Matt Mahoney wrote:
--- On Fri, 11/14/08, Richard Loosemore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
http://susaro.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/draft_consciousness_rpwl.pdf
Interesting that some of your predictions have already been tested,
in particular, synaesthetic qualia was described by George Stratton
in 1896. When people wear glasses that turn images upside down, they
adapt after several days and begin to see the world normally.
Not the same as swapping sensory modalities.
And note that my prediction is specific: I predict that the effect will
occur if you make a transformation at the *boundary* of the scope of the
analysis mechanism.
Making a transformation in the outside world, before the rays of light
strike the retina, would not be a test of the theory, even though it
woud be interesting.
The fact that people can adapt to this external transformation is not,
alas, a test of my specific theory.
http://www.cns.nyu.edu/~nava/courses/psych_and_brain/pdfs/Stratton_1896.pdf
http://wearcam.org/tetherless/node4.html
This is equivalent to your prediction #2 where connecting the output
of neurons that respond to the sound of a cello to the input of
neurons that respond to red would cause a cello to sound red. We
should expect the effect to be temporary.
I'm not sure how this demonstrates consciousness. How do you test
that the subject actually experiences redness at the sound of a
cello, rather than just behaving as if experiencing redness, for
example, claiming to hear red?
You misunderstand the experiment in a very intersting way!
This experiment has to be done on the *skeptic* herself!
The prediction is that if *you* get your brain rewired, *you* will
experience this.
:-)
Richard Loosemore
I can do a similar experiment with autobliss (a program that learns a
2 input logic function by reinforcement). If I swapped the inputs,
the program would make mistakes at first, but adapt after a few dozen
training sessions. So autobliss meets one of the requirements for
qualia. The other is that it be advanced enough to introspect on
itself, and that which it cannot analyze (describe in terms of
simpler phenomena) is qualia. What you describe as "elements" are
neurons in a connectionist model, and the "atoms" are the set of
active neurons. "Analysis" means describing a neuron in terms of its
inputs. Then qualia is the first layer of a feedforward network. In
this respect, autobliss is a single neuron with 4 inputs, and those
inputs are therefore its qualia.
You might object that autobliss is not advanced enough to ponder its
own self existence. Perhaps you define "advanced" to mean it is
capable of language (pass the Turing test), but I don't think that's
what you meant. In that case, you need to define more carefully what
qualifies as "sufficiently powerful".
-- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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