If beauty doesn't require God, why should morality? (Bite me Dr. Craig.)

[bennyboy]

What would be "receiving" such a message?

That's a good question. The point is that the "fields" of two minds would be directly interacting in a kind of as-yet-undiscovered mechanism. So the "receiver" wouldn't be the brain, it would be the field generated by the brain, and would affect the person's experiences without them having to have the 1:1 brain chemistry:qualia that we normally consider the most likely candidate for the reality of experience.

This may sound woo-woo, but at least it would make qualia a functional property, like the magnetic properties of two iron bars, rather than a non-functional property, incental to the mechanical functioning of the brain that doesn't (so far as anyone can sensibly explain) need it as part of any meaningful formula or algorithm that we can apply to it.

I'm not sure we ever really see anything like that as is, subjective experience sans brain activity (and why would you consider the generation of a field to be direct, whereas our other methods are not, what's the difference - fundamentally or in function?).

As far as I know, there are no properties of things which can't interact with other things or their properties. Redness affects our eyes independent of any of an apple's other properties. But qualia does not seem to-- we are affected directly by the physical markers of a behavior, and the qualia behind them remain opaque and irrelevant.

From my pov, that would definitely establish that qualia -was not- mechanical. Why would we forget once the field had been disabled? I mean, obviously, you don't have to have the answers, but it's fun to muse over.

Well, I'm really pulling stuff out of the southern hemisphere here, but I'd say that a vicarious experience would be complete, and would include all parts of the "broadcaster's" memories. But once that was turned off, you wouldn't have access to any of their linguistic knowledge, and the words would no longer have meaning, even if you could remember the sounds or symbols representing them.

However, hmmmm, maybe it's possible that you might have your OWN symbols that would light up in response, and that the vicarious memory might be partly integrated into your own brain. I suppose that's like Neo in the Matrix learning karate.