The Hard Problem of Gravity

[westprog]

You clearly have no idea what's being discussed, here.

What is the point of writing things like that? What does it add to the discussion? That's why I don't bother reading Pixy most of the time. When an argument consists of saying "you're wrong" over and over how does that help an interested third party to come to a conclusion?

If Rocketdodger has a point about the crystalline structure of a snowflake being a physical property absent from a drop of water, then he should develop the idea and explain it, and keep explaining until it's obvious. Treating it like a puzzle for which clues need to be doled out helps nobody.

 

[rocketdodger]

You clearly have no idea what's being discussed, here.

Actually, I think westprog knows exactly what is being discussed, and he knows that he is simply wrong, so he is pretending to be ignorant about things even most children understand.

If you look at this entire thread, his responses have gotten sparser and more selective as he digs his hole deeper and deeper. It would seem he is aware of the fact that his arguments just don't hold up to intelligent scrutiny and as a result he is playing dumb.

 

[AkuManiMani]

What if stars are composed of chicken ?

You're defining qualia as composing conscious perceptions but this is just like ether and the phlogiston. You need to first show that there is such a thing as a qualia.

Actually, chickens are composed of star byproducts. Their material components no longer participate in the process of being a star and stars do not directly participate in the process we call chicken. Therefore, chickens are not stellar, and stars are not chickeny ^_^

ETA: Also, aether and phlogiston were themselves just labels. It was proposed that light propagates thru some media and some called the media 'aether'. Calling it 'aether' was not incorrect, its just that the assumed properties of it turned out to be incorrect. Light does propagate thru a medium but it turns out that the people who came up with a good working model of this propagation [Eisenstein, et al.] called the media 'space-time' so the term stuck. Phlogiston, was presumed to be what is stored in flammable objects and released when they are burned. It turns out that what is released by burning objects is what we now call chemical energy, which is infact, stored in flammable substances.

The general concepts the terms referred to were pretty accurate, its just that some of the assumptions people applied to those concepts turned out to be false and more fashionable terms were adopted in their place.

I have qualitative perceptions. You, and presumably every other participant in this discussion have qualitative perceptions. That is 'qualia'.

Again, this sounds like a philosopher's drivel. What's a qualitative perception, and how is it different from a quantitative perception, if such a thing exists ?

Ah, perceptions are necessarily qualitative; there is no such thing a a perception w/o some quality. However, one can only perceive information which is, itself, necessarily quantitative. All physical systems are informational, meaning they are based on quantities of some type or another. What we need to find out is what is the physical requisite that allows the perception of quantities as qualities. Its the elements of perception that are called 'qualia'; the particular quality of the perception is incidental to the reality of preception.

BTW, if you think that philosophy is 'drivel' then why are you participating in the R&P forum?

The sensation of temperature as being cold is not identical to actual temperature. Our senses could just as easily interpret temperature stimuli as being [the taste of a ham sandwich] or [the color blue] or as nothing at all.

How do you know ? You touch the ice, which reacts with you skin, which is connected to neurons, which are connected to your brain, and you have a behavior associated with that chain of events. Why do you feel it necessary to add another layer ? Because it "feels" different ?

Have you heard of a condition called synesthesia? Its a condition in which a subject experiences some sensory input as having another quality than is commonly attributed to it. For instance, in some people the condition may manifest as tastes being directly interpreted as color or light being interpreted as the sensation we normally associate with sound or motion.

All this demonstrates that the qualities our minds associate with a stimuli are incidental to the actual stimulus. The temperature of ice is just the relatively low thermal energy of it's constituent molecules. The sensation of it being 'cold' and the words we associate with the sensation are not identical the state of the object(s) producing the stimulus.

They don't represent anything, and they can't represent one another. You said you could have a phoneme about a phoneme. Take "A", for instance. How can you use it to represent another phoneme, since they are the most basic component of speech ?

You just did

*snickers*

My point is that of course philosophy "doesn't care", its just a discipline not an individual.You stated that the concept of qualia is incoherent but then went on to argue that it only makes sense from a philosophical perspective.

MY point was that philosophy is not a very useful tool to determine the mechanics of the universe. That's why it evolved into science, at one point. Centuries ago.

[...]

...because philosophy doesn't need to make sense in a real way. It has its own internal "logic".

