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Understanding is different from experiencing. This is where I side with Chalmers and not Dennett. I accept that the system would have some understanding of

Understanding is different from experiencing. This is where I side with Chalmers and not Dennett. I accept that the system would have some understanding of colours (as would the person in the room - notably, Knut Nordby had a far better understanding of colour vision than most people despite only seeing in monochrome). But I am skeptical that the system experiences colours. Someone with normal colour vision is able to experience colours because they have cones on their retina which is somehow linked to their consciousness (probably by means of neurons further into their brains). Achromatopes, including the person inside the room, don't. They experience only different shades of grey. But they are able to tell what the colours are, by means of a set of three differently coloured filters. Do you mean that the filters experience colours as qualia but are unable to pass on this experience to the achromatope, or do you mean that the system must experience qualia simply because it behaves (to an outside observer) as if it sees in colour? I suppose it boils down to this: is the experience of colour additional information to the knowledge of colour?

int_19h 5y ago
The experience of color is ultimately a bunch of neurons firing in a certain way. The neurons themselves don't experience anything - the entire assembly does, as a whole. From that perspective, it's not clear why the Chinese room can't experience colors, even if individual people-"neurons" only transmit the underlying signals like RGB measurements.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
The cones in your eye are essentially the same as the color filters, they respond to certain wavelengths and not others. It is the neurons in our brains that interpret what those signals mean, as the person in the room does. It is doubtful that any single neuron has an experience of color as we would, and neither would the cone, but in aggregate the system does. There is no component that you can point to and say "that's the part that experiences the color", the same way as you can't for the room. It is only our intuition that 'inanimate objects' aren't conscious (and that people are!) that makes your's and Searle's arguments appear reasonable.
- DonaldFisk 5y ago
  This is just the system argument, which I accept works well for understanding, but I'm unconvinced it works for qualia. Here's another thought experiment: Replace the coloured filters with a system consisting of a camera connected to a computer which prints out the colour, which is then read by the achromatope. Here I assume you'd argue that the camera + computer doesn't experience colours, but the system (camera + computer + achromatope) does. Now, replace the camera + computer by a person who can actually see colours, who tells the achromatope which colours they see. In that case, the person who can see colours experiences the colours, and there's no need to invoke the system argument.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    This is a compelling argument, but it does make the assumption that the experiential system need necessarily wholly contain the experience of the component parts, rather than merely overlap with it. Yes, the color-sighted person can experience colors on their own, but their ability to see color is what is part of the experiential system the same way the computer's ability to see color was.
Smaug123 5y ago
The experience of colour is a fact about the brain, yes, which is additional to the knowledge of colour. A very simple system - a camera - can have knowledge of colour without the experience of colour. We say that something "knows" it is seeing the colour red if we can identify a part of the abstract world-model that is instantiated in that thing, such that the part is activated (for whatever "activated" means of that world-model's structure) iff the input to the world-model is red. I say that something "experiences" the colour red if additionally that world-model has a structure similar enough to my own that the "activated" part of the model has a direct analog in my own mind; and something "experiences" to a greater or lesser degree depending on how close the analogy is. Of course I don't know whether anyone else "experiences" the colour red ("is my red the same as your red?"), but from the way people behave (and from knowledge of science) I have lots of evidence to suggest that their world-models are similar to mine, so I'm generally happy to say they're experiencing things; it's the most parsimonious explanation for their behaviour. Similarly, dogs are enough like me in various physical characteristics and in the way they behave that I'm usually happy to describe dogs as "experiencing" things too. But I would certainly avoid using the word "experience" to describe how an alien thinks, because the word "experience" is dangerously loaded towards human experience and it may lead me to extrapolate things about the alien's world-model that are not true. Mary of Mary's Room therefore does gain a new experience on seeing red for the first time, because I believe there are hardcoded bits of the brain that are devoted specifically to producing the "red" effect in human-like world-models. She gains no new knowledge, but her world-model is activated in a new way, so she discovers a new representation of the existing knowledge she already had. The word "experience" is referring to a specific representation of a piece of knowledge.
- pests 5y ago
  I believe she does too. Change the set up slightly. Bring color to her world. Don't show her red - ask her to identify red. If she can, I'll admit I'm wrong.
  - Smaug123 5y ago
    Well, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molyneux%27s_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molyneux%27s_problem has been experimentally tested and it turns out that congenitally blind people, who are then granted sight, cannot automatically identify texture by sight alone; they have to learn to do so. So I would expect Mary to be unable to pass your test straight away, but I expect that she'll be able to learn do it with practice (because all the hardware is still there in her body, it just needs to be trained). And of course she'll be able to do it straight away given access to appropriate scientific instruments like a spectrometer; and she might be able to do it slowly and inaccurately without such instruments using her knowledge, in much the same way that I can multiply two three-digit numbers slowly and inaccurately. Adding new primitives to your mental model of a thing is useless unless they're actually integrated with the rest of the model! Gaining access to "colour" primitives doesn't help you if the rest of your mental model was trained without access to them; you'll need some more training to integrate them.

