Readers may be interested in my approach to the problem, or rather, the problem that remains even after any terminology issues are settled.
Summary: What we identify as “qualia” is the encoding of memories that we cannot yet compare directly between people, to the extent we can’t compare them. This incommensurability can easily arise among agents who are similar, but who self-modify in a way that does not place any priority on the ability to directly transfer memories to other agents.
In that case, their methods of storing memories are ad-hoc, and look like garbage to each other—but with the right assumptions and interaction, they can achieve a limited ability to compare, and thereby have terminology like “red” that means something to all agents, even as it doesn’t call up exactly the same idea for each one.
I was intrigued when I first read this when you last posted it, and I thought about it for a while. The problem with it, it seems to me, is that this is a good explanation for why qualia are ineffable, but it doesn’t seem to be come any close to explaining what they are or how they arise.
So, I could imagine a world (it may even be this one!) where people’s brains happen to be organized similarly enough that two people really could transfer qualia between them, but this still doesn’t explain anything about them.
The problem with it, it seems to me, is that this is a good explanation for why qualia are ineffable, but it doesn’t seem to be come any close to explaining what they are or how they arise.
You’re right. But I believe that that the ineffable aspect is closely related to the other two questions, although I don’t have an answer in the same detail as the ineffability question (which would still be progress!).
To give a sketch of what I have in mind, my best explanation is this: conscious minds form when a subsystem is able to screen itself off from the entropizing forces of the environment (similar in kind to a refrigerator or other control system). This necessarily decouples it from the patterns that exist in the environment, as well as other minds that have done the same.
So the formation of a conscious mind will coincide with the formation of incompatible encoding methods, unless special care is taken to ensure that the encoding protcols are the same. Therefore, we shouldn’t be surprised to notice that, “hey, everything that’s conscious, also has ineffable experiences with the other conscious things.”
But again, I don’t claim this part is as well-developed or thought-out.
Readers may be interested in my approach to the problem, or rather, the problem that remains even after any terminology issues are settled.
Summary: What we identify as “qualia” is the encoding of memories that we cannot yet compare directly between people, to the extent we can’t compare them. This incommensurability can easily arise among agents who are similar, but who self-modify in a way that does not place any priority on the ability to directly transfer memories to other agents.
In that case, their methods of storing memories are ad-hoc, and look like garbage to each other—but with the right assumptions and interaction, they can achieve a limited ability to compare, and thereby have terminology like “red” that means something to all agents, even as it doesn’t call up exactly the same idea for each one.
I was intrigued when I first read this when you last posted it, and I thought about it for a while. The problem with it, it seems to me, is that this is a good explanation for why qualia are ineffable, but it doesn’t seem to be come any close to explaining what they are or how they arise.
So, I could imagine a world (it may even be this one!) where people’s brains happen to be organized similarly enough that two people really could transfer qualia between them, but this still doesn’t explain anything about them.
You’re right. But I believe that that the ineffable aspect is closely related to the other two questions, although I don’t have an answer in the same detail as the ineffability question (which would still be progress!).
To give a sketch of what I have in mind, my best explanation is this: conscious minds form when a subsystem is able to screen itself off from the entropizing forces of the environment (similar in kind to a refrigerator or other control system). This necessarily decouples it from the patterns that exist in the environment, as well as other minds that have done the same.
So the formation of a conscious mind will coincide with the formation of incompatible encoding methods, unless special care is taken to ensure that the encoding protcols are the same. Therefore, we shouldn’t be surprised to notice that, “hey, everything that’s conscious, also has ineffable experiences with the other conscious things.”
But again, I don’t claim this part is as well-developed or thought-out.