Qualia Blindness

[Atla]

this set of questions is meant to help people understand the ideas contained in the emerging consensus “Representational Qualia Theory”. Which is already being supported by the likes of Daniel Dennett, Steven Lehar, John Smythies, Stuart Hameroff, and a growing number of others. This set of questions is intended to help people understand the concepts contained in that emerging consensus theory.

Since Advaita (Eastern nondualism in general to be more exact) is the Ockham's razor solution, would it be a good idea to make this probably wrong consensus more accessible?

[RCSaunders]

The brain does not perceive (see, hear, feel, smell, or taste) anything, so there are no perceived qualities in the brain to test. All that can be tested in the brain is how the instrument of perception is working. It's like examining the behavior of a television thinking all the electronic processes are the actual picture.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, this set of questions is meant to help people understand the ideas contained in the emerging consensus “Representational Qualia Theory”. Which is already being supported by the likes of Daniel Dennett, Steven Lehar, John Smythies, Stuart Hameroff, and a growing number of others. This set of questions is intended to help people understand the concepts contained in that emerging consensus theory.

As I said in the last response, if you do disagree, you should help amplify the wisdom of the crowd and ‘canonize’ your view in a competing camp. We’d be happy to help.

All that is wrong with both philosophy and a great deal of what is called science today is the absurd belief that what is true is determined by consensus of academics, most of whom could not reason their way to any actual knowledge.

In the meantime you might be interested in a couple of my articles:

"Perception," posted here on Philosophy Now.

"The Nature of Consciousness."

There really is no such thing as, "qualia." It's a made-up concept to explain the physicalist's dream of emergence, like a religionist's made-up concepts of God or revelation. Both are gross superstitions invented to support an ideology.

[Skepdick]

There really is no such thing as, "qualia." It's a made-up concept to explain the physicalist's dream of emergence, like a religionist's made-up concepts of God or revelation. Both are gross superstitions invented to support an ideology.

Heh, I guess the concept of emergence is spanner in the ideology of reductionism.

[Skepdick]

A quale, is an intrinsic quality. If you use one word for everything (the strawberry, the light, the ‘red’ receptors in the eye, the ‘red’ signal…), this tells you nothing of any specific intrinsic quality – hence your language is blind to any such intrinsic qualities.

So you are proposing nothing more than sub-classification of quales? Being able to talk about the nuances of red. Much like digital artists have developed color appearance models and talk about things like hue, saturation, chroma etc.

You must be able to model multiple intrinsic qualities using multiple words for different intrinsic qualities like : “My redness is like your greenness, both of which we call red.”

It sounds like you are involved in an activity which is strikingly similar to language engineering. And one of your design objective is making "qualia" first class citizens.

Naturally you can do that, but my question is why?

What problem is your language trying to address? The harm done by the colourless, reductionist analytic philosophy perhaps? Of which qualia blindness is perhaps a symptom.

[Brent.Allsop]

You are missing the point. I am taking about your personal working assumption when you devised the questions. Offering these questions, cold, with an unexpressed assumption, renders them ambiguous at best,or incomprehensible at worst.

Oh, that makes sense. Thanks for helping me see this. You are saying I need to lay the groundwork, before jumping into questions like that.

So let me try to lay the groundwork for why this statement is qualia blind:

"Redness" is a perceived quality.

When you say “’Redness’ is a perceived quality.” Like this, you get an infinite regress, or as skepdick refers to it, an infinite recursion where nothing is defined, or nothing is real. This is the way abstract computers work. You have the intrinsic qualities of the light which are transduced into a different set of intrinsic states in the light detecting device of a camera. This is further transduced into a different set of electrical charges on a set of, 16 wires for each pixel. (16 bit pixels). Then these 16 voltages are interpreted in the CPU with a particular lookup physical dictionary system that maps a particular set of 16 values, to something that represents the word ‘red’. This different set of voltages that represent the word ‘red’ is sent to the screen on the camera. The screen, again, interprets the intrinsic properties representing the word ‘red’, into yet another interpreting device that produces the physically different red light, for that pixel on the display. We think of all of these different physical representation as representing the abstract concept of perceived ‘red’. But nothing here actually defines redness. They all need something to think of them as if they are representing red.

