From: IMBJR <imbjr@imbjr.com>
Date: Fri, Jul 23, 2004
I was poking around the 'net on the subject of qualia
(a concept I
finally have a word for after thinking about this subject
on and off
for many a year) when I bumped into this:
http://www.angelfire.com/ca/sanmateoissues/Qufd2.html
Judging by this summation:
A Quantum Mechanical-Theological FORMULATION of Human
and Cosmic
Consciousness, based upon Quantum Physics, the Christian
Theology of
Reality, Jungian Psychology and certain extra-secular
Historical
Records of humanity, as derived from the Electronic-book
(E-book) by
Father Jerome entitled, "KNOWING: The Quantum Physics
of
Consciousness, Life & Reality!"
I'd say the kook level was fair to good.
However, moving on, this was far better:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "HdMrs. Salacia the Overseer" <SeventhSqueal@SlowOnTheUptake.edu>
Qualia....never heard of it before. I'll read it later and give it a go.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "iDRMRSR" <idrmrsr@subgenius.com>
Translation:
If a store sold orgasms, there'd be no way to be sure
you were getting the
best ones.
[*]
-----
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "HdMrs. Salacia the Overseer" <SeventhSqueal@SlowOnTheUptake.edu>
The Stanford site isn't kooky. They're just doing a
thorough job of defining
the term.
Can it be used by kooks for kooky purposes?
Sure it can! Look at all the memeheads!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: IMBJR <imbjr@imbjr.com>
Yeah, sorry, I wasn't impugning the Standford lot -
just the AngelFire
site.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "HdMrs. Salacia the Overseer" <SeventhSqueal@SlowOnTheUptake.edu>
Kooky for sure! We all need "Timmy the 5 year old" to explain it for us!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Bonecho <bon_echo22@hotmail.com>
kook-kook-ke-chew
kootchy kootchy kook
would we listen if he did?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "HdMrs. Salacia the Overseer" <SeventhSqueal@SlowOnTheUptake.edu>
I confess that being very lazy, I didn't read the whole thing. I read this:
A text-only (NO graphics) science education website
for 5 year-old
"scientists", which explains in detail what
the human MIND is and how
CONSCIOUSNESS works, using established Quantum Mechanical,
Psychological,
Spiritual and other scientific principles, in a Philosophical
discourse
which promulgates both a new Unified Field Theory of
Quantum Mechanics
(QUFD) and a new Psychology-of-Consciousness Theory.
And then when I got to the fascinating part about how
he had 5 year old
Timmy beta for him--well, that's as far as I needed
to go.
Anyone claiming to incorporate Unified Field Theory
of Quantum Mechanics
and with phenomenology is a kook. Quantum mechanics
is, in my experience,
pretty abstract and non intuitive. Outside of mathematics,
which few of us
can understand most of that the ideas around Quantum
mechanics is so alien
to our everyday lives that it doesn't relate at all
with how we live our
lives and experience them. Counterintuitive. It's about
matter/energy.
Phenomenology is about how we live our lives with and
in our bodies and our
minds. It's about people.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Rev. ErRoR" <error@priest.SPAMcom>
IMBJR <imbjr@imbjr.com> wrote:
> I was poking around the 'net on the subject of
qualia (a concept I
> finally have a word for after thinking about this
subject on and off
> for many a year) when I bumped into this:
>
> http://www.angelfire.com/ca/sanmateoissues/Qufd2.html
>
> Judging by this summation:
>
> A Quantum Mechanical-Theological FORMULATION of
Human and Cosmic
> Consciousness, based upon Quantum Physics, the
Christian Theology of
> Reality, Jungian Psychology and certain extra-secular
Historical
> Records of humanity, as derived from the Electronic-book
(E-book) by
> Father Jerome entitled, "KNOWING: The Quantum
Physics of
> Consciousness, Life & Reality!"
>
> I'd say the kook level was fair to good.
>
> However, moving on, this was far better:
> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/
I think the entry was for these:
http://www.erowid.org/ask/ask.cgi?ID=143
But someone took too many before they wrote it
--
err.
