Jim Cross wrote:
the brain does not compute in a Turing sense but that is actually simulating the world. Simply modeling the world, rather than try to compute it, does not require the computing resources which the biological brain would lack. If the modeling is based on analog and wave principles, the existence of qualia makes complete sense as internal representations.
I disagree that qualia could make any sense in physicalist terms.
The experience of experience is ineffable. No one can explain to a man blind from birth what it is, to see the color, red.
There is nothing in physics that can transmit that experience--not wavelength, not frequency, not amplitude. Nothing.
Moreover, consciousness is the only observed phenomenon that observes itself, and
it does so from within itself.
The acts of consciously observing, perceiving, choosing a course of action, and so forth, are outside of the physicalist
paradigm.
What is it that has the experience?
The answer to that is -- YOU. You have the experience. What is it that is that YOU?
Is it atoms? Is it math? Or, is it something outside the physical realm?
These have been matters of discussion and debate for a very long time, and the resolution seems
to defy attempts at human discourse.
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