In order for your preschool teacher to teach you the meaning of the word ‘red’, she pointed to something (say a red crayon) that was intrinsically ‘red’ and said: “That is red”. Notice that in a system were it is all perceptions of perceptions, there is nothing that does this.

“Representational Qualia Theory” predicts there are two ways to know things. Perceiving things (from afar) and direct awareness of intrinsic qualities, which can be used to represent conscious knowledge. When we ‘perceive’ things, from afar, the final result of perception is knowledge that has an intrinsic quality. Redness isn’t ‘perceived’ it is the final result of perception we are directly aware of. The word ‘red’ isn’t physically red. Redness is an intrinsic physical quality that is the definition of the word red.

We're starting a video that will also hopefully help to lay this groundwork.

Does that help illustrate how only saying “’Redness’ is a perceived quality” doesn’t define red, other than to say we think of all of the above as abstractly representing red, so it is qualia blind or "using one word for all things red"?

[Brent.Allsop]

Since Advaita (Eastern nondualism in general to be more exact) is the Ockham's razor solution, would it be a good idea to make this probably wrong consensus more accessible?

Yes, exactly. When I say “wrong”, I only mean it is “wrong” according to the “Representational Qualia Theory” model supported by the currently leading 40 or so experts. In multiple other places I’ve asked people that think differently to help get their not yet canonized view included. Making such “more accessible” like this amplifies the wisdom of the crowd. And also remember the importance of falsifiability. If you can’t describe how your theory is falsifiable (so experimentalists can verify it, forcing a ‘scientific consensus) it’s not good theoretical science.

All the supporting sub camps to “Representational Qualia Theory” are making different predictions about the nature of qualia. RQT points out that once we stop being qualia blind, we’ll be able to falsify all but THE ONE theory, by discovering which of all our abstract descriptions of stuff in the brain is a description of intrinsic redness.

Once we find out whether intrinsic redness is “functional”, “material”, or “dual”, and so on, all the other theories will then be falsified, abandoned by all the experts who all finally agree they are 'wrong’.

[Brent.Allsop]

All that is wrong with both philosophy and a great deal of what is called science today is the absurd belief that what is true is determined by consensus of academics, most of whom could not reason their way to any actual knowledge.

Exactly. The only reason we measure ‘popular’ consensus, is so we can compare all the ‘popular’ crap in the gap theories, with the theories supported by experts like you. If you can better understand why the crowd is mistaken, you can better address their issues, help them keep up, and most importantly track how well the arguments and evidence are working by how many people they convert. All this amplifying the wisdom of the crowd.

I would be interested to know if you would agree with or support Dennett’s current Predictive Bayesian Coding theory, which is now in a supporting sub camp to “Representational Qualia Theory”, or if you will make a competing camp to this now emerging consensus?

[Atla]

Since Advaita (Eastern nondualism in general to be more exact) is the Ockham's razor solution, would it be a good idea to make this probably wrong consensus more accessible?

Yes, exactly. When I say “wrong”, I only mean it is “wrong” according to the “Representational Qualia Theory” model supported by the currently leading 40 or so experts. In multiple other places I’ve asked people that think differently to help get their not yet canonized view included. Making such “more accessible” like this amplifies the wisdom of the crowd. And also remember the importance of falsifiability. If you can’t describe how your theory is falsifiable (so experimentalists can verify it, forcing a ‘scientific consensus) it’s not good theoretical science.

All the supporting sub camps to “Representational Qualia Theory” are making different predictions about the nature of qualia. RQT points out that once we stop being qualia blind, we’ll be able to falsify all but THE ONE theory, by discovering which of all our abstract descriptions of stuff in the brain is a description of intrinsic redness.

Once we find out whether intrinsic redness is “functional”, “material”, or “dual”, and so on, all the other theories will then be falsified, abandoned by all the experts who all finally agree they are 'wrong’.

