• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

I challenge you: your best argument for materialism

Can anyone give me a layman's definition of "qualia" that amounts to more then "Our sense with some Woo added to them?"
 
PixyMisa said:
True. But a general-purpose physical computer can pretend to be infinite until it actually runs out of storage, remapping addresses (or their equivalent) to the available capacity.
Click to expand...


Also, the "infinite" tape (memory) of the true mathematical Turing machine is only to assure that sufficient tape for any particular computation is available. (Calling the tape length "unbounded" more accurately captures this nuance than "infinite.") No valid (halting) Turing computation can actually use an infinite amount of tape, even though using vast lengths of tape (and vast numbers of steps) to perform even conceptually simple computations is expected.
 
JoeBentley said:
Can anyone give me a layman's definition of "qualia" that amounts to more then "Our sense with some Woo added to them?"
Click to expand...

Yes, it is simply our direct sense experience, which is not accessible to anyone else. It is not a "woo" concept.

One way of demonstrating it is the idea of trying to explain to a person who was born blind what the colour red is like. Even if you could explain all the physical properties of the colour red, they would not be able to know what it is like.

That's the argument anyway. Do you see any "woo" there?
 
angrysoba said:
Yes, it is simply our direct sense experience, which is not accessible to anyone else. It is not a "woo" concept.

One way of demonstrating it is the idea of trying to explain to a person who was born blind what the colour red is like. Even if you could explain all the physical properties of the colour red, they would not be able to know what it is like.

That's the argument anyway. Do you see any "woo" there?
Click to expand...

Yes, I do. If it's not accessible to anyone else, then it doesn't exist.
 
Belz... said:
Yeah but that's not what Pixy said. He said Turing Equivalent.
Click to expand...
No, he's right. In mathematics, a Turing-equivalent device has infinite storage. You can't, strictly speaking, construct a Universal Turing Machine, but it's easy to create something that pretends to be one, and that will work until it encounters a calculation actually requiring infinite storage.
 
Belz... said:
Yes, I do. If it's not accessible to anyone else, then it doesn't exist.
Click to expand...

What?! So, if I am drinking a can of beer in the sunshine then the taste of beer on my mouth and the sun on my skin that I am experiencing are experiences that do not exist?

That's bizarre!
 
Myriad said:
Also, the "infinite" tape (memory) of the true mathematical Turing machine is only to assure that sufficient tape for any particular computation is available. (Calling the tape length "unbounded" more accurately captures this nuance than "infinite.") No valid (halting) Turing computation can actually use an infinite amount of tape, even though using vast lengths of tape (and vast numbers of steps) to perform even conceptually simple computations is expected.
Click to expand...
Yes. :)
 
angrysoba said:
Yes, it is simply our direct sense experience, which is not accessible to anyone else. It is not a "woo" concept.

One way of demonstrating it is the idea of trying to explain to a person who was born blind what the colour red is like. Even if you could explain all the physical properties of the colour red, they would not be able to know what it is like.

That's the argument anyway. Do you see any "woo" there?
Click to expand...

Clearly one who lacks the ability to see does not know what red is since seeing red is a subset of seeing in general but why their inability to see red means that anothers' ability to see red is qualia is a bit obscure.
 
angrysoba said:
What?! So, if I am drinking a can of beer in the sunshine then the taste of beer on my mouth and the sun on my skin that I am experiencing are experiences that do not exist?

That's bizarre!
Click to expand...
Well, (a) I can taste beer, (b) I can ask you what it tastes like, and (c) I can examine the beer and your tasting processes (down to a subatomic scale if need be) to work out what's going on in there.

Your subjective sense of taste is accessible. The woo is not in believing that such a thing exists, it's in thinking that it's private.

Edit: I should add, in principle. In practice, to truly understand what it is like for you to taste beer, I would need to encompass a detailed model of your brain within my own, and that's not possible; to completely model a given computer you always need a bigger computer, and given the architecture of the brain, you need a much bigger computer.
 
Last edited:
tsig said:
Just because there is a physical pathway of manifestation does not negate the possibility of an underlying _________.

Fill in the blank fellow posters.

god

event horizon of the formless

or whatever delusion makes you feel all warm and cuddly.
Click to expand...

This seems to be the Modus Operandi here, the good ole' Woopendix.

Add made up, vague tacked on trait to already explained phenomon, then claim Woo is necessary to explain the tacked on trait you added.

Bob: "But you can't explain our sense Ted! I mean explain the color red!"
Ted: "A frequency range of 640 - 720 nanometers hitting the rods and cones at the back of the eye. Easy."
Bob: "But you can't describe the experience of red! You can't describe it's qualia!!!"
 
JoeBentley said:
This seems to be the Modus Operandi here, the good ole' Woopendix.

Add made up, vague tacked on trait to already explained phenomon, then claim Woo is necessary to explain the tacked on trait you added.

Bob: "But you can't explain our sense Ted! I mean explain the color red!"
Ted: "A frequency range of 640 - 720 nanometers hitting the rods and cones at the back of the eye. Easy."
Bob: "But you can't describe the experience of red! You can't describe it's qualia!!!"
Click to expand...

The argument isn't whether or not Ted can explain it, the argument is whether that explanation suffices and on what grounds we will accept it as being true.

"It works," by the way, is insufficient grounds, however much it is a good place to start.
 
PixyMisa said:
No, he's right. In mathematics, a Turing-equivalent device has infinite storage. You can't, strictly speaking, construct a Universal Turing Machine, but it's easy to create something that pretends to be one, and that will work until it encounters a calculation actually requiring infinite storage.
Click to expand...

...which is like saying you have a Turing complete machine.
 
angrysoba said:
What?! So, if I am drinking a can of beer in the sunshine then the taste of beer on my mouth and the sun on my skin that I am experiencing are experiences that do not exist?

That's bizarre!
Click to expand...

No it isn't. I can plug you into a machine and detect the entire process of you tasting beer or feeling the sun.

If somehow those experiences cannot be detected, then they do not exist, and you don't actually have them, either.
 
JoeBentley said:
Can anyone give me a layman's definition of "qualia" that amounts to more then "Our sense with some Woo added to them?"
Click to expand...

The expression of sensation. Often romanticized as "the redness of red". The idea of qualia is that the transduction of a photon's reaction on opsin molecules being interpreted as "red" is NOT the actual photon being interpreted. It's the gestalt interpretation of that signal.

In other words, qualia is the gestalt sensation of awareness.
 
Belz... said:
No it isn't. I can plug you into a machine and detect the entire process of you tasting beer or feeling the sun.

If somehow those experiences cannot be detected, then they do not exist, and you don't actually have them, either.
Click to expand...

Would a better way to say that be "if those experiences do not have information" then they do not exist? I say that because the idea of detection can be difficult to wrap your head around in theory and in practice.

There can be information variance that cannot be detected because your measurement device cannot identify the fidelity, or it can sense antithetical observations and produce a null output.
 
Belz... said:
No it isn't. I can plug you into a machine and detect the entire process of you tasting beer or feeling the sun.
Click to expand...

I don't think a lot of people get that the functioning of the human brain isn't this huge mystery anymore.
 
Lowpro said:
Would a better way to say that be "if those experiences do not have information" then they do not exist? I say that because the idea of detection can be difficult to wrap your head around in theory and in practice.
Click to expand...

Not really. "Detection" and "interaction" are one and the same. If information cannot be detected then for all practical purposes it does not exist.
 
there's much 'woo' going on here - to declare that consciousness and subjective experience is a product of a brute machine, a Turing equivalent computer - I'm not suggesting this is a right or wrong notion, but there's a boxcar load of 'woo' here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom