On the other hand, if people’s explanations of qualia are unrelated to their experiences, then there is no evidence or reason to believe in the mystical.
I argue that this isn’t proving the point that needs to be proved. If a being is even the merest iota more uncertain about the qualia status of beings than it is about their physical constitution, then it would appear that qualia are extra-physical. I believe that I have made this clear in my argument, quote:
The distinction is that we can be extremely confident (by Yudkowsky’s reasoning) that the omniscient mind will itself be certain (by my reasoning) about the existence of qualia within the volume of the Universe about which it has perfect knowledge – whereas if one is trying to prove that qualia are not extra-physical, it insufficient to argue (as Yudkowsky did) that the omniscient mind will itself only be extremely confident about the existence of qualia within the volume of the Universe about which it has perfect knowledge.
This difference is fundamentally important to the argument, and the fact that it was either not made explicit or ignored by Yudkowsky is why his argument in the post I linked to is unsatisfactory. If we mix up our own beliefs about qualia and the beliefs of the putative being who possesses full knowledge of the physical Universe, then we are talking at cross purposes to Chalmers.
It’s that the end result is physical, so any explanation of the world carving out a mystical category for qualia in addition to a physical picture of the world still has to expect a physical interface with the mystical that is logically required to be part of the physical world in which the purely physical is disturbed by mystical forces.
I distinguish between the (alleged) property of being “extra-physical” and the property of being “irreducible”. I also believe that these need to be distinguished if we are to think precisely about qualia.
I gave my own explanation of why qualia are not extra-physical, in the 6th and 7th paragraphs. However, according to this explanation the superintelligence obtains knowledge of qualia only by experiencing qualia in the same sense that we do, i.e. as a phenomenon that may not necessarily be reducible.
I argue that we have reason to suspect that qualia may be the only irreducible concept in our Universe. Irreducibility does not imply that the concept involves any additional uncertainty beyond uncertainty about the Universe’s physical make-up. If on the other hand we are permitted to simply presume that qualia are reducible, then the second version of Eliezer’s argument is legitimate. However, I point out that in this case a lengthy debate could have been avoided and instead Eliezer should have refuted Chalmers in three sentences.
OK, let’s set the dirty work of having to interpret others aside for a moment. Let’s also play “taboo” and not use ambiguous words like “qualia”.
Words are reducible and physical. When I say “I see a blue sky” it’s the result of a bunch of small physical actions in my brain. Quarks aren’t blue, so at some level there isn’t blue, but at a higher level, many of these not-blue things make blue. Blue is irreducible past a certain point, just like the 747. But that’s not terribly special, since the non-747 pieces are big chunks we can talk about, and the non-blue pieces are big chunks we can talk about. Is this not enough irreducibility for you? Do you think others deny this amount of irreducibility, that there is a minimum size for a blue thing, a 747, or a word made of vibrations in air, or any other pattern made of discrete smaller pieces?
I argue that this isn’t proving the point that needs to be proved. If a being is even the merest iota more uncertain about the qualia status of beings than it is about their physical constitution, then it would appear that qualia are extra-physical.
Maybe try this one again, with out using the word “qualia”? If the cause of the physical words is extra-physical, then there is an interface between the extra-physical and the physical, no? A place where the atoms are perturbed by magic energy from outside the physical system?
Lessdazed, I don’t believe that qualia are extra-physical as you seem to be alleging. Irreducibility and extra-physicality do not mean the same thing, as I intend them. Perhaps the comment I just posted in another reply to you clarifies my position?
Part of my essay discusses the fact that “qualia” is exactly the kind of word that cannot be tabooed. We only have synonyms, like “consciousness” and “awareness”. I proceed to suggest that this is evidence that qualia are in fact irreducible.
If you have a problem with this, then you surely have the same problem with Eliezer and Chalmers’s entire argument. I am quite sure that neither of them would able to rationally define (i.e. reduce) “qualia” despite the fact that this is what their argument relates to.
