Eliminating Qualia

[untermensche]

A caveat to that would be that it could be the same information being transmitted by different media, and I think that idea has legs, since information is interoperable.....

No it could not.

External stimulation cannot direct an evolving brain to create something specific from it.

Evolving brains just randomly do things with external stimulations.

And the things that lead to evolutionary success remain and transform.

The human turns vibrating air into a "sound".

The bat turns vibrating air into a "sight".

Vibrating air is not "information" about either product. It is merely a stimulus for the creation of a new product that has nothing to do with vibrating air.

 

[ruby sparks]

A caveat to that would be that it could be the same information being transmitted by different media, and I think that idea has legs, since information is interoperable.....

No it could not.

External stimulation cannot direct an evolving brain to create something specific from it.

Evolving brains just randomly do things with external stimulations.

And the things that lead to evolutionary success remain and transform.

The human turns vibrating air into a "sound".

The bat turns vibrating air into a "sight".

Vibrating air is not "information" about either product. It is merely a stimulus for the creation of a new product that has nothing to do with vibrating air.

No it could not be what? That air vibrations and electro-chemical impulses could be the same information transmitted 'in' different media? That's what I suggested. Are you disagreeing specifically with that, or something else, because you seem to disagree specifically with that and then go on to something else.

Vibrating air is not "information"

Says who?

Also, there'd be a difference between being information and containing information. Initially, I was suggesting the latter, whereas you've changed it to the former. I'm not committed to either, by the way.

 

[untermensche]

No it could not be what? That air vibrations and electro-chemical impulses could be the same information transmitted 'in' different media?

The brain takes in information from the ear, so some of it is the brain's representation of the information.

But the brain completely transforms it into a contingent product. And the transformed product is experienced.

What is experienced is the completely transformed product that has nothing in common with the external stimulation.

That is why one species makes a sound from the vibrations and another a sight.

The vibrations of air are not related to what brains transform them into.

Vibrating air is not "information"

You can't just use deceptive editing as an argument.

What I said was "Vibrating air is not "information" about either product."

 

[ruby sparks]

You can't just use deceptive editing as an argument.

What I said was "Vibrating air is not "information" about either product."

I have no idea what difference that makes to what I said and I certainly was not using deceptive editing, thank you very much.

As to your other points about 'completely different thing', 'completely transformed' and 'nothing in common' I've already commented, quite often. They are your declarations and you express certainty about them which is imo not necessarily warranted. They seem, in any case, slightly separate from the issue of whether air vibrations and electro-chemical impulses involve (are or carry, it doesn't matter to the point) the same information.

I have in any case considered your ontology flawed ever since you have repeatedly avoided addressing the potential infinite regress question, 'what experiences mind?' And that is no small issue. It would appear to effectively seriously damage your ontology. You just ignoring it is arguably non-rational, possibly also illogical and dogmatic. Issues don't dissolve just because you don't address them them and it's daft to just skip over them and assume that your ontology is still intact.

 

[untermensche]

You can't just use deceptive editing as an argument.

What I said was "Vibrating air is not "information" about either product."

I have no idea what difference that makes to what I said and I certainly was not using deceptive editing, thank you very much.

Then you don't understand what I'm saying.

Are vibrations of air a "sound" or a "sight"?

 

[Subsymbolic]

You can't just use deceptive editing as an argument.

What I said was "Vibrating air is not "information" about either product."

I have no idea what difference that makes to what I said and I certainly was not using deceptive editing, thank you very much.

Then you don't understand what I'm saying.

Are vibrations of air a "sound" or a "sight"?

How about you give us some objective evidence that anyone has experienced anything first?

 

[untermensche]

Then you don't understand what I'm saying.

Are vibrations of air a "sound" or a "sight"?

How about you give us some objective evidence that anyone has experienced anything first?

How did you respond if you are not experiencing my words?

 

[Subsymbolic]

Then you don't understand what I'm saying.

Are vibrations of air a "sound" or a "sight"?

How about you give us some objective evidence that anyone has experienced anything first?

How did you respond if you are not experiencing my words?