That's the epicycling that annoys me. It will take decades until they will finally realize that ALL RQT theories are probably wrong, and there won't be one left standing. And that the problem isn't even a scientific problem, but philosophical.

That's why some people skip ahead, they don't have decades to wait until the "experts" finally catch up.

[Brent.Allsop]

All that is wrong with both philosophy and a great deal of what is called science today is the absurd belief that what is true is determined by consensus of academics, most of whom could not reason their way to any actual knowledge.

Exactly. The only reason we measure ‘popular’ consensus, is so we can compare all the ‘popular’ crap in the gap theories, with the theories supported by experts like you. If you can better understand why the crowd is mistaken, you can better address their issues, help them keep up, and most importantly track how well the arguments and evidence are working by how many people they convert. All this amplifying the wisdom of the crowd.

There really is no such thing as, "qualia."

I would be interested to know if you would agree with or support Dennett’s current Predictive Bayesian Coding theory, which is now in a supporting sub camp to “Representational Qualia Theory”, or if you will make a competing camp to this now emerging consensus?

[Brent.Allsop]

Naturally you can do that, but my question is why?

What problem is your language trying to address? The harm done by the colourless, reductionist analytic philosophy perhaps? Of which qualia blindness is perhaps a symptom.

I just want to know the intrinsic color of things. Today, nobody can tell you what color anything is.

[Sculptor]

So let me try to lay the groundwork for why this statement is qualia blind:

"Redness" is a perceived quality.

When you say “’Redness’ is a perceived quality.” Like this, you get an infinite regress, or as skepdick refers to it, an infinite recursion where nothing is defined, or nothing is real. This is the way abstract computers work. You have the intrinsic qualities of the light which are transduced into a different set of intrinsic states in the light detecting device of a camera...

Bringing a camera into it does not help. We had redness before there was camera. More important is what happens when light hits the eye, and a signal is sent to the brain. This is where redness occurs. And since humans share the same (or almost) the same sense equipment we can agree that redness has occurred, when we perceive the same object.
Note; there is such a thing a colour blindness, which can cause a range of sensations in different populations.

This is further transduced i... The screen, again, interprets the intrinsic properties representing the word ‘red’, into yet another interpreting device that produces the physically different red light, for that pixel on the display. We They (WHO????) think of all of these different physical representation as representing the abstract concept of perceived ‘red’. But nothing here actually defines redness. They (WHO????) all need something to think of them as if they are representing red.

In order for your preschool teacher to teach you the meaning of the word ‘red’, she pointed to something (say a red crayon) that was intrinsically ‘red’ and said: “That is red”. Notice that in a system were it is all perceptions of perceptions, there is nothing that does this.

a crayon is NOT intrinsically red. A crayon is extrinsically red. Redness is PERCEIVED quality.
A crayon reflect a different wavelength of light to its surroundings. It cannot BE red. redness can only be the result of human perception,
Maybe YOU are qualia blind.

[rul=https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Represen ... l-Qualia/6]“Representational Qualia Theory”[/url] predicts there are two ways to know things. Perceiving things (from afar) and direct awareness of intrinsic qualities, which can be used to represent conscious knowledge.

Sounds like utter BS to me.

When we ‘perceive’ things, from afar, the final result of perception is knowledge that has an intrinsic quality. Redness isn’t ‘perceived’ it is the final result of perception we are directly aware of.

contradiction.

The word ‘red’ isn’t physically red.

No, of course - it is only a signifier - a word.

Redness is an intrinsic physical quality that is the definition of the word red.

No it is not.

We're starting a video that will also hopefully help to lay this groundwork.

Does that help illustrate how only saying “’Redness’ is a perceived quality” doesn’t define red, other than to say we think of all of the above as abstractly representing red, so it is qualia blind or "using one word for all things red"?

There is no clarity here at all.
And I still do not see what you mean by the last phrase; " "using one word for all things red"?
You seem to be offering a solution where there is no problem.

