X-Message-Number: 21736
From: 
Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 10:02:43 EDT
Subject: qualia and analogy

--part1_185.1ab59082.2bee6083_boundary
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Francois asks,

> What exactly is qualia, and why couldn't the digital version of a human
> brain express it as well as it's biological version?
> 

Qualia (singular "quale") are subjective experiences, such as the feeling of 
the color green or any conscious visual image, or an emotion, or a memory, 
etc.--the content of awareness.

A digital device programmed from knowledge of a human brain would only 
DESCRIBE the quale, or at best provide an analog (and even then it would not 
be one-to-one). Presumptively, it would not CONSTITUTE the quale. 

Example: dy/dx can describe the slope of a line, or (changing letters to 
dq/dt) the rate of charge of a capacitor, or many other physical quantities. 
But these physical  quantities are not the same, and in physical situations 
one cannot substitute for the other.  

As Francois says, we assume other people feel because we know we do, and they 
are similar to us. But the digital "analogs" are NOT anywhere near so 
similar.

>Of course, the debate could be settled
>once and for all if we figured out exactly what gives rise to self
>awareness.

No, that's the problem. We ALREADY know that computers are very different 
from meat people. If someone shows that the "self circuit" is a certain type 
of standing wave in the brain, the upmorphists will STILL claim that a 
simulation is just as good. 

Robert Ettinger


--part1_185.1ab59082.2bee6083_boundary

 Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"

[ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] 

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21736