Hi Gregg,
Yes. All the old grates, like Descartes, Lock, Kant… on whose shoulders we stand, came up with terminology, describing models, that captures parts of what is going on. Lock was right when he made a distinction between “primary” and “secondary” qualities, but they also missed many things that we know, today. Here is a quote from that article you referenced:
Primary qualities are thought to be properties of objects that are independent of any observer, such as solidity, extension, motion, number and figure. These characteristics convey facts. They exist in the thing itself, can be determined with certainty, and do not rely on subjective judgments. For example, if an object is spherical, no one can reasonably argue that it is triangular.
Descartes pointed out that we can’t determine these solidity, extension, motion, number… things (#1) with certainty, as we could be a brain in a vat, where only (#2) exists. It is #2, or the qualities of our conscious knowledge that are the only facts of the matter of anything in itself. Since we are aware of these physical qualities, directly, we can’t doubt their existence, nor their qualities.
#2 also has “solidity, extension, motion, number and figure”, as our knowledge models and tracks reality, based on the abstract data coming from our senses. Lehar describes this as a diorama, in our brain, that has all of these solidity, extension, motion, number and figure…” that represents the same in reality.
The only physical things in the world, which we know the quality of, is our physical conscious knowledge. Everything else we know about the outside world is only abstract knowledge, which we don’t yet know how to qualitatively interpret. Check out Steven Lehar’s picture at the top of the “Representational Qualia Theory” camp statement:
https://canonizer.com/topic/88-Representational-Qualia/6
and notice that only the miss shaped (not at all like it’s referent) diorama knowledge, inside the brain has color. The fact that everything outside the brain is in black and white, indicates that all we know of it, is abstract knowledge. Objectively, we are blind to physical qualities, at least until sentimentalists stop being qualia blind, so they can discover what it is, in our brain, that has a redness quality…
Does that answer your question?
Brent, I am saying that because oxytocin has pleiotropic effects perhaps it connects the image of a strawberry to its taste on the tongue and the color red. And these elements of red strawberries were acquired across space/time diachronically. That’s what I imagine quaila to be as free associations . I wonder what someone with red-green color blindness sees looking at a strawberry?############################Brent,
Just so I am clear, Is your distinction below parallel or similar to Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities?
Best,
Gregg
From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Brent Allsop
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2019 4:47 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: How Psychology Helps Reinforce the Justification System of Neoliberalism
Hi John,
############################I have missed the point, because we are talking about completely different things. Everything you are saying makes complete sense, in a completely qualia blind way. For example, when you talk about linking “color and other physiologic functions of oxytocin” what do you mean by “color”? It seems that what you mean by color, you are only talking about abstract names, such as the word “red”.
I’m talking about something completely different. I’m talking about physical qualities, not their names. Within my model, when you say color, I don’t know which of the flooring two physical properties you are talking about:
1. The physical properties that are the target of our observation. These properties initiate the perception process, such as a strawberry reflecting red light.
2. The physical properties within the brain that are the final results of the perception process. These properties comprise our conscious knowledge of a red strawberry. We experience this directly, as redness.
I guess you’re not talking about either of these, you are only talking about the physical properties of oxytocin, and how it behaves in the retina? Would you agree that it is a very real possibility, that experimentalists, operating in a non-qualia blind way, could falsify any belief that oxytocin is necessary for any computationally bound composite conscious experiences of redness, or any other qualia?
On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 2:26 PM JOHN TORDAY <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Brent, I think that you have missed the point of the hormone oxytocin functionally connecting the cell that perceives color (the cone) with the epithelial cells that line the retina, offering a way of physically seeing red in conjunction with pain.....it's a hypothesis for linking vision and color and other physiologic functions of oxytocin, of which there are many, including regulation of body heat, empathy, the relaxation of the uterus during birth and production of breast milk, referred to as 'let down', which I always thought was a funny term, be that as it may. I would imagine, for example, that a woman in labor might see red due to the pain of that experience. And just to expand on that idea of interconnections between physiology and physics, the attached paper shows the homologies (same origin) between Quantum Mechanics and The First Principles of Physiology. That nexus would hypothetically open up to seeing a red strawberry, particularly because I equated pleiotropy (the interconnections between physiologic traits through the distribution of the same gene in different tissues and organs) with non-localization, the physics that Einstein referred to as 'spooky action at a distance'.
