/sci/ - Science & Math

It's what Lord Steven Christ has and you don't.

I assume you know what the difference between a quantitative statement and a qualitative statement is?

Quantitative is exact and statements of objective fact. For example:
I am male.
1+1 = 2
OP is a fag
The sky is blue
Jews did 9/11

Qualitative statements are things like:
Rock and roll is the best genre of music
4chan is full of idiots
Cocks are delicious
The moon landing wasn't faked
>this text is yellow

/sci/ is for the intelligent and mature discussion of topics related to science and mathematics. Qualia is not, has never been, nor will ever be one of those topics and has been relocated to /x/ where topics of a similar inane and infantile nature belong. Please refrain from creating new threads on the topic of qualia on /sci/, for you will soon enjoy a ban. I hope you realize how costly a mistake that will be.

Qualia is something that disproves physicalism

>>5228579
Science is the study of knowledge. OP was asking for knowledge about what Qualia is.

Even though qualia itself is not science, the description of the existence of qualia falls within the preview of this board.

What a coincidence, my IQ is 146. Welcome to /sci/

Qualia are something that people who don't know anything about the brain talk about to "formalize" their naive beliefs about how the "mind" works.

>>5228596
Yeah, well MY IQ is 168.

The wiki article gives a pretty good explanation, in my opinion. Qualia is a name that you can give to your perceptions of reality. Like, you see this text, and in your consciousness you see black symbols on a bluish background. Those are qualia. That which you see, hear, smell are all qualia.

>>5228598
>>5228579
Spoken like true zombies.

http://www.davidchess.com/words/poc/lanier_zombie.html

>>5228608
Call it what you want, but I only concern myself with well defined phenomena that have explanatory power. Qualia and God are equally poor in both regards.

>>5228570
>this text is yellow

this is a qualia image...

qualia-TY!

>>5228623
There is one difference though. Everybody experiences qualia even though they are ineffable. All experiences of God can be explained away.

I believe that one day we will be able to experiment with our qualia the same way we experiment with anything else, and even develop a theory of qualia. However, even then I do not think we really have an explanation for why we actually experience them (instead of being "zombies").

This annoys me, that they seem unreachable by science, but I'm not going to deny that they exist.

>>5228579

>"enjoy a ban"

You're the faggot who posts >infantile cartoon at every opportunity, no?

>>5228662
Okay, thats cool, they can exist. I know that I'm experiencing the feeling of my mechanical keys beneath my fingers or the taste of this (extremely shitty) coffee. I'm not gonna pretend that I'm not, although I could and you'd have no idea if I was lying to you or not.

If you ask me to define "experience," I'll shrug. Because I can't define experience, I won't use it to explain anything because it doesn't have a definition, and is therefore a completely trivial explanation for anything. Unless one can give a formal and tractable definition of qualia, it's as useless a concept as phlogiston or vital force. Qualia aren't anything, and they can't explain any observations.

So why talk about them?

>>5228570
So, basically, quantitative means "conjecture", and qualitative means "fact"?

>>5228683
I do not see qualia as an explanation, but as a name for something I'd like to one day explain.

It is like gravity is a name for something I'd like explained. General relativity doesn't really explain gravity at all, it just describes it.

Another reason I'd like to talk about it is because I believe that philosophy matters. If our philosophy includes subjective beings that can feel pain I think that is a better philosophy than one that sees humans as no different than anything else. I find aggressive reductionism to be a bit unsettling because it will eventually remove so much from our discourse about humanity that people will kind of disappear into a fog of quarks.

Don't get me wrong though, I'd be a complete materialist except I just can't let go of qualia.

>>5228662
>This annoys me, that they seem unreachable by science, but I'm not going to deny that they exist.
Qualia are just virtual states of neurochemical arrangements. The reason that qualia can't be shared or "investigated" in the traditional sense is because you'd have to recreate the exact neurochemical arrangement that gave rise to the qualia in order to study exactly how the neurochem state affects experience. We might be able to model brains one day, but not right now.

>>5228743
I am pretty sure we will be able to exactly duplicate qualia one day. People will literally share their feels one day.

Of course, that would make my feel into your feel.

I also think we would be able to do things like alter our perceptions to add things like a forth color or echo location or magnetic sensing.

And then we may even be able to create sense modalities based all kinds of new and unimagined sensing devices.

I think all of this would give us insight and intuition on how qualia change and mutate according to some unknown set of rules.

What I am unsure about is if this will give us insight or just deepen the mystery.

I think however you make a mistake when you say "qualia = states" because those are not identical. How can you experience a brain state?

>>5228730

I think general relativity does a pretty good job explaining gravity as the curvature of spacetime...

I like geometric explanations, though. Hm...

>>5228765
>How can you experience a brain state?
I guess I mean that qualia are emergent from certain brain states.

>>5228683

Because we might figure out a satisfying way of defining them. And asserting their inexistence is nightmarish.

I agree, though, that it is best left separate from math and science until we find a better way to do talk about it it. But at the very least let it be an idea that you can understand, if only for the sake of your humanity.

>>5228730
Any model of any phenomenon can be said to be descriptive if all my model needs to do is map one space to another. The problem is that qualia doesn't even have a meaningful description, let alone an explanation short of "the brain did it."

>>5228743
Although we don't have models of the brain that are nearly complete, there are definitely spiking neural network models of perceptual decision making that can reproduce population firing rates observed in various regions of the brain (LIP, FEF, etc...), while simultaneously mapping stimuli to behavior in a way that accuately reproduces the reaction times and accuracy of real primates in a perceptual discrimination task. As far as experimental neuroscience goes, I'd say that perceptual discrimination is as close to studying consciousness as we'll get. These models are also the closest things we have to explaining a concious process. Hell, you can even do a state space analysis on the population of spiking units of the model to get the model's beliefs about the identity of the stimulus at any given instant of a simulated "trial."

What more is there to understand about that decision? What rocks are left unturned that must be explained by, or comprise, subjective experience?

>>5228782
I'm an epiphenominalist so this is about what I believe. I am aware however that at the current time this is not a scientific theory.

My main problem with what is called "eliminative reductionism" is that I can imagine a time in the far future when, after we have rightly convinced everybody there is no God, we will proceed to teach them that they do not really exist either.

>>5228807
citation so you know I'm not full of shit.

http://tools.medicine.yale.edu/ncs/www/documents/lecture12/wang.neuron2002.pdf

Wang, X. J. (2002). Probabilistic decision making by slow reverberation in cortical circuits. Neuron, 36(5), 955-968.

>>5228776
The theory pretty much just says how spacetime is curved in the presence of matter, but not why. I think however that the candidates for unifying gravity and quantum physics have the curvature as an emergent phenomenon (but actually, more likely, describe it as exchange of virtual particles).

In such a theory gravity is explained, but then it is all the particles that are merely described. Science will always be like this, although I do think there has to be a bottom to it at some point.

>>5228807
I have this uncomfortable feeling because you are like the atheist in an evolution vs. creationism debate and I'm playing the role of the creationist...

I actually have not thought about this subject in years, but at least I'm pretty sure some dualists out there have better arguments than I could bring to the table at the moment, so I probably need to do some more reading, since you are way more prepared than me to discuss this in depth.

(not implying that a creationist could ever get prepared to debate evolution after a lifetime of study...)

>>5228813

Hm, I guess you have to choose when you're satisfied. When understood the principle of stationary action, I felt satisfied. I'm also satisfied with GR's explanation... I was satisfied with Newton's picture, too, though. Damn... I don't know what to say.

>>5228830
Newton's picture has observable flaws. You should only be satisfied with it if you are building a bridge or an automobile engine. But you couldn't be if you were trying to explain the evolution of the universe.

>>5228827
When it comes down to it, I cannot disprove (nor can I prove) the existence of conciousness. In fact, I believe that it exists, perhaps as baselessly as a creationist believes in God. After all, the best argument I've heard for both ideas is "just look around you."

However, much like God, I don't think that conciousness offers an explanation for anything and I think that it's fundamentally impossible to study. I think that "why conciousness?" would be impossible to answer even with absolutely perfect information about the state of the brain sampled at a million hertz.

>>5228839
We aren't very far off at all then. My main problem is probably just that I see the philosophical program of eliminative reductionism as a potential problem in the future.

Imagine, for example, that our experience can only happen, for some reason we cannot scientifically know about, inside our biological brains.

In the far future the eliminative reductionists have convinced everybody to ignore the question of consciousness because it explains nothing. They build these mechanical brains for everybody to transfer their minds to and POOF, everybody is a zombie.

It is kind of silly, kind of like the question brought up in Star Trek about the teleporter, but I think it is something we'd like to really answer before doing that instead of dismissing it on philosophical grounds.

>>5228839
>I believe that it exists
So you believe untestable, metaphysical nonsense? Thank you for dismissing all of your credibility.

This thread belongs on >>>/lit/

>>5228807

Qualia has a meaningful description in the wikipedia article to me. It's just not something that is accessibly studied by science at the moment.

Neural networks are an excellent way to study how the brain mimics computational machines. But I'd be lying if I said that I believe a neural network is a conscious entity. Qualia is about the nature of conscious experience of reality. I want to understand why and how consciousness is in the universe.

I think, however, it is best left to philosophers to consider for now. I do not see any feasible way of doing science with it.

>>5228869
No one in /lit/ is gonna give me citations like
>>5228811

>>5228872
>I think, however, it is best left to philosophers to consider for now.
So why are you bumping delusional, metaphysical discussion on the science and math board?

>>5228876

Because you call it delusional, and are in need of education.

>>5228876
>delusional?
It is debatable whether acknowledging or denying your own qualia is what is delusional. Then again, maybe there really are zombies.

>>5228839

I think therefore I am.

The I that is perceiving the thoughts (thinking) is consciousness. You have now proven consciousness.

>>5228883

God, please don't say that there might be zombies. Posting on this board makes me think that too much. It's frightening how fragmented some people seem here.

>>5228880
Belief in nonexistent, non-interacting invisible demons is delusional. Please take your mental disorders to >>>/x/

>>5228883
It's not debatable at all. Observation is a physical process and does not require untestable metaphysical magic. Humans are no different from any other measuring device. Our eyes receive physical input and it is physically processed in the brain. Nowhere in the act of observation a magical soul / consciousness / quale is needed. Back to >>>/x/ please.

>>5228893

Do you really believe that you are not conscious?

>>5228893
> the color red is a demon
OK, I guess it is just a troll.

>>5228898
Untestable nonsense with no evidence can be said to not exist.

>>5228899
careful with all that straw, it might burst into flames at the rate you are stuffing it.