"Error runs down an inclined plane, while Truth
has to laboriously climb its
way up hill."
http://www.lakofbob.com/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: König Prüß, GfbAEV <xenuxenu@netzero.net>
Off hand, I'd conjecture that this is the result
of too much Port&Stilton. Try a blast of single-malt,
then a week of a good-grade of gin and augmented with
plates of cold beef w/horseradish.
Contemplate the quiff--
Avoid philosophical zombies!
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/
"The hypothesis that there can be philosophical
zombies is not normally
the hypothesis that such zombies are nomically possible,
that their
existence is consistent with the actual laws of nature.
Rather the
suggestion is that zombie replicas of this sort are
at least imaginable
and hence metaphysically possible.
Philosophical zombies pose a serious threat to any sort
of physicalist
view of qualia. To begin with, if zombie replicas are
metaphysically
possible, then there is a simple argument that seems
to show that
phenomenal states are not identical with internal, objective,
physical
states. Suppose objective, physical state P can occur
without phenomenal
state S in some appropriate zombie replica (in the metaphysical
sense of
OEcan' noted above). Intuitively S cannot occur without
S. Pain, for
example, cannot be felt without pain. So, P has a modal
property S
lacks, namely the property of possibly occurring without
S. So, by
Leibniz' Law (the law that for anything x and for anything
y, if x is
identical with y then x and y share all the same properties),
S is not
identical with P.
Secondly, if a person microphysically identical with
me, located in an
identical environment (both present and past), can lack
any phenomenal
experiences, then facts pertaining to experience and
feeling, facts
about qualia, are not necessarily fixed or determined
by the objective
microphysical facts. And this the physicalist cannot
allow, even if she
concedes that phenomenally conscious states are not
strictly identical
with internal, objective, physical states. For the physicalist,
whatever
her stripe, must at least believe that the microphysical
facts determine
all the facts, that any world that was exactly like
ours in all
microphysical respects (down to the smallest detail,
to the position of
every single boson, for example) would have to be like
our world in all
respects (having identical mountains, lakes, glaciers,
trees, rocks,
sentient creatures, cities, and so on).
One well-known physicalist reply to the case of zombies
(Loar 1990) is
to grant that they are conceptually possible, or at
least that there is
no obvious contradiction in the idea of a zombie, while
denying that
zombies are metaphysically possible. Since the anti-physicalist
argument
requires metaphysical possibility -- mere conceptual
possibility will
not suffice -- it now collapses. That conceptual possibility
is too weak
for the anti-physicalist's purposes (at least without
further
qualification and argument) is shown by the fact that
it is conceptually
possible that I am not Michael Tye (that I am an impostor
or someone
misinformed about his past) even though, given the actual
facts, it is
metaphysically impossible."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: IMBJR <imbjr@imbjr.com>
König Prüß, GfbAEV <xenuxenu@netzero.net>:
> Contemplate the quiff--
Oops. It collaped.
Anyhoo. I'm going off to print the non-kook stuff out.
I think I have
an answer to the "Mary the color scientist"
thought experiment, but
even so I think the physicalists still don't win.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: König Prüß, GfbAEV <xenuxenu@netzero.net>
Consider Kant's Thing in itself, or the Tao of Königsberg.
Kant never could! A disembodied essence is possible,
but
of what utility? Mere chin music!
Perhaps "philosophical zombies" are the source of the golem.
Class Field Theory and successive approximations and harmonics
The qualia is a marsupial native to Australia--
Pov-Ray has more than 16-million colors, but not names for all.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: IMBJR <imbjr@imbjr.com>
Not so. For instance, <1,1,1> is white, but there's
nothing wrong in
saying that <0.3245214,0.7563,0.1231232> is the
name for the color
<0.3245214,0.7563,0.1231232>.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: König Prüß, GfbAEV <xenuxenu@netzero.net>
Yuh! That's the good part. Straw into gold. The font
of creativity.
Maybe why Kant critiqued Pure Reason. The old mind/body
dichotomus.
> Not so. For instance, <1,1,1> is white, but
there's nothing wrong in
> saying that <0.3245214,0.7563,0.1231232>
is the name for the color
> <0.3245214,0.7563,0.1231232>.