On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 3:48 PM Brent Allsop <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hi John,
I’m glad you at least mentioned the name, “red” of a physical quality. But are the physical properties of oxytocin, or the physical properties of anything in the retina anything like either of the physical qualities of these two things?
1. The physical properties that are the target of our observation. These properties initiate the perception process, such as a strawberry reflecting red light.
2. The physical properties within the brain that are the final results of the perception process. These properties comprise our conscious knowledge of a red strawberry. We experience this directly, as redness.
Other than the fact that we may be able to abstractly interpret some of these physical qualities, like we can interpret the word “red” as representing a redness physical quality? You can’t know what the word red (or anything in the eye representing anything) means, unless you provide a mechanical interpretation mechanism that get’s you back to the real physical quality they represent.
All abstract representations (including all computer knowledge) are abstracted away from physical qualities. Any set of physical qualities, like that of a particular physical cone in a retina, can represent a 1 (or anything else), but only if you have an interpretation mechanism to get the one, from that particular set of physics. Consciousness, on the other hand, represents knowledge directly on physical qualities, like redness and greenness. This is more efficient, since it requires less abstracting hardware.
On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 1:14 PM JOHN TORDAY <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Brent and TOKers, I am hypothesizing that consciousness is the net product of our physiology, which is vertically integrated from the unicellular state to what we think of as complex traits. In that vein, in the paper attached I proferred as an example the role of oxytocin in endothermy/homeothermy/warm-bloodedness. The pleiotropic effect of oxytocin on retinal cones and retinal epithelial cells would hypothetically account for seeing 'red' when looking at a strawberry, for example. It's the 'permutations and combinations' that form our physiology that cause such interrelationships due to our 'history', both short-term developmental and long-term phylogenetic. Hope that's helpful.
On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 2:02 PM Brent Allsop <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Tim Henriques asked:
“What is your operational definition of consciousness?”
John Torday replied with his definition / model of consciousness.
Also, if you google for solutions to the “hard problem” of consciousness, you will find as many solutions as you care to take time to look into.
I’m sure all these models have some utility, when it comes to understanding various things about our consciousness, and our place in the world. But what I don’t understand is, why not a one of them include anything about the qualitative nature of consciousness? None of them give us anything that might enable us to bridge Joseph Levine’s “Explanatory Gap”. In other words, to me, they are all completely blind to physical qualities or qualia. In fact, as far as I know, all of “peer reviewed” scientific literature, to date, is obliviously qualia blind. Is not the qualitative nature of consciousness it’s most important attribute?
One important thing regarding conscious knowledge is the following necessary truth:
“If you know something, there must be something physical that is that knowledge.”
This implies there are two sets of physical qualities we must consider when trying to objectively perceive physical qualities:
1. The physical properties that are the target of our observation. These properties initiate the perception process, such as a strawberry reflecting red light.
2. The physical properties within the brain that are the final results of the perception process. These properties comprise our conscious knowledge of a red strawberry. We experience this directly, as redness.
If we seek to find what it is in our brain which has a redness quality, we must associate and identify the necessary and sufficient set of physics for a redness experience. For example, it is a hypothetical possibility that it is glutamate, reacting in synapses, that has the redness quality. If experimentalists could verify this, we would know that it is glutamate that has a redness quality. We would then finally know that it is glutamate we should interpret “red” as describing.
So, given all that, and given that consciousness is composed of a boat load of diverse qualia or physical qualities all computationally bound together, and if experimentalists can verify these predictions about the qualitative nature of various physical things. Would that not imply the following definitions?
“Intentionality, free will, intersubjectivity, self-awareness, desire, love, spirits… indeed consciousness itself, are all computational bound composite qualitative knowledge.”
As always, for more information, see the emerging expert consensus camp over at canonizer.com being called: “Representational Qualia Theory”.
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