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Tiiba comments on Open Thread: February 2010, part 2 - Less Wrong
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I made a couple posts in the past that I really hoped to get replies to, and yet not only did I get no replies, I got no karma in either direction. So I was hoping that someone would answer me, or at least explain the deafening silence.
This one isn't a question, but I'd like to know if there are holes in my reasoning. http://lesswrong.com/lw/1m7/dennetts_consciousness_explained_prelude/1fpw
Here, I had a question: http://lesswrong.com/lw/17h/the_lifespan_dilemma/13v8
I looked at your consciousness comment. First, consciousness is notoriously difficult to write about in a way that readers find both profound and comprehensible. So you shouldn't take it too badly that your comment didn't catch fire.
Speaking for myself, I didn't find your comment profound (or I failed to comprehend that there was profundity there). You summarize your thesis by writing "Basically, a qualium is what the algorithm feels like from the inside for a self-aware machine." (The singular of "qualia" is "quale", not "qualium", btw.)
The problem is that this is more like a definition of "quale" than an explanation. People find qualia mysterious when they ask themselves why some algorithms "feel like" anything from the inside. The intuition is that you have both
the code — that is, an implementable description of the algorithm; and
the quale — that is, what it feels like to be an implementation of the algorithm.
But the quale doesn't seem to be anywhere in the code, so where does it come from? And, if the quale is not in the code, then why does the code give rise to that quale, rather than to some other one?
These are the kinds of questions that most people want answered when they ask for an explanation of qualia. But your comment didn't seem to address issues like these at all.
(Just to be clear, I think that those questions arise out of a wrong approach to consciousness. But any explanation of consciousness has to unconfuse humans, or it doesn't deserve to be called an explanation. And that means addressing those questions, even if only to relieve the listener of the feeling that they are proper questions to ask.)
"So you shouldn't take it too badly that your comment didn't catch fire."
I'm not mad, but... Just see it from my point of view. An interesting thought doesn't come to guys like me every day. ;)
"But the quail doesn't seem to be anywhere in the code, so where does it come from?"
I think it's in the code. When I try to imagine a mind that has no qualia, I imagine something quite unlike myself.
What would it actually be like for us to not have qualia? It could mean that I would look at a red object and think, "object, rectangular, apparent area 1 degree by 0.5 degrees, long side vertical, top left at (100, 78), color 0xff0000". That would be the case where the algorithm has no inside, so it doesn't need to feel like anything from the inside. Nothing about our thoughts would be "ineffable". (Although it would be insulting to call a being unconscious or, worse, "not self aware" for knowing itself better than we do... Hmm. I guess qualia and consciousness are separate after all. Or is it? But I'm dealing with qualia right now.)
Or, the nerve could send its impulse directly into a muscle, like in jellyfish. That would mean that the hole in my knowledge is so big that the quail for "touch" falls through it.
In my mind, touch leaves a memory, and I then try to look at this memory. I ask my brain, "what does touch feel like?", and I get back, "Error: can't decompile native method. But I can tell you definitely what it doesn't feel like: greenness." So what I'm saying is, I can't observe what the feeling of touch is made of, but it has enough bits to not confuse it with green.
It makes me [feel] unconfused. Although it might be confusing.
"Just to be clear, I think that those questions arise out of a wrong approach to consciousness."
What's your approach?
I don't understand your explanation. You are apparently saying that quale (you seem to deliberately misspell the word, why?) is how the algorithm feels from inside. Well, I agree, but in the same time I think that "quale" is only a philosopher's noble word for "feel from inside". The explanation looks like a truism.
I have always been (and still am) confused by questions like: How other people perceive colors? Do they feel it the same way as I do? Are there people who see the colors inverted, having the equivalent of my feeling of "redness" when they look at green objects? They will call that feeling "greenness", of course, but can their redness be my greenness and vice versa? What about colorblind people? If I lost the ability to recognise blue from green, would I feel blueness or greenness when looking at those colors? What does it in fact mean, to compare feelings of different people? Or even, how does it feel to be a dog? A fish? A snail?
I am almost sure that the questions themselves are confused, without clear meaning, and can be explained away as such, but still I find them appealing in some strange way.
I always wanted to make an experiment on myself, but I am also afraid of it and don't have an opportunity. I would buy glasses which invert colors like on a photographic negative and wear them without interruption for some time. Certainly in the beginning I would feel redness when looking at trees, but it can be that I would accomodate and start feeling greenness instead. Or not. Certainly, it would be a valuable experinence. Has anybody tried something similar?
I once heard of people at UCSD who had plans to experiment with inverted spectrum goggles. Jonathan Cohen would know more.
Thanks, seems interesting.
Would this be possible optically? The only way I can see it working is using a live video feed with some image processing to invert colours. That is probably quite practical using modern technology though.
Interesting experiment. It reminds me of an experiment where subjects wore glasses that turned world upside down (really, right side up for the projection on our eye) and eventually they adjusted so the world looked upside down when taking off the glasses.
What do you think a "yes" or "no" in your experiment would mean?
Note, Dennett says in Quining Qualia :
I know about the experiment you mention, and it partly motivated my suggestion; I just subjectively find "yellowness" and "blueness" more qualious than "upness" or "leftness".
In my experiment, "yes" would mean that there would be no dissonance between memories and perceptions, that I would just not feel that the trees are red or purple, but green, and find the world "normal". That I would, one day, cease to feel the need to get rid of the color-changing glasses, and my aesthetic preferences would remain the same as they were in the pre-glasses period. I think it's likely - based on the other subjects' experiences with upside-down glasses - that it would happen after a while, but the experience itself may be more interesting than the sole yes/no result, because it is undescribable. That's one problem with qualia: they are outside the realm of things which can be described. Describing qualia is like describing flavour of an unknown exotic fruit: no matter how much you try, other people wouldn't understand until they degust it themselves.
With regards to Karma, it could be equal up and down. This is less likely if you were checking it. Digg allows you to view plus and minus karma counts separately, for one.