>>5228905
You claim this metaphysical entity to exist. It's you who has to post objectively verifiable evidence, troll

>>5228899

Prove that observation is a physical process.

>>5228908
When I think about qualia I try to consider what my questions would be like to a super advanced scientist with amazing technology who grew up in a world where consumer electronics, like the PlayStation 1038, directly manipulate your qualia.

>>5228909
This thread is about qualia and consciousness. Physical brains receive physical input and produce physical output (behavior) by means of physical and chemical interactions. There is no reason to assume that any metaphysical magic takes place and there's no evidence for such nonsense.

>>5228912

Answer my questions. Are you a philosophical zombie or not?

This will settle whether you can even perceive qualia to begin with.

>>5228918

You cannot prove that statement. So don't assert it.

>>5228913
You claim nonphysical observation exists. Either you provide evidence or you fuck off. This is unscientific, and you are on a science board.

>>5228921
A zombie cannot tell you he is a zombie. But it seems like some people will anyway.

>>5228924

You claim that observation is always necessarily physical. Either you provide evidence or you fuck off. This is unscientific, and you are on a science board.

>>5228917
>When I think about invisible non-interacting rape demons I try to consider if they can be manipulated within the physical world.
2/10

>>5228929
You can't shift the burden of proof with an unscientific claim, pal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience#Over-reliance_on_confirmation_rather_than_refutation

>>5228924

The evidence is in I think therefore I am. Here I am, thinking and perceiving.

>>5228921
Everyone is a "zombie". Occam's razor tells us to not accept magic for which there is no evidence. Thus the untestable distinction between "zombies" and owners of a magical soul / consciousness is arbitrary and meaningless.

>>5228931
Ha Ha. No I'm just trying to imagine better thought experiments than the old Lucy the color scientist or the Chinese room which assume the brain and consciousness are some kind of black box.

Instead, what would it be like if we had the tools to actually understand the brain and manipulate our perceptions endlessly.

You can't deny that we should be able to fuck with our brains? We can already do it with chemicals, but not in a very controlled way.

>>5228947
so much straw

>>5228935
>tu quoque
LMFAO. You are on a science board. Science does not deal with metaphysical nonsense. Stop shifting the burden of proof. It is YOU who has to provide the evidence.

>>5228946
You are speaking of physical phenomenon then. Not qualia. Your nonsense is over ill-defined semantics.

>>5228951
Do you have any evidence of your untestable metaphysical entity? No? Non-existing nonsense is not action potential.

>>5228940
>my delusions are objectively verifiable evidence
Can you scientifically test your claim?

This thread was so much better before Mr. Stawman showed up with his "burden of proof" shit.

Heaven forbid we have a discussion of a topic where science and philosophy overlap, where nobody was claiming scientific proof of their metaphysical musings.

Anybody who seriously talks about qualia cannot prove they exist and we know that. That doesn't mean we cannot discuss the science to get a better understanding of the problem.

It is absolutely no help to just start screaming that this topic is unscientific. If we are going to understand this problem we need science!

>>5228965
This is /sci/. If it cannot be measured or observed physically, it isn't science. This belongs on >>>/x/ or >>>/lit/.

>>5228940

Here, first let's prove the existence of metaphysical objects. What is the number 2? It is either physical or metaphysical because the definition of metaphysical is all that which is not physical. The number two is not a physical object, therefore it is a metaphysical object.

So there exist metaphysical objects. Now, I think therefore I am is necessarily true because for an object to have a property (that of thinking) it must exist.

I am thinking if and only if I am perceiving thought (just as you are perceiving words on your screen), therefore a consciousness must exist to perceive the thoughts. A consciousness, therefore, exists. This consciousness perceives, again, a thought. But empirically, my consciousness is separate from your consciousness and I have no way of describing exactly and precisely the qualities of my thoughts other than in terms of words in a language that we both speak. I still don't know if the qualities I'm expressing are the same as the qualities you perceive when I say a word like 'red'. That is the problem of qualia. That our consciousnesses are separate.

>>5228962
No, I do not. But science is relevant to understanding this problem. At best you should be agnostic about the existence of qualia, so your statement of non-existence requires a similar burden of proof. All you can say is "I do not know" just as I do.

So kindly stop shitting things up, you've made your point quite well.

>>5228978
So you admit that your claim was unscientific? Please do not make baseless claims on a science board. Maybe >>>/x/ is the right board for you. Pseudoscientific soul nonsense does not at all involve science.

>>5228982
I have not made any claims.

>>5228971

The fact of the matter is that what you term my 'delusions' are specifically the 'qualia' that you seek to disprove. You already established that qualia exists.

>>5228987
>You already established that qualia exists.
I have not, nice reading comprehension.

Hurr you have to believe" does not count as evidence. Please provide objectively verifiable evidence.

>>5228976
I'm a qualiafreak, but I'm not going to let you go around claiming that "2" exists. "2" does not exist.

>>5228989

You can't even prove that an objective reality exists.

>>5228986
Then you are supporting someone who made the claim of invisible rape demons. You shouldn't do that unless you have something of substance to contribute.

>>5228993
The only person who mentioned "invisible rape demons" was you.

>>5228992

If 2>1 than an objective reality exists
2 is greater than 1
Thus an objective reality exists

>>5228991

It doesn't physically exist. But it exists in the sense that we can talk about an object named 2 and talk about its properties. Does it exist independent of the mind? I don't know.

