On Friday, 26 April 2019 17:27:48 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote: > > > > On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 10:08 AM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List < > [email protected] <javascript:>> wrote: > >> >> >> On Friday, 26 April 2019 16:14:07 UTC+3, Terren Suydam wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> You really can't see the difference between the way a cochlear implant >>> creates new qualia, versus riding a bike? If you want to be taken >>> seriously you'll have to do better than that. >>> >> >> What is the difference ? >> > > One introduces a new sense, and the other introduces new experience in > terms of senses one already has. If it's too difficult to understand that > difference, we can talk about creating a brand new sense to detect, say, > the earth's magnetic field, and using a neural implant to feed data about > the magnetic field into the brain. I wanted to stick though to something > that has already been achieved, and there is no difference in principle > between the deaf person with a cochlear implant, and any human getting a > technology-mediated sense of the earth's magnetic field. > > The original question was asking for an explanation of how this new kind > of sense qualia could arise when it's mediated by a technological device. > I expect this to be a problem for you, because of your insistence that such > devices don't exist, and your lack of ability to account for the > correspondence between brain states and qualia. >
I don't think there is any fundamental difference between a new sense and experiences in terms of senses one already has. They are both manifestations of emergence. For example, the auditory domain is not exactly "a new sense". Is just a set of qualia that emerge upon the quale of time. And then it keeps branching: from sounds in one direction you get language, in another direction you get music, etc. So it is itself a "new experience in terms of senses one already has - the sense of time". So the problem is not particular about how a certain "sense" appears, but is the general problem of how qualia appear. Now, regarding how qualia appear, the straight answer is that I don't know. And nobody knows. Nevertheless, I can give some guiding clues. For example, what we call "senses" and their basic qualia appear to be sets of qualia that serve evolutionary purposes. As I also mentioned in another post, red and green appeared to see fruits in trees, yellow and blue appeared to see the sun in the sky. We can imagine something like this: an animal was seeing only shades-of-gray and he was starving. The fruits were right in front of him, but because he didn't have the qualia of red and green, he couldn't see them. So he was one step from dying. And then all of a sudden red and green appeared in his consciousness and he survived. You can take some quantum-suicide view on this: you always continue in the universe in which you remain alive. So this might be a tentative explanation. But of course it is not the full story since in everyday life we keep getting new qualia without our lfie being in danger. So a more general principle must be sought. Of course, that principle will only show us the conditions under which qualia appear, but it will not be able to tell us what those qualia will be. All we will ever be able to do is to subject ourselves to those conditions and see what qualia appear in our consciousness. Regarding your specific example with the implant that appear to be in direct connection with generating auditory qualia, this is not so. The conditions for auditory qualia are already present in the "brain", so that implant will just activate those conditions. But since in the "brain" most probably there are no conditions to sense the magnetic field of the Earth, you will not be able to apply the same strategy. This is not to say that it is impossible for us to sense the magnetic field. It might be possible, but you will have to satisfy some more fundamental conditions. > > >> >>> >>>> You have a system of interacting consciousnesses from which certain >>>> interactions are missing. >>>> >>> >>> That doesn't explain anything. >>> >> >> It depends to what level you want the explanation to be taken. For the >> level at which you asked the question, that is the answer. If you ask the >> question at a more deeper level, like how exactly the difference in light >> sensitive cells in the eyes ultimately determine the experienced qualia, >> then I don't know. And nobody does. >> > > Do you know what I'm asking for when I ask for an explanation? I'm asking > how it works. How to the consciousnesses interact? And how does that > interaction create the situation where you can see the full spectrum of > visible color, but I cannot? > > If you don't know, then you have given me no reason at all to take your > ideas seriously. You're just doing a bunch of hand-waving. Not only that, > you're telling everyone else they're wrong if they don't agree with you. > It's a crude strategy, but it's worked miracles for religious evangelists > over the millenia. I don't think it'll work here though. > > See above. Also, not having an explanation doesn't mean that anything goes, like AIs. Some things are clearly fantasies. > >>> >>> If you're equating science done in dreams and science done in reality, >>> you're a solipsist. >>> >>> No. Because I allow for other consciousnesses to exist. >> > > Do you know for sure they do? Or do you just allow for the possibility? > > I have 3 ideas that I take for granted in my thinking, because I don't think there is any way to prove them true: 1) Other consciousnesses exist. 2) Memories are true. 3) Reason is true. If you don't take these 3 things for granted, there is nothing much left to do except indulging in hedonism. -- 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.
