5 ms·
The easiest way I see to parse this is by doing a thought experiment: what if the human brain was indeed a hardware/software device, how would this work? Eg, c
by dale_glass 4y ago
The easiest way I see to parse this is by doing a thought experiment: what if the human brain was indeed a hardware/software device, how would this work?
Eg, can you take a webcam image analysis software and teach it that apples are red without ever showing it something red through the camera?
I'd say the answer is obviously dependent on the design.
Yes if you have enough control over the software. You can introduce the shape of an apple into its dataset, and tell it that an apple shape is such and that it rates highly on the R channel. Then the program will upon seeing an apple for the first time say "Yup, this is indeed a red apple" and be entirely "unsurprised".
No if the system is isolated enough. Eg, if the recognition system is locked in a black box and your only controls are a query of "what is this?" and a command of "remember that the thing you're looking at now is X", then you don't have the access to introduce the information above by any other means than presenting an object to the camera.
Both systems are still 100% physical though.
The question is what humans are most similar to and I think the second option is most likely. Think of that for instance I can't mentally measure my blood pressure, or heart beat, or make myself vomit. There are some things my body does that are outside of my direct control. Given that, there's no reason to assume then that by just reading or listening to information that I would necessarily have any pathway from there to the depths of my visual system.
- simonh 4y agoRight. The thing is there are multiple different ways to represent a piece of information like 'red' that each have different advantages and disadvantages. Pixel data in an image file, weightings in a neural net, a flag in a database and many many variations on each of these. An image classifying neural net doesn't just store 'red apple' as a colour value like an image file, but as relationships between all sorts of other aspects of images it has been trained on. It probably doesn't even store 'red' distinctly at all, the weightings that represent red in the classification of a red car may well be completely different from the weightings that identify red in images of apples. Likewise with human brains. So when Mary sees a red apple, that will evoke different responses than she would have to a red square or a red car. It's the relationships between attributes that matter at least as much, if not vastly more than the attribute itself in isolation.
- BoardsOfCanada 4y agoMy understanding of the thought experiment is that it is not about being able to detect red, but about experiencing the feeling that it is to see red. So in a hardware/software device, could we make the hardware experience seeing red the way you or I experience the color red. My strong intuitive hunch is that we'll never build something electronic that can experience things (that it feels like something to be that device). Compare this to how our immune systems works, it reacts on inputs and does very complex things but without experience. There could be beings or machines that could have this exact discussion like that, learning things, agreeing, disagreeing but without experiencing anything.
- Isinlor 4y agoI'm quite sure that my immune system provides me with experiences. For example, I certainly can feel swollen lymph nodes. My memory of swollen lymph nodes is about as vivid or detailed as that of headache.
- naasking 4y ago> My strong intuitive hunch is that we'll never build something electronic that can experience things (that it feels like something to be that device). The Bekenstein Bound tells that us that any finite volume has finite information. That means our brain is describable by finite information, including our feelings. So why can't that information be translated into an electronic form? The only way out of this conclusion is to assert that "experience" cannot be captured by physics. Is that your position?
- BoardsOfCanada 4y agoYes. I used to be a hardcore materialist, I studied applied physics at university as a young know-it-all, and never reflected on how absolutely weird "experience"/quale is until years later and changed my mind. But if anyone can explain how to get from matter to experience I would be relieved :) What do you think?
- naasking 4y ago
- kordlessagain 4y agoOnly some apples are red. And, most apples don't even look like apples. Every apple you've ever eaten has its origins from a single tree, found by chance in the past by people who are now wealthy from selling delicious apples plucked from a forest of clones. Most people (I've asked) will visualize a red apple if you ask them to visualize an apple. Additionally, some people don't visualize apples. They may, for example, only visualize people. Finally, some people don't visualize anything. Some of those people still know what an apple looks like, even if it's the size of a grape, purple when ripe, and has never been seen before.
- Quekid5 4y ago> Most people (I've asked) will visualize a red apple if you ask them to visualize an apple. That's fun! To me apples are green by default. How many people have you asked? (Just curious)
- kordlessagain 4y agoI've asked at least a hundred people. Sometimes they are reported as green!
- pixl97 4y agoI think for a lot of people, at least in the US, the idea of an apple being red is presented by cartoons, for example Snow White. That along with the tyranny of the Red Delicious being foist on kids that didn't know any better. If you said imagine a good tasting apple I would envision something colored like a honeycrisp. Or an apple pie apple being green.