>>5228947
This is a very good point, the one that I was trying to make throughout the thread. I find it ironic that this fella questions my credibility and proceeds to tote the exact same argument...

Conciousness is not required to explain any physical phenomenon, and no aspect of any physical phenomenon is best explained by conciousness. There's no reason to assume that it exists, and there's no reason to make decisions as though it does. A zombie with an identical behavioral and neural assay to a conscious entity (whatever that is) is equivalent to that conscious entity.

Perhaps of interest to those in this thread, it's worth noting that it's been mathematically proven that a feedforward network (one with an input layer and an output layer) can approximate any mathematical function. A multilayer feedforward network, sounds familiar... note that a consciousness axiom is not required for their proof.

Hornik, K., Stinchcombe, M., & White, H. (1989). Multilayer feedforward networks are universal approximators. Neural networks, 2(5), 359-366.

>>5228992
You clearly do not understand science. You are proposing the existence of something supernatural, something that cannot be tested by means of science. Without evidence your claim is meaningless.

>>5228996
Qualia and consciousness are just different labels for the soul, i.e. untestable metaphysical phenomena that are somehow supposed to take place in the brain but have no evidence. Please continue this discussion somewhere else.

>>5229004
I guess I should get the tractor warmed up and open up the barn cause you keep bringing me all this straw.

I will continue to respond to you until the thread dies. So please keep going Mr. Sage.

>>5229004

What makes you think that? Do you not have a dictionary available to you? Look up the words. Specifically, in this discussion we are referring to the following definition:

The awareness or perception of something by a person.

That's the second definition that google gives me.

>>5229002
You state in >>5228839 that you believe it exists.

>>5229012
>strawman
You don't understand what that means. You should look it up in the dictionary.

>>5229014
Please give a scientific definition of your mystical "awareness" and "perception", provide a test and explain where it is needed for any explanation, i.e. where anything cannot be explained in terms of physics and biochemistry. Untestable metaphysical nonsense goes to >>>/x/

>>5229010
So? My point still holds that it's not needed to explain any physical phenomenon.

>>5229016
You say that qualia is another word for the soul. Kind of a blatant strawman. Kind of lazy too.

>>5229022
Perception has been defined many many many times over in terms of the limits of a response (motor) of an animal to a sensory stimulus.

>>5229022
Provide me with proof that you actually exist and are not a part of my mind.

>>5229000

I never said it cannot be tested ever. I just said we have no way of testing it right now.

>>5229022
Are you stupid? There are scientific definitions of awareness and perception. Those are not supernatural terms.

>>5229021
You should look up what qualia means in the dictionary. It is you who is the strayman. If you wish to redefine it, give me a scientific and testable definition of qualia.

>>5229029

You are a man MADE OF STRAW

A STRAW MAN!

>>5229022

It is necessary to explain the most basic properties of my reality. Namely, that I perceive a physical reality around me. In fact, it's not even an explanation. It just is that way. I perceive, and there is nothing that you can say that will make that false.

>>5229027
I'm a stawman? I guess I'm an argument now instead of a human.

>>5229033
Guess I'll stay away from open flames.

>>5229036

Can I use you in my corn field?

>>5229023
That is a metaphysical claim. Take it to >>>/x/

>>5229024
There is no method of testing spiritual nonsense.

>>5229026
Now give me a scientfiic definition of consciousness.

>>5229028
Give me one.

>>5229035
Scientists used to think that meteorites were just the rambling stories of peasants. It is a rather bold claim to say something won't ever be testable in the future by unknown technology.

>>5229029
Bitch please, that is a typo and you know it.

>>5229034
Various arbitrary interpretations are unscientific and not justified. Please provide a testable, scientific one.

>>5229026

That's not what perception is, though. Not what I think of when I hear 'perception'.

>>5229035
I can't give you a scientific defnition of consciousness, I never will be able to, and I've asserted long before you joined this thread that I cannot do that.

>>5229037
Do you have wi-fi?

>>5228548
>New full time poster here, IQ 124.
>Okay, what is this 'qualia' i see y'all talking about
>95 posts and 2 image replies omitted. Click here to view.

Goddamnit, /sci/.

>>5229040
Exactly. So why does this thread exist? Why are we shitposting metaphysical nonsense on the science board?

>>5229042
Please define it scientifically and provide evidence that your metaphysical phenomenon exists. "Hurr you have to believe" is not a valid proof on a science board. If you can't do that, it is philosophy and does not belong here.

>>5229039
Then it is likely that your definition of perception is naive, or at best, ill-formed. You can't meaningfully define a phenomenon in terms of something that you can't observe. The ability of an animal to detect (i.e. perceive) a stimulus is observable by requiring that the animal report the presence of the stimulus. Perception (detection by sensory systems) is present when the animal correctly reports the presence of the stimulus above chance.

>>5229035

What would satisfy you? Expand on 'scientific definition'

>>5229053
Provide objective, verifiable evidence. An untestable concept of a "consciousness" (=soul) or a "subjective experience" has no scientific basis and thus in order to redefine qualia you must not include it.

>>5229045
We tell you we cannot prove qualia. You keep asking for proof. The fuck?

Places like /x/ are not skeptical. While you are skeptical, you are unhelpful and rude.

I want to understand the science that might help with understanding why I think I have qualia. The answer to this is not "No, you are just dumb."