Science is just a branch of applied philosophy, and the scientific method is an applied epistemology. All Scientific theories are crafted against the backdrop of some ontological/metaphysical assumptions. If an ontological framework is faulty then the crafting and interpretation of the theories that flow from it will be faulty as well. The discipline of analytical philosophy is to apply logic and critical thinking to such frameworks so that we can create more robust interpretations of reality.

You cannot conduct good science w/o good philosophy to frame it.

Er... you CLAIM that it is incorrect. So, it has everything to do with it.

Isn't that a claim? I thought those couldn't get us anywhere... >_>

A persistent pattern of locomotion generated by a critter with legs, during which, there are intervals where all limbs are not in contact with the ground or other lateral surface.

So "running" is not made of atoms, then ? What is it made of ?

Running is made of a pattern of actions followed by certain configurations of atoms, in relation to other objects. The atoms themselves are 'made of' the actions of their components, and so on.

What is there to suggest that I have subjective experience, to you ?

You generate convincing cognitive and emotional responses to my statements and queries. Its possible that you are NOT a conscious human, but if that is the case you do a pretty good impersonation of one. What I've been proposing is that there must be some objective means of determining whether or not an entity is conscious [i.e. has subjective experiences] w/o having to infer or guess

No. You're just being so thickheaded right now that you don't even recognize synonymous terms when you see them.

Please stop trying to read my mind, again. You're very bad at it.

I'm not trying to read you mind. I'm just pointing out some of your observable behaviors.

Are you now saying that qualia = observation ?

Either that, or it is a necessary indicator of observation.

And AGAIN you fail to follow the conversation. Where did I say I didn't like the word ?

When you stated that you prefer Mercucio's 'private behaviors' to the term qualia. Are you telling me you don't remember saying that...? -_O

I very much believe that consciousness CAN be replicated on computers and I would be very thrilled if they created artificial consciousness. Its just that there is currently no solid scientific understanding of it that would allow humans to create such entities at this time. I find the that fact that so many researchers in relevant fields are in denial about this to be very depressing.

And yet THEY are the experts and you are not. Nobody seems to be insisting that such new terms, entities, physical laws or whatnot are required to explain consciousness or describe it EXCEPT the people who don't understand the field. Gee, I wonder why that is.

There are a couple of problems with your above statement. One: its and argument based upon appeal to authority. Two: there are plenty of people in the relevant fields who recognize that we don't have a solid physical understanding of consciousness.

And, like I pointed out before, expanding or revising physical theories doesn't 'create' new physical laws -- it merely refines our understanding of them. Its a flat fact that there is nothing in current physical theory that predicts or accounts for conscious experience. There are a few models [such as S-AI or the GWT] that attempt to make guesses at what it is or how it comes to be but no one actually KNOWS yet. This is a fact that some people [even some in the fields who should know better] have not come to grips with.

 

[westprog]

Actually, I think westprog knows exactly what is being discussed, and he knows that he is simply wrong, so he is pretending to be ignorant about things even most children understand.

If you look at this entire thread, his responses have gotten sparser and more selective as he digs his hole deeper and deeper. It would seem he is aware of the fact that his arguments just don't hold up to intelligent scrutiny and as a result he is playing dumb.

If you two want to have a meta-discussion where you slap each other on the back and say how smart you are, let me know when you've finished. I think you both know that this kind of thing is content-free.

You have still to provide a precise definition of information processing/computing, which is really going to be necessary if you want to claim that information processing/computing is the root of consciousness. Until you do that, you can be as supercilious as you like but it won't mean anything. The switches and snowflakes ideas were at least an effort - this is just pixyish.

 

[rocketdodger]

If Rocketdodger has a point about the crystalline structure of a snowflake being a physical property absent from a drop of water, then he should develop the idea and explain it, and keep explaining until it's obvious. Treating it like a puzzle for which clues need to be doled out helps nobody.

It isn't a puzzle -- you know **** well exactly what I am getting at.

If you agree that there is a property -- being "crystalline" -- that a snowflake has and that liquid water does not have, and that this property is defined by the behavior of the system in question, then by implication you admit that such physical properties exist.

And once you have admitted that all one has to do is say that "computation" is a similar physical property that is defined by the behavior of the system in question -- then you can't claim that a pile of parts "computes" any more than you can claim that a drop of liquid water is "crystal."

At a fundamental level there is nothing going on in a snowflake that isn't also happening in a drop of liquid water. Sound familiar? Yet, every educated scientist on the planet agrees that a snowflake is crystalline and liquid water is not. Why? Because "crystalline" is a label reserved for systems which behave a certain way. And that is exactly what "computation" is -- a label reserved for systems which behave a certain way.

