The Hard Problem of Gravity

[Apathia]

I think the alleged historical buddha was more of a pragmatist, it is the avoidance of displeasure and the clinging to pleasure that fuels tanha, the self is not so much damaging as the behaviors that result from it.

Yes.
That and resistance to change.
I've often wondered if the "Nivana" thing was more a carryover (like reincarnation) from Hinduism.

 

[Nick227]

I'd say that it's (a) useful, (b) necessary, and (c) unavoidable.

(a) because it allows for complex adaptive behaviours.
(b) because it is the simplest (and hence, least expensive biologically) way to provide such behaviours.
and (c) because when you wire up a huge neural network and configure it for self-preservation via inference-building and adaptive behaviour, you're going to get a sense of self, whether that was your intention or not.

I'd say the user illusion is likely inevitable and for sure valid to a certain degree. Humans have needs and the user illusion helps get them met.

But for the average human this user illusion is now expanding to a quite horrific level. Our genetic drives are now either virtually submerged under a weight of memetic baggage, or re-channelled memetically in socially disturbing directions. Genetic needs get translated by memes into behaviours which allow the memes to spread but which rarely fulfil the original need, despite the promise of doing so. It's not good.

Nick

 

[westprog]

If we say that the sentence "what we subjectively experience" is valid at the level of the whole organism, what do think it looks like if we examine it in terms of brain processes? Where is the "we" and where is the "experience?"

Nick

Whether or not qualia exist in a brain in isolation is a question in itself.

 

[Dancing David]

I'd say the user illusion is likely inevitable and for sure valid to a certain degree. Humans have needs and the user illusion helps get them met.

But for the average human this user illusion is now expanding to a quite horrific level. Our genetic drives are now either virtually submerged under a weight of memetic baggage,

Sorry Nick227 rather than being rude i will ask you what you mean by this.

There are no genetic drives, period.

or re-channelled memetically in socially disturbing directions. Genetic needs get translated by memes into behaviours

Genetic needs ditto.

which allow the memes to spread but which rarely fulfil the original need, despite the promise of doing so. It's not good.

Nick

I am very uncertain as to your use of the word genetic? there are no genetic drives or needs.

So please restate, i am sure you have something you are conveying but it does not make sense to me.

genes regulate protein folding and the like.

 

[westprog]

What definition do you use for qualia?


(I did not mean to be offensive, there have been some fairly varied and vague expressions used to define qualia on the JREF, that is why i said they were incoherent.)

Subjective experience. The subjective element is missing from all the physical analysis, and yet it's something we know to exist.

 

[Dancing David]

Whether or not qualia exist in a brain in isolation is a question in itself.

Well, I think that depends on what you mean by isolation.

Brains are part of bodies and dependant upon them.
Brains grow and develop in response to exposure to environments of stimulation and interaction.

So it depends, can a brain that is not having sensory inputs have perceptions. Sort of but not really. (It would be very hard to sensory deprive the somatic senses.)
Now part of cognitions can be verbal, auditory and visual, I have a very low ability to visualize. Some people report almost perception quality ability to generate visualizations. And the same is true for auditory senses.

When drowsy I can generate very vivid scenes with some control of them.
In sleep perceptions are generated in absence of sensations.

But an infant that is locked in a dark room until the age of eight is going to be blind and may never develop sight, they might develop very rudimentary vision but it is very unlikely. So for them the 'qualia' of red will most likely never exist.

 

[Dancing David]

Subjective experience. The subjective element is missing from all the physical analysis, and yet it's something we know to exist.

But that is where I do not understand, do you mean somatic perception? Or the sense of 'self'. I can not really know what you are meaning.

I disagree with what I think you are saying about physical analysis, but I would like to really understand what you mean. Can you elaborate?

I stand outside on a cold night and look at stars. Which part of that event is 'subjective'? I would argue that all the senses and perceptions are subjective. In that they are inner responses to exterior interactions.

So the sight (the colors, the twinkle, the distribution of the stars), the perception of cold skin and warm skin (under clothes) the somatic sensation of standing, wind on the face, wind pushing clothes, the sense of sound, all are subjective. Yes?