Apart from qualia, I am entirely in agreement with the thesis of reducibility.
I don’t believe that qualia are extra-physical as you seem to be alleging.
I’m not alleging that, my beliefs are based off of a closing of some possibilities so my argument reminds me that they are closed and not available as solutions to problems elsewhere. If I were in a sinking ship, I wouldn’t want to skitter between lifeboats telling myself: “Lifeboat A has a hole in the bottom-front! Better go to lifeboat B! Lifeboat B has a hole in the bottom-rear, better go back to lifeboat A, that doesn’t have that problem!”
“qualia” is exactly the kind of word that cannot be tabooed.
If the question about reality is “what do people mean by word ‘X’”, then word ‘X’ cannot be tabooed. So inability to be tabooed is at least a matter of context for any word. I can’t think of why else a word wouldn’t be tabooable because only in such cases (or similar) would the word be a feature of the world rather than a label used to map features of the world.
If the question about reality is about other than what people mean, then no particular label is necessary.
neither of them would able to rationally define (i.e. reduce) “qualia”
There is a resolution other than explaining what phenomenon is well described by a label as an explanation for why they use that label. That is to describe what confusion explains people’s use of a label.
The core question isn’t “what is the real meaning of ‘qualia’”, the mystery that inability to answer that question represents is more abstractly a mystery as to why “qualia” is being used as it is. So “what is the real reason people use ‘qualia’ to describe their inner phenomena”? That’s a good question to answer.
It’s guaranteed to have an answer in a way the question “what are qualia?” is not.
That’s a Yudkowskian concept that might be applied for example to the question “why do I have free-will?”—instead we can ask “why do I think I have free will?”.
But if both parties to a debate were to accept that we do in fact have free will, and proceed to argue from that, then I would not be at fault for assuming the existence of free will (standing in for qualia) as a real thing—and proceeding to discuss unique problems surrounding the concept of free will.
If the existence of qualia were not a shared premise in the Yudkowsky-Chalmers debate, then it would be an entirely different debate about eliminative materialism.
Since we almost all agree that qualia are real, we can have arguments about the nature of qualia. It is then legitimate to use the fact that although we agree upon the existence of qualia, we can’t define qualia, as an argument for the special irreducible status of qualia.
If we could define qualia reductively, that would disprove my point. But I believe that even if you were to use the technique of “righting a wrong question”, it still wouldn’t enable you to achieve this. This is strange, because the technique does indeed help in defining other confusing concepts. In other words, it would delight me if you managed to use this technique to demonstrate that qualia are reducible, but I don’t expect you to be able to do so and that is part of my argument.
There are, as I see it, three solutions to the apparent problem of defining qualia:
You continue to believe that qualia are both real and reducible. When we investigate the brain further, we will obtain a reduction of qualia.
You deny the existence of qualia.
You suspect that qualia are both real and irreducible.
I lean towards 3 instead of 1, and reject 2 as ludicrous. You seem to prefer either 1 or 2.
Just to clarify, does “irreducible” in (3) also mean that qualia are therefore extra-physical?
I assume that we are all in agreement that rocks do not have qualia and that dead things do not have qualia and that living things may or may not have qualia? Humans: yes. Single cell prokaryotes: nope.
So doesn’t that leave us with two options:
1) Evolution went from single cell prokaryotes to Homo Sapiens and somewhere during this period the universe went “plop” and irreducible qualia started appearing in some moderately advanced species.
2) Qualia are real and reducible in terms of quarks like everything else in the brain. As evolution produced better brains at some point it created a brain with a minor sense of qualia. Time passed. Brains got better and more introspective. In other words: qualia evolved (or “emerged”) like our sense of smell, our eyesight and so forth.
Just to clarify, does “irreducible” in (3) also mean that qualia are therefore extra-physical?
Not unless we are arguing over definitions. Tabooing the phrase “extra-physical”, what Eliezer and Chalmers were arguing (or trying to argue) about is whether a superintelligent observer, with full knowledge of the physical state of a brain, would have the same level of certainty about the qualia that the brain experiences as it does about the physical configuration of the brain.