You are fully aware of this, and that is why you refuse to admit that crystallization is a physical process or that a snowflake is crystalline while a drop of liquid water is not.

It destroys your entire argument and renders pointless the stupid game you have been playing this entire thread.

So keep playing dumb if you want, but you aren't fooling anyone.

 

[rocketdodger]

If you two want to have a meta-discussion where you slap each other on the back and say how smart you are, let me know when you've finished. I think you both know that this kind of thing is content-free.

You have still to provide a precise definition of information processing/computing, which is really going to be necessary if you want to claim that information processing/computing is the root of consciousness. Until you do that, you can be as supercilious as you like but it won't mean anything. The switches and snowflakes ideas were at least an effort - this is just pixyish.

If you want to feign stupidity and ignorance, where you systematically avoid addressing the valid points everyone else makes in response to your arguments, let me know when you've finished. I think you know that this kind of thing is content-free.

You still have to provide a precise definition of crystallization, which is really going to be necessary if you want to claim that crystallization is the root of snowflakes.

 

[westprog]

You still have to provide a precise definition of crystallization, which is really going to be necessary if you want to claim that crystallization is the root of snowflakes.

I think you'll find plenty about crystallisation in the physics texts - the ones which don't have anything about computing. There's a reason for that - crystallisation is a well-defined physical process, and computing isn't.

I could cut and paste reams about how crystallisation works - how forces between molecules at an atomic scale generate large scale structures - but what's the point? You couldn't come back with a similar physical description of computing.

 

[Belz...]

Actually, chickens are composed of star byproducts.

Great! So now we can have stars about stars!!!

Also, aether and phlogiston were themselves just labels.

Well, that way we can safely say that everything is a label. No. Aether was a model.

Ah, perceptions are necessarily qualitative

That's what I thought. So why call them "qualitative perceptions" ? Isn't that redundant ?

there is no such thing a a perception w/o some quality.

Define "quality". If you happen to define it in the same way as the word "property", then there is no distinction between quantitative and qualitative.

What we need to find out is what is the physical requisite that allows the perception of quantities as qualities.

Uncalled for until I get my answer above.

Its the elements of perception that are called 'qualia'

Even if I were to accept that, indeed, there is a distinction between quantitative and qualitative, and that we perceive in one way what is objectively another way, it still wouldn't follow that you can decompose qualities into qualia. What qualia composes "cold", exactly ?

BTW, if you think that philosophy is 'drivel' then why are you participating in the R&P forum?

You mean, like "why" I argue on the topic of religion although I'm an atheist ?

Have you heard of a condition called synesthesia? Its a condition in which a subject experiences some sensory input as having another quality than is commonly attributed to it. For instance, in some people the condition may manifest as tastes being directly interpreted as color or light being interpreted as the sensation we normally associate with sound or motion.

All this demonstrates that the qualities our minds associate with a stimuli are incidental to the actual stimulus. The temperature of ice is just the relatively low thermal energy of it's constituent molecules. The sensation of it being 'cold' and the words we associate with the sensation are not identical the state of the object(s) producing the stimulus.

That's actually very interesting, but all it means is that some brains function inadequately and produce the wrong behaviour for the correct stimuli.

You just did

Don't play games with me. I'm genuinely puzzled by your claim that you can have phonemes about phonemes, since phonemes don't represent anything and cannot be further broken down.

Science is just a branch of applied philosophy

Science is a better version of philosophy, where we actually do stuff instead of just thinking about it. What I don't like about "philosphers" is that they think their musings amount to anything.

Isn't that a claim? I thought those couldn't get us anywhere... >_>

Again, you play games. I'm trying to have a discussion and you're laying silly word traps. Grow up.

Running is made of a pattern of actions followed by certain configurations of atoms, in relation to other objects. The atoms themselves are 'made of' the actions of their components, and so on.

Gosh, you should work for Chrysler. They could use your help designing the next Ram.

When speaking of physical objects, it's usual to say they are composed of particles. Sure, the particles have a behaviour. The behaviour itself is not composed of particles, but of other behaviours. Sure enough, particles are composed of behaviours, but let's stick to the behaviours that never becomes particles, shall we ? "Running" is a good example. It's behaviour, all the way down. Right ? So what's it made of ? Then apply that to qualia.

Once you do, please explain to me precisely what those qualia are made of, to finally answer my question.