You've not heard of Joseph Weizenbaum then? John Searle? Even Dennett's heterophenomenology argument which you appear to have disproven by not reading it! Just because you'd come third in the Loebner prize, doesn't mean yours is the only way to do it. The different routes to response are many and varied - I wrote a bot as an undergraduate AI project that could argue with you easily and believably. Even if this wasn't the case, you are not the first to conflate intersubjective consensus with objective and you will not be the last.

 

[untermensche]

How did you respond if you are not experiencing my words?

You've not heard of Joseph Weizenbaum then? John Searle? Even Dennett's heterophenomenology argument which you appear to have disproven by not reading it! Just because you'd come third in the Loebner prize, doesn't mean yours is the only way to do it. The different routes to response are many and varied - I wrote a bot as an undergraduate AI project that could argue with you easily and believably. Even if this wasn't the case, you are not the first to conflate intersubjective consensus with objective and you will not be the last.

What I see is somebody with no answer so they are putting up a smokescreen of bullshit.

If you know what a color is then you have experienced it.

That is the only place color exists.

As an experience.

The same goes for sound.

 

[Subsymbolic]

How did you respond if you are not experiencing my words?

You've not heard of Joseph Weizenbaum then? John Searle? Even Dennett's heterophenomenology argument which you appear to have disproven by not reading it! Just because you'd come third in the Loebner prize, doesn't mean yours is the only way to do it. The different routes to response are many and varied - I wrote a bot as an undergraduate AI project that could argue with you easily and believably. Even if this wasn't the case, you are not the first to conflate intersubjective consensus with objective and you will not be the last.

What I see is somebody with no answer so they are putting up a smokescreen of bullshit.

If you know what a color is then you have experienced it.

That is the only place color exists.

As an experience.

The same goes for sound.

And once again, you demonstrate that you are unaware of the difference between the hard problem and the easy problem. I know it looks simple to you, but it's just not. The fact is that competency with colour grammar is not objective evidence of subjective experience. There's absolutely no reason at all to assume that my ability to talk about colour implies experience. That's why there is a problem of other minds.

You are aware of the problem of other minds?

Even if the philosophical problems could be overcome, there's still blindsight, in which grammatical competence is gainsaid by other behaviours.

 

[ruby sparks]

Then you don't understand what I'm saying.

Are vibrations of air a "sound" or a "sight"?

No. I already said that. First line of post 360. Written by me.

Ditto for post 316.

 

[untermensche]

It would defy parsimony to imagine that which I experience is not also experienced by other members of my species.

It is irrational to doubt it.

 

[untermensche]

Then you don't understand what I'm saying.

Are vibrations of air a "sound" or a "sight"?

No. I already said that. First line of post 360. Written by me.

Ditto for post 316.

Then vibrations of air are not information that leads to what is experienced as sound.

They are merely a stimulus for the brain to do something unrelated.

A stimulus for the brain to make a presentation that is experienced.

And the presentation is not derived from information in the air. It is derived from "programs", mechanisms, in the brain.

 

[DBT]

Music begins with the architecture of the instrument, which determines acoustic range, tone, etc, of vibrating air, the player and the listener.

It is not an interpretation.

It is an arbitrary transformation into something completely different.

It is not arbitrary. Not at all. The subjective brain generated experience music is based on the vibration of air that is related to external objects and their activity, this is information acquired by the senses. Information, by self definition, is not arbitrary.

''Our five senses–sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell–seem to operate independently, as five distinct modes of perceiving the world. In reality, however, they collaborate closely to enable the mind to better understand its surroundings. We can become aware of this collaboration under special circumstances.

In some cases, a sense may covertly influence the one we think is dominant. When visual information clashes with that from sound, sensory crosstalk can cause what we see to alter what we hear. When one sense drops out, another can pick up the slack. For instance, people who are blind can train their hearing to play double duty. Those who are both blind and deaf can make touch step in—to say, help them interpret speech. For a few individuals with a condition called synesthesia, the senses collide dramatically to form a kaleidoscope world in which chicken tastes like triangles, a symphony smells of baked bread or words bask in a halo of red, green or purple. (For more on how the senses can cross each other and into unusual territory, see “Edges of Perception,” by Ariel Bleicher, Scientific American Mind, March/April 2012.)''

 

[ruby sparks]

Then you don't understand what I'm saying.

Are vibrations of air a "sound" or a "sight"?

No. I already said that. First line of post 360. Written by me.

