4 ms·

Maybe the people who talks about qualia means that the subject has some characteristic which is not objective or measurable. When we talk about subject as oppos

by sdfin 7y ago

Maybe the people who talks about qualia means that the subject has some characteristic which is not objective or measurable. When we talk about subject as opposed object, what do we mean? Would you say that the concept of 'subjectivity' may be also a meaningless phrase?

danbruc 7y ago
Would you say that the concept of 'subjectivity' may be also a meaningless phrase? No, ad hoc and without having thought too much about it, I would say subjectivity is a form of relativity. The temperature on a sunny day being 25 °C is an objective fact, depending on where you usually live that might be a subjectively cold or subjectively hot day to you. Maybe the people who talks about qualia means that the subject has some characteristic which is not objective or measurable. If you cut your finger, you will detect that, you will see the wound and nerves in your skin will sense the wound in it. That are objective things. There will also be objective reactions, blood clotting and other low-level biological reactions starting, you might take actions like looking for a plaster or saying that this hurts. Up to this point, I would argue, most people would agree that a sophisticated robot could behave identical to you. But then you might claim that there is a qualia to this event of cutting your finger, it is painful for you. You feel pain and this is more than you simply detecting the wound and saying it hurts. And we all know what this is supposed to mean, we all know what pain feels like. But now try to nail this down, what is that you claim to have or experience? What is it, that a robot is missing when its cameras see a cut in its skin and some kind of sensors in the skin signal damage, flipping some damage bit in turn starting repair processes and maybe even saying »I cut my finger, it hurts!« What do we have to add to make the robot feel pain? For a long time I was convinced that the robot is missing something, I just could not say what exactly it is. Now I am pretty seriously considering that nothing is missing, that me feeling pain is not much more than flipping the pain and the set of reaction triggered or influenced by that.
- sdfin 7y ago
  What is it, that a robot is missing... When we see, the eye picks signals, when we touch something some cells pick the signals that inform about pressure or temperature. These signals are sent to the brain. They may be coded in binary form. The brain gets the signals and processes them and produces some reaction. Up to this point we are dealing with signals, and the signals apparently would be enough to transmit the information which would be processed, and the reaction would also consist of signals, which may be binary-like. But why, if signals are enough, we "see" an image, we feel the temperature? I mean, there's something else apart from the binary signals. How do the signals become the experienced perceptions?
  - danbruc 7y ago
    But why, if signals are enough, we "see" an image, we feel the temperature? I mean, there's something else apart from the binary signals. How do the signals become the experienced perceptions? That is the million dollar question. I have never been a camera attached to a computer running some object recognition software, but I am willing to at least consider the possibility that having an array of pixels and a list of regions with labels for the objects in memory is the same thing as me »seeing« a scene. I mean, what does it really mean that I »see« a tree? I am aware that light with some specific frequencies - mostly shades of green and maybe brownish bark - is coming from some direction in some specific pattern of a trunk and branches and leaves and I associate labels with the whole thing and parts of it. Maybe let's add that I reconstruct a kind of 3D model of the tree. What more does it mean to »see« a tree?
    - sdfin 7y ago
      I may have a bmp file of a tree with bytes encoding the different colors of each pixel of the image, and then run some machine learning algorithm to process the image and generate a file that defines regions of the bmp and labels each region. I find it difficult to consider that my experience of seeing is similar to having those two files. I'm more likely to believe that there's an unexplained gap between the signals and the subjective experience. I may be wrong, I don't know.
      - danbruc 7y ago
        I find it difficult to consider that my experience of seeing is similar to having those two files. Had we discussed this just four weeks ago, I would have totally agreed with you. And to some extend I still find it hard to believe myself. I'm more likely to believe that there's an unexplained gap between the signals and the subjective experience. Now try to tell me more about this gap. What is part of this gap? And what is the evidence for that or the existence of this gap in general? And try hard to avoid using any word with fuzzy or ambiguous meaning like experience or
      - danbruc 7y ago
        I find it difficult to consider that my experience of seeing is similar to having those two files. Had we discussed this just four weeks ago, I would have totally agreed with you. And to some extend I still find it hard to believe myself. I'm more likely to believe that there's an unexplained gap between the signals and the subjective experience. Now try to tell me more about this gap. What is part of this gap? And what is the evidence for that or the existence of this gap in general? And try to avoid using any word with fuzzy or ambiguous meaning like experience or qualia and don't appeal to the fact that I am also a human and therefore know what you mean. My own failure to come up with anything I can say about this gap and my failure to find any evidence for the existence of this gap is what made me consider the possibility that the gap does not exist, that it is an illusion my brain tricks me into believing in.

