If they are important, then it is highly likely our intelligent machines will also have them.
I agree that qualia probably have fitness importance (or are the spandrel of something that does), but I’m not very sure that algorithms in general that implement probabilistic induction similar to our brain’s are also likely to have qualia. Couldn’t it plausibly be an implementation-specific effect, that would not necessarily be reproduced by a similar but non-identical reverse-engineered system?
It is possible, but I don’t find it plausible, partly because I understand qualia to be nearly unavoidable side effects of the whole general category of probabilistic induction engines like our brain, and I belive that practical AGI will necessarily use similar techniques.
Qualia are related to word connotations and the subconscious associative web: everything that happens in such a cognitive engine, every thought, experience or neural stimulus, has a huge web of pseudo-random complex associations that impose small but measurably statistical influence across the whole system.
The experience of perceiving one wavelength of light will have small but measurable differences on every cognitive measure, from mood to types of thoughts one may experience afterwards, and so on. Self-reflecting on how these associative traces ‘feel’ from the inside leads to qualia.
I agree that qualia probably have fitness importance (or are the spandrel of something that does), but I’m not very sure that algorithms in general that implement probabilistic induction similar to our brain’s are also likely to have qualia. Couldn’t it plausibly be an implementation-specific effect, that would not necessarily be reproduced by a similar but non-identical reverse-engineered system?
It is possible, but I don’t find it plausible, partly because I understand qualia to be nearly unavoidable side effects of the whole general category of probabilistic induction engines like our brain, and I belive that practical AGI will necessarily use similar techniques.
Qualia are related to word connotations and the subconscious associative web: everything that happens in such a cognitive engine, every thought, experience or neural stimulus, has a huge web of pseudo-random complex associations that impose small but measurably statistical influence across the whole system.
The experience of perceiving one wavelength of light will have small but measurable differences on every cognitive measure, from mood to types of thoughts one may experience afterwards, and so on. Self-reflecting on how these associative traces ‘feel’ from the inside leads to qualia.