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I'm pretty sure we don't need to research that at all. You're conflating what a consciousness is capable of with what it's individual parts are capable of. Neu

I'm pretty sure we don't need to research that at all. You're conflating what a consciousness is capable of with what it's individual parts are capable of. Neurons don't sense qualia. Neural systems don't sense qualia. Conscious minds that have neural systems do sense qualia (we're assuming for the sake of argument that qualia exists). An individual electronic component is not itself a conscious mind. There is nothing about a circuit or a chip, or a motherboard on its own that can "feel" qualia because there is no sensory input. There is nothing that interacts with a circuit to tell it light in the purple wavelength has struck it. Further, there is nothing that reacts in any way to having been struck with purple light. We can see with an fMRI when a person experiences that. Parts of their brain light up in a complex dance of interaction. The laws of physics do not allow for emergence of consciousness from the electronics in your dishwasher or Mac Book. Your "in the space of all minds" sentence is also inherently meaningless. A mind that does not think thoughts is not a mind. Even if there were some mechanism that could experience "too much purple" without thought, it could not suffer. Awareness requires thought, and suffering requires awareness.

upwardbound 4y ago
I do think some of your points are good, but please do carefully look at which things you're taking for granted as axioms. E.g., you say you believe that sensory input is required for qualia, but does that mean that you think that the hypothetical "brain in a vat" would feel no qualia at all? That does not seem true to me. I think that brain would probably be very scared and would have dreams or hallucinations to make up for the lack of input. > The laws of physics do not allow for emergence of consciousness from My point is that we don't know this. The phenomenal binding problem is one of the great unsolved problems today. Without understanding something as relatively "simple" as a complete theory of quantum mechanics, I don't see how we could yet have a theory of phenomenal binding, which probably requires a complete theory of quantum physics before even beginning to start on the binding problem, if I would guess at the research timeline involved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_problem
- slowmovintarget 4y ago
  We need a theory of emergence to solve the binding problem, if it even is a problem. A complete theory of quantum gravity would likely still not tell us how consciousness works. So my point is, we do know this. We know exactly what is going on in an electric circuit, to the extent that we can rule out entirely that it is suffering. A brain in a vat that had always only been in a vat would feel no qualia. Real brains are fed a constant stream of sensation even before birth. I think a brain in a vat would simply die without stimulus.

upwardbound 4y ago

I do think some of your points are good, but please do carefully look at which things you're taking for granted as axioms. E.g., you say you believe that sensory input is required for qualia, but does that mean that you think that the hypothetical "brain in a vat" would feel no qualia at all? That does not seem true to me. I think that brain would probably be very scared and would have dreams or hallucinations to make up for the lack of input. > The laws of physics do not allow for emergence of consciousness from My point is that we don't know this. The phenomenal binding problem is one of the great unsolved problems today. Without understanding something as relatively "simple" as a complete theory of quantum mechanics, I don't see how we could yet have a theory of phenomenal binding, which probably requires a complete theory of quantum physics before even beginning to start on the binding problem, if I would guess at the research timeline involved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_problem

slowmovintarget 4y ago
We need a theory of emergence to solve the binding problem, if it even is a problem. A complete theory of quantum gravity would likely still not tell us how consciousness works. So my point is, we do know this. We know exactly what is going on in an electric circuit, to the extent that we can rule out entirely that it is suffering. A brain in a vat that had always only been in a vat would feel no qualia. Real brains are fed a constant stream of sensation even before birth. I think a brain in a vat would simply die without stimulus.