Computers are Zombies

[mickthinks]

The falsifiable prediction is that whatever is responsible for redness will always be responsible for the same redness everywhere and in all brains.

Well, yes ... except that I am not convinced that is a falsifiable prediction. I would expect there to be too many differences in the observable behaviours of different brains when exposed to identical stimuli in the laboratory. I don't see how the experimenter could identify and exclude all the differences that have nothing to do with redness in order to arrive at an observation that the redness isomorphisms are nevertheless the same?

[Brent.Allsop]

The falsifiable prediction is that whatever is responsible for redness will always be responsible for the same redness everywhere and in all brains.

Well, yes ... except that I am not convinced that is a falsifiable prediction. I would expect there to be too many differences in the observable behaviours of different brains when exposed to identical stimuli in the laboratory. I don't see how the experimenter could identify and exclude all the differences that have nothing to do with redness in order to arrive at an observation that the redness isomorphisms are nevertheless the same?

The testable prediction is that there is an elemental redness quality that is experimentally detectable (i.e. easily distinguishable from elemental greenness and so on), independent of all other types of conscious knowledge that can be bound up with such elemental qualia.

If you can pierce this qualitative veil of perception for any elemental qualia, then effing all others would simply be more complex and subtle variations on the same. The important part being, all this would be a solution to the so called "hard problem".

[Hobbes' Choice]

The falsifiable prediction is that whatever is responsible for redness will always be responsible for the same redness everywhere and in all brains.

Well, yes ... except that I am not convinced that is a falsifiable prediction. I would expect there to be too many differences in the observable behaviours of different brains when exposed to identical stimuli in the laboratory. I don't see how the experimenter could identify and exclude all the differences that have nothing to do with redness in order to arrive at an observation that the redness isomorphisms are nevertheless the same?

The testable prediction is that there is an elemental redness quality that is experimentally detectable (i.e. easily distinguishable from elemental greenness and so on), independent of all other types of conscious knowledge that can be bound up with such elemental qualia.

If you can pierce this qualitative veil of perception for any elemental qualia, then effing all others would simply be more complex and subtle variations on the same. The important part being, all this would be a solution to the so called "hard problem".

Not really. All you are doing is adding another level of description. You can't get the the Qualia because no matter how much external data you can use to describe it, there will always be a disjunction between description and experience. You can describe a symphony in exact detail, on paper to the enth degree but nothing can compare with the hearing of it; or even the re-playing it in your head.

[Obvious Leo]

You can describe a symphony in exact detail, on paper to the enth degree but nothing can compare with the hearing of it; or even the re-playing it in your head.

This is a good example to illustrate the ephemeral nature of qualia. fMRI technology has shown us that not only is it meaningless to ask if your subjective experience of the colour red is the same as my subjective experience of the same colour, but that it is even meaningless to ask if your subjective experience of the colour red is the same today as it was yesterday. Every time we look at the same red object we are actually processing the same visual information slightly differently within the neural network so it stands to reason that our subjective experience cannot be identical. However in the case of the simplest of stimuli, such as the colour of an object, our subjective experience will be near enough to identical to what it was in the past as to make no practical difference. We intuitively leap to the conclusion that we are seeing the same colour, although technically this cannot be so, but in the case of listening to a symphony this notion of processing information differently every time we experience it becomes more readily apparent. We could listen to the same CD of Beethoven's 5th every day of our lives and never repeat our same subjective experience of it.

[Brent.Allsop]

Not really. All you are doing is adding another level of description. You can't get the the Qualia because no matter how much external data you can use to describe it, there will always be a disjunction between description and experience. You can describe a symphony in exact detail, on paper to the enth degree but nothing can compare with the hearing of it; or even the re-playing it in your head.

I agree that yet another level of description will not bridge the qualitative information gap, or will not enable you to detect inverted redness greenness qualia, for example. But the prediction is, that you will be able to map these two, and indicate to someone, in a way that he will be able to say something like: 'Oh wow, your redness must then be more like my greenness!'. And if you can do that for any elemental qualia, all other effing of the ineffable will simply be more complex and subtle variations on the qualitative bridging / communicating / effing the ineffable theme.

Again, for more information on how to detect inverted qualia, see this 15 minute video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHuqZKxtOf4