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VAuroch comments on Zombies Redacted - Less Wrong Discussion

33 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 July 2016 08:16PM

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Comment author: VAuroch 14 July 2016 11:02:30PM 1 point [-]

In this case, "description of how my experience will be different in the future if I have or do not have qualia" covers it. There are probably cases where that's too simplistic.

Comment author: entirelyuseless 15 July 2016 12:58:05PM -2 points [-]

That's easy to describe. If I have any experience in the future, I have qualia. If I have no experience in the future, I have no qualia. That's the difference.

Comment author: dxu 18 July 2016 04:34:35AM *  1 point [-]

Taboo "qualia", "experience", "consciousness", "awareness", and any synonyms. Now try to provide a clear definition.

Comment author: entirelyuseless 18 July 2016 01:30:47PM -1 points [-]

Please stop commenting. Now try to present your argument.

But more importantly, VAuroch defined clear definition as describing how experience would be different. Experience cannot be tabooed if that is what clear definition means.

Comment author: dxu 18 July 2016 03:57:05PM 1 point [-]

As my username might imply, I am not VAuroch.

But more importantly, the point of Taboo is to describe the thing you're talking about in lower level terms, terms that don't generate the same confusion that the original concept does. It is in this manner that confusions are dissolved. If you can't do this with a certain topic, that's evidence you don't fully understand the topic yet--and as far as I'm aware, no one can do this with consciousness/qualia, which is what I was trying to get at.

Comment author: entirelyuseless 19 July 2016 04:53:16AM -1 points [-]

There is no need to link to Eliezer's posts; I have read all of them, and the ones I disagree with, I will continue to disagree with even after reading them again.

My point about "please stop commenting" is that if something is not a lower level thing, then you cannot describe it lower level terms. That is not because of confusion, but because of what you are talking about.

Comment author: dxu 19 July 2016 06:59:05PM *  1 point [-]

There is no need to link to Eliezer's posts; I have read all of them, and the ones I disagree with, I will continue to disagree with even after reading them again.

The links are for the benefit of others who may be reading my comments. That being said, what exactly do you disagree with about dissolving the question?

if something is not a lower level thing

Assuming this "something" you're talking about is consciousness, I disagree. Strongly.

That is not because of confusion, but because of what you are talking about.

If you're claiming that you're not confused about consciousness and that you know what you're talking about, then you should be able to transmit that understanding to others through words. If you can't, I submit that you are in fact confused.

Comment author: entirelyuseless 20 July 2016 04:50:26AM -2 points [-]

I can transmit it through words. We both know what we're talking about here.

Comment author: VAuroch 30 July 2016 12:53:40AM 0 points [-]

I, also, still do not know what you're talking about. I expect to have experiences in the future. I do not really expect them to contain qualia, but I'm not sure what that would mean in your terms. Please describe the difference I should expect in terms of things I can verify or falsify internally.

Comment author: entirelyuseless 30 July 2016 01:46:19PM *  0 points [-]

"I will have experiences but do not expect them to contain qualia," as I understand it, means "I will have experiences but do not expect to experience things in any particular way." This is because qualia are just the ways that things are experienced.

I do not know what it would mean to expect that to happen. Asking how you can verify it is like asking, "How do I verify whether or not 2 + 2 seems to be 4 but is not?"

Comment author: dxu 20 July 2016 06:06:53PM *  0 points [-]

Sorry, but I don't know what we're talking about (i.e. I don't know how to define consciousness). Could you transmit your understanding to me through words? Thanks in advance.

Comment author: VAuroch 30 July 2016 12:57:31AM 0 points [-]

How are qualia different from experiences? If experiences are no different, why use 'qualia' rather than 'experiences'?

Comment author: entirelyuseless 30 July 2016 05:35:08AM *  0 points [-]

Qualia means the specific way that you experience something. And if you don't experience something in any way at all, then you don't experience it. So if there are no qualia, there are no experiences. But they don't mean the same thing, since qualia means "the ways things are experienced", not "experiences."

Comment author: gjm 31 July 2016 09:20:26PM -1 points [-]

Suppose I propose that physical objects have not only "mass" but "massiness", which is "the way things have mass". I agree that we can do the usual calculations using mass and that they will tell us how particles move, but I insist that we do not know that massiness is purely physical; that doing those calculations may miss something about massiness.

I guess that you would have little sympathy for this position. Where (if at all) does the analogy "experience : qualia :: mass : massiness" fail?

Comment author: entirelyuseless 31 July 2016 11:39:46PM *  0 points [-]

I have quite a bit of sympathy for that position, actually. I am not sure that analogy fails at all. However, we directly notice that we experience things in particular ways; if there is a particular way that things have mass, it is not part of our direct experience, since mass itself is not.