Actually, if they had phrased the debate in those terms it would have turned out better. I don’t think that what they were arguing about was clearly defined by either party, which is why it has been necessary (in my humble opinion) for me to “repair” Eliezer’s contribution.
So anyway, no it does not mean the same thing. I argue that qualia are not “extra-physical”, because the observer does in fact have the same level of knowledge about the qualia as it does about the physical Universe. However, this only proves that qualia supervene upon physical brain states and does not demonstrate that qualia can ever be explained in terms of quarks (rather than “psycho-physical bridging laws” or some such idea).
It might be tempting to refer to (a degree of) belief in irreducibility of qualia as “non-physical”, but for the purposes of this discussion it would confound things.
So doesn’t that leave us with two options:
1) Evolution went from single cell prokaryotes to Homo Sapiens and somewhere during this period the universe went “plop” and irreducible qualia started appearing in some moderately advanced species.
2) Qualia are real and reducible in terms of quarks like everything else in the brain. As evolution produced better brains at some point it created a brain with a minor sense of qualia. Time passed. Brains got better and more introspective. In other words: qualia evolved (or “emerged”) like our sense of smell, our eyesight and so forth.
I don’t think that there’s a good reason why you didn’t describe qualia as “plopping” into existence in scenario 2 as well, or else in neither scenario. Since (with extreme likelihood) qualia supervene upon brain states whether they are irreducible or reducible, the existence of suitable brain states (whatever that condition may be) seems likely to be a continuous rather than discrete quality. “Dimmer” qualia giving way to “brighter” qualia, as it were, as more complex lifeforms evolve.
Note the similarity to Eliezer’s post on the many worlds hypothesis here.
Honestly, I don’t have a clear picture of what exactly you’re saying (“qualia supervene upon physical brain states”?) and we would probably have to taboo half the dictionary to make any progress. I get the sense you’re on some level confused or uncomfortable with the idea of pure reductionism. The only thing I can say is that what you write about this topic has a lot of surface level similarities with the things people write when they’re confused.
If each has an intelligible definition for “free will”, and they are the same, then there is agreement that it exists. If the definitions are different, then they should use different words to not become confused and think they think of the same thing from “free will”. A less good option is for one party to adopt the other’s meaning for the discussion. If each were confused about what he or she meant...that would be bad.
If the existence of qualia were not a shared premise in the Yudkowsky-Chalmers debate, then it would be an entirely different debate about eliminative materialism.
That doesn’t best describe what Yudkowsky took as the basis for discussion. Yudkowsky talked about “mysteriousness” and what physical process underlay consciousness, but not “qualia”.
Since we almost all agree that qualia are real, we can have arguments about the nature of qualia
Verbally agreeing that whatever is represented by the label “qualia” is real while each having a different meaning for that label is a recipe for disagreement, particularly if we believe that the label has only one definition, if only because we each agreed to that as well.
special
I hadn’t focused on this earlier, but I don’t think this is a special situation. People disagree because many or all are wrong, it happens all the time.
If we could define qualia reductively
Tell me exactly what it is you want defined, and I’ll define it for you. ;-)
If we could define qualia...”righting a wrong question”...still wouldn’t enable you to achieve this...it would delight me if you managed to use this technique to demonstrate that qualia are reducible...
That’s not the type of thing that righting a wrong question does. If the question had an answer that fit its assumptions it wouldn’t need righting. The assumptions I’m proposing tossing are that the use of a label implies the existence of a thing that falls out once one carves reality at its joints and that mutual use of a single label logically necessitates agreement about interpretations of reality.