You generate convincing cognitive and emotional responses to my statements and queries.

Irrelevant. You have no evidence that I have qualitative experiences, specifically because those are NOT required for my behaviour, and are undetectable even in principle.

What I've been proposing is that there must be some objective means of determining whether or not an entity is conscious [i.e. has subjective experiences] w/o having to infer or guess

We've all been proposing this, in fact. But some of us have a more useful answer than fairies or "we can't know" or "we don't know yet".

I'm not trying to read you mind. I'm just pointing out some of your observable behaviors.

"Thickheaded" is not an observable behaviour.

Are you now saying that qualia = observation ?

Either that, or it is a necessary indicator of observation.

Then how can you claim that a camera doesn't have qualia ? It DOES have observations.

When you stated that you prefer Mercucio's 'private behaviors' to the term qualia. Are you telling me you don't remember saying that...? -_O

This is getting tiresome as you are clearly making stuff up. Yes, I do remember saying that. In fact I'll say it again: I prefer Mercutio's "private behaviour" as a description of the basic component of consciousness rather than qualia. It does NOT follow, however, that it's because I "don't like the word". It's the definition that I don't like. You can call them "Mandibles" if you like. The word doesn't bother me.

There are a couple of problems with your above statement. One: its and argument based upon appeal to authority.

You clearly have no idea what an appeal to authority is. These people are experts IN THE FIELD WE ARE DISCUSSING. So they ARE an authority in these matters. Furthermore, I'm sure you prefer listening to your doctor about your apendicitis rather than a botanist.

Two: there are plenty of people in the relevant fields who recognize that we don't have a solid physical understanding of consciousness.

Nobody here said we had a full understanding of it, though. But we do have a very good idea of the basic principles.

Its a flat fact that there is nothing in current physical theory that predicts or accounts for conscious experience.

That's funny, because quite a few people in this very thread have proposed convincing mechanics.

[even some in the fields who should know better]

Why do you assume that you know better than them ?

 

[Belz...]

I think you'll find plenty about crystallisation in the physics texts - the ones which don't have anything about computing. There's a reason for that - crystallisation is a well-defined physical process, and computing isn't.

Maybe you can work with Aku for Chrysler, too.

 

[westprog]

It isn't a puzzle -- you know **** well exactly what I am getting at.

If you agree that there is a property -- being "crystalline" -- that a snowflake has and that liquid water does not have, and that this property is defined by the behavior of the system in question, then by implication you admit that such physical properties exist.

And once you have admitted that all one has to do is say that "computation" is a similar physical property that is defined by the behavior of the system in question -- then you can't claim that a pile of parts "computes" any more than you can claim that a drop of liquid water is "crystal."

At a fundamental level there is nothing going on in a snowflake that isn't also happening in a drop of liquid water. Sound familiar? Yet, every educated scientist on the planet agrees that a snowflake is crystalline and liquid water is not. Why? Because "crystalline" is a label reserved for systems which behave a certain way. And that is exactly what "computation" is -- a label reserved for systems which behave a certain way.

You are fully aware of this, and that is why you refuse to admit that crystallization is a physical process or that a snowflake is crystalline while a drop of liquid water is not.

It destroys your entire argument and renders pointless the stupid game you have been playing this entire thread.

So keep playing dumb if you want, but you aren't fooling anyone.

Ah, I see. Well, at least it's an effort.

Now, if the mere existence of physical properties destroyed my argument, then it would have to be fairly weak. Let's look at what a physical property is, then.

A physical property can be objectively defined in terms of other physical properties and objects. So, in the case of a crystalline structure like a snowflake, we can examine the atomic scale, and we observe that the molecules in the snowflake are bound together in a rigid structure, while the water molecules have no such fixed arrangement. We notice that the structure is not only rigid, but symmetric. These are objective physical properties of the two things being compared. We can also observe that the behaviour of the objects on a macro scale is different. The snowflake is rigid, while the water drop assumes the shape of any containing vessel. And so on.

The point is that a physical difference involving a physical property means an objective list of physical differences between objects possessing the property and not possessing it. Then we can use our definition to decide whether other physical objects possess the property or not. We can look at a piece of iron, for example, or a salt solution, and decide whether the property is present or not. Sometimes we need to adjust our definitions based on new objects. However, our definitions are always objective and physical.

So what are the list of physical differences between a device performing a computation and one not performing a computation? It's no good referring to "systems". These are physical systems we are discussing, and they are defined in terms of physical properties.

