Qualia seem to be associated with the arising of patterns within a system
(whether via internal emergence or external perception). Repetitive
activities like driving or repetitive experiences like the hum of a
refrigerator tend not to get quale-ified, as they tend not to be registered
significantly as patterns, because the brain considers it advantageous to
ignore them...
On the other hand, apparently quale-free activities are still associated
with pattern-recognition: humans can do some cognition and sophisticated
perception "without knowing it." Yet there is a limit to what we humans can
do in this way.
One interpretation of this observation is that while qualia are associated
strongly with the arising of patterns, the correlation between these two
things is not 100%.
But there is also another interpretation, in line with panpsychism. This is
that these apparently quale-free activities performed by humans are actually
NOT quale-free --- there are qualia associated with them, but these qualia
are not linked to the memory-system associated with human "ordinary waking
conscious experience." Rather, the qualia are had by another part of the
brain (a part that tends to have less intense qualia, precisely because it
is only capable of hosting less sophisticated patterns).
Thus it seems to me that the panpsychist view ("Everything has qualia but
some have more qualia than others") and the view that quale-intensity is
associated with pattern-intensity are consistent with each other, and
consistent with human experience.
In this view "quale" is a different way of saying "pattern" and "quale
intensity" is another way of saying "pattern intensity."
-- Ben G
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Behalf Of Jef Allbright
> Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 6:58 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [agi] What are qualia...
>
>
> Philip Sutton wrote:
>
> >Brad/Eugen/Ben,
> >
> >Early living things/current simple-minded living things, we can
> conjecture
> >didn't/don't have perceptions that can be described as qualia. Then
> >somewhere along the line humans start describing perceptions
> that some of
> >them describe as qualia. It seems that something has happened
> in between.
> >
> >
> >
> I agree with what I think Philip is saying here, but would state it in
> more abstract terms.
>
> It may be useful to note that humans do many things in their daily
> lives, skillfully and effectively, without any apparent qualia. A
> common example is the one of driving some distance, but having no memory
> - no experience - of the trip. Likewise, an animal can be quite
> responsive and functional within its environment with awareness but not
> qualia (no self-awareness of the experience.)
>
> And it's easy to see that an organism with a higher level of awareness
> - call it meta-awareness, self-awareness, or qualia - would possess an
> evolutionary advantage due its greater ability to model - but more
> importantly, predict - its environment including itself and its own
> possible actions.
>
> Now, what I find more interesting, is to think of humans
> (hypothetically) as part of a larger organism having a form of awareness
> - sensing and regulatory feedback loops - at a higher level of
> organization than humans can effectively perceive or comprehend.
>
> Does the previous scenario make any difference to the thinking of those
> who tend to value qualia and panpsychism as useful concepts? Does the
> larger organism have qualia? Where, or of what is it composed?
>
> - Jef
>
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