X-Message-Number: 22365 Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2003 06:45:17 -0700 Subject: Qualia puzzle from Doug Skrecky References: <> From: (Tim Freeman) In cryomsg 22356, Scott Badger quoted Doug Skrecky as saying: >Agreed, qualia are a rather slippery subject. If one >defines brain processes as autonomous from qualia, so >that qualia are a mere epiphenomena, then Occam's >razor eliminates all qualia. Stated otherwise, if all >brain processes occur truely independantly of the >existence of qualia, then qualia are entirely >epiphenomena. If a brain process is truely independant >of the existence of qualia, then it can not >veridically report on qualia. If all qualia are ^^^^^^^^^^^ "veridically" means "truthfully"; I had to look it up >entirely epiphenomena, then no brain process can >attest to the existence of qualia. Since some brain >processes do truefully attest to qualia, then qualia >can not be entirely epiphenomena, and some brain >processes can not be entirely described by purely >material (qualia free) references. Interesting puzzle here. tcpdump is a utility that reports network packets received by a Unix machine. I think a valid analogy is when I run tcpdump to get my computer to report on its network activity. The analogy is: My computer, with tcpdump running <-> a brain a reported network packet <-> a quale reported by the brain I don't see anything about the above argument that fails to be translated by the analogy, leading to the conclusion that the operation of my computer when running tcpdump can't be described on a gate level without reference to tcpdump, and tcpdump can't generate truthful output saying what network packets were transferred. Both of these conclusions are obviously false. I think the false inference is If a brain process is truely independant of the existence of qualia, then it can not veridically report on qualia. When tcpdump is running, the operating system and hardware on my computer make an extra copy of each packet. One is used normally, and the other is given to tcpdump. tcpdump reports packets accurately only because the operating system truthfully tells it what packets were sent. If the operating system lies, then tcpdump will lie too. If I'm running tcpdump under User Mode Linux (a virtual machine) and the network doesn't really exist, then tcpdump merrily generates reports about a nonexistent network. (If tcpdump reported being merry, we'd have an entirely different puzzle. :-) Similarly, one could imagine situations where a person is deceived about their own qualia. This can really happen in split brain cases, where a person has had their corpus callosum removed. There are situations where they can pick up the object they saw, but verbally they report that they did not see anything. For details, visit http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/split.html and skip to "Split-Brain Experiments". The analogy with tcpdump still seems solid. Translating the User Mode Linux case back to brains, a simulated brain would report qualia too. If you interpret statements about qualia like "I see a spoon" as abstract statements about neurons and there aren't any real neurons around, then the reports would be false, just as the report from the split brain patient that they didn't see anything is false. However, if you interpret "I see a spoon" as meaning "I am able to respond to the presence of the spoon", then that statement is still true if it is being made by a simulated brain. A correct inference to replace the false one above would be If a brain process is truely independant of the existence of qualia, then it can only truthfully report on qualia if it is given accurate information about them from some other brain process. I think the error that lead to the bad inference earlier was the assumption that introspection, if it happens at all, must be accurate. Just as my operating system could lie to tcpdump about what packets are being transmitted on my network, there is no law of nature that forces introspection to be accurate. When I report "I see a spoon", that statement is true only because part of my brain is accurately summarizing what's going on in another part of my brain, and that summary is accurately being transmitted to the section of my brain that specializes in making tedious philosophical arguments. :-). If the summary is wrong or it isn't communicated accurately, I could report "I see a spoon" when that is not true. -- Tim Freeman May I have the imagination to see what I want to change, the hubris to make the attempt, and the strength to succeed. GPG public key fingerprint ECDF 46F8 3B80 BB9E 575D 7180 76DF FE00 34B1 5C78 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=22365