Ditto for post 316.

Then vibrations of air are not information that leads to what is experienced as sound.

That's a non sequitur. Just because I agree that the stimulations are not themselves the experience does not mean that the stimulations do not contain information. It's not the same issue. Nor would it appear to affect your model. It could be part of your model. If you believe that in oder for there to be an experience, there must be both an experiencer and the thing experienced, then there must also be something transmitted/received between the two. No? How could there be what you call 'recognition' otherwise? Information transfer is a possible candidate.

Also, I did not say that the stimulations were information.

They are merely a stimulus for the brain to do something unrelated.

A stimulus for the brain to make a presentation that is experienced.

And the presentation is not derived from information in the air. It is derived from "programs", mechanisms, in the brain.

Well what's the role of the stimulation then?

You haven't got the first clue as to whether the stimulations contain (or for that matter are) information or not, do you?

Nor do you seem to realise that it was just a tangential caveat which I set aside in any case. Nor that the stimulations being information or carrying information are two different suggestions, since you've been mixing the two up.

 

[ruby sparks]

It is an arbitrary transformation into something completely different.

Again setting aside the question of whether or not 'something completely different' is 'created', what is an 'arbitrary' transformation? Are you sure you mean arbitrary? As in haphazard, random or erratic?

 

[untermensche]

Music begins with the architecture of the instrument, which determines acoustic range, tone, etc, of vibrating air, the player and the listener.

It is not an interpretation.

It is an arbitrary transformation into something completely different.

It is not arbitrary. Not at all. The subjective brain generated experience music is based on the vibration of air that is related to external objects and their activity, this is information acquired by the senses. Information, by self definition, is not arbitrary.

You have no understanding of evolution.

The external world cannot force an evolving brain to create anything.

All brain products are arbitrary creations.

Vibrating air has nothing to do with the experience of sound.

EM radiation has nothing to do with the experience of color.

Skin damage has nothing to do with the experience of pain.

All experiences are arbitrary creations of the brain.

 

[untermensche]

Then vibrations of air are not information that leads to what is experienced as sound.

That's a non sequitur.

You think that because you don't understand evolution.

The experience of sound is something the brain makes in response to a stimulation that has nothing to do with the experience of sound.

Vibrating air is not sound.

A human turns it into a "sound".

A bat turns it into a "sight" and uses vibrating air to navigate.

The vibrating air is neither a sound or a sight.

Sounds and sights are arbitrary creations of brains. They only exist as an experience.

The only place sounds and colors exist are in a mind that is experiencing them.

 

[ruby sparks]

Then vibrations of air are not information that leads to what is experienced as sound.

That's a non sequitur.

You think that because you don't understand evolution.

The experience of sound is something the brain makes in response to a stimulation that has nothing to do with the experience of sound.

Vibrating air is not sound.

A human turns it into a "sound".

A bat turns it into a "sight" and uses vibrating air to navigate.

The vibrating air is neither a sound or a sight.

Sounds and sights are arbitrary creations of brains. They only exist as an experience.

The only place sounds and colors exist are in a mind that is experiencing them.

Which I pretty much already agreed with three times, with caveats, so you can stop saying it, and my points were about something else. Not that you appear to notice. Nor do you notice when others are talking about other aspects of this. Nor do you answer questions (I asked you two news ones in my last posts), you just regurgitate the same stuff over and over no matter what. For those reasons, I think it's a waste of time discussing anything further with you, imo. So I'm going to stop.

 

[WAB]

"Skin damage has nothing to do with the experience of pain."

All experiences are arbitrary creations of the brain.

*Pull the other one!"

This is silly, Berkeleyan/Humean silliness. Countered by Thomas Reid, a contemporary of both. And funnier!

ie "There is no is-to-an-ought problem."*

The naturalist fallacy is a fallacious argument whipped up out of thin air by a silly naturalist.

*Reid, [skip a little] G.E. Moore, Searle, and other less flatulent, less naked emperors.

Hume's own mother, and the quote is somewhere, said something to this effect:

"Nice boy, but passing simple."

I DO NOT agree that Hume was simple, as much as I might say it; no doubt he was a genius. Nonetheless, one should read Reid [hey, that rhymed!], and give the old bugger a chance.