Yes! Subjective experience has a topology. The neighborhoods are just all the collections of qualia that feel some amount of similar, for any sort of amount that feels different. And the “shape” of the #2 color is different because it is not homeomorphic to the #1 color.
There’s also (something like) a metric space structure on this topology, since different things feel different amounts of different. People seem to have variation in this while still having the same topological structure as others.
My hypothesis about the “mysterious redness of red” is that it feels striking in part because it has a more mathematically interesting/complex homotopy type, and that you could in principle give people entirely new qualia by arranging their neurons to experience a novel homotopy type.
Yes! Subjective experience has a topology. The neighborhoods are just all the collections of qualia that feel some amount of similar, for any sort of amount that feels different. And the “shape” of the #2 color is different because it is not homeomorphic to the #1 color.
There’s also (something like) a metric space structure on this topology, since different things feel different amounts of different. People seem to have variation in this while still having the same topological structure as others.
My hypothesis about the “mysterious redness of red” is that it feels striking in part because it has a more mathematically interesting/complex homotopy type, and that you could in principle give people entirely new qualia by arranging their neurons to experience a novel homotopy type.