Seeing Red? Qualia, you mean?

Obvious proof of a soul!

*ducks*

(December 22, 2016 at 5:34 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Seeing Red? Qualia, you mean?

Obvious proof of a soul!

*ducks*

I'll take the bait. Qualia is an intrinsic property of certain psychological relations that are caused by brain activity. Your move.

(December 22, 2016 at 10:48 pm)Mudhammam Wrote:

(December 22, 2016 at 5:34 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Seeing Red?  Qualia, you mean?

Obvious proof of a soul!

*ducks*

I'll take the bait.  Qualia is an intrinsic property of certain psychological relations that are caused by brain activity. Your move.

Qualia cannot be shown to exist in any physical system without a question-begging redefinition of the word into physical terms.  It is not customary to explain why or how things exist until it can be demonstrated that they do in fact exist-- as "an intrinsic property of certain psychological relations" or otherwise.

If only there were a word for something we are sure (in our heart of hearts!) is real despite having no way to produce evidence of its reality, particularly when it comes to the existential nature of a human being. . .

Welcome to (potentially) Seeing Red part 2... have fun guys

Seriously though, your view of qualia seems similar to mine, mud. Mine is that phenomenal representations (qualia) and their relationships and activations in consciousness directly correspond, on a one-to-one basis, with the equivalent neural representations, relationships, and activations in the neural networks of the brain... imo demonstrated in part by the fact that everything that can be 'noticed' in consciousness... whether content (eg what is seen) or meta (eg the visual field itself)... must have a neurally accessible representation because you can form associations with it... refer to it and/or name/label it.

But for the sake of my break that's as far as I want to get into it right now... in any case, been there, done that in Seeing Red... so consider this another thought dump without expectation of reply But you guys have fun... as I'm sure you will and Merry Christmas

See, that's a plausible theory-- but how would you demonstrate it to represent truth?

(December 23, 2016 at 3:21 am)bennyboy Wrote: Qualia cannot be shown to exist in any physical system without a question-begging redefinition of the word into physical terms.

Do you mean, if I say, "Hey Benny, what color is my shirt?" and you say, "red," what I perceive as "red" may in fact be perceived by you as "green," and thus, I have no way of knowing if my perception of "red" (or any other phenomenal experience) is strictly had within or without the context of a physical system? Cannot this be similarly framed to posit the existence of Cartesian Egos or other "nonphysical" entities, though, at least in this instance, our experiences are directly perceived -- if not communicable but only in terms that may or may not accurately represent/convey another's experience?

(December 23, 2016 at 9:02 am)Mudhammam Wrote:

(December 23, 2016 at 3:21 am)bennyboy Wrote: Qualia cannot be shown to exist in any physical system without a question-begging redefinition of the word into physical terms.

Do you mean, if I say, "Hey Benny, what color is my shirt?" and you say, "red," what I perceive as "red" may in fact be perceived by you as "green," and thus, I have no way of knowing if my perception of "red" (or any other phenomenal experience) is strictly had within or without the context of a physical system? 

No.  I mean that I cannot determine whether any physical system, human or otherwise, has the "property" of qualia, since this property is not measurable or in any way observable.  In the case of other humans, I make what I feel is a pragmatic assumption: they probably experience qualia, too, and more or less than I do.

In order to "observe" qualia, we have to do something like this:
1)  Assume (pragmatically) that other people also experience qualia.
2)  Watch their brains to see what states map to what descriptions of experience XYZ.
3)  Look for the same brain states in others, and ask them if they are also experiencing XYZ.

The problem with this is that even if the assumption in (1) is true, you can't confidently map it to non-human physical systems.  You can't make a computer, claim that it matches human brain states sufficiently, and then claim that your Benotron 2000 experiences what things are like.

Yeah I'd say it's always true.

(December 23, 2016 at 9:16 am)bennyboy Wrote: No.  I mean that I cannot determine whether any physical system, human or otherwise, has the "property" of qualia, since this property is not measurable or in any way observable.  In the case of other humans, I make what I feel is a pragmatic assumption: they probably experience qualia, too, and more or less than I do.

In order to "observe" qualia, we have to do something like this:
1)  Assume (pragmatically) that other people also experience qualia.
2)  Watch their brains to see what states map to what descriptions of experience XYZ.
3)  Look for the same brain states in others, and ask them if they are also experiencing XYZ.

The problem with this is that even if the assumption in (1) is true, you can't confidently map it to non-human physical systems.  You can't make a computer, claim that it matches human brain states sufficiently, and then claim that your Benotron 2000 experiences what things are like.

Ah, I see. You are referring to the "Hard Problem" of consciousness.  From a first person account of phenomenology, I'm inclined to view it as analogous to the concept of a "nation."  We might say, "I cannot determine whether any government, citizenry, or territory has the "property" of nationhood, since this property is not measurable or in any way observable," in which case "qualia" can be redescribed -- or reduced -- to its more fundamental elements, even if it remains distinct from these, in the same way that a "nation" is neither a government, the citizens, nor a territory, but can apply to all three.  "Qualia", on this view, coincides with 2) and 3) of your suggested "observations."

In terms of the "problem of other minds" and their experience of qualia -- if such is the case -- I concede that it may in principle be impossible to know that others are having similar experiences, as this would amount to knowledge of the subjective side about a particular being from the subjective side of that being; in other words, it requires that it is one's self which is doing the analysis of one's self.  But when it comes to the development of strong A.I., I'm convinced that, though it may always remain a Hard Problem, at a certain point it will simply cease to be an interesting, or even a relevant, one.  This is already true with respects to other human beings, and it is justifiably true in the case of other (higher) animals, which exhibit all of the telltale signs of phenomenology; and we should only expect this, I think, from a biological perspective -- unless there is a Further Fact such as Cartesian Egos which exclusively accounts for our qualia, or, if the human brain (or your brain for that matter) is something awesome that has reached a threshold in its psychophysical evolution that other species (or people) have not attained.  But I don't think it is necessary that all facts be given further justification, which would lead to an infinite regress, and I see nothing erroneous with admitting that our best and most complete description might have to begin with assumptions (though if we apply the "nation analogy" to "qualia" this may or may not be true) -- so long as they remain the most coherent and parsimonious among those available.

It's a tricky thing, to know something as well as you know yourself, and to choose not to take it as a gnostic representation of truth in a greater context than yourself.

In the end, we play word games, and believe that the words represent something real-- even "spin words" like "justification". But as soon as we spin a foundation, no matter how plausible it seems to us, we spin an entire universe-- our world view-- out of words and little more, because it all stands on that foundation.

This is humanity's greatest achievement, I think: to live in a world completely imagined, and to manage not to know so. For whatever is "out there," it cannot be what is "in here." And what else do I have?