Yudkowsky didn’t say “qualia” in the essay, and had he it wouldn’t have committed him to beliefs similar to Chalmers’ and the answer to the question “why do people say ‘qualia’?” isn’t that it’s a feature of reality that is importantly distinct from others and thus needs a label, but people are confused and in their map of reality the single blotch of confusion is well covered by a single word. It may come to pass that their confusion is replaced by belief that adjacent concepts are all that is needed to explain reality where they were previously confused, and they will expand the territory on their map marked “reductionism” or similar and be left with no landmark of reality to affix the label “qualia” to.
Alternatively, carving nature at its joints may leave experienced illusions of non-agency important enough to be labeled “the County of Qualia” on the map, in the “Country of Things Reduced to Understanding”.
1...believe...3...suspect
Beliefs are probabilistic. I don’t think any particular undiscovered thing has the inherent property of being inevitably learned.
One thing is for sure, I don’t deny the existence of “qualia”s as labels, just qualia by some people’s definitions, but perhaps not qualia under everyone’s definition.
I argue that this isn’t proving the point that needs to be proved. If a being is even the merest iota more uncertain about the qualia status of beings than it is about their physical constitution, then it would appear that qualia are extra-physical. I believe that I have made this clear in my argument, quote:
The distinction is that we can be extremely confident (by Yudkowsky’s reasoning) that the omniscient mind will itself be certain (by my reasoning) about the existence of qualia within the volume of the Universe about which it has perfect knowledge – whereas if one is trying to prove that qualia are not extra-physical, it insufficient to argue (as Yudkowsky did) that the omniscient mind will itself only be extremely confident about the existence of qualia within the volume of the Universe about which it has perfect knowledge.
This difference is fundamentally important to the argument, and the fact that it was either not made explicit or ignored by Yudkowsky is why his argument in the post I linked to is unsatisfactory. If we mix up our own beliefs about qualia and the beliefs of the putative being who possesses full knowledge of the physical Universe, then we are talking at cross purposes to Chalmers.
I distinguish between the (alleged) property of being “extra-physical” and the property of being “irreducible”. I also believe that these need to be distinguished if we are to think precisely about qualia.
I gave my own explanation of why qualia are not extra-physical, in the 6th and 7th paragraphs. However, according to this explanation the superintelligence obtains knowledge of qualia only by experiencing qualia in the same sense that we do, i.e. as a phenomenon that may not necessarily be reducible.
I argue that we have reason to suspect that qualia may be the only irreducible concept in our Universe. Irreducibility does not imply that the concept involves any additional uncertainty beyond uncertainty about the Universe’s physical make-up. If on the other hand we are permitted to simply presume that qualia are reducible, then the second version of Eliezer’s argument is legitimate. However, I point out that in this case a lengthy debate could have been avoided and instead Eliezer should have refuted Chalmers in three sentences.
OK, let’s set the dirty work of having to interpret others aside for a moment. Let’s also play “taboo” and not use ambiguous words like “qualia”.
Words are reducible and physical. When I say “I see a blue sky” it’s the result of a bunch of small physical actions in my brain. Quarks aren’t blue, so at some level there isn’t blue, but at a higher level, many of these not-blue things make blue. Blue is irreducible past a certain point, just like the 747. But that’s not terribly special, since the non-747 pieces are big chunks we can talk about, and the non-blue pieces are big chunks we can talk about. Is this not enough irreducibility for you? Do you think others deny this amount of irreducibility, that there is a minimum size for a blue thing, a 747, or a word made of vibrations in air, or any other pattern made of discrete smaller pieces?
Maybe try this one again, with out using the word “qualia”? If the cause of the physical words is extra-physical, then there is an interface between the extra-physical and the physical, no? A place where the atoms are perturbed by magic energy from outside the physical system?
Lessdazed, I don’t believe that qualia are extra-physical as you seem to be alleging. Irreducibility and extra-physicality do not mean the same thing, as I intend them. Perhaps the comment I just posted in another reply to you clarifies my position?
Part of my essay discusses the fact that “qualia” is exactly the kind of word that cannot be tabooed. We only have synonyms, like “consciousness” and “awareness”. I proceed to suggest that this is evidence that qualia are in fact irreducible.
