QUOTE-
Stathis Papaioannou wrote (and Eric Cavalcanti did assess it)
Actually, you probably _could_ drive your brain into "seeing red" if you knew exactly what physical processes occur in the brain in response to a red stimulus, and if you had appropriate neural interface equipment. Such capabilities do not currently exist - not even close - but the idea is the basis of many SF stories (eg. William Gibson, Greg Egan). The same sort of thing frequently occurs naturally: the definition of a hallucination is a perception without the stimulus that would normally give rise to that perception. The point is, even if you knew in perfect detail what happens in your brain when you see red, you would not actually know/feel/experience the qualia unless you ran the software on your own hardware.
Of course I mainly agree with Stathis here, and with Eric's assessment, but Stathis formulates it in just the way which makes people abusing the box analogy. Indeed, the only way to actually know/feel/experience the qualia is to "run" the right software, which really *defines* the owner. The choice of hardware makes no difference. The owner of the hardware makes no difference. This is because the owner is really defined by the (running) software. To be even more exact, there is eventually no need for running the software, because eventually the box itself is a construction of the mind, and is defined by the (possible) software/owner. That illustrates also that you cannot see "blue" as someone else sees "blue" by running the [someone else's software] on "your hardware", because if you run [someone else's software] on your hardware, you will just duplicate that someone-else, and your hardware will become [someone else's hardware!] And *you* will just disappear (locally).
Bruno
-ENDQUOTE
Well yes, the mind IS the software. I am reminded of a frequent discussion I have with schizophrenic patients who have improved on medication and then think they no longer need it. I warn them that on other occasions when they have done this their delusions have returned and they have ended up in hospital, to be restabilised on antipsychotic medication. "That will never happen again," they confidently say, "because I now know those thoughts were crazy, and if they recur, I will be able to think rationally and hence dismiss them". Now, a psychotic delusion occurs(due to complex and poorly understood neurochemical pathology) precisely because the mind/brain dysfunction causes the patient to think IRrationally; so what are they going to use to talk their ailing mind into seeing sense again? We may have an extra kidney and lung for backup, but we only have one brain! Yet this is how many people (not just the mentally ill) seem to see it: that they have this magical "I" which can stand back and assess things no matter what is actually going on inside their heads - as if they don't really believe they think with their brain at all.
Stathis Papaioannou Melbourne, Australia
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