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In the correct physics engine, with the correct models of eyeballs etc., a connectome-based model may experience qualia. It would likely tell us that it experie

In the correct physics engine, with the correct models of eyeballs etc., a connectome-based model may experience qualia. It would likely tell us that it experienced qualia. The biggest difference would be that new connections wouldn’t be formed, so it wouldn’t learn.

coldtea 3y ago
>In the correct physics engine, with the correct models of eyeballs etc., a connectome-based model may experience qualia. It would likely tell us that it experienced qualia. Sure. It would say it touched water. It would just not actually be wet. Which is something...
- ChainOfFools 3y ago
  but the corresponding cluster of neurons in a brain isn't actually wetted by the touched water either.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    Yes, but it receives the input from an actual experience of the body it's embodied in - from an actual wet thing. As opposed to being served a simulation of the same. This simulated isolated "brain" is like a heart mechanically assisted to be pounding in a glass jar. Sure, it's still beating, but not as part of its place and environment, in a living being.
    - ChainOfFools 3y ago
      Where would you say experience ends, and qualia begins? The way these words are being used seems to make little distinction between them other than one referring to a specific instance of what the other refers to in generalized terms. As for myself I would argue that an experience, and therefore qualia, amount to an accumulated and generalized succession of multiple sensory inputs amalgamated by feedback and hysteresis over time, and informed by the gross structure and constraints of the sensory apparatus they are carried upon.
      - comfypotato 3y ago
        Not so different a question than asking where “synapses and neurotransmitters” end and the experience of consciousness begins.
- ben_w 3y ago
  When I dream of swimming, do I have the qualia of wetness at the time, or does that only happen when I wake and remember the dream? Any neuroscientists here: does anyone know that much about dreams? My memory of philosophy lessons was that philosophy doesn't keep up with the latest in real science…

coldtea 3y ago

>In the correct physics engine, with the correct models of eyeballs etc., a connectome-based model may experience qualia. It would likely tell us that it experienced qualia. Sure. It would say it touched water. It would just not actually be wet. Which is something...

ChainOfFools 3y ago
but the corresponding cluster of neurons in a brain isn't actually wetted by the touched water either.
- coldtea 3y ago
  Yes, but it receives the input from an actual experience of the body it's embodied in - from an actual wet thing. As opposed to being served a simulation of the same. This simulated isolated "brain" is like a heart mechanically assisted to be pounding in a glass jar. Sure, it's still beating, but not as part of its place and environment, in a living being.
  - ChainOfFools 3y ago
    Where would you say experience ends, and qualia begins? The way these words are being used seems to make little distinction between them other than one referring to a specific instance of what the other refers to in generalized terms. As for myself I would argue that an experience, and therefore qualia, amount to an accumulated and generalized succession of multiple sensory inputs amalgamated by feedback and hysteresis over time, and informed by the gross structure and constraints of the sensory apparatus they are carried upon.
    - comfypotato 3y ago
      Not so different a question than asking where “synapses and neurotransmitters” end and the experience of consciousness begins.
ben_w 3y ago
When I dream of swimming, do I have the qualia of wetness at the time, or does that only happen when I wake and remember the dream? Any neuroscientists here: does anyone know that much about dreams? My memory of philosophy lessons was that philosophy doesn't keep up with the latest in real science…