Monist vs. Dualist Experiment?

[bennyboy]

Wrong. In case of 9/11, we are not - repeat not - talking about the planes or their underlying reality. What we are talking about is the video of 2 planes flying into the tower and the underlying reality of that video. That is what makes this an apt comparison. You are inferring the actuality of 9/11 from that video the same way I am inferring the existence of qualia from behavior. You do not have the direct access to that event and I do not have the access to qualia.

You are still flirting with solipsism, here. I don't have direct access to ANY event or object-- in all cases I interface with them through my qualia.

This means that when I infer a plane crash, I'm remembering WHAT ITS LIKE to see a real crash, and believing that the image I see from the video matches that.

But in the case of qualia, when I describe it in its own terms, I'm talking about WHAT ITS LIKE to feel WHAT THINGS ARE LIKE.

That's another level, or layer, of reality we're talking about. Think function : derivative.

Because my doubt that robots are really experiencing the redness of red or any other qualia is the positive assertion, here?

Your denial of their capacity for subjective experience is.

I never denied that they could subjectively experience. I denied that I'm willing to extend the same philosophical assumptions to robots that I make about humans, because robots are unlike me in important ways, while humans seem not to be

Since I only accept qualia in others based on a philosophical assumption, and since robots are unlike me in many important ways, then I cannot know whether they have qualia or not. I can only go on a hunch that they do not.

Since its "just an assumption", why not assume the opposite?

I don't have an instinctive need to see them as conscious, and there's no pragmatic advantage to doing so. For my life to make sense, I don't have to believe that robots really experience.

You tell me. You are the one asserting that wherever certain functions exist, there is necessarily qualia.

And what does that have to do with energy transmutation?

Because the transmutation of energy can itself be seen as a kind of simple data processing.

Neurons function. So do neurotransmitters and hormonones. So do atoms and QM particles. So do brain parts. So does the brain. So does the mind. Human beings have all of these layers of function working together. Given both qualia and physical monism, then all these things are known to be sufficient for qualia to be experienced. I would categorize neuronal function as part of brain function, so if there are no neurons, there's no brain, and no brain function.

It is not known that taking any of these layers of function out would still leave us with qualia.

Two things:
1. We don't know yet precisely which function is required or sufficient - but we do know that function at cellular level is insufficient. Thus, my rejection of "atomic qualia".
2. We won't be taking away any of those layers of function without replacing them with equivalent ones.

1. Insufficient != Unnecessary
2. You'll have to describe how this is physically possible, or ever COULD be. The brain combines physical, chemical, and electrical interactions in ways so complex I don't think they can ever be modeled by anything less fantastically complex than a brain itself.