From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Wed Jan 07 2004 - 21:51:06 MST
> > As I tend to be an animist, I'm not so sure that qualia are unique to
> > humans. I tend to think they're part of everything in the universe ...
> > though with greater or lesser intensity....
>
> I thought animism was the theory that said that biological systems are
> imbued with a mysterious life force that lets them move and speak and feel
> stuff, that is not related to physical processes. Since you're into AI I
> think that is not what you mean right?
> I also believe at least the greater majority of animals have qualia (at
> least those with a mammalian brain who live in groups and have social
> interactions similar to ours).
OK, I'm not really an animist, I just like the word ;-)
I'm a "panpsychist", to use the correct term...
> As for the intensity, I don't think animals have less intense qualia for
> reasons I have explained earlier, namely
>
> 1. to the being in question, the qualia it experiences is all there is, so
> how can it feel milder than anything
>From the perspective of another quale, which embodies the experience of
comparing prior qualia to each other?
> 2. qualia evolved when there was no logical brain to plan smart responses.
> Therefore it is likely that animals have just as powerful or more powerful
> qualia since they lack bayesian reasoning powers.
I don't think so... I am a panpsychist but I still believe that some
entities have more mind than others. And some will have more mind than
humans, before too long from now...
> >I think that having qualia is
> > just about "existing" not specifically about "being human".... But this
> is
>
> that is what I believe too. I just extended "human" to everything that
> exists, so as to remove the homo-sapiens-centric connotations
> from the word
> we use so often to indicate what we think we are at the most basic level .
> :)
ok, then our perspectives are closer than I thought ;)
ben g
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