chimera comments on Human consciousness as a tractable scientific problem - Less Wrong

9 Post author: lukeprog 09 September 2011 06:39AM

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Comment author: red75 11 September 2011 12:11:35PM 1 point [-]

I doubt that you think about rods and cones when you are deciding if it's safe to cross the road. The question is: is there something in your perception of illuminated traffic light, that allows you to say that it is red or green or yellow? Or maybe you just know that it is green or yellow, but you can't see any differences but position and luminosity?

Comment author: [deleted] 11 September 2011 02:11:49PM 0 points [-]

I don't understand what the question is getting at. You're right that I don't think about cones when I check which color a light is, but this is the mechanism by which it enters my brain: since different lights enter my brain in different ways it is no surprise I can differentiate between them.

Comment author: red75 11 September 2011 03:05:11PM 1 point [-]

I don't understand what the question is getting at.

I am getting there. There's a phenomenon called blindsight type 1. Try to imagine that you have "color blindsight", i.e. you can't differentiate between colors, but you can guess above chance what color it is. In this condition you lack qualia of colors.