And I don't think that our particular organic DNA-based life has anything special that would make it the only one which can sustain consciousness and qualia. I think these are dynamic phenomena which can take place in a variety of material substrates. If a computer simulation of a human mind was made, I think it would be as 'conscious' as a person.
of course. hence my example with the robot
In your example, I'm not saying that complex gears produce light, that is, a different phenomenon. I'm not saying that neural patterns of activation produce qualia. I'm saying they ARE qualia. Kind of like a computer image file is a sequence of bytes, a quale is a certain unique pattern of neural activation.
sorry i thought i said that
yeah i know what ya mean there
Pretty much, but it would be inconsequential. If the soulbox would experience blue the same way it experienced green before, it would also learn to make the same emotional and conceptual associations. All you need for a cognitive system is a bijection (ideally) between external stimuli and qualia. The nature of the qualia is irrelevant.
Edit: To give a more external example of this idea, I've read that experiments were conducted in which people wore non-stop for extended periods glasses that turned their image upside-down. They eventually adapted to that as if it wasn't there. When their glasses were removed, they had to adapt back again. Different qualia, same result.
i really think that turning 3d-WAVE data into a sound experience and turning 3d-WAVE data into a visual experience are very different processes. we could see soundwaves with hues (frequency affects "color") and percieve the relative distance and angle to light-waves but experience the frequencies as "pitch".
i suppose we evolved one direction because we need to see the small differences in lightwaves. but we could see a 2d image of soundwaves, by either A) just editing our neural architecture and finding the "central thinking canvas" and sending this data there (we'd have to really know what we are doing) assuming Strong AI, or B) influence whatever mechanism produces qualia; we'd see what it does with light data, and send in similar data streams of the correct format for sound waves instead (easily switch the two streams, we'd have to create a neural component that alters their data as well so it's compatible with the two "soulbox" ports that recieve light and sound data (as sound and light are encoded differently en route (jpg, bmp, but both specify wave patterns, if we are to switch them for two different experience types then we'd need to send the right data) which recieves the two data streams:::in this case, we are assuming the "soulbox" has "ports" for information to come in at, which are hard wired into the brain; so a human soulbox would be different from a monkey soulbox which would be different from a shrimp soulbox, suggesting, of course, that evolution accidents created and developed the soulbox)
And in what way do you assume qualia to be different from mind? I meant that qualia is different from mind in that when you say 'qualia' you, the 'integration area' I was talking about, refer to the information coming to you from your processing system. When you say 'mind', you seem to refer to the processing area viewed from outside, objectively, like you would study your blood cells under a microscope.
yeah i realize that qualia would be the "mind" i was talking about in strong AI (well, the part that is integrating everything that we are experiencing)
if strong ai isnt the correct model, there would need to be a component churning the data from this central information area (or many information areas) into whatever qualia "is". the difference between qualia and mind would be that qualia is composed of "actual something", something we've never seen
I believe this is analogous to the different image file formats in a computer. .bmp, .gif, etc. they have the same result even if their manner of encoding information varies, save for differences in quality.
yeah, that's a good analogy. our body encodes in a certain format, sends the image or whatever to the brain, and it is "decoded" into thoughts / meaning in relation to the other patterns stored there
But the mechanism of evolution would make it pretty unlikely that a being would evolve a cognitive system and not use it
i meant as an accident, similar to taking drugs
certain parts of our brains, just as an accident of evolution, could have qualia of intense pain; when we die, they will be put to rest. and other parts, they could be experiencing intense pleasure; and other parts, experiences we can't imagine... i just thought it was interesting to note.
if our brains are that complex, and it takes that complexity to create information exchanges sufficient for A) structured qualia and B) an ability for this structure to reach out into the world (aka send nerve signals), could there be other areas of our brain that are handling some process and they evolved in such a way that the information floating around there would produce a certain type of qualia? qualia arises as complex patterns within the system, and if a lot of the system was created by accident/evolution, i think it's likely
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assuming strong ai isn't true, anyone think i'm not crazy? heh ...
i know that the gears arent supposed to be "producing" the qualia, as the qualia is sort of a "ghost within the gears" (donno if i used the correct phrase, but i think you know hwat i mean) or the information flow
i just don't see information flow itself producing qualia. that mind we were talking about, the central integrating part for all the data, which could be part of our qualia if strong ai is T, would (if strong ai is False) need to send data to a soulbox and this soulbox would turn it into qualia (whatever qualia is) like a *converter* converting the electromagnetic signals of the organism into an inernal experience produced with new physics
back to strong ai. basically you are saying that information transfer itself gives rise to qualia. the information does make up a system, which is how it all works of course, taking in input, integrating, sending out output. but let's say we have a snapshot of a brain, and freeze it with all the light/EM radiation even that gets frozen. (sorry i may be wording oddly, ambien). would that snapshot frozen brain have one timeless experience until it is resumed? no... they are not dynamic
likewise, let's say there is a nerve whose firing rate is related to how much pain you feel in your tinker, it recieves info from nerves down there. perhaps it is continuous here, and if we take snapshots, since each action potential increases the firing rate by a little, so at a time t=1 f.rate=0.44, the poor dude experiences 0.44 pain in his tinker... for all eternity, and then the system resumes. would you agree? my ambien is peaking i am going to bed soon...heh
but what i am getting at, with all these possible configuratoins, and all of the "pieces" of information are totally disconnected from eachother, the system needs a dynamic to do work, and supposedly needs to be dynamic to have an inner qualia? would you agree?
i don't see how a coherent consistent and dynamic structure ar... well i can see how a coherent, consistent, and dynamic structure to the information rises. but the pieces of information are discordant. clumping a bunch of stuff together into a structure to produce a structured set of information,
have you been following the thread along? just curious. i just don't see moving puzzle pieces and gears and levers as capable of churning out qualia. lets say we build a giant machine sufficiently complex, the information transfers produce a consciousness. however, for the machine to run, humans have to push things and pull levers and put puzzle pieces into places (playing god in analogy to the human brain and einstein's god). i still feel that qualia is probably a non sequitor from information transfer; why would information transfer produce consciousness when information transfer itself, like the pieces, is dead, and information transfer itself is dead too (that's my main argument) unless we designate it alive in our reality-maps. but we can't just designate something and then that means it is so. we are talking about information, something that is only part of our maps of reality, it is deader than dead actually
i can see how strong ai could work, but i think its less likely than an intervening mechanism, since i would need proof that double dead information systems give rise to "perceception" of those systems from within, rather than being a philosophical zombie
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assuming strong ai is true, anyone see a possibile mechanism for reincarnation?
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another scenario. assuming strong ai is true, are we going to keep the first turing-tested positive robot, forever? and every robot and computer software program thereafter? i mean, destroying it would mean killing it! would it be murder (of course it is, it's ending a robot's qualia) to go, say, killing holographic characters in star trek when they gain awareness (geordi asked the computer to make an opponent capable of defeating data in a mystery)
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another scenario. assuming strong ai is true, what sort of mechanisms/devices/components/information exchange would be required (indeed, is this possible) to get qualia experiences from other entities, and *hook* then into our brain?
p.s., since i was on ambien (it can be trippy and fun before bed hehehe. just using it cuz i cant sleep due to running out of my kpin script early), i may edit this post a lil tomorrow
(Qualia)