusness survey project on the best theories of
consciousness, there is a clearly emerging expert consensus camp named
Representational Qualia Theory here:

http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6

Is there anything currently specified in that camp that you disagree
with or think should be changed?

Brent Allsop

On 12/4/2011 6:32 PM, Mark Walker wrote:
> Hi Brent,
>

[James Carroll]

I have to sleep, so more on this tomorrow, but for now, Mark, I agree inasmuch as the CODE for a brain simulation doesn't experience qualia in and of itself, rather that code must be RUN... 

meaning that I don't really think that qualia=software... I think that qualia=running software, instantiated on some hardware.... I guess I should have been explicit in this, but I figured it was obvious. I guess I shouldn't take anything for granted though.

In any event, I think that the qualia is hardware independent, meaning that I could swap out the hardware, and do emulation, and still get the same qualia, while Brent appears to think that the hardware (matter) itself determines the qualia, and can't be substituted for anything else without destroying the qualia. I find that position to be contrary to everything we know about neuroscience, the laws of physics, and the rules of computation. I therefore find it to be impossible. 

James

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[John Grigg]

James Carroll wrote:

In any event, I think that the qualia is hardware independent, meaning that I could swap out the hardware, and do emulation, and still get the same qualia, while Brent appears to think that the hardware (matter) itself determines the qualia, and can't be substituted for anything else without destroying the qualia. I find that position to be contrary to everything we know about neuroscience, the laws of physics, and the rules of computation. I therefore find it to be impossible.
>>>

 

 

Brent, what say you?  This is getting interesting...

 

 

John  : )

[Brent Allsop]

Hi James,

The way you're thinking at it, of course it is contrary to everything we
know. When you say "hadware itself determines the qualia, and can't be
substituted", right after you talk about software running on any
computation device, from tubes to transistors... that's just the wrong
way to think about it. You're thinking about it at the wrong abstracted
level. You need to move below the abstracted ones and zeros, and see
what is there before this interpretation into ones and zeros, which must
be different for each different physical representation.

An abstract representation doesn't matter what is representing it, only
because the hardware is set up, by design, to do the interpretation of
the fundamental representation, to the required meaning (the ones and
zeros), before the algorithm running it, even sees it.

If you take an equivalent phenomenal system, the low level system would
need to know the difference of redness and greenness, then it would have
to be able to interpret redness for one, and then greenness for zero,
and if you did this, you'd be able to do the same kind of abstract
computation, on such a phenomenal system.

The important thing is, with phenomenal computing, what the
representations are fundamentally represented with, and what they are
phenomenally like and how they are different, is critically important to
the motivation algorithms, and their ability to distinguish one from
another, and everything. The particular representation, and what it is
like, is what is critically important, and what is required to be able
to derive the meaning, or the ones and zeros. What is important is at a
completely different level than you are talking.

Of course, one can simulate the other, as long as you interpret it
appropriately. But, again, you need to property interpret the
interpreted data, to know what the original is phenomenally like,
otherwise, you'll miss or be blind to the ineffable meaning qualities
(very different than causally observable properties) of reality. It is
very likely that the spiritual property of a strawberry is not like your
redness, at all, but is probably something entirely different, that no
human has ever experienced before. Of course, interpreting the 650NM
light, or any other representation based on ones or zeros, as redness,
isn't going to tell you anything about what the surface of the
strawberry is really phenomenally like.

And it's not just me in the Material Property Dualism camp. Steven
Lehar, in my opinion, and after asking many experts about what they
think of him, is one of the leading neral scientists of our time. And
has had profound influence on this field. Hi is basically the father of
Representational Qualia Theory, or this leading consensus that first
started to emerge after he started publishing his works.

And by the way, James, you mentioned earlier, that if I think this way,
I should get a PhD, start publishing, and all that. But that is the
whole point, I could never do any better than what Steven Lehar, John
Smythies, who did his work before I was even born, even including what
Descartes, and Plato have done way before now. All the work, and
theories, have already been done, and published much better than I could
ever do it (even though none of it is in any kind of consistent
terminology...). The only thing required now, is for someone to measure
the consensus for what all these experts believe, concisely stating the
theories so regular people can understand them, including what and how
many others like me agree with, and don't, and compare it to all other
theories, and how much consensus they have so everyone can finally see
this expert consensus theories, concisely stated, that already exists,
from all the sloppy thinking clueless noise out there, pandering to the
popular masses, drowning out this signal that really understands the
effing perception process and consciousness.

It's not the dificult 'hard' science problem everyone is making it out
to be and everyone wants to fear or dismiss. It's all simply an effing
communication problem.

Brent Allsop

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