MugaSofer comments on Mixed Reference: The Great Reductionist Project - Less Wrong

29 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 05 December 2012 12:26AM

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Comment author: aaronsw 25 December 2012 09:46:41PM 3 points [-]

I was talking about Searle's non-AI work, but since you brought it up, Searle's view is:

  1. qualia exists (because: we experience it)
  2. the brain causes qualia (because: if you cut off any other part of someone they still seem to have qualia)
  3. if you simulate a brain with a Turing machine, it won't have qualia (because: qualia is clearly a basic fact of physics and there's no way just using physics to tell whether something is a Turing-machine-simulating-a-brain or not)

Which part does LW disagree with and why?

Comment author: MugaSofer 26 December 2012 02:04:35AM 1 point [-]

if you simulate a brain with a Turing machine, it won't have qualia (because: qualia is clearly a basic fact of physics and there's no way just using physics to tell whether something is a Turing-machine-simulating-a-brain or not)

There's your problem. Why the hell should we assume that "qualia is clearly a basic fact of physics "?

Comment author: aaronsw 04 January 2013 10:10:16PM 1 point [-]

Because it's the only thing in the universe we've found with a first-person ontology. How else do you explain it?

Comment author: MugaSofer 04 January 2013 11:39:16PM *  -1 points [-]

Well, I probably can't explain it as eloquently as others here - you should try the search bar, there are probably posts on the topic much better than this one - but my position would be as follows:

  • Qualia are experienced directly by your mind.

  • Everything about your mind seems to reduce to your brain.

  • Therefore, qualia are probably part of your brain.

Furthermore, I would point out two things: one, that qualia seem to be essential parts of having a mind; I certainly can't imagine a mind without qualia; and two, that we can view (very roughly) images of what people see in the thalamus, which would suggest that what we call "qualia" might simply be part of, y'know, data processing.

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