Thanks! I have been looking at Principia Qualia a few times, but now I have a much crisper picture because of this review.
Johnson discusses a few ways to test the hypothesis, such as by creating symmetrical or asymmetrical brain states and testing their phenomenological correlates. To me this, again, seems to be skipping ahead too fast: without a more expanded theory of consciousness in general (not just valence) that explains multiple levels of ontological analysis, testing correlations in isolation tells us little, as it does with IIT’s correlation with crude measures of consciousness such as wakefulness.
Yes, I feel that we need to make genuine progress in the general problem of consciousness and, in particular, in “solving the qualia” (in this sense, Johnson’s “eight problems to solve” look very useful as a starting point).
Focusing mostly on valence is trying to take a shortcut and get a valuable application without understanding the overall theory of qualia. But I think that we do need to understand the overall theory of qualia (for many reasons, including AI existential safety and more).
And moreover, while “rating the quality of subjective experience” is very important, I am not sure it is optimal to use the word valence, because I feel that speaking in terms of valence pushes one a bit too hard to associate value of subjective experience with a scalar parameter, and diversity of experience, novelty, and curiosity do matter a lot here, so it seems that the overall quality of subjective experience would be a multicriterial thing instead.
Symmetry is surely important, but it is an attempt to have a scalar rating that is pushes one to try to find a single aspect and to try to reduce the overall “rating of the quality of subjective experience” to that single aspect.
Thanks! I have been looking at Principia Qualia a few times, but now I have a much crisper picture because of this review.
Yes, I feel that we need to make genuine progress in the general problem of consciousness and, in particular, in “solving the qualia” (in this sense, Johnson’s “eight problems to solve” look very useful as a starting point).
Focusing mostly on valence is trying to take a shortcut and get a valuable application without understanding the overall theory of qualia. But I think that we do need to understand the overall theory of qualia (for many reasons, including AI existential safety and more).
And moreover, while “rating the quality of subjective experience” is very important, I am not sure it is optimal to use the word valence, because I feel that speaking in terms of valence pushes one a bit too hard to associate value of subjective experience with a scalar parameter, and diversity of experience, novelty, and curiosity do matter a lot here, so it seems that the overall quality of subjective experience would be a multicriterial thing instead.
Symmetry is surely important, but it is an attempt to have a scalar rating that is pushes one to try to find a single aspect and to try to reduce the overall “rating of the quality of subjective experience” to that single aspect.