What, linking to Conscious Entities again? ...

[alexr_rwx]

Probably the best blog in the whole world, Conscious Entities, has now switched to WordPress, meaning now Peter (the CE dude) now has a feed, meaning...

consc_entities. Which you should friend. Probably right now. Go on, I'll wait.

His description of the site:

What is consciousness, and how does it work? Is the problem of qualia the real 'hard problem', or is that the mystery of intentionality? Is 'strong AI' a mirage, or should we surrender ourselves to the robots? Have we actually got any selves to worry about, or is selfhood illusory - and is consciousness itself just another illusion? These are the issues argued over and (I hope) clarified in these pages.

(also: fairly similar conversations happen in comic book form over at Halo and Sprocket, which is about a young lady, an angel, and a robot)

Comments

[lindseykuper]

Ooh. Thanks!

I only know what qualia are because a few weeks ago at Wednesday Night Dinner Club, we got into a discussion of consciousness. We talk about a lot of interesting things at WNDC.

(it's "like something" to be at WNDC, I assume?)

[oniugnip.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a good time being had by all!

[oniugnip.livejournal.com]

I'd meant to ask, though -- what'd you come up with? Do you have any particular positions about consciousness or qualia or what it means to be having a first-person experience? How about your dinner companions? ...

[lindseykuper]

Actually, to be honest, this was a few weeks back and I don't remember much of what was said. I came away from it thinking that an example of a quale would be the existence of the pole. After reading Wikipedia and not really understanding it, I don't know if I'm on the right track.

[oniugnip.livejournal.com]

*thinking* Well...

If there was a Dumb Non-Experiencing Robot in the frame, and it had some sort of vision system going, presumably it would be able to find the pole, right?

Although Randall might be saying that all perceptions are subjective ones, and that it's silly to only think of "qualia" as such?

When I think of qualia, I think more about taste and smell and touch. Like, there's the smell of an orange, and you know it (and "what it's like"), but you can't really communicate it, and if you had a smellerometer reading, it wouldn't be the same experience. The quale is like the missing bit between the smellerometer output and the smelling-the-orange itself. It's that inward "oh, I see the color red" as opposed to "this light right here has a wavelength of 650 nm".

"At least, I think I'm having a subjective conscious experience", said the automaton.

Still not sure I get it.

[lindseykuper]

If there was a Dumb Non-Experiencing Robot in the frame, and it had some sort of vision system going, presumably it would be able to find the pole, right?

I don't know! You don't know! Daniel Dennett doesn't know! It's the xkcd Universe, man! Anything can happen!

But, assuming it could find the pole: so what? Would that mean that experiencing-the-pole isn't a quale? Can qualia only be experienced by conscious entities? Is that the definition of qualia? Is that the definition of consciousness?

Is a quale something you can't describe in terms of something else?

Re: Still not sure I get it.

[oniugnip.livejournal.com]

There's the distinction between functionally finding-the-pole and having the *experience* of looking at the pole.

Maybe! Or maybe information-processing is the same as conscious experience, like Chalmers throws out there!

(for some people, probably me included, consciousness is the ability to be having a first-person, qualia-filled experience...)

And it's true, nobody knows, even Daniel Dennett!

[reality-calls.livejournal.com]

That has got to be the greatest link you have ever posted.  I am forever in your debt for showing me this site.

      "Live from the People's Republic!"

[oniugnip.livejournal.com]

Glad to pass along the happiness! :)

Peter is a very sharp guy. (although I think he identifies a little more strongly with the angel character than the abacus, but perhaps we can forgive him because he can have that debate in his head...)