by sdfin 7y ago

danbruc 7y ago

Would you say that the concept of 'subjectivity' may be also a meaningless phrase? No, ad hoc and without having thought too much about it, I would say subjectivity is a form of relativity. The temperature on a sunny day being 25 °C is an objective fact, depending on where you usually live that might be a subjectively cold or subjectively hot day to you. Maybe the people who talks about qualia means that the subject has some characteristic which is not objective or measurable. If you cut your finger, you will detect that, you will see the wound and nerves in your skin will sense the wound in it. That are objective things. There will also be objective reactions, blood clotting and other low-level biological reactions starting, you might take actions like looking for a plaster or saying that this hurts. Up to this point, I would argue, most people would agree that a sophisticated robot could behave identical to you. But then you might claim that there is a qualia to this event of cutting your finger, it is painful for you. You feel pain and this is more than you simply detecting the wound and saying it hurts. And we all know what this is supposed to mean, we all know what pain feels like. But now try to nail this down, what is that you claim to have or experience? What is it, that a robot is missing when its cameras see a cut in its skin and some kind of sensors in the skin signal damage, flipping some damage bit in turn starting repair processes and maybe even saying »I cut my finger, it hurts!« What do we have to add to make the robot feel pain? For a long time I was convinced that the robot is missing something, I just could not say what exactly it is. Now I am pretty seriously considering that nothing is missing, that me feeling pain is not much more than flipping the pain and the set of reaction triggered or influenced by that.

sdfin 7y ago
What is it, that a robot is missing... When we see, the eye picks signals, when we touch something some cells pick the signals that inform about pressure or temperature. These signals are sent to the brain. They may be coded in binary form. The brain gets the signals and processes them and produces some reaction. Up to this point we are dealing with signals, and the signals apparently would be enough to transmit the information which would be processed, and the reaction would also consist of signals, which may be binary-like. But why, if signals are enough, we "see" an image, we feel the temperature? I mean, there's something else apart from the binary signals. How do the signals become the experienced perceptions?
- danbruc 7y ago
  But why, if signals are enough, we "see" an image, we feel the temperature? I mean, there's something else apart from the binary signals. How do the signals become the experienced perceptions? That is the million dollar question. I have never been a camera attached to a computer running some object recognition software, but I am willing to at least consider the possibility that having an array of pixels and a list of regions with labels for the objects in memory is the same thing as me »seeing« a scene. I mean, what does it really mean that I »see« a tree? I am aware that light with some specific frequencies - mostly shades of green and maybe brownish bark - is coming from some direction in some specific pattern of a trunk and branches and leaves and I associate labels with the whole thing and parts of it. Maybe let's add that I reconstruct a kind of 3D model of the tree. What more does it mean to »see« a tree?
  - sdfin 7y ago
    I may have a bmp file of a tree with bytes encoding the different colors of each pixel of the image, and then run some machine learning algorithm to process the image and generate a file that defines regions of the bmp and labels each region. I find it difficult to consider that my experience of seeing is similar to having those two files. I'm more likely to believe that there's an unexplained gap between the signals and the subjective experience. I may be wrong, I don't know.
    - danbruc 7y ago
      I find it difficult to consider that my experience of seeing is similar to having those two files. Had we discussed this just four weeks ago, I would have totally agreed with you. And to some extend I still find it hard to believe myself. I'm more likely to believe that there's an unexplained gap between the signals and the subjective experience. Now try to tell me more about this gap. What is part of this gap? And what is the evidence for that or the existence of this gap in general? And try hard to avoid using any word with fuzzy or ambiguous meaning like experience or
    - danbruc 7y ago
      I find it difficult to consider that my experience of seeing is similar to having those two files. Had we discussed this just four weeks ago, I would have totally agreed with you. And to some extend I still find it hard to believe myself. I'm more likely to believe that there's an unexplained gap between the signals and the subjective experience. Now try to tell me more about this gap. What is part of this gap? And what is the evidence for that or the existence of this gap in general? And try to avoid using any word with fuzzy or ambiguous meaning like experience or qualia and don't appeal to the fact that I am also a human and therefore know what you mean. My own failure to come up with anything I can say about this gap and my failure to find any evidence for the existence of this gap is what made me consider the possibility that the gap does not exist, that it is an illusion my brain tricks me into believing in.