 

[Dancing David]

Yes.
That and resistance to change.
I've often wondered if the "Nivana" thing was more a carryover (like reincarnation) from Hinduism.

In many ways, but Nibbanna is 'extinguishment' of 'tanha' or 'thirst'.

 

[blobru]

... If there's no precise definition of qualia, then the first task should be to find such a definition.

Definition? How about: qualia are the language of sense (just as symbols are the language of reason). Qualia present to consciousness information which has been processed by the subconscious. Qualia are non-symbolic ("felt") information.

Consider an emotion. According to the James-Lange theory of emotion (which Ichneumonwasp cited earlier in two of his typically excellent posts), the "feeling" (quale) of an emotion is just the subconscious (body) informing the conscious (mind) that a given situation has been evaluated as demanding a certain response (fearful, joyous, sad, angry, etc.) The quale then communicates this information from body to mind as a feeling, where it is recognized as "fear" say, and further evaluated against the symbolic (abstract) background knowledge of the subject. Emotional qualia allow us to distinguish between emotional states by differing in type and intensity and combining with each other (vague, complex, mixed feelings / emotions).

We might hesitate to call qualia "language" because they are a non-symbolic system of communication (though much of what we communicate with spoken language, even written language, is non-symbolic, dependent on context, modulation, etc.) and seem more an uncertain continuum than a discrete alphabet; however, that may only reflect our own bias. Perhaps if experience is to be meaningful, it must define qualia (otherwise how would we recognize any experience, remember it, value it?), and exist not just as phenomenal reference for linguistic concepts about experience, but as language itself.

So what if we expand the notion -- of the quale (feeling) of an emotion as a form of communication from subconscious to conscious -- to cover all qualia? Does this make sense? What is the quale of 'blue' communicating? The language of the qualia of emotions is communicated via one sense: touch (arguably, touch is two senses: external, somatic touch and internal, kinesthetic; clearly, emotional qualia exploit the kinesthetic sense to become "language"). Are color and shape (etal.) the language of visual qualia? Are pitch and volume (etal.) the language of aural qualia? Fragance the language of smell? Savor the language of taste? (i.e., "[Is] smell the language of smell? Taste the language of taste?" -- importing some odd synonyms to separate phenomena and faculty). Is their function the same: to communicate an irrational evaluation from the subconscious (level of sense and "reflex") to the conscious mind (level of thought and reason)? I don't see why not. Sounds, for example, heard through the ear, are presented to the conscious mind as significant (music? noise?) or not. As colors and shapes may become meaningful (art? familiar? unfamiliar? danger?) before awareness, smells and tastes smell like and taste like something in the conscious mind (having been associated by prior mental process).

If qualia are in fact language, and experience is a kind of discourse between sense and thought, concrete and abstract, subconscious and conscious, body and mind, then it may, in principle, be possible to replace them with another sort of language; with a symbolic language even (what's that thesis again? oh yeah, Church-Turing), as long as the same information can be communicated. This is interesting from the pov of that standby of consciousness studies, the [philosophical] p-zombie.**

Anyway, without going into more detail where I'm not too sure of my footing as it is, that's a rough sketch of one potentially useful definition of "qualia". I doubt it'll solve the HPC; but it at least suggests a compromise between the Teams in porch's roundup, (AI) dismissing versus (HPC) embracing qualia. It would also appear to tie [human] consciousness to the [human] nervous system, phenomenally, but not functionally.

Have at it.

**Replacing qualia, the language of experience, with a symbolic equivalent, would in effect create a p-zombie, an entity that is functionally equivalent to a being with qualia, but lacking what we normally think of as "experience". For whom, for example, "love" wouldn't be experienced as a complex scheme of interwoven feelings and evaluations and attachments and heart skipping a beat and flush in the cheeks and weakness in the knees and bonfire in the loins, but a scheme of symbols falling within the bounds of a certain definition: "I've fallen for you" equivalent to "the symbols you provoke fall within my definition of 'love'". One thing's for sure: p-zombie poetry is gonna suck (or soar, if you're sick of romantic cliches, or already a p-zombie).


ETA:
(haven't read all Dancing David's posts yet; may be covering a lot of the same ground).

