Cosmin: do you have any answers to the questions below? On Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 11:15 AM Terren Suydam <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 3:03 AM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> For this you don't even need idealism. You can just take the brain as a >> black box ready to receive the proper input in order to generate the proper >> qualia. You will most likely not detect infrared light and others, simply >> because the black box is not made to detect them. >> > > You don't get to say, in one context, that the brain doesn't exist, and > then in another, it's a black box that generates qualia. Not to mention, a > black box also has zero explanatory power. I'm asking you directly about > cochlear implants, which literally enable the generation of new qualia for > deaf people. How does that happen? > > >> And there is another thing here: we are not detecting "air movement" or >> "electromagnetic oscillation", since this is not what qualia do. Qualia are >> all about meaning, we detect meaning. And that meaning serves evolutionary >> purposes. I talk about this in the first chapter of my book, where I do an >> analysis of sounds and colors and show how they are meaning, not something >> related to any "electromagnetic spectrum". The reason is simple: if they >> were related to "electromagnetic spectrum", then if you were to not know >> the order of the colors in the rainbow, then if I were to give you the >> colors, you would know to put them in order by frequency. But since you >> cannot do that, colors are not about "electromagnetic spectrum", but are >> about survival criteria, like red and green for finding fruits in trees and >> yellow and blue for finding the sun in the sky, etc. >> > > I'm color blind. My eyes don't have as many photo-receptors that detect > frequencies corresponding to the color red. Because of that, my experience > of color is different from ordinary people, and this can be proven. > Photo-receptors detect electromagnetic oscillation of specific frequencies, > and this leads somehow to the experience of color. If photoreceptors don't > exist, how do you explain this? > > I'm really looking for explanations I can sink my teeth into. Why am I > colorblind, but you're not? And why does it seem to matter that > physiologically, you have photoreceptors that I do not have? There are > objective facts about our nervous systems that have consequences for > subjective experience. We could go through a million examples, including > brain damage, drugs, brain tumors, Alzheimers, genetic defects. Should we > just throw all those explanatory mechanisms away? > > >> On Tuesday, 23 April 2019 22:19:32 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote: >>> >>> >>> Some people who were born deaf have been given cochlear implants, which >>> give them the ability to hear for the first time >>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ6vSn7PaPI>. For them, this is new >>> qualia they've never experienced. But it's only possible because of a >>> technical device interfacing with their living nervous system. >>> >>> How does your theory account for this, when brains, and cochlear >>> implants, don't really exist? When qualia cannot be understood in terms of >>> neurology? When purely technical devices don't contain that special >>> something that only conscious beings have? >>> >>> What can you say about "systems of consciousnesses" that would help >>> explain how a given person could suddenly be gifted with entirely new >>> qualia? What would prevent us from gaining access to all sorts of new >>> qualia, by inventing neural prosthetics for detecting infrared light, >>> ultrasonic frequencies, the earth's magnetosphere, and so on? >>> >>> Terren >>> >>> -- >> 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 [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > -- 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 [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