Of course computation is well defined. Of course computation is a useful concept. It's simply not a physical concept, and cannot be applied to matters of physics.

 

[rocketdodger]

I think you'll find plenty about crystallisation in the physics texts - the ones which don't have anything about computing. There's a reason for that - crystallisation is a well-defined physical process, and computing isn't.

I could cut and paste reams about how crystallisation works - how forces between molecules at an atomic scale generate large scale structures - but what's the point? You couldn't come back with a similar physical description of computing.

How about this:

Computation is what occurs when the behavior of a system is effectively identical in response to a set of inputs that are effectively different, where "effectively" means "according to an arbitrary threshold, similar to the arbitrary threshold for molecule alignment precision used in the definition of 'crystalline.'

 

[rocketdodger]

So what are the list of physical differences between a device performing a computation and one not performing a computation? It's no good referring to "systems". These are physical systems we are discussing, and they are defined in terms of physical properties.

So what is the difference between a drop of water that is starting to freeze, where portions of it are undergoing crystallization, and a pile of computer parts, where portions of it have electrical current in small amounts?

The water is still not crystalline even though there are small subsets of the whole that do indeed satisfy the definition of a crystal.

Why is it valid to say one is crystal and the other not, yet not valid to say one is computing and the other not?

If both crystallization and computing are defined in terms of the behavior of a physical system, what is the difference?

 

[westprog]

So what is the difference between a drop of water that is starting to freeze, where portions of it are undergoing crystallization, and a pile of computer parts, where portions of it have electrical current in small amounts?

The water is still not crystalline even though there are small subsets of the whole that do indeed satisfy the definition of a crystal.

Why is it valid to say one is crystal and the other not, yet not valid to say one is computing and the other not?

If both crystallization and computing are defined in terms of the behavior of a physical system, what is the difference?

The point is that crystallisation is a well-defined property of matter. Where crystalline and non-crystalline matter are intermingled, we may be ignorant of the precise proportions, but that doesn't mean that the concept itself is imprecise.

There may also be boundary conditions, but in the case of crystallisation, they aren't especially important. The moment when a molecule detaches from the lattice may leave us uncertain as to whether it's part of the crystal or not. That doesn't mean that the property of crystallisation is not a precise property.

But this is not the significant issue. What is important is that the definition of crystallisation is physical and objective. There is no equivalent definition of computing in physical terms.

 

[westprog]

How about this:

Computation is what occurs when the behavior of a system is effectively identical in response to a set of inputs that are effectively different, where "effectively" means "according to an arbitrary threshold, similar to the arbitrary threshold for molecule alignment precision used in the definition of 'crystalline.'

If you want to produce a physical description, you have to avoid using non-physical terms like "inputs". Aside from that, I don't think this description is precise enough to include everything you need to include, or exclude everything you want to exclude - though I must admit I can't make much sense out of it.

 

[rocketdodger]

The point is that crystallisation is a well-defined property of matter. Where crystalline and non-crystalline matter are intermingled, we may be ignorant of the precise proportions, but that doesn't mean that the concept itself is imprecise.

There may also be boundary conditions, but in the case of crystallisation, they aren't especially important. The moment when a molecule detaches from the lattice may leave us uncertain as to whether it's part of the crystal or not. That doesn't mean that the property of crystallisation is not a precise property.

But this is not the significant issue. What is important is that the definition of crystallisation is physical and objective. There is no equivalent definition of computing in physical terms.

Wrong.

I just gave you a definition that is every bit as physical and every bit as objective as crystallization.

At this point, westprog, you argument is literally nothing more than "because I say so!"

 

[rocketdodger]

If you want to produce a physical description, you have to avoid using non-physical terms like "inputs".

The physical definition of "input" is simply anything external to a system that affects the behavior of the system.

You seriously don't understand even that?

Aside from that, I don't think this description is precise enough to include everything you need to include, or exclude everything you want to exclude -

It is entirely sufficient to include a working computer and exclude an effectively random pile of parts.

If you disagree, feel free to explain why. Until then, it is just you sticking your thumbs in your ears and shaking your head "no, no, no, no it isn't, no" like a small child.

though I must admit I can't make much sense out of it.

It should be pretty simple for someone who is so well versed in the physical.

Regardless of how you press a key on a keyboard, effectively identical things happen within the circuitry of the computer. You can use your thumb, your index finger, your tongue, a stick, a hot poker, whatever -- it results in the same behavior within the computer.

