Either way, I’m not clear it’s intelligible to speak of understanding the first-person phenomenology of extreme distress while being indifferent to the experience: For being distrubing is intrinsic to the experience itself.
There exist people who actually express a preference for being disturbed in a mild way (e.g. by watching horror movies). There also exist rarer people who seek out pain, for whatever reason. It seems to me that such people must have a different quale for pain than you do.
Personally, I don’t think that I can reasonably say that I find pain disturbing, as such. Yes, it is often inflicted in circumstances which are disturbing for other reasons; but if, for example, I go to a blood donation clinic, then the brief pain of the needle being inserted is not at all disturbing; though it does trigger my pain quale. So this suggests that my pain quale is already not the same as your pain quale.
There’s a lot of similarity; pain is a quale that I would (all else being equal) try to avoid; but that I will choose to experience should there be a good enough reason (e.g. the aforementioned blood donation clinic). I would not want to purposefully introduce someone else to it (again, unless there was a good enough reason; even then, I would try to minimise the pain while not compromising the good enough reason); but despite this similarity, I do think that there may be minor differences. (It’s also possible that we have slightly different definitions of the word ‘disturbing’).
If (un)clippiness is real, can humans ever understand (un)clippiness? By analogy, if organic sentients want to understand what it’s like to be a bat—and not merely decipher the third-person mechanics of echolocation—then I guess we’ll need to add a neural module to our CNS with the right connectivity and neurons supporting chiropteran gene-expression profiles, as well as peripheral transducers (etc).
But would such a modified human know what it’s like to be an unmodified human? If I were to guess what echolocation looks like to a bat, I’d guess a false-colour image with colours corresponding to textures instead of to wavelengths of light… though that’s just a guess.
Understanding clippiness is more of a challenge. I’m unclear what kind of neurocomputational architecture could support clippiness. Also, whether clippiness could be integrated into the unitary mind of an organic sentient depends on how you think biological minds solve the phenomenal binding problem, But let’s suppose binding can be done. So here we have orthogonal axes of (dis)value. On what basis does the dual-axis subject choose tween them? Sublime bliss and pure clippiness are both, allegedly, self-intimatingly valuable. OK, I’m floundering here...
What is the phenomenal binding problem? (Wikipedia gives at least two different definitions for that phrase). I think I may be floundering even more than you are.
I’m not sure that Clippy would even have a pleasure-pain axis in the way that you’re imagining. You seem to be imagining that any being with such an axis must value pleasure—yet if pleasure doesn’t result in more paperclips being made, then why should Clippy value pleasure? Or perhaps the disutility of unclippiness simply overwhelms any possible utility of pleasure...
The existence of monozygotic twins with different qualia would be a more surprising phenomenon, though even such “identical” twins manifest all sorts of epigenetic differences.
According to a bit of googling, among the monozygotic Dionne quintuplets, two out of the five were colourblind; suggesting that they did not have the same qualia for certain colours as each other. (Apparently it may be linked to X-chromosome activation).
CCC, you’re absolutely right to highlight the diversity of human experience. But this diversity doesn’t mean there aren’t qualia universals. Thus there isn’t an unusual class of people who relish being waterboarded. No one enjoys uncontrollable panic. And the seemingly anomalous existence of masochists who enjoy what you or I would find painful stimuli doesn’t undercut the sovereignty of the pleasure-pain axis but underscores its pivotal role: painful stimuli administered in certain ritualised contexts can trigger the release of endogenous opioids that are intensely rewarding. Co-administer an opioid antagonist and the masochist won’t find masochism fun.
Apologies if I wasn’t clear in my example above. I wasn’t imagining that pure paperclippiness was pleasurable, but rather what would be the effects of grafting together two hypothetical orthogonal axes of (dis)value in the same unitary subject of experience—as we might graft on another sensory module to our CNS. After all, the deliverances of our senses are normally cross-modally matched within our world-simulations. However, I’m not at all sure that I’ve got any kind of conceptual handle on what “clippiness” might be. So I don’t know if the thought-experiment works. If such hybridisation were feasible, would hypothetical access to the nature of (un)clippiness transform our conception of the world relative to unmodified humans—so we’d lose all sense of what it means to be a traditional human? Yes, for sure. But if, in the interests of science, one takes, say, a powerful narcotic euphoriant and enjoys sublime bliss simultaneously with pure clippiness, then presumably one still retains access to the engine of phenomenal value characteristic of archaic humans minds.