If you have a problem with this, then you surely have the same problem with Eliezer and Chalmers’s entire argument. I am quite sure that neither of them would able to rationally define (i.e. reduce) “qualia” despite the fact that this is what their argument relates to.
Apart from qualia, I am entirely in agreement with the thesis of reducibility.
I’m not alleging that, my beliefs are based off of a closing of some possibilities so my argument reminds me that they are closed and not available as solutions to problems elsewhere. If I were in a sinking ship, I wouldn’t want to skitter between lifeboats telling myself: “Lifeboat A has a hole in the bottom-front! Better go to lifeboat B! Lifeboat B has a hole in the bottom-rear, better go back to lifeboat A, that doesn’t have that problem!”
“qualia” is exactly the kind of word that cannot be tabooed.
If the question about reality is “what do people mean by word ‘X’”, then word ‘X’ cannot be tabooed. So inability to be tabooed is at least a matter of context for any word. I can’t think of why else a word wouldn’t be tabooable because only in such cases (or similar) would the word be a feature of the world rather than a label used to map features of the world.
If the question about reality is about other than what people mean, then no particular label is necessary.
There is a resolution other than explaining what phenomenon is well described by a label as an explanation for why they use that label. That is to describe what confusion explains people’s use of a label.
The core question isn’t “what is the real meaning of ‘qualia’”, the mystery that inability to answer that question represents is more abstractly a mystery as to why “qualia” is being used as it is. So “what is the real reason people use ‘qualia’ to describe their inner phenomena”? That’s a good question to answer.
It’s guaranteed to have an answer in a way the question “what are qualia?” is not.
That’s a Yudkowskian concept that might be applied for example to the question “why do I have free-will?”—instead we can ask “why do I think I have free will?”.
But if both parties to a debate were to accept that we do in fact have free will, and proceed to argue from that, then I would not be at fault for assuming the existence of free will (standing in for qualia) as a real thing—and proceeding to discuss unique problems surrounding the concept of free will.
If the existence of qualia were not a shared premise in the Yudkowsky-Chalmers debate, then it would be an entirely different debate about eliminative materialism.
Since we almost all agree that qualia are real, we can have arguments about the nature of qualia. It is then legitimate to use the fact that although we agree upon the existence of qualia, we can’t define qualia, as an argument for the special irreducible status of qualia.
If we could define qualia reductively, that would disprove my point. But I believe that even if you were to use the technique of “righting a wrong question”, it still wouldn’t enable you to achieve this. This is strange, because the technique does indeed help in defining other confusing concepts. In other words, it would delight me if you managed to use this technique to demonstrate that qualia are reducible, but I don’t expect you to be able to do so and that is part of my argument.
There are, as I see it, three solutions to the apparent problem of defining qualia:
You continue to believe that qualia are both real and reducible. When we investigate the brain further, we will obtain a reduction of qualia.
You deny the existence of qualia.
You suspect that qualia are both real and irreducible.
I lean towards 3 instead of 1, and reject 2 as ludicrous. You seem to prefer either 1 or 2.
Just to clarify, does “irreducible” in (3) also mean that qualia are therefore extra-physical?
I assume that we are all in agreement that rocks do not have qualia and that dead things do not have qualia and that living things may or may not have qualia? Humans: yes. Single cell prokaryotes: nope.
So doesn’t that leave us with two options:
1) Evolution went from single cell prokaryotes to Homo Sapiens and somewhere during this period the universe went “plop” and irreducible qualia started appearing in some moderately advanced species.
2) Qualia are real and reducible in terms of quarks like everything else in the brain. As evolution produced better brains at some point it created a brain with a minor sense of qualia. Time passed. Brains got better and more introspective. In other words: qualia evolved (or “emerged”) like our sense of smell, our eyesight and so forth.
Not unless we are arguing over definitions. Tabooing the phrase “extra-physical”, what Eliezer and Chalmers were arguing (or trying to argue) about is whether a superintelligent observer, with full knowledge of the physical state of a brain, would have the same level of certainty about the qualia that the brain experiences as it does about the physical configuration of the brain.
