A Conscious Universe

[bennyboy]

You wouldn't survive the measurement, but lets not pretend it couldn't be made...eh? If you'd like to hand over your CNS and associated peripherals to be weighed and measured....while someone somewhere would greatly appreciate that - I don;t think you'd ever get the satisfaction of the final numbers.

In the name of science, I donate my brain. Now, tell me how you are going to show how the qualia of "redness" is manifested in geographical space. See, I think you will (maybe 100 years from now), have a brain-monitoring device of sufficient resolution that you will follow the chain of events from the eyes into the brain, and map out the neurons that fire. If I'm right, then answer this-- if I reproduce that neural structure EXACTLY, and remove everything else, will I have a machine that does nothing else but experience redness? If I remove or remap some of those neurons, will this machine still be experiencing redness? Let's do some observational science here.

You'd need photoreceptors, of course (like your eyes)- but I wouldn't know, I'm only going by your description of qualia....and if that description is accurate, and you claim qualia...then yeah, seems to me like you have. For my part, I doubt that qualia can be competently and thoroughly described so simply as "experience" - I think theres more to it than all of that (your brain and nerves and eyes aren't what I'd call simple machines...after all)...but maybe I'm wrong, maybe it -is- that simple.

For a guy who knows so little about what makes qualia, you sure have made a lot of confident positive assertions about it. From where does this confidence come? Could it be that you already "know" the answer, so you're perfectly content filling in the blanks with unsupported assertions? Rhythm, meet Heywood.

"Duh, you're stupid. It -is- the brain, of course." Not -in- -is-....repeat that to yourself until it sticks and then think about all of the ways the conversation is changed.

Qualia IS the brain? If this is true, then that means the brain is qualia, and I would thank you for supporting my position. Unfortunately, it's not true, and instead of making you do a song and dance about it, let's just agree you didn't mean what you said, here. Even a staunch physicalist would say that it is certain brain functions which are qualia, not the brain itself-- unless you are asserting that an unconscious or dead brain is still experiencing qualia. And unless you think the experience of redness requires the use of ALL the brain, it is IN the brain. Care to restate?