Not so for things that don't compute, such as rocks, bowls of soup, and random piles of computer parts.

This makes sense, because fundamentally computation is nothing but categorization.

A computer can categorize things. A bowl of soup or a pile of electronic parts can't, any more than a drop of liquid water can be crystalline.

 

[Nick227]

And, like I pointed out before, expanding or revising physical theories doesn't 'create' new physical laws -- it merely refines our understanding of them. Its a flat fact that there is nothing in current physical theory that predicts or accounts for conscious experience. There are a few models [such as S-AI or the GWT] that attempt to make guesses at what it is or how it comes to be but no one actually KNOWS yet. This is a fact that some people [even some in the fields who should know better] have not come to grips with.

But, realistically, hard evidence for how consciousness is generated is unlikely to come about imo. Simply because of the fundamental paradoxes inherent in the task.

I think what is more likely to happen is that more and more of the "easy problems" will be cracked to the point where the HPC has virtually no reasonable space to hang out in. If GWT for example continues as it's been doing then at some point we are going to know pretty much exactly the brain's state during conscious access and precisely what the neuronal conditions to create this are.

Bit by bit the Searles and Blocks of this world will be forced onto progressively smaller bits of ice, compelled to believe in evermore weird metaphysical abstractions to resist the advance of Strong AI. [resistance is futile!]

This of course assuming some weird stuff doesn't get discovered in the meantime and we all have to go back to the drawing board.

Nick

 

[westprog]

Wrong.

I just gave you a definition that is every bit as physical and every bit as objective as crystallization.

At this point, westprog, you argument is literally nothing more than "because I say so!"

I found the description incomprehensible. I can see no way that it could be used to distinguish between computing and non-computing systems.

 

[rocketdodger]

I found the description incomprehensible. I can see no way that it could be used to distinguish between computing and non-computing systems.

I guess I have to explain it like I would to a child.

WHEN YOU PRESS YOUR KEYBOARD, THE SAME LETTERS POP UP ON THE SCREEN EVERY TIME.

WHEN YOU PRESS YOUR ALPHABET SOUP, THE SAME LETTERS DO NOT POP UP IN THE SOUP EVERY TIME.

 

[AkuManiMani]

Actually, chickens are composed of star byproducts.

Great! So now we can have stars about stars!!!

That's just silly

Stars aren't in semiotic reference to chickens, and vis versa. Things like perceptions and language are referential.

Also, aether and phlogiston were themselves just labels.

Well, that way we can safely say that everything is a label. No. Aether was a model.

Mm...Not to nitpick, but aether was the assumed media thru which light propagated and many scientist and thinkers of the time proposed models for it. A lot of the models' predictions about the nature of the media turned out to be incorrect, but the basic premise was right. We now understand that light propagates in waves thru the media we now, call space-time and that media itself warps and bends. Reality turned out to be a lot weirder than scientists at the time ever anticipated *_*

Ah, perceptions are necessarily qualitative.

That's what I thought. So why call them "qualitative perceptions" ? Isn't that redundant ?

Yea, it is pretty redundant, but I was just trying to drive home that I was equating the two. I suppose there were better ways to do it but hey *shrug* atleast now we're clear on that part.

Define "quality". If you happen to define it in the same way as the word "property", then there is no distinction between quantitative and qualitative.

Okay, now we're starting to get somewhere. I've been thinking over this, and related topics, for a while and I've come to a bit of an odd conclusion, so bear with me.

The two concepts are linked but not exactly the same. Remember earlier when I was harping on about how qualities and quantities were a complementary relation? They are a basic relational aspect of reality; while they are co-substantial they can be distinguished in some sense. I'll try to illustrate what I mean by way of example: inside/outside, up/down, wave/particle, yes/no, etc. In a transcendent sense, each of the polarities mentioned are one and the same and yet, they are necessarily distinguished with values that dependent upon frame of reference.

Every object/process, by simply existing, is an expression of some quantity. But, in the context of some conscious entity, the quantities take on qualities. The nature of those qualities [the elements of 'seems as' that some have been calling qualia] vary with the subjective make-up of the observer. Now, the question is, what is it about some entities that 'causes them to perceive -- to be conscious of -- the information around them?

The simple answer that its 'just information processing' tells us nothing; all physical objects and events are information processes. There has to be some more specific physical criteria for what gives rise to the phenomena we call perception [or consciousness, lucidity -- w/e]. I'm willing to bet that, eventually, the doctrine of S-AI is going to go the way of the aether and phlogiston or be subsumed by a much more useful model.