 

[PixyMisa]

But for the average human this user illusion is now expanding to a quite horrific level.

You're venturing into fallacy-land again.

Our genetic drives are now either virtually submerged under a weight of memetic baggage, or re-channelled memetically in socially disturbing directions. Genetic needs get translated by memes into behaviours which allow the memes to spread but which rarely fulfil the original need, despite the promise of doing so. It's not good.

Neither is spinach.

 

[Belz...]

I find the idea that qualia can simply be regarded as an absurdity. All the people making this argument presumably experience qualia

You mean, like a p-zombie "presumably" does ?

 

[Belz...]

Because in a healthy brain the process should appear dualistic.

That's odd. Are you saying that my brain isn't healthy ?

 

[westprog]

But that is where I do not understand, do you mean somatic perception? Or the sense of 'self'. I can not really know what you are meaning.

I'm dealing with experience in the most general sense. I'm not insisting on an implied Cartesian self - just the very fact of the perception itself.

I don't object to anyone doubting the reality of the perception, except if they then decide to assign certain objective reality to the things perceived, which seems clearly backwards to me.

I disagree with what I think you are saying about physical analysis, but I would like to really understand what you mean. Can you elaborate?

I stand outside on a cold night and look at stars. Which part of that event is 'subjective'? I would argue that all the senses and perceptions are subjective. In that they are inner responses to exterior interactions.

So the sight (the colors, the twinkle, the distribution of the stars), the perception of cold skin and warm skin (under clothes) the somatic sensation of standing, wind on the face, wind pushing clothes, the sense of sound, all are subjective. Yes?

The experience is entirely subjective. Experience can't be objective. And there's no physical theory that deals with subjective experience.

 

[Nick227]

Sorry Nick227 rather than being rude i will ask you what you mean by this.

There are no genetic drives, period.

Hi DD,

I'm using the terms "genetic drives" and "genetic needs" to distinguish those drives and needs that are expressed genetically from those expressed through memes.

The human organism has needs - surviving and procreating - and to help it fulfil those needs it experiences being driven towards those things that will fulfil them. Yet, in the mind of the organism, the need may be understood both genetically and memetically. For fulfilling a need for sex, for example...a example of the need being expressed genetically would be that the organism seeks a sexual partner; of it being expressed memetically it seeks pornography.

Nick

 

[westprog]

You mean, like a p-zombie "presumably" does ?

Yes, exactly like that.

Whether the vast array of tests which humans have devised over the years to detect qualia in other persons would work on the hypothetical p-zombie is uncertain.

 

[dlorde]

I find interesting useful to consider the position of humans in our ecosystem, both biological and social, and contemplate the various levels of awareness and consciousness in the creatures around us and its correlation to their CNS complexity and social interactions. We are clearly very similar in our neurophysiology to other large primates, which in turn are not vastly different from their less-sophisticated relatives, and so-on. Similarly for complexity of social interaction.

It seems to me that an important aspect of self-awareness is the Theory Of Mind. In the mammalian species where increasing social complexity has proved a competitive advantage over a long period, individuals and their social interactions have become more complex in a co-evolutionary way - more complex and subtle individual behaviours lead to more complex and subtle ways to interact. The eventual emergence of a theory of mind allows the behaviour and interactions of other individuals to be read and predicted, and also applies reflexively - you can model your own behaviour and predict your own reactions. So you have a basis for a conscious sense of self and other. You don't need to start with self-awareness and project it onto others to gain a theory of mind, the two can start negligibly small and reinforce each other - more complex society with more complex and sophisticated interactions gives a competitive advantage to more complex and sophisticated individuals who make a more complex & sophisticated society... chicken and egg. Theory of mind is a step on the way, but an important one. The development of language seems to fit into this pattern and helps structure the internal narrative of self.

Many primates have been shown to have at least a rudimentary theory of mind, as have some other species, such as some species of crow (e.g. the Scrub Jay), which allows them to detect and enact behaviours such as deliberate deception. One wonders how much self-awareness they have.

