SilasBarta comments on Seeing Red: Dissolving Mary's Room and Qualia - Less Wrong

38 Post author: orthonormal 26 May 2011 05:47PM

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Comment author: SilasBarta 26 May 2011 06:36:24PM *  2 points [-]

I like it so far! One question, though:

Our goal, then, is to build a model of a mind that would express analogous reactions in Mary's Room for a genuine reason

Are you referring the question of how to model a mind that would have analogous reactions to:

  • being told about the Mary's Room argument, or to
  • being in the position of a real-world Mary?

I assume the first, but I couldn't tell. In any case, both are worthwhile targets for reduction.

Edit: I had previous sketched out a reduction of qualia, but it seems more focused on the first issue -- why we have the intuition that our sensory impressions are so ineffable.

Comment author: orthonormal 26 May 2011 06:38:57PM *  3 points [-]

I actually mean the second question; let me see if I can make that less ambiguous in the post. The first is important too, and will come up by the end.

And thanks!

UPDATE: Edited the paragraph slightly.