int_19h 5y ago

The experience of color is ultimately a bunch of neurons firing in a certain way. The neurons themselves don't experience anything - the entire assembly does, as a whole. From that perspective, it's not clear why the Chinese room can't experience colors, even if individual people-"neurons" only transmit the underlying signals like RGB measurements.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

The cones in your eye are essentially the same as the color filters, they respond to certain wavelengths and not others. It is the neurons in our brains that interpret what those signals mean, as the person in the room does. It is doubtful that any single neuron has an experience of color as we would, and neither would the cone, but in aggregate the system does. There is no component that you can point to and say "that's the part that experiences the color", the same way as you can't for the room. It is only our intuition that 'inanimate objects' aren't conscious (and that people are!) that makes your's and Searle's arguments appear reasonable.

DonaldFisk 5y ago
This is just the system argument, which I accept works well for understanding, but I'm unconvinced it works for qualia. Here's another thought experiment: Replace the coloured filters with a system consisting of a camera connected to a computer which prints out the colour, which is then read by the achromatope. Here I assume you'd argue that the camera + computer doesn't experience colours, but the system (camera + computer + achromatope) does. Now, replace the camera + computer by a person who can actually see colours, who tells the achromatope which colours they see. In that case, the person who can see colours experiences the colours, and there's no need to invoke the system argument.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  This is a compelling argument, but it does make the assumption that the experiential system need necessarily wholly contain the experience of the component parts, rather than merely overlap with it. Yes, the color-sighted person can experience colors on their own, but their ability to see color is what is part of the experiential system the same way the computer's ability to see color was.

Smaug123 5y ago

The experience of colour is a fact about the brain, yes, which is additional to the knowledge of colour. A very simple system - a camera - can have knowledge of colour without the experience of colour. We say that something "knows" it is seeing the colour red if we can identify a part of the abstract world-model that is instantiated in that thing, such that the part is activated (for whatever "activated" means of that world-model's structure) iff the input to the world-model is red. I say that something "experiences" the colour red if additionally that world-model has a structure similar enough to my own that the "activated" part of the model has a direct analog in my own mind; and something "experiences" to a greater or lesser degree depending on how close the analogy is. Of course I don't know whether anyone else "experiences" the colour red ("is my red the same as your red?"), but from the way people behave (and from knowledge of science) I have lots of evidence to suggest that their world-models are similar to mine, so I'm generally happy to say they're experiencing things; it's the most parsimonious explanation for their behaviour. Similarly, dogs are enough like me in various physical characteristics and in the way they behave that I'm usually happy to describe dogs as "experiencing" things too. But I would certainly avoid using the word "experience" to describe how an alien thinks, because the word "experience" is dangerously loaded towards human experience and it may lead me to extrapolate things about the alien's world-model that are not true. Mary of Mary's Room therefore does gain a new experience on seeing red for the first time, because I believe there are hardcoded bits of the brain that are devoted specifically to producing the "red" effect in human-like world-models. She gains no new knowledge, but her world-model is activated in a new way, so she discovers a new representation of the existing knowledge she already had. The word "experience" is referring to a specific representation of a piece of knowledge.

pests 5y ago
I believe she does too. Change the set up slightly. Bring color to her world. Don't show her red - ask her to identify red. If she can, I'll admit I'm wrong.
- Smaug123 5y ago
  Well, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molyneux%27s_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molyneux%27s_problem has been experimentally tested and it turns out that congenitally blind people, who are then granted sight, cannot automatically identify texture by sight alone; they have to learn to do so. So I would expect Mary to be unable to pass your test straight away, but I expect that she'll be able to learn do it with practice (because all the hardware is still there in her body, it just needs to be trained). And of course she'll be able to do it straight away given access to appropriate scientific instruments like a spectrometer; and she might be able to do it slowly and inaccurately without such instruments using her knowledge, in much the same way that I can multiply two three-digit numbers slowly and inaccurately. Adding new primitives to your mental model of a thing is useless unless they're actually integrated with the rest of the model! Gaining access to "colour" primitives doesn't help you if the rest of your mental model was trained without access to them; you'll need some more training to integrate them.