>>5229048

Perception is exactly what I observe, though. That is what perception is. It is the observation of physical reality. That's one of the reasons why qualia is so fundamental; because science is based upon humans interacting with their seeing their environment, and consciously noticing things about it. That's what constitutes experimentation itself, that we perceive things in our environment, and then assume that this corresponds in some rough way to an objective reality.

>>5229058
The title of this board is /sci/ - science and math. You must discuss science and math here. What you are discussing is off-topic drivel that is routinely used as a troll here and belongs on /x/.

>>5229065
I was discussing the science behind the brain before you showed up.

>>5229062
You are not a zombie apparently you are a robot.

BEEP BEEP MUST DESTROY QUALIA FREAKS BEEP BEEP

>>5229065
You should just report the thread and hide it.

>>5229062

What is 'objective'? Prove that consciousness is untestable.

>>5229067
Do you have anything worthwhile to contribute or are you just shitposting philosophical nonsense?

>>5229071
I could ask you the same question. Asking again and again for a definition that nobody offered and says they can't give you is not contributing.

>>5229069
The topic of this thread is "qualia". This isn't science or math. Go start another thread if you want to discuss neuroscience instead of bumping this troll garbage.

>>5229070
You can make the claim that this entity arises from neuronal activity, but it is not testable whether that claim is true or not. All we can objectively observe is the neuronal activity. Your metaphysical entity is irrelevant to science and its existence or non-existence makes no difference at all.

>>5229045
I was never shitposting metaphysical nonsense. On the contrary, I provided examples where real science has asked real questions and received real answers about questions that are (naively) thought to be fundamentally subjective and unanswerable.

>>5229059
A photodiode detects light in the environment in much the same way that a rod cell in my retina detects light in the environment. The difference between me and a camera is that I have a massive feedforward network that converts the detection of environmental light into an extremely large array of muscle contractions. With complete knowledge, I could measure the state of the network and ask which of many environmental states my nervous system is acting as though it's in - I could ask what my brain "believes" is going on. There's no need to talk about subjective and objective here. The brain is a real object doing real computations on its environment.

>>5229081
What makes you the fucking board police? Go contribute to a thread you don't have to sage 100 times.

>>5229081

Before neuroscience, we did not have a study of the brain. What is to say that we will not someday be able to scientifically probe consciousness?

>>5229087
This is a meta-discussion which is also against 4chan rules.

>>5229079
This is the science and math board. You have to discuss science and math here. So unless your discussion is about science or math, it is off-topic garbage and does not belong here. For something to be qualified as science, it needs to have objective, verifiable evidence.

>>5229085
When you bump this thread, you bump actual science content off the front page. So I use sage because I do not wish to bump the thread. It is shitposters who bump it and there's no reason to be friendly to shitposters.

>>5229083
Then please make contribute in threads that actually have subjects pertaining to scientific qualities. This one does not.

>>5229089
This is not a meta-discussion. I am merely asking you to give a scientific definition of your phenomenon and to explain its relevance in scientific theories.

>>5229092
bump

No scientist I know would be such an asshole about discussing something science related because it also involved a philosophical topic.

>>5229092
>shitpost a thread with sages, make people mad
>people keep non-sage replying in rage
>continue to make them mad, continue to get responses
>"You're all the shitposters."

cancer

>>5229100
I asked you for evidence for your metaphysical magic. So far you and the other trolls have no posted any. Please stop trolling and take it to >>>/x/

>>5229103
You've already been told that we know there isn't such a definition. You keep implying that we think there is, or that if we do then we shouldn't be discussing it. When we point out we are relating qualia to neuroscience you say we should just discuss the neuroscience and leave qualia out. But we are interested in learning more about it so that we can understand why qualia might not be the best way to think about it.

Apparently this scholarly discussion and our desire to learn is too much for you since it involves a subject you have a hatred for. So much so that you make up all kinds of stupid strawman shit about it like we are claiming the existence of a soul and rape demons.

>>5229098
Rather than continuously and unhelpfully asserting that something is "not science," I thought I'd do the plebs a favor by explaining why it's not science, and why it's not necessary to evoke qualia as an explaination. Doing the equivalent in an evolution classroom containing creationists is a lot more helpful and convincing than turning red with rage and failing everyone who believes in god.

A big part of science is sharing knowledge and findings, my friend. I think defeating ignorance with facts is more valuable than most of the threads on this board. Besides, every neuroscience thread degenerates to this bullshit anyway.

>>5229109
I see you have no evidence for your metaphysical magic and resort to pure shitposting now. This is not a topic for science and math. Please leave the science board. Untestable spiritualism nonsense goes to >>>/x/. If you believe in it, please either provide objectively verifiable evidence or refrain from posting on /sci/.

>>5229105
and suddenly you are the trolls

>>5229118
But qualia threads are deleted by the moderation team. They are trolling and should be ignored.

>>5229119
Please, instead of being Mr. Bossy Boss, you could contribute to the discussion by explaining exactly why qualia are not science and how neuroscience and other fields contribute evidence that completely explains our concerns.

>>5229123
That would be contributing and blatantly supporting a shitposting thread. I will do no such thing. Go start an actual neuroscience thread.

>>5229122
And you are not a moderator obviously so what are you doing?

>>5229118
Hey, encephalon, I'll try to catch you in a thread about neuroscience and sense you seem to know a lot, I'll try to ask you questions without using the 'q' word...

>>5229125
I am asking you to leave if you do not wish to discuss science or math. What you are doing is called shitposting and this behavior is not welcome.

