You’re not giving me enough to work with, in my effort to understand you, I’ve made multiple efforts to restate what you are claiming, and that I completely agree with everything you say. But you refuse to try to understand, or give any idea that you are trying to understand, why this is still completely missing the point.
[see my opening comments. I have attache copies of our first two books on cellular physiologic evolution fyi. Suffice it to say that I do understand what you are saying, but that's why my understanding of Qualia deviates from Representational Qualia Theory. I see Qualia in the same way that I see the pre-adaptational mechanisms for the evolution of physiology, as a re-interpretation of genes for new uses. That relationship seems to correlate with Qualia IMHO]
There is a near unanimous “expert consensus” forming around “Representational Qualia Theory” over on Canonizer.com. It is saying that people’s default understanding of what the word “red” means (as defined in most dictionaries), and in the way that you continue to use it, is the primary reason people think qualia are “Ineffable” why so many people agree we have an “Explanatory Gap” and a “hard problem” of consciousness. You claim to know what qualia are, but I see no evidence in anything you say, that you understand what qualia are.
[For you to say that means to me that you don't understand my deconvolution of physiology, because Qualia are a natural consequence of the vertical integration of physiology, along with the historic relationships the organism has experienced. That is particularly true when considering that the brain/mind is the aggregate of that process, so of course perception is affected by that cumulative process...seems logical to me]
You claim to have a “diachronic” understanding of what consciousness is, and again, I completely agree with you. But thinking of consciousness in this way, gives you know visibility into he qualitative nature of consciousness, no insight in how to resolve any hard problems, or anything.
[Consider Hameroff and Penrose's theory of consciousness as the networking of microtubules in the brain. The networking doesn't stop there because virtually every cell in the body has microtubules, so consciousness is holistic, not Cartesian. See one of several papers I have published on the evolution of consciousness (attached) "From Cholesterol to Consciousness". It doesn't get more 'vertical' than that.]
If you think you have a better way of understanding the qualitative nature of consciousness, than described in “Representational Qualia Theory” and if we are making a mistake as you claim, then you should canonize your view in a competing camp, to see if anyone else might agree with you and support your camp.
[I thought my perspective was the minority view in Gregg's camp? or did I misunderstand? Please advise.]
Best, John
Hi John,
You’re not giving me enough to work with, in my effort to understand you, I’ve made multiple efforts to restate what you are claiming, and that I completely agree with everything you say. But you refuse to try to understand, or give any idea that you are trying to understand, why this is still completely missing the point.
There is a near unanimous “expert consensus” forming around “Representational Qualia Theory” over on Canonizer.com. It is saying that people’s default understanding of what the word “red” means (as defined in most dictionaries), and in the way that you continue to use it, is the primary reason people think qualia are “Ineffable” why so many people agree we have an “Explanatory Gap” and a “hard problem” of consciousness. You claim to know what qualia are, but I see no evidence in anything you say, that you understand what qualia are. You claim to have a “diachronic” understanding of what consciousness is, and again, I completely agree with you. But thinking of consciousness in this way, gives you know visibility into he qualitative nature of consciousness, no insight in how to resolve any hard problems, or anything.
If you think you have a better way of understanding the qualitative nature of consciousness, than described in “Representational Qualia Theory” and if we are making a mistake as you claim, then you should canonize your view in a competing camp, to see if anyone else might agree with you and support your camp.
Brent
############################Brent, I honestly don't understand how you can say that the denotative dictionary definition is 'wrong'. It may connote something different. And as for my lack of understanding of the way you see Qualia, I think you make the same systematic error that Etienne Roux talks about in the attached paper on physiology as function. John############################Sorry, this e-mail should have been addressed to John, not Greg.############################Hi Greg,HI Brent, I essentially agree with your description of what Qualia are,If you do agree, then your thinking, or at least what you say about many things, must have now changed. For example, do you now understand how the dictionary definition of red is wrong and qualia blind? Do you now understand how redness grenness qualia inverts (either natural or engineered) are functionally and mechanistically identical, but physically (and consciously) very qualitatively different. If not, then you still do not understand, let alone agree with, my description of what qualia are.but as I have said repeatedly, the only way to understand the mechanistic basis for Qualia, like that of physiology, is to delve into the 'history' of the strawberry over the course of the evolution of the organism.Again, this indicates that you do not yet understand. Redness and grenness are mechanistically identical, but qualitatively very different. Either one can represent knowledge of red things in mechanistically identical ways. So, again, using your models, you can learn everything about the mechanistic bases for qualia, while still completely missing whether you are talking about the mechanistically identical redness or grenness.Without doing that you will only show associations and correlations, not the origins and causation, which empowers prediction as the hallmark of a true scientific concept. JohnThis statement also reveals how you don't yet understand what qualitative physical qualities are. Associations and correlations between a redness experience, and the particular physics in the brain that has a redness experience are the only thing important to modeling qualia, and making predictions like are two people red green inverts or not. The origins and causations, have nothing to do with these kinds of predictions about or objective observations discovering whether someone uses redness or grenness to represent red things with.Sure your models handle, deal with, and predict a great many things about the mechanisms of consciousness. But they can tell us nothing about whether someone is a red green invert, or not.BrentTo unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1
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