Re: The return of the revenge of qualia, part VI.

From: David Hart (dhart@atlantisblue.com.au)
Date: Fri Jul 29 2005 - 23:54:58 MDT


Ben Goertzel wrote:
> I think that
> if we engineered an AI to reflect on its own structures and dynamics in such
> a way that it believed ,based on its own self-study, that the simplest
> hypothesis for explaining its own behavior was a hypothesis involving "I
> have qualia" -- then this AI would have qualia in exactly the same sense
> that human do. Not because qualia are somehow an epiphenomenon of material
> phenomena, but because subjectivity and objectivity are different
> perspectives on pattern-sets -- meaning they are pattern-sets that often
> have significant intersection, and the intelligence-associated patterns in
> intelligent self-reflective systems lie in this intersection

This view gives the [simplified] definition for 'quale' of "the
/internal feeling/ associated with the activation of a mental pattern
formed primarily from a basic external stimulus." For example, in
humans, a stimulus-induced complex neuronal firing pattern (taking into
account spacial, temporal, brain structure, etc. factors), which is both
reinforceable and roughly reproducible; or, in Novamente terms, the
activation of map.

Perhaps the quale definition simply pushes the hard part of the
definition to the concept of /internal feeling/, which would be, as you
suggest, different in both quality and quantity between beings with
different mental architectures and different self-reflective abilities,
like human brains, Novamente minds, CEV minds, etc.

I doubt that either hardcore reductionists or dualists would like this
definition, however I hold out the silly hope that it might put to rest
the great qualia debate, at least on SL4!

- David



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