>>5229083

Mmm... I'm skeptical, but open. As far as scientific knowledge goes, whatever works. People will have their own ideas on what constitutes truth. It's not worth bringing up if I don't have to.

Moving on, I think it's possible that we could measure what a consciousness perceives. I think that people have done some good work on that, and made some headway.

But what I want is to be able to perceive someone else's consciousness itself, not what they are conscious of... do you know what I mean.

Neural networks are awesome, though.

>>5229129
that doesn't give you a right to self moderate threads.

>>5229128
I'm around. I'm leaving the thread, too.

Acceptance is to grievance as calling others trolls is to shitposting.

>>5229139
The problem is that they are off-topic and they constitute a major annoyance. Please read the rules. Your thread violates them.

I am here to discuss science and math. Please remove anti-intellectual spam from the science and math board.

>>5229129
Such a whinny little prick.

>>5229134
I am pretty sure one day we will be able to send experiences the same way we send videos. I'm not sure what experiencing consciousness "objectively" would even mean. If I sent you my "feels" then they would become your "feels". I do not think there is any way you could stand outside my mind and look inside it however. I'm not sure what you could even be trying to conceive with that idea.

>>5229144
> here to discuss science and math
> spends almost an hour doing anything but that

>>5229146
>"this thread is already rule-violating, so it's okay to continue shitbumping a thread and violating rules"
Shitposter logic.

>>5229149
Please be more creative in your trolling. If you want to believe in ghosts and tulpas, please do it on >>>/x/. /sci/ is for the discussion of science and math.

>>5229146

How do you think that one could translate brain activity from one brain to the other if every brain is unique when looked at very, very closely? I'm asking just as something that maybe could be done... Like, say you had total knowledge of my brain. And you could somehow select discrete experiences from it. Would translating them to another brain simply be a sort of 'copy-paste' process where we make the exact same sequence happen in someone else's?

Let's make it super simple, and maybe answer something about qualia. If you knew what my brain looked like when I saw 'red'. And then you compared to what the other person's brain looks like when it sees 'red', could you deduct that we both see different reds?

>>5229163
>http://www.4chan.org/faq#prunedelete
>We ask that users refrain from reposting material that they believe to have been deleted by the staff.
Why do you do this to /sci/? What do you get out of shitposting on an anonymous imageboard?

>>5228965
I agree. The guy thinks he is a skeptic and rational, but he does not brook any discussion about topics where science can help bring clarity and insight that would be very missing if this topic were discussed on /x/.

It would be impossible to have a meaningful discussion about this on /x/ because they are gullible and do not understand rationalism.

>>5229163
Even if every brain is wired differently, I am assuming a level of knowledge about the brain that it would be possible to make the appropriate changes and be confident that the experience was identical.

This would be possible if the science was advanced enough.

>>5229167
The board is not /sci/ - rationalism. It is /sci/ - science and math. Rationality is also a valid reason to dismiss untestable nonsense. Please take your garbage somewhere else.

200 IQ, 10 inch dick width 15 inches length, 6'7 300 lbs of muscle 4% bodyfat, billionaire, model, reporting in.

What's up guys?

>>5229174
Do you have evidence of this "experience"? If you have no evidence, then take your baseless claims to >>>/x/. We do not need untestable metaphysical nonsense on our science board.

>>5229174

As a thought experiment though. If you had all the technology that you were completely confident in, and two different brains responded in two different ways to the state of perceiving red, what would you conclude?

>>5229173
What is it like to be a guy with a 200IQ, 10 inch girth, 15 inch length, 6'7 300 lbs of muscle, 4% bodyfat, with a billion dollars and a modeling job?

Those must be some primo qualia you got.

>>5229173
>>5229177
Back to >>>/b/ please.

>>5229176
In this case we would say the experience was the same if I recorded myself receiving a stimuli and then copied it into several other experimental subjects and they reported a similar experience. In this case the "experience" would be "what it was like" for the subjects to reply my recording.

>>5229181
Will you please take your belief in ghosts and tulpas to >>>/x/ ? You are bumping other legitimate science and math threads off the front page.

>>5229181
That my equipment was broken, because they brains really should not respond differently because the would violate what we know about the way the universe works.

>>5229177

Feels good man. Oh, looks like my penis just grew an inch. Make that 16" length.

>>5229184
That is not the metaphysical, untestable concept of experience. That is response to stimuli. See >>5229081

>>5229183
go cry some more

>>5229181
Or I would assume it was some difference in the brains. Since you did say they were different, they should respond differently.

>>5229190
What does it feel like to be an anti-science shitposter? Why do you spam obvious unscientific pseudo-philosophy garbage? What is your motivation? You are probably the same guy who regularly spams racism, global warming or other irrelevant /pol/ shit. What kind of mental disorder do you have that requires you to annoy an anonymous science and math board?

>>5229188

What? Really? In what way?

I mean, it doesn't seem like a stretch to me at all. I've watched a documentary on a guy that processed numbers with the part of the brain engaged in controlling eye movements, and he could do it like crazy. Apparently most people use a completely different part of the brain to do arithmetic.

Plus, each brain is different. If experience is manifested because of neuronal activity and the structure of our neurons differ, shouldn't experience differ as well?

>>5229198

the structure of our brain*

>>5229193
Yeah, I realized you explicitly said the brains are different. At first I assumed you meant two instances of identical brains, but you could have also meant they were very different.

