On Thursday, May 16, 2019 at 5:14:46 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote: > > > On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 1:48 PM Philip Thrift <[email protected] > <javascript:>> wrote: > > *> Information processing absent actual first-class entities of qualia (or >> experiences) can only produce zombies. One needs information processing >> operating in a material substrate where those entities are available to be >> combined and manipulated.* > > > So something can behave intelligently but if it is lacking "f*irst-class > entities of qualia*" it can only be a intelligent zombie. But "*first-class > qualia*" sounds like consciousness to me, so you're basically saying > only conscious things can be conscious. A tautology has the virtue of always > being true but it involves a unnecessary non-required pointless > repetition and reiteration of words where you end up at the exact same > place you started with. And that is typical of all consciousness theories. > > John K Clark > > > > To be clearer: Qualia (the "ingredients" of consciousness) cannot be reduced to information processing. (That is what I mean by "first-class". If qualia could be reduced to information processing, then they would derivative from information, or "second-class".)
But what is information processing? I just mean it in its generally and conventional definition as a subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_processing cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information Now can qualia be reduced to information? That is the question of central concern: Information and the Origin of Qualia https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5399078/ This article argues that qualia are a likely outcome of the processing of information in local cortical networks. It uses an information-based approach and makes a distinction between information structures (the physical embodiment of information in the brain, primarily patterns of action potentials), and information messages (the meaning of those structures to the brain, and the basis of qualia). It develops formal relationships between these two kinds of information, showing how information structures can represent messages, and how information messages can be identified from structures. The article applies this perspective to basic processing in cortical networks or ensembles, showing how networks can transform between the two kinds of information. The article argues that an input pattern of firing is identified by a network as an information message, and that the output pattern of firing generated is a representation of that message. If a network is encouraged to develop an attractor state through attention or other re-entrant processes, then the message identified each time physical information is cycled through the network becomes “representation of the previous message”. Using an example of olfactory perception, it is shown how this piggy-backing of messages on top of previous messages could lead to olfactory qualia. The message identified on each pass of information could evolve from inner identity, to inner form, to inner likeness or image. The outcome is an olfactory quale. It is shown that the same outcome could result from information cycled through a hierarchy of networks in a resonant state. The argument for qualia generation is applied to other sensory modalities, showing how, through a process of brain-wide constraint satisfaction, a particular state of consciousness could develop at any given moment. Evidence for some of the key predictions of the theory is presented, using ECoG data and studies of gamma oscillations and attractors, together with an outline of what further evidence is needed to provide support for the theory. Now I would just way that the jury is out about qualia ⇨ information. If the above paper is right, then it's sort of settled, right? I still think the phenomenologists are right, that quaia is a different type of entity than information, or that that matter (in particular matter with consciousness/qualia) has both informationality and experientiality, that there is a calculus of experience that the brain is processing. But it isn't settled. @philipthrift -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/f0fb96ac-3475-48a7-a537-14ae162fe4af%40googlegroups.com.
