Re:Peter Norvig critically reviews AlphaCode's code quality
by _dain_ on Saturday December 17, 2022 @07:33AM
(#34027224)
> Side question: how do we know if humans possess qualia?
I think there are some people who don't possess qualia. There was a reddit post years ago from a guy who said he only became self-aware in adulthood, like a light switched on in his brain one day. And it wasn't "becoming self-aware" in a metaphorical sense (like learning responsibilities or how you are perceived by otheres), it was described as the real-deal: consciousness of subjective experience.
Another reason I believe this comes from reading accounts of aphantasia. Such people went their lives not realizing that most people can see images in their minds eye. A consistent theme is their assumption that phrases like "imagine", "see in your minds eye", "picture this: ...", "flashed through my mind", "cannot unsee", etc were just metaphors, like how when we say "take the bull by the horns" we're not talking about a literal bull or literal horns. To them it was a shock that people really had pictures in their minds, because they had never experienced such a thing.
(Reiterating for anyone reading this who is confused: yes most people can literally see imaginary things, overlaid on top of the normal visual field. If you find this surprising, you have aphantasia).
So if this supposedly universal subjective experience can be absent in some people, and they don't realize it because they think the language is metaphorical, then perhaps that could happen for everything else.
And likewise, for any qualia-lackers who are reading this: yes, qualia is a real thing. It's not a metaphor or a language-game. It does actually feel like something to exist.
I think there are some people who don't possess qualia. There was a reddit post years ago from a guy who said he only became self-aware in adulthood, like a light switched on in his brain one day. And it wasn't "becoming self-aware" in a metaphorical sense (like learning responsibilities or how you are perceived by otheres), it was described as the real-deal: consciousness of subjective experience.
Another reason I believe this comes from reading accounts of aphantasia. Such people went their lives not realizing that most people can see images in their minds eye. A consistent theme is their assumption that phrases like "imagine", "see in your minds eye", "picture this: ...", "flashed through my mind", "cannot unsee", etc were just metaphors, like how when we say "take the bull by the horns" we're not talking about a literal bull or literal horns. To them it was a shock that people really had pictures in their minds, because they had never experienced such a thing.
(Reiterating for anyone reading this who is confused: yes most people can literally see imaginary things, overlaid on top of the normal visual field. If you find this surprising, you have aphantasia).
So if this supposedly universal subjective experience can be absent in some people, and they don't realize it because they think the language is metaphorical, then perhaps that could happen for everything else.
And likewise, for any qualia-lackers who are reading this: yes, qualia is a real thing. It's not a metaphor or a language-game. It does actually feel like something to exist.