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Verifying organizational invariance

Verifying organizational invariance

bemoosed
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Posted 05/12/09 - 04:10 PM: Subject: Verifying organizational invariance	#1
Prof. Chalmers, first let me thank you for writing "The Conscious Mind". As a lay person with the intuition that it doesn't all happen in the dark but it could, it's been great to read such lucid and convincing arguments. I ran into a problem in the "Absent Qualia..." chapter. It seemed plausible to me that there might be something special about a neuron, such that it contributes to my conscious experience where, for whatever reason, a functionally identical chip might not; and, that my complex experiences are indeed constituted by the micro-experiences of my neurons. Given this, for simplicity I supposed that I could identify a set of neurons in my primary visual cortex constituting my primary sensory experience of red; and I replace these with isomorphic chips. My problem is that it seems at least plausible that, through this, I might remove my first-order red qualia while the rest of my neurons continue to mediate all my higher-order qualia associated with red, none the wiser. In other words, I lose my qualia of seeing red while maintaining all qualia of "I am seeing red". I behave identically though I've been partially zombified, and what remains of my conscious self is blithely unaware (unlike in Searle's argument). (I'd have a similar problem with a one-by-one replacement - that is, it seems plausible that the qualiant constitution of the remaining neurons might not detect that anything is amiss.) I looked at your paper "Moving Forward on the Problem of Consciousness" and saw some relationship to this in your response to Hardcastle (in 3.5). Is it plausible from the above that a first-person report of such a system, or indeed our own experience of it, could be incorrect? Or is this simply the skepticism you refer to in 3.5, reasonably answered by the subject's own word (or one's first-hand experience)? If the former, are there other potential ways to verify the principle of organizational invariance? It seemed to me that if more were known about the constitution problem, it might turn out that the above is not plausible. Do you see a way that investigation might proceed? Again, thanks much! for your time, your work and your book, and I look forward to the futuristic one. Edited by bemoosed on 05/15/09 - 01:56 AM

davidchalmers
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Posted 05/15/09 - 05:53 AM:	#2
Well, this would be a paradigmatic "fading qualia" possibility, in which I have all sorts of false beliefs about my consciousness, not realizing it has faded or partially disappeared. I don't think this is logically impossible. I just think it's extremely odd, and given the choice, it's better to have a theory where this won't happen, or at least where it won't happen under conditions as straightforward as this. I'm not really sure what you mean by higher-order qualia -- perhaps qualia associated with an introspective thought, not a perception? It's controversial whether there are such qualia, but even if there are, it doesn't get around the fact that this person will be massively wrong, forming thoughts entirely out of synch with the perceptual states that would ordinarily form the evidence for these thoughts. Of course this isn't a conclusive argument -- it's still logiclly possible, and I agree with you that theoretical considerations about the combination/constitution problem could in principle lead us to take this sort of thing seriously as a possibility, or to rule it out more conclusively. So I don't think that the matter is cut and dried.

bemoosed
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Posted 05/15/09 - 09:56 PM:	#3
Oops, with regard to "higher-order qualia", first I apologize for the poor choice of terminology, given the specific meanings of the terms first-, second- and higher-order in your book (and likely elsewhere in this context); I didn't mean to refer to any such associations, and any confused-sounding conceptual similarity was accidental. By higher-order qualia I meant any qualia (whatever they are) constituted directly by those neurons that receive inputs from the red-mediating chips and indirectly by those further upstream - given the initial assumption. Ask me to supply an example without incorporating or referring "lower-order" qualia and I'm on very shaky ground: I don't have a good sense of how to describe one and simply assume that they must exist if the assumptions are plausible. Perhaps the best I can offer (and for my intuitional motivation as well) is in comparison to pathologies. I intuited the condition proposed (which would have "higher-order" qualia without their attendent "lower-order") to very roughly be the opposite of blindsight, like what I imagine Anton-Babinski syndrome might be like experientially; except - unlike the ABS sufferer who reports that she sees normally despite being functionally blind, and confabulates to dismiss her blindness - I have no need to confabulate, as upstream I'm getting all the proper inputs and am functionally unimpaired. Now, whatever my qualiant state is (which I admit seems nearly inconceivably odd to me! but perhaps not much odder than ABS), it comprises what I had called - in relation to my missing red qualia - my higher-order qualia (then, iterated from minus-one to minus-all-but-one neurons). My apologies if this is no clearer, redundant, or beside the point (likely all three!). Thank you for your answer. I suspect I have a case of blindness myself here; I'll mull it over in conjunction with the "The Coherence Between Consciousness and Cognition" chapter again. Meanwhile, I suppose that if souped-up silicon occipital lobes come on the market I won't be first in line! Thanks again and best regards... Edited by bemoosed on 05/16/09 - 06:58 AM

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