[/quote]

[Brent.Allsop]

That's the epicycling that annoys me. It will take decades until they will finally realize that ALL RQT theories are probably wrong, and there won't be one left standing. And that the problem isn't even a scientific problem, but philosophical.

That's why some people skip ahead, they don't have decades to wait until the "experts" finally catch up.

No, it is not epicycling.

If experimentalists can prove that it is glutamate that is the same as intrinsic redness. And if everyone always experiences redness when glutamate is ‘computationally bound’ in with the rest of their conscious knowledge. And if no other theory can recreate intrinsic redness, they will all be falsified, right?

Thanks to good old fashioned falsifiability and experimental results, once everyone has abandoned, and agree that all the crap in the gap theories are wrong, that will be the end. No more epicycling. We've already seen one supporter abandon his camp due to evidence comming from the large hadron collider.

[Atla]

That's the epicycling that annoys me. It will take decades until they will finally realize that ALL RQT theories are probably wrong, and there won't be one left standing. And that the problem isn't even a scientific problem, but philosophical.

That's why some people skip ahead, they don't have decades to wait until the "experts" finally catch up.

No, it is not epicycling.

If experimentalists can prove that it is glutamate that is the same as intrinsic redness. And if everyone always experiences redness when glutamate is ‘computationally bound’ in with the rest of their conscious knowledge. And if no other theory can recreate intrinsic redness, they will all be falsified, right?

Thanks to good old fashioned falsifiability and experimental results, once everyone has abandoned, and agree that all the crap in the gap theories are wrong, that will be the end. No more epicycling. We've already seen one supporter abandon his camp due to evidence comming from the large hadron collider.

You don't seem to get it. We already know beyond any reasonable doubt that something in the head, say glutamate, is the same as intrinsic redness.

But you can never directly show that in an experiment in a way that both glutamate and red will show up at the same time. You can only narrow down the correlation of red to the glutamate molecule.

There will still remain infinitely many ways how to explain that 1:1 correlation.

(And 'red' is probably more complex than just glutamate, so probably every explanation will remain on the table - substance dualism, property dualism, aspects, complexity, functions, information processing, even the good old "illusion" bullshit.)

[Brent.Allsop]

Bringing a camera into it does not help. We had redness before there was camera.

Who's redness is this? Your redness, or someone who has been engineered (or is an invert from birth) to be red / green qualia inverted from you? An invert has had an inverter placed in the optic nerve as illustrated in this "perception inverted" section of the video. And also has a different dictionary that defines your greenness to be red.

There is no clarity here at all.
And I still do not see what you mean by the last phrase; " "using one word for all things red"?
You seem to be offering a solution where there is no problem.

Tell you what. If you can tell me what it is that is intrinsically red, and justify your claim in any way that can’t easily be shown to be wrong, I will consider “Representational Qualia Theory”, to be falsified.

[Brent.Allsop]

You don't seem to get it. We already know beyond any reasonable doubt that something in the head, say glutamate, is the same as intrinsic redness.

But you can never directly show that in an experiment in a way that both glutamate and red will show up at the same time.

Yes you can. Admittedly, the never failing dictionary that would result if redness is always, and only experienced with glutamate (and can never be falsified with any exceptions), this is only what we call the 1. Weakest form of effing the ineffable. The 1. Week, 2. Stronger, and 3. Strongest forms of effing the ineffable are described in this "Objectively we are blind to intrinsic qualities" paper.

The strongest form of infallibly effing the ineffable was first proposed by VS Ramachandran, back in the 90s, in his “3 laws of qualia paper”. He proposed connecting 2 brains together with a "bundle of neurons” that can computationally bind elemental qualia, like the corpus callosum can, resulting in composite qualitative experiences. If one of your hemispheres had knowledge that was red green inverted from the other, the corpus callosum would enable you to experience and know this, directly, as half your visual knowledge would be red green inverted from the half in the other hemisphere.

This was portrayed as a neural ponytail in the Avatar movie. With such a computational binding neural ponytail you could be aware of all of the experiences with your partner, not just half.

OH, and did I mention that such a nural ponytail would falsify sceptical theories like solipsism, brain in a vat...?