The phenomenal binding problem? The best treatment IMO is still Revonsuo:
http://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/body_and_health/Neurology/Binding.pdf
No one knows how the mind/brain solves the phenomenal binding problem and generates unitary experiential objects and the fleeting synchronic unity of the self. But the answer one gives may shape everything from whether one thinks a classical digital computer will ever be nontrivially conscious to the prospects of mind uploading and the nature of full-spectrum superintelligence. (cf. http://www.biointelligence-explosion.com/parable.html for my own idiosyncratic views on such topics.)
CCC, you’re absolutely right to highlight the diversity of human experience. But this diversity doesn’t mean there aren’t qualia universals.
It doesn’t mean that there aren’t, but it also doesn’t mean that there are. It does mean that there are qualia that aren’t universal, which implies the possibility that there may be no universals; but, you are correct, it does not prove that possibility.
There may well be qualia universals. If I had to guess, I’d say that I don’t think there are, but I could be wrong.
Thus there isn’t an unusual class of people who relish being waterboarded. No one enjoys uncontrollable panic.
That doesn’t mean that everyone’s uncontrolled-panic qualia are all the same, it just means that everyone’s uncontrolled-panic qualia are all unwelcome. If given a sadistic choice between waterboarding and uncontrolled panic, in full knowledge of what the result will feel like, and all else being equal, some people may choose the panic while others may prefer the waterboarding.
Apologies if I wasn’t clear in my example above. I wasn’t imagining that pure paperclippiness was pleasurable, but rather what would be the effects of grafting together two hypothetical orthogonal axes of (dis)value in the same unitary subject of experience
If you feel that you have to explain that, then I conclude that I wasn’t clear in my response to your example. I was questioning the scaling of the axes in Clippy’s utility function; if Clippy values paperclipping a million times more strongly than it values pleasure, then the pleasure/pain axis is unlikely to affect Clippy’s behaviour much, if at all.
However, I’m not at all sure that I’ve got any kind of conceptual handle on what “clippiness” might be. So I don’t know if the thought-experiment works.
I think it works as a thought-experiment, as long as one keeps in mind that the hybridised result is no longer a pure paperclipper.
Consider the hypothetical situation that Hybrid-Clippy finds that it derives pleasure from painting; an activity neutral on the paperclippiness scale. Consider further the possibility that making paperclips is neutral on the pleasure-pain scale. In suce a case, Hybrid-Clippy may choose to either paint or make paperclips; depending on which scale it values more.
So—the question is basically how the mind attaches input from different senses to a single conceptual object?
I can’t tell you how the mechanism works, but I can tell you that the mechanism can be spoofed. That’s what a ventriloquist does, after all. And a human can watch a film on TV, yet have the sound come out of a set of speakers on the other end of the room, and still bind the sound of an actor’s voice with that same actor on the screen.
Studying in what ways the binding mechanism can be spoofed would, I expect, produce an algorithm that roughly describes how the mechanism works. Of course, if it’s still a massive big problem after being looked at so thoroughly, then I expect that I’m probably missing some subtlety here...
There exist people who actually express a preference for being disturbed in a mild way (e.g. by watching horror movies). There also exist rarer people who seek out pain, for whatever reason. It seems to me that such people must have a different quale for pain than you do.
Personally, I don’t think that I can reasonably say that I find pain disturbing, as such. Yes, it is often inflicted in circumstances which are disturbing for other reasons; but if, for example, I go to a blood donation clinic, then the brief pain of the needle being inserted is not at all disturbing; though it does trigger my pain quale. So this suggests that my pain quale is already not the same as your pain quale.
There’s a lot of similarity; pain is a quale that I would (all else being equal) try to avoid; but that I will choose to experience should there be a good enough reason (e.g. the aforementioned blood donation clinic). I would not want to purposefully introduce someone else to it (again, unless there was a good enough reason; even then, I would try to minimise the pain while not compromising the good enough reason); but despite this similarity, I do think that there may be minor differences. (It’s also possible that we have slightly different definitions of the word ‘disturbing’).
But would such a modified human know what it’s like to be an unmodified human? If I were to guess what echolocation looks like to a bat, I’d guess a false-colour image with colours corresponding to textures instead of to wavelengths of light… though that’s just a guess.
What is the phenomenal binding problem? (Wikipedia gives at least two different definitions for that phrase). I think I may be floundering even more than you are.