If I had two brains and they were identical down to the quarks, and they responded differently in experiment after experiment, then I must have discovered something new, but people would have to be able to repeat it.

After all that we'd have to say something we could not measure was causing the difference, but you haven't given enough info to say what.

>>5229196
No, you retarded piece of shit. This is not a science question. There are no testable predictions in your pseudo-intellectual drivel. Fuck off.

>>5229203
meant in reply to
>>5229198

>>5229203
They would not respond differently because there is not magical concept of a "soul". They both follow objective laws of physics.

>>5229206
Why are you just summing up exactly what I said?

>>5229213
Why are you bumping a metaphysical troll /x/ thread? Please reconsider your posts on the science board.

>>5229206
Why are you just summing up exactly what I said?

>>5229204
Of course it is a science question. I am answering how I'd react if i had two brains that responded differently to the same stimuli. How is that unscientific?

>>5229217
I've considered it.


How about I respond to the threads that I feel are science and you respond to the threads you feel are scientific and we both are happy.

>>5229203

Oh, yeah, I don't know about that. I think that there might be some quantum-mechanical probabilistic effects that might give an explanation for two identical brains responding differently to the same stimuli, but that's not what I was getting at.

But two different brains responding in different ways to the experience of 'red'. Their brains don't process red in the same way and if it is a postulate of neuroscience that conscious experience arises from neuronal activity, then I think you should conclude that they experience different 'reds'. Or not. What do you think

>>5229218
This is a fucking science board. Is your claim testable? Retarded opinions can be posted on reddit.

Finally Googled Qualia. Not sure how it's metaphysical, or troll-ish to discuss, now. Qualia is basically subjective experience, isn't it..? What makes it so special?

>>5229220
We cannot answer this question until we can manipulate our own brain states experimentally and determine how they effect the nature of what we process. The only way this question will be answered is with the scientific method.

>>5229227
You are clearly underaged. Shouldn't you be in bed with your father now?

You also do not "feel science", you moronic troll. Science is objective.This thread is not science and math.

>>5229228

It's something that bridges philosphy and science. It's always an edgy place to be.

>>5229228
No such thing as "subjective experience". Untestable metaphysical nonsense is not welcome on a science board.

>>5229232

Well, I'm sure you know that it is best to first construct hypotheses before you go in and test them out. So, what I'm looking for is what you would conclude given certain hypothetical situations, that aren't necessarily true or false, but only possible at this point in time.

It's what is done in theoretical physics all the time. It's a way to figure out what we want to look for.

>>5229228
It really is just a word for "what it is like to X"

Apparently you cannot believe such a thing exists without also believing in ghosts, souls, rape demons, tulpas, and other /x/ related topics.

Apparently it is impossible to discuss skeptically and it can never be informed by science or math.

Apparently.

According to one /sci/ poster.

>>5229243
>one /sci/ poster
Give me a scientific source which accepts the existence of qualia. What evidence do you have to prove their existence? It is absolutely equivalent to a belief in a deity or a rape demon if you do not have objectively verifiable evidence.

>>5229241
I believe that if I manipulated the visual cortex that what I perceive as red may very well take on a different quality than what I remember. From there I think you could actually build a full theory of experience that would allow you to actually construct new qualia. Perhaps you could find out what it is like to have echo location.

>>5229252
Does your "belief" have any evidence?

>>5229231
Oh. That's.. rather boring. It seems more like it'd go along with psychology. Yes, I'm implying psychologists are not scientists. There's no real testing, just 'going with what works at the moment.'

>>5229237
The fuck? You do realize that the reason drugs have 'rare side-effects' is because some people process them differently than others, due to genetic, chemical, or physical differences, do you not? Tolerance also changes the effects of a drug. Therefore, one's experience is different from another: subjective in appearance, objective in reality(just impossible to be fully modeled beforehand with current technology).

>>5229254
Altering the brain results in altered processing, sometimes in very surprising ways. So yes.

>>5229255
This is due to altered neuronal firing from the drug. It does not at all imply the existence of a metaphysical construct. Please show me the evidence of this "experience". Without evidence and without testable effects we can say it doesn't exist.

>>5229233

I am, I'm using his laptop.

>>5229257
All we can objectively observe is the neuronal activity. Your metaphysical entity of subjective experience is irrelevant to science and its existence or non-existence makes no difference at all.

>>5229264
Why are you here? Didn't you read the rules? You have to be at least 18. Don't you have some calculus homework to do? Oh yeah, right. That's probably why you're here. You made a homework thread and while you're waiting for a nerd to do it, you shitpost your edgy unscientific pseudo-philosophy.

>>5229266
It does make a difference in this case because a person would be able to report that, for example, red looks different to them now. That is hardly "no difference".

>>5229252

That would be pretty cool. I've heard it is possible to simulate orgasm, at least, with electrical stimulation. How precise is this technology? What kind of improvements do you think could be made to the technology?

Who has datasets on recorded brain activity related to descriptions of perception?

Is stimulating the same areas of the brain enough for descriptions of experiences to match up?

So many questions...

>>5229272
That is information obtained from the person. It is not the metaphysical untestable concept of "experience".

>>5229276
It is all pretty much hypothetical now. But considering how much effort we have put into media so we can share experiences indirectly, I'm sure the ultimate result will be direct sharing of experiences.

But I wouldn't count on a technology like that for a very long time.

