On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 08:59:57PM -0500, Jason Resch wrote: > Chalmer's fading quailia argument <http://consc.net/papers/qualia.html> > shows that if replacing a biological neuron with a functionally equivalent > silicon neuron changed conscious perception, then it would lead to an > absurdity, either: > 1. quaila fade/change as silicon neurons gradually replace the biological > ones, leading to a case where the quaila are being completely out of touch > with the functional state of the brain. > or > 2. the replacement eventually leads to a sudden and complete loss of all > quaila, but this suggests a single neuron, or even a few molecules of that > neuron, when substituted, somehow completely determine the presence of > quaila
This syllogism is wrong. After all, when removing links from a network, each time following a different sequence links to be removed, it will be a different link that causes the network to fall apart. So it does not suggest "a single neuron, or even a few molecules of that neuron, when substituted, somehow completely determine the presence of qualia". This was always why I found the fading qualia argument unconvincing - in spite of being a died-in-the-wool functionalist. > > His argument is convincing, but what happens when we replace neurons not > with functionally identical ones, but with neurons that fire according to a > RNG. In all but 1 case, the random firings of the neurons will result in > completely different behaviors, but what about that 1 (immensely rare) case > where the random neuron firings (by chance) equal the firing patterns of > the substituted neurons. > > In this case, behavior as observed from the outside is identical. Brain > patterns and activity are similar, but according to computationalism the > consciousness is different, or perhaps a zombie (if all neurons are > replaced with random firing neurons). Presume that the activity of neurons > in the visual cortex is required for visual quaila, and that all neurons in > the visual cortex are replaced with random firing neurons, which by chance, > mimic the behavior of neurons when viewing an apple. > > Is this not an example of fading quaila, or quaila desynchronized from the > brain state? Would this person feel that they are blind, or lack visual > quaila, all the while not being able to express their deficiency? I used to > think when Searle argued this exact same thing would occur when substituted > functionally identical biological neurons with artificial neurons that it > was completely ridiculous, for there would be no room in the functionally > equivalent brain to support thoughts such as "help! I can't see, I am > blind!" for the information content in the brain is identical when the > neurons are functionally identical. > > But then how does this reconcile with fading quaila as the result of > substituting randomly firing neurons? The computations are not the same, so > presumably the consciousness is not the same. That also does not follow from computational supervenience. Difference in computation does not entail a difference in qualia. It's the converse that is entailed. > But also, the information > content does not support knowing/believing/expressing/thinking something is > wrong. If anything, the information content of this random brain is much > less, but it seems the result is something where the quaila is out of sync > with the global state of the brain. Can anyone else where shed some clarity > on what they think happens, and how to explain it in the rare case of > luckily working randomly firing neurons, when only partial substitutions of > the neurons in a brain is performed? > I think one's intuitions are an imperfect guide, particularly when the number of neurons involved are in any way a significant fraction of the brain. Computational supervenience => don't know Physical supervenience => yes (but only in a classical physical universe). -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
