I don’t believe that I experience qualia. But I recall that in my childhood, I was really fascinated by the question “is my blue your blue?” Apparently this is a really common thing.
But I think it can be resolved by imagining our brains work sort of like artificial neural networks. In a neural network, we can train it to recognize objects from raw pixel data. There is nothing special about red or blue, they are just different numbers. And there is nothing magic going on in the NN, it’s just a bunch of multiplications and additions.
But what happens is, those weights change to recognize features useful in identifying objects. It will build a complicated internal model of the world of objects. This model will associate “blue” with objects that are commonly blue, like water and bleggs.
From inside the neural network, blue doesn’t feel like it’s just a number in it’s input, or that it’s thoughts are just a bunch of multiplications and additions. Blue would feel like, well, an indescribable phenomenon. Where it lights up it’s “blue” neurons, and everything associated with them. It could list those associations, or maybe recall memories of blue things it has seen in the past. But it wouldn’t be able to articulate what blue “feels” like.
People raised in a similar environment should learn similar associations. But different cultures could have entirely different associations, and so really do have different blues than you. Notably many cultures don’t even have a word for blue, and lump it together with green.
Meaning you have no experiences, or your experiences have no particular character or flavour?
From inside the neural network, blue doesn’t feel like it’s just a number in it’s input, or that it’s thoughts are just a bunch of multiplications and additions. Blue would feel like, well, an indescribable phenomenon. Where it lights up it’s “blue” neurons, and everything associated with them. It could list those associations, or maybe recall memories of blue things it has seen in the past. But it wouldn’t be able to articulate what blue “feels” like.
Which experiences would you expect to be easier to describe..novel ones, or familiar ones?
I don’t believe that I experience qualia. But I recall that in my childhood, I was really fascinated by the question “is my blue your blue?” Apparently this is a really common thing.
But I think it can be resolved by imagining our brains work sort of like artificial neural networks. In a neural network, we can train it to recognize objects from raw pixel data. There is nothing special about red or blue, they are just different numbers. And there is nothing magic going on in the NN, it’s just a bunch of multiplications and additions.
But what happens is, those weights change to recognize features useful in identifying objects. It will build a complicated internal model of the world of objects. This model will associate “blue” with objects that are commonly blue, like water and bleggs.
From inside the neural network, blue doesn’t feel like it’s just a number in it’s input, or that it’s thoughts are just a bunch of multiplications and additions. Blue would feel like, well, an indescribable phenomenon. Where it lights up it’s “blue” neurons, and everything associated with them. It could list those associations, or maybe recall memories of blue things it has seen in the past. But it wouldn’t be able to articulate what blue “feels” like.
People raised in a similar environment should learn similar associations. But different cultures could have entirely different associations, and so really do have different blues than you. Notably many cultures don’t even have a word for blue, and lump it together with green.
Meaning you have no experiences, or your experiences have no particular character or flavour?
Which experiences would you expect to be easier to describe..novel ones, or familiar ones?
Wait, what?