4 ms·

"Qualia" are really just a reframing of (an aspect of) consciousness, which has been speculated to be purely epiphenomenal. Maybe we're just along for the ride,

• ben_w 3y ago
  Qualia is how to discuss the problem of consciousness without a pointless discussion about if this is the opposite of unconscious, the opposite of subconscious, something that needs a soul, or any of the other things that go wrong if you don't taboo the "c" word. We don't know the answers (nor, I assert, the correct questions), though "what even is this?" and "what has it?" were already relevant to animal rights questions (qualia might have started with humans, but there's no reason to assume that) well before current AI, and even if we find a convenient proof that current AI definitely can't and that's fine… some of us want to advance the AI to at least as far as brain uploading where the qualia is the goal, though virtual hells like in the novel Surface Detail seem to me to be an extremely plausible dystopian outcome if uploads ever actually happen.