Even if I were to accept that, indeed, there is a distinction between quantitative and qualitative, and that we perceive in one way what is objectively another way, it still wouldn't follow that you can decompose qualities into qualia. What qualia composes "cold", exactly ?

A lot of contemporary physics has involved breaking down nature into discrete units called 'quanta'. Some examples would be photons, electron/positron, and even quanta of sound called phonons. If every even, object, and process can be reduced down to discrete quanta it stands to reason that perceptions can likewise be broken down into more basic elements. These elements are what some have referred to as qualia. Contrary to what some philosophers seem to believe, I do no think that qualia are somehow in contradiction to 'materialist' ontology.

If we are to ever understand consciousness -- what it REALLY is -- there has to me a model of physics that pinpoints exactly what it is. I'd love to one day wake up to a world where a trained scientist or professor can, with confidence, tell his students what physically constitutes the feeling we call 'cold', or any other subjective sense impression. When we really understand consciousness, there will be engineers and technicians that can use that understanding to reproduce specific sensations and feelings in a precise and controlled manner.

I'm not saying 'qualia' [i.e. elements of perception] are supernatural or out of the realm of science. Far from it. I'm saying that they can be scientifically understood and that such 'private behaviors' are observable and reproducible.

BTW, if you think that philosophy is 'drivel' then why are you participating in the R&P forum?

You mean, like "why" I argue on the topic of religion although I'm an atheist ?

Hate to break it to yah, but such arguments are, by definition, doing philosophy. If you think on such issues you're a philosopher by practice, if not by trade

Have you heard of a condition called synesthesia? Its a condition in which a subject experiences some sensory input as having another quality than is commonly attributed to it. For instance, in some people the condition may manifest as tastes being directly interpreted as color or light being interpreted as the sensation we normally associate with sound or motion.

All this demonstrates that the qualities our minds associate with a stimuli are incidental to the actual stimulus. The temperature of ice is just the relatively low thermal energy of it's constituent molecules. The sensation of it being 'cold' and the words we associate with the sensation are not identical the state of the object(s) producing the stimulus.

That's actually very interesting, but all it means is that some brains function inadequately and produce the wrong behavior for the correct stimuli.

Hm..

Lets say that there is a species of animal that perceived light as sensations similar to our perception of sound. Maybe another that perceives temperature the same way we sense taste. I would say that, as long as the sense impressions sufficiently correlated with the linked stimuli there's nothing wrong or dysfunctional about it. What I wanna know is what it is that causes us to perceive stimuli as the particular sensations we experience? What are the physical conditions required to bring about sensations? If one were to break sensations down to their basic components, what would they consist of? What kind of machine would be required to reproduce such sensations and how would we go about creating entirely new sensations?

There's just so much more to learn! *_*

You just did

Don't play games with me. I'm genuinely puzzled by your claim that you can have phonemes about phonemes, since phonemes don't represent anything and cannot be further broken down.

I'm saying that in the syntactic context of word configurations, and statements, phonemes take on referential meaning. If the syntactic structure points them in semantic reference to the concept of 'phoneme(s)' then they are in reference to 'phoneme(s)'. Heck, depending on the language, even a single phoneme may have a semantic meaning. I could invent a language right now where the phoneme é, by itself, means 'phonemes'.

Science is a better version of philosophy, where we actually do stuff instead of just thinking about it. What I don't like about "philosphers" is that they think their musings amount to anything.

But what you're doing right now is philosophizing. You've just expounded your own personal philosophy and you're willing and able to argue for it. While you're not paid to do such things, or have a fancy title next to your name, if you formulate your own view of the world you're a philosopher

Isn't that a claim? I thought those couldn't get us anywhere... >_>

Again, you play games. I'm trying to have a discussion and you're laying silly word traps. Grow up.

Sorry. I can't resist sometimes, it's just so fun ^_^

When speaking of physical objects, it's usual to say they are composed of particles. Sure, the particles have a behavior. The behavior itself is not composed of particles, but of other behaviors. Sure enough, particles are composed of behaviors, but let's stick to the behaviors that never becomes particles, shall we ? "Running" is a good example. It's behavior, all the way down. Right ? So what's it made of ? Then apply that to qualia.