No <0,0,0> nor <1,1,1>, but thinking makes
it so--
numerical designations are not the same as Prussian
Blue,
Cadmium Yellow, Raw Umber, Chrome Yellow, 'tho these
have
numerical ranges, hues and cries, voices and echoes,
djin&tonic
The qualia, it turns out, is not a marsupial; but lives
in
eucalyptus trees in the Outback.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: IMBJR <imbjr@imbjr.com>
König Prüß, GfbAEV <xenuxenu@netzero.net>:
>IMBJR wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 25 Jul 2004 18:59:59 GMT, in reply
to König Prüß, GfbAEV
>> <xenuxenu@netzero.net>:
>>
>> >Consider Kant's Thing in itself, or the
Tao of Königsberg.
>> >Kant never could! A disembodied essence
is possible, but
>> >of what utility? Mere chin music!
>>
>> It may point to something significant about
consciousness. There's
>> something that borders on the spiritual about
all of this. Qualia do
>> not appear to have any physical representation,
yet they exist.
> Yuh! That's the good part. Straw into gold. The
font of creativity.
>Maybe why Kant critiqued Pure Reason. The old mind/body
>dichotomus.
>
>> >Perhaps "philosophical zombies"
are the source of the golem.
>>
>> Actually, the zombies appear to strength the
significance of qualia.
>> They are what makes us non-zombie - i.e. living?
>>
>> >Class Field Theory and successive approximations
and harmonics
>> >
>> >The qualia is a marsupial native to Australia--
>> >
>> >Pov-Ray has more than 16-million colors,
but not names for all.
>>
>> Not so. For instance, <1,1,1> is white,
but there's nothing wrong in
>> saying that <0.3245214,0.7563,0.1231232>
is the name for the color
>> <0.3245214,0.7563,0.1231232>.
>
>No <0,0,0> nor <1,1,1>, but thinking
makes it so--
>numerical designations are not the same as Prussian
Blue,
>Cadmium Yellow, Raw Umber, Chrome Yellow, 'tho these
have
>numerical ranges, hues and cries, voices and echoes,
>djin&tonic
I disagree. Perhaps the only way to describe 'redness'
to someone is
to show that person the map of neurons firing in one's
head - though
that is a physicalist way of representing qualia. So
the language of
colour becomes formed from an alphabet of neurons. However,
it's an
impractical language as everyone's brain is uniquely
wired. Mary, our
monochromist colour scientist, surely could not be expected
to know
all of the past, present and future ways that 'redness'
appears in the
minds of the Pinks.
As with POV, or any colour space. I don't need no steekin
traditional
name for a colour when I can adquitly describe its coordinates
in that
colour space.
>The qualia, it turns out, is not a marsupial; but
lives in
>eucalyptus trees in the Outback.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: König Prüß, GfbAEV <xenuxenu@netzero.net>
Ok, the qualia _is_ a marsupial afterall.
Maybe it's like René DeCart's "Goat-in-a-Machine"
in that it is a qualia arising from a physicalist base.
But what of the disembodied qualia? Possible.
The two parts are also not unlike the existential moment
and the psychological moment, between which there is
usually some gap of time; although these moments might
be without the occurance of the other.
Mary the colour scientist, eh? Mary's colour box, hmmm?
What of Buddha's Chocolate Box?
Life is like a box of chocolates: Everyone wants to get the cherry!
Or of English prof telling me that a woman may not
be eternally
beautiful, but Beauty is eternal.
Or the CofE Vicar answering my question:
me: "Is it 'Is souls immortal?', or 'are souls
immortal?' "
Vicar: "Are souls!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joe Cosby <http://joecosby.com/code/mail.pl>
IMBJR <imbjr@imbjr.com> wrote:
>Actually, the zombies appear to strength the significance
of qualia.
>They are what makes us non-zombie - i.e. living?
Living, really, is just time and mind. Personally I
don't think we
have invented a sufficient word for it yet.
--
Joe Cosby
http://joecosby.com/
"There's no such thing as no PR"
- Dobbs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: IMBJR <imbjr@imbjr.com>
Joe Cosby <http://joecosby.com/code/mail.pl>:
>IMBJR <imbjr@imbjr.com> wrote:
>
>>Actually, the zombies appear to strength the
significance of qualia.
>>They are what makes us non-zombie - i.e. living?