This all suggests to me that our level of consciousness and self-awareness is likely not special and qualitatively different from many other species, but is simply more subtle and sophisticated in some ways. The questions that interest me in particular, are whether it is possible to determine whether the development of conscious self-awareness really is co-incident with the development of Theory of Mind, and how to grade or describe the levels of consciousness in other species.

 

[Nick227]

Definition? How about: qualia are the language of sense (just as symbols are the language of reason). Qualia present to consciousness information which has been processed by the subconscious. Qualia are non-symbolic ("felt") information.

Sounds good.

Consider an emotion. According to the James-Lange theory of emotion (which Ichneumonwasp cited earlier in two of his typically excellent posts), the "feeling" (quale) of an emotion is just the subconscious (body) informing the conscious (mind) that a given situation has been evaluated as demanding a certain response (fearful, joyous, sad, angry, etc.) The quale then communicates this information from body to mind as a feeling, where it is recognized as "fear" say, and further evaluated against the symbolic (abstract) background knowledge of the subject. Emotional qualia allow us to distinguish between emotional states by differing in type and intensity and combining with each other (vague, complex, mixed feelings / emotions).

I'm a bit skeptical of this theory. It sounds rather like dualism to me. I would say that emotions are more primal than this. They're autonomous states which occur in reaction to the mind's evaluation of the situations it encounters. There may be the possibility for the organism to "block" the arising emotion at an conscious level, but I doubt the "body" and "mind" are so separated that there is a need for communication between the two like what's being described above. It sounds to me rather like James and Lange are dualistics.

In addition, I've worked with deep emotions as a therapist for some years and what I noticed was that people are often repeatedly attracted subconsciously into certain situations until an underlying feeling can be consciously expressed. The unconscious mind calls most of the shots over big decisions in life.

We might hesitate to call qualia "language" because they are a non-symbolic system of communication (though much of what we communicate with spoken language, even written language, is non-symbolic, dependent on context, modulation, etc.) and seem more an uncertain continuum than a discrete alphabet; however, that may only reflect our own bias. Perhaps if experience is to be meaningful, it must define qualia (otherwise how would we recognize any experience, remember it, value it?), and exist not just as phenomenal reference for linguistic concepts about experience, but as language itself.

I think I see a Catch-22 here. If emotions do transcend logical interpretation then no amount of mental assessment is likely to get one very far. You simply have to consciously have the emotions...and that's it. Thinking, speaking or writing about them would be meaningless.

It frequently seems to me that if a human is to advance towards maturity it does have to develop the capacity to consciously feel more and more. There frequently appears little sense to the patterns of attraction it is drawn into, as the subconscious mind attempts to drag it into the feelings.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

In many ways, but Nibbanna is 'extinguishment' of 'tanha' or 'thirst'.

Yes. It means there is no longer identification with mind. Thoughts arise into awareness but there is no longer a sufficiently strong sense of them being "my thoughts" for them to be acted upon.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

I'm dealing with experience in the most general sense. I'm not insisting on an implied Cartesian self - just the very fact of the perception itself.

The perception is fine. There Is A Chair. Cool. But when the brain throws a stream of identified thought (inner speech) into the cocktail, so the notion "I experience the chair" arises. The inner speech tells a story about the chair and in doing so, either directly or indirectly, creates the sensation of there being an observer of the chair...and the notion of "experiencing the chair."

There is a chair is one thing. I am experiencing the chair is just the brain adding peripheral processing through the application of inner speech.

No inner speech = no experience.

The experience is entirely subjective. Experience can't be objective. And there's no physical theory that deals with subjective experience.

This is just the result of more inner speech. I think you need to really check it out...does this particular narrative really articulate how things are....or is it just making it up as it goes along?

Really look at something. Really look at it. At what point does it become "an experience?" Notice that familiar chitter-chatter in the head? Things simply are until the inner narrative starts up assigning possession to them.

Nick

 

[Belz...]

Yes, exactly like that.

Whether the vast array of tests which humans have devised over the years to detect qualia in other persons would work on the hypothetical p-zombie is uncertain.

Er... I actually meant that one as a joke, since p-zombies are incoherent.

Still, by definition p-zombies have no qualia, else they have consciousness and, by definition, they don't.