Actually, if they had phrased the debate in those terms it would have turned out better. I don’t think that what they were arguing about was clearly defined by either party, which is why it has been necessary (in my humble opinion) for me to “repair” Eliezer’s contribution.
So anyway, no it does not mean the same thing. I argue that qualia are not “extra-physical”, because the observer does in fact have the same level of knowledge about the qualia as it does about the physical Universe. However, this only proves that qualia supervene upon physical brain states and does not demonstrate that qualia can ever be explained in terms of quarks (rather than “psycho-physical bridging laws” or some such idea).
It might be tempting to refer to (a degree of) belief in irreducibility of qualia as “non-physical”, but for the purposes of this discussion it would confound things.
I don’t think that there’s a good reason why you didn’t describe qualia as “plopping” into existence in scenario 2 as well, or else in neither scenario. Since (with extreme likelihood) qualia supervene upon brain states whether they are irreducible or reducible, the existence of suitable brain states (whatever that condition may be) seems likely to be a continuous rather than discrete quality. “Dimmer” qualia giving way to “brighter” qualia, as it were, as more complex lifeforms evolve.
Note the similarity to Eliezer’s post on the many worlds hypothesis here.
Thanks for the clarifications.
Honestly, I don’t have a clear picture of what exactly you’re saying (“qualia supervene upon physical brain states”?) and we would probably have to taboo half the dictionary to make any progress. I get the sense you’re on some level confused or uncomfortable with the idea of pure reductionism. The only thing I can say is that what you write about this topic has a lot of surface level similarities with the things people write when they’re confused.
If each has an intelligible definition for “free will”, and they are the same, then there is agreement that it exists. If the definitions are different, then they should use different words to not become confused and think they think of the same thing from “free will”. A less good option is for one party to adopt the other’s meaning for the discussion. If each were confused about what he or she meant...that would be bad.
That doesn’t best describe what Yudkowsky took as the basis for discussion. Yudkowsky talked about “mysteriousness” and what physical process underlay consciousness, but not “qualia”.
Verbally agreeing that whatever is represented by the label “qualia” is real while each having a different meaning for that label is a recipe for disagreement, particularly if we believe that the label has only one definition, if only because we each agreed to that as well.
I hadn’t focused on this earlier, but I don’t think this is a special situation. People disagree because many or all are wrong, it happens all the time.
Tell me exactly what it is you want defined, and I’ll define it for you. ;-)
That’s not the type of thing that righting a wrong question does. If the question had an answer that fit its assumptions it wouldn’t need righting. The assumptions I’m proposing tossing are that the use of a label implies the existence of a thing that falls out once one carves reality at its joints and that mutual use of a single label logically necessitates agreement about interpretations of reality.
Yudkowsky didn’t say “qualia” in the essay, and had he it wouldn’t have committed him to beliefs similar to Chalmers’ and the answer to the question “why do people say ‘qualia’?” isn’t that it’s a feature of reality that is importantly distinct from others and thus needs a label, but people are confused and in their map of reality the single blotch of confusion is well covered by a single word. It may come to pass that their confusion is replaced by belief that adjacent concepts are all that is needed to explain reality where they were previously confused, and they will expand the territory on their map marked “reductionism” or similar and be left with no landmark of reality to affix the label “qualia” to.
Alternatively, carving nature at its joints may leave experienced illusions of non-agency important enough to be labeled “the County of Qualia” on the map, in the “Country of Things Reduced to Understanding”.
Beliefs are probabilistic. I don’t think any particular undiscovered thing has the inherent property of being inevitably learned.
One thing is for sure, I don’t deny the existence of “qualia”s as labels, just qualia by some people’s definitions, but perhaps not qualia under everyone’s definition.
Except in the traditional sense. And I’m all for that. ;)
Personally I’m in favor of the “call down Snatchers on your location” version, but that’s just me.