>
>Living, really, is just time and mind. Personally
I don't think we
>have invented a sufficient word for it yet.
This I strongly suspect, but I also suspect it might
not be possible.
It seems strange though that we have these experiences
that so
subjective that we cannot relate them, though we are
fairly(?) sure we
all have them.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joe Cosby <http://joecosby.com/code/mail.pl>
IMBJR <imbjr@imbjr.com> wrote:
>This I strongly suspect, but I also suspect it might
not be possible.
>It seems strange though that we have these experiences
that so
>subjective that we cannot relate them, though we
are fairly(?) sure we
>all have them.
It's ironic, because experience is the only thing that
we are, truly,
absolutely sure of. Regardless of the nature of experience
or the
nature of the world, it's all coming in through filters
and we can
never be absolutely sure of it, but that we do have
these experiences
is the only unquestionable thing.
But our personal experience, this one sure thing, is
irresolvably
subjective. And therefore not "real" in any
sense that can be talked
about.
--
Joe Cosby
http://joecosby.com/
"I DEMAND A SIMPLE ANSWER TO MY VAGUE QUESTION!"
- what computer programmers hear a lot.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "HdMrs. Salacia the Overseer" <SeventhSqueal@SlowOnTheUptake.edu>
"Joe Cosby" <http://joecosby.com/code/mail.pl>
wrote:
> IMBJR <imbjr@imbjr.com> wrote:
> >Actually, the zombies appear to strength the
significance of qualia.
> >They are what makes us non-zombie - i.e. living?
>
> Living, really, is just time and mind. Personally
I don't think we
> have invented a sufficient word for it yet.
You know what? I betcha the zombie qualia can kick the robot meme's ass.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "HdMrs. Salacia the Overseer" <SeventhSqueal@SlowOnTheUptake.edu>
One thousand pardons. I meant the zombie qualia can
kick the android meme's
ass.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: IMBJR <imbjr@imbjr.com>
Can you describe that "assness" though?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "HdMrs. Salacia the Overseer" <SeventhSqueal@SlowOnTheUptake.edu>
The common english language descriptors for the android
meme's assness is
'canadian purple'.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joe Cosby <http://joecosby.com/code/mail.pl>
"HdMrs. Salacia the Overseer" <SeventhSqueal@SlowOnTheUptake.edu>
wrote:
>You know what? I betcha the zombie qualia can kick
the robot meme's ass.
Well that's a thorny philosophical issue. The robot
meme has eye
lasers and shoulder-mounted rocket launchers, so tactically
the zombie
qualia is no match. But there are unlimited qualia
and only a finite
number of memes, memes are dependant on human thought
processes but
qualia precede them, so the zombie qualia have a huge
advantage in
weight of numbers. Plus zombie qualia can never die
because they were
never alive, so the robot meme has to not only kill
them but chop them
into little pieces, otherwise the zombie qualia would
just keep
crawling into the robot meme's chestplate biting wires
until the robot
meme went down.
So from the point of view, you would think the zombie
qualia would
beat the robot meme.
BUT.
The zombie qualia are UNDEAD, and therefore evil, but
the robot meme
is neutral. So the Fightin' Jesus Paradigm would necessarily
align
itself with the robot meme.
Since the Fightin' Jesus Paradigm wields the mighty
Blessed Nunchaku
of Truth, it could simply spin them in a Jeet Kune Do
pattern so the
zombie qualia couldn't get near, and then smite them
with the Crushed
Skull of Truth and dismember them with the Mighty Chainsaw
of
Righteousness. Meanwhile the robot meme could lay down
a covering
fire with the rocket launchers to the Fightin' Jesus
Paradigm doesn't
get overwhelmed.
I don't know. It would be a desperate battle. I think
they should
make a movie out of it with Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson.
--
Joe Cosby
http://joecosby.com/
You can't make people happy by law. If you said to a
bunch of average people two hundred years
ago "Would you be happy in a world where medical
care is widely available, houses are clean, the
world's music and sights and foods can be brought into
your home at small cost, travelling even 100
miles is easy, childbirth is generally not fatal to
mother or child, you don't have to die of dental
abcesses, and you don't have to do what the squire tells
you", they'd think you were talking about the
New Jerusalem and say "yes".
- Terry Pratchett
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