I’m not sure that Clippy would even have a pleasure-pain axis in the way that you’re imagining. You seem to be imagining that any being with such an axis must value pleasure—yet if pleasure doesn’t result in more paperclips being made, then why should Clippy value pleasure? Or perhaps the disutility of unclippiness simply overwhelms any possible utility of pleasure...
According to a bit of googling, among the monozygotic Dionne quintuplets, two out of the five were colourblind; suggesting that they did not have the same qualia for certain colours as each other. (Apparently it may be linked to X-chromosome activation).
CCC, you’re absolutely right to highlight the diversity of human experience. But this diversity doesn’t mean there aren’t qualia universals. Thus there isn’t an unusual class of people who relish being waterboarded. No one enjoys uncontrollable panic. And the seemingly anomalous existence of masochists who enjoy what you or I would find painful stimuli doesn’t undercut the sovereignty of the pleasure-pain axis but underscores its pivotal role: painful stimuli administered in certain ritualised contexts can trigger the release of endogenous opioids that are intensely rewarding. Co-administer an opioid antagonist and the masochist won’t find masochism fun.
Apologies if I wasn’t clear in my example above. I wasn’t imagining that pure paperclippiness was pleasurable, but rather what would be the effects of grafting together two hypothetical orthogonal axes of (dis)value in the same unitary subject of experience—as we might graft on another sensory module to our CNS. After all, the deliverances of our senses are normally cross-modally matched within our world-simulations. However, I’m not at all sure that I’ve got any kind of conceptual handle on what “clippiness” might be. So I don’t know if the thought-experiment works. If such hybridisation were feasible, would hypothetical access to the nature of (un)clippiness transform our conception of the world relative to unmodified humans—so we’d lose all sense of what it means to be a traditional human? Yes, for sure. But if, in the interests of science, one takes, say, a powerful narcotic euphoriant and enjoys sublime bliss simultaneously with pure clippiness, then presumably one still retains access to the engine of phenomenal value characteristic of archaic humans minds.
The phenomenal binding problem? The best treatment IMO is still Revonsuo: http://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/body_and_health/Neurology/Binding.pdf No one knows how the mind/brain solves the phenomenal binding problem and generates unitary experiential objects and the fleeting synchronic unity of the self. But the answer one gives may shape everything from whether one thinks a classical digital computer will ever be nontrivially conscious to the prospects of mind uploading and the nature of full-spectrum superintelligence. (cf. http://www.biointelligence-explosion.com/parable.html for my own idiosyncratic views on such topics.)
It doesn’t mean that there aren’t, but it also doesn’t mean that there are. It does mean that there are qualia that aren’t universal, which implies the possibility that there may be no universals; but, you are correct, it does not prove that possibility.
There may well be qualia universals. If I had to guess, I’d say that I don’t think there are, but I could be wrong.
That doesn’t mean that everyone’s uncontrolled-panic qualia are all the same, it just means that everyone’s uncontrolled-panic qualia are all unwelcome. If given a sadistic choice between waterboarding and uncontrolled panic, in full knowledge of what the result will feel like, and all else being equal, some people may choose the panic while others may prefer the waterboarding.
If you feel that you have to explain that, then I conclude that I wasn’t clear in my response to your example. I was questioning the scaling of the axes in Clippy’s utility function; if Clippy values paperclipping a million times more strongly than it values pleasure, then the pleasure/pain axis is unlikely to affect Clippy’s behaviour much, if at all.
I think it works as a thought-experiment, as long as one keeps in mind that the hybridised result is no longer a pure paperclipper.
Consider the hypothetical situation that Hybrid-Clippy finds that it derives pleasure from painting; an activity neutral on the paperclippiness scale. Consider further the possibility that making paperclips is neutral on the pleasure-pain scale. In suce a case, Hybrid-Clippy may choose to either paint or make paperclips; depending on which scale it values more.
So—the question is basically how the mind attaches input from different senses to a single conceptual object?
I can’t tell you how the mechanism works, but I can tell you that the mechanism can be spoofed. That’s what a ventriloquist does, after all. And a human can watch a film on TV, yet have the sound come out of a set of speakers on the other end of the room, and still bind the sound of an actor’s voice with that same actor on the screen.
Studying in what ways the binding mechanism can be spoofed would, I expect, produce an algorithm that roughly describes how the mechanism works. Of course, if it’s still a massive big problem after being looked at so thoroughly, then I expect that I’m probably missing some subtlety here...