>>5229260
And yet black holes, the postulated effects of said black holes, string theory, and the 'big bang' are all widely accepted by the scientific community.. Right.

Also, what do you mean by metaphysical construct? I never implied any metaphysical construct is used. To experience something is to receive input from external stimuli. That can be proven to exist through the fact hearing a sound causes neurons to fire.

So.. please explain further?

>>5229278
So? Tree rings aren't temperature either.

>>5229282
That is not qualia. Qualia are the subjective differences in for example the color red. One person may subjectively see the color differently. It is untestable.

>>5229283
You cannot communicate sensations or feelings, you can only describe them. What you are doing is taking a description of the sensation, not the "sensation" itself.

You cannot tell me that because "there is no such thing as subjective experience" that people are not going to eventually invent a machine that allows them to directly feel what it is like to be a porn star getting fucked by a 12 inch dick.

Yeah right. That machine will get invented as soon as it is possible to invent it.

>>5229290
Hm.. I think I understand what you mean, now. However, I disagree that it's completely untestable. It would require extremely intrusive observance of brain activity in an extremely large study group, for an extended period of time, though..

>>5229292
I am talking about directly simulating the states in a person's brain so that they react in the same say as if they had received the sensory input to cause those states.

That is, cause the person to react in the same or similar way and have sensations and memories formed as if the event had happened to them when it really did not.

>>5229296
That is entirely different from metaphysical subjective experience. That would be virtual reality or some kind of cranial stimulation.

>>5229301
Why putting your brain in the same state as another person be any different than you being in the same situation for real?

>>5229300
You are just wrong. The qualia cannot be objectified. A sensation is more than just a sentence or a picture. Its "perception" (maybe perception is not the right term here because the processing occurs internally) differs from person to person and these fine differences are way beyond what neuroscience can detect, let alone explain. A reconstructed visual image is only a part of an actual thought and lacks information that only the individual has had while thinking.

A "gap of understanding" does not count as an argument here. No one can guarantee that the gap can ever be filled. Until it is filled or its filling is proven to be impossible, it remains a matter of belief. I'd like to ask you too to please make a clear distinction between belief and fact. The belief in these things have no evidence and do not belong here.

>>5229302
You use the metaphysical word "qualia" in your post >>5229252. You do not at all measure subjective experience with this, you do not understand what it is.

>>5229309
Why do I need to talk about qualia? I wasn't talking about qualia I was talking about brains.

>>5229306
I am not talking about creating a symbolic representation of an image, I am talking about directly putting the neurons of another person into a state that matches another persons so that they react in the same or similar way. That isn't communication, that is directly replaying what was in another person's brain.

I'm talking completely objectively. I'm not even talking about qualia anymore here. I could say this without appealing to how a person feels. I can predict that if I put there brain in a fear state they would tell me they were scared. They don't have to have a qualia of fear for this to be scientifically predicted.

>>5229304
>>5229313
Two identical brains will still not explain the metaphysical concept of qualia. Being able to explain neuronal correlations of internally elicited perceptions does not mean to explain HOW they are perceived by the individual.

>>5229317
You really are stuck on me using a word. I don't have to use the 'q' word to talk about this.

>>5229316
Well then why did you use such terminology in >>5229252? This is how our conversation started.

>>5229322
Yes. That word is used as a troll here. You shouldn't use words ambiguously.

So.. current understanding is that qualia are on the level of science fiction, which is why discussing it here is seen as trollish.

And the only way to really prove they exist is with objective 'mind-reading'.. Which.. doesn't make sense. So.. no proof.

>>5229321
Because I was asked if I thought the qualia would change. If you like, it could be like I was asked what Frodo Baggins would do if he had to take a different route to Mordor. It doesn't mean I believe in Frodo Baggins.

>>5229325
Because a word is used to troll doesn't mean that it is always used to troll. Even a philosopher like William Dennet uses the word although he says there is no such thing.

>>5229324
You shouldn't respond to trolls or discuss unscientific things here.

>>5229335
What you are doing is called shitposting. It is not welcome on the science board and you will be banned for it.

>>5229332
Mr. Thought Police

>>5229331
The word is unscientific and philosophy belongs on >>>/lit/

Edgy pseudo-philosophy such as qualia belongs on >>>/x/

>>5229328
I actually wonder if it could ever be proven. Qualia are by definition private and so no evidence of any kind seems findable. Yet it seems obvious that subjective experience exists. It seems that science could be made perfect and it would not have in it one hint that subjective experience is real.

Bye Bye defender of all that is Science & Mathematics. I hope that being worse than a troll in order to defend /sci/ from trolls was not too ironic for you and that you continue on your autistic journey into eternal virginity and diabetes. Good night.

>>5228570
So quantiative statements are opinions most people agree with

Qualiative statements are opinions only some people agree with.

>obvious troll thread
>219 posts and 2 image replies omitted. Click here to view.

Fuck you, /sci/. Just fuck you. I won't even bother reporting this crap anymore.

I am more interested in deja vu. Some say it's the delayed reception of information in the eyes, but there were studies of even blind people experiencing it. Others say it's a brief decoherence of another universe interacting with your perception. Either way, it's an interesting topic.

>>5229374
All senses have a processing delay, not just sight. So blind people experiencing it wouldn't discredit the idea that its something that happens due to you thinking you 'remember' something that just happened while its happening. (or actually, about 80 miliseconds after it happens, which is approximately how offset from reality we all are)