These models are “predictive” in the important sense that they perceive not just how things are at the moment but also anticipate how your sensory inputs would change under various conditions and as a consequence of your own actions. Thus:
Red = would create a perception of a warmer color relative to the illuminant even if the illumination changes.
My current pet theory of qualia is that there is an illusion that they are a specific thing (e.g. the redness of red) when in reality there are only perceived relations between a quale and other qualia, and a perceived identity between that quale and memories of that quale. But the sense of identity (or constancy through time) is not caused by an actual specific thing (the “redness” that one erroneously tries to grasp but always seems just beyond reach), but by a recurrence of those relations.
Why I like the quoted part is because it can be read as a predictive processing-flavoured version of the same theory. The illusion (that there is a reified thing instead of only a jumble of relationships) is strengthened by the fact that we not only recognize the cluster of qualia relationships and can correctly identify it, but furthermore predict how it will behave. Framing a “quale” as an ability to predict how a sense impression will change with varying sensory (or imaginary) impressions seems to make the definition both richer (it is not just an isolated flash of recognition of what’s in front of your eyes, but a set of predictions of how it might behave) and more coherent (different experiences of “redness” are tied together by the same quale because they could be “transformed” into each other while adhering to the changes that the quale “redness” says are applicable to itself).
This bit was very interesting to me:
My current pet theory of qualia is that there is an illusion that they are a specific thing (e.g. the redness of red) when in reality there are only perceived relations between a quale and other qualia, and a perceived identity between that quale and memories of that quale. But the sense of identity (or constancy through time) is not caused by an actual specific thing (the “redness” that one erroneously tries to grasp but always seems just beyond reach), but by a recurrence of those relations.
Why I like the quoted part is because it can be read as a predictive processing-flavoured version of the same theory. The illusion (that there is a reified thing instead of only a jumble of relationships) is strengthened by the fact that we not only recognize the cluster of qualia relationships and can correctly identify it, but furthermore predict how it will behave. Framing a “quale” as an ability to predict how a sense impression will change with varying sensory (or imaginary) impressions seems to make the definition both richer (it is not just an isolated flash of recognition of what’s in front of your eyes, but a set of predictions of how it might behave) and more coherent (different experiences of “redness” are tied together by the same quale because they could be “transformed” into each other while adhering to the changes that the quale “redness” says are applicable to itself).