The whole enterprise of physics has been one big effort to find out what the world is 'made of'. Right now, some are proposing that its made up of vibrating, multidimensional bits of energy [aka, string/M-theory], others are proposing that its loops of space-time [aka, loop quantum gravity]. No matter how far we go down the reductive chain we just find more processes. Quite frankly, no one really know what the fundamental 'stuff' [noumena] of reality is. The best we can do is just identify processes, determine their properties, and give them names.

Once you do, please explain to me precisely what those qualia are made of, to finally answer my question.

That's exactly what I wanna find out. I want to know exactly what our perceptions are 'made of' in relation to all the other known processes. Perhaps their composition is of entities we already know of, perhaps they aren't. There is no living human who knows right now -- if they do they haven't claimed their Nobel yet. I think the answer to that question can be found out sooner if more thinkers stopped presuming that we already know.

Irrelevant. You have no evidence that I have qualitative experiences, specifically because those are NOT required for my behavior, and are undetectable even in principle.

If YOU are conscious then YOU detect them. Ergo, they are detectable, not only in principle, but in practice. The fact that you can exhibit behaviors in absence of them shows that merely exhibiting behavior is not necessarily indicative of consciousness. The actual process of you having qualitative experiences is a vertical event distinct from any external behavior.

What I've been proposing is that there must be some objective means of determining whether or not an entity is conscious [i.e. has subjective experiences] w/o having to infer or guess

We've all been proposing this, in fact. But some of us have a more useful answer than fairies or "we can't know" or "we don't know yet".

No one here has proposed faeries or claimed that "we can't know'. The statement "we don't know yet" is a flat fact. Saying consciousness is "just information processing" and leaving it at that is in no way useful -- EVERY process is an example of information processing. There is nothing "useful" about fabricating answer and then turning it into dogma. People deluding themselves in believing they have knowledge that they don't isn't science -- its religion.

"Thickheaded" is not an observable behaviour.

Fundamentalism and dogmatism isn't observable?

Then how can you claim that a camera doesn't have qualia ? It DOES have observations.

Since when is light hitting a photosensitive surface 'observation'?

This is getting tiresome as you are clearly making stuff up. Yes, I do remember saying that. In fact I'll say it again: I prefer Mercutio's "private behaviour" as a description of the basic component of consciousness rather than qualia. It does NOT follow, however, that it's because I "don't like the word". It's the definition that I don't like. You can call them "Mandibles" if you like. The word doesn't bother me.

Bullship. You darn well that know that if I had been using the term [private behaviors] in place of [qualia] you wouldn't have spent to much time and effort trying to dispute what I've been saying. If I wanted to, I could have made exactly the same arguments using completely different terms and language and you'd have been nodding your head in agreement.

You clearly have no idea what an appeal to authority is. These people are experts IN THE FIELD WE ARE DISCUSSING. So they ARE an authority in these matters. Furthermore, I'm sure you prefer listening to your doctor about your apendicitis rather than a botanist.

How in the world can there be authorities on consciousness when there aren't any people who even KNOW what it is yet? No honest neuroscientist will tell you that they know what consciousness is. All that is known is that it's correlated with certain brain actives but there isn't the foggiest clue, even in theory, on how to synthetically reproduce it. Religious adherents of the S-AI ideology sure as hell have no idea what it is either -- tho the basic tenets of their faith require that they claim to.

Nobody here said we had a full understanding of it, though. But we do have a very good idea of the basic principles.

We have a rough idea of where to focus our search for the mechanism of consciousness -- no one at present know exactly what it is yet. There are plenty of hypothetical models and educated guesses but, at present, that's the state of the art.

Its a flat fact that there is nothing in current physical theory that predicts or accounts for conscious experience

That's funny, because quite a few people in this very thread have proposed convincing mechanics.

Care to repeat them? I must have missed it.

[even some in the fields who should know better]

Why do you assume that you know better than them ?

I'm just going off of the scientific knowledge that is readily available in any library, on the internet, and in schools. Those who claim to know exactly what consciousness is have yet to provided any conclusive evidence of such knowledge. There are scientists who who claim working knowledge of what electricity is, and such knowledge is available for anyone to apply to produce consistent results. The same can be said of genetics, optics, or any other established science.

As of yet, no one hes yet demonstrated that they have a comprehensive theoretical model of what consciousness is and how to reproduce specific conscious states from scratch. All that is known is the rough knowledge that it is correlated with brain activity and that it can be affected by manipulating the CNS. Scientific understanding of consciousness is about as rough as that of genetics about a century ago.