qualia breaks science
>take someone who has never eaten peanut butter
>teach him everything we know about peanut butter
>this person now knows everything there is to know about peanut butter, from biology to chemistry down to quantum physics
>now give them a jar of peanut butter and let them consume it
>this person now has more information about peanut butter than they did before they consumed it
discuss
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They know what it tastes like. All that knowledge before consumption and they still didn't know what it tasted lile
>insert information
>now you have more information!!!
What's to discuss?
This.
OP how is appealing to qualia not an appeal to ignorance?
There are informations science can't teach, and will never be able to teach.
While I think subjective experience has a physical substrate and and isn't reducible to mere biological operations, I don't think the knowledge argument is very good in pinpointing the "hardness" of the hard problem of consciousness.
For Mary to know everything about the taste of peanut butter, she would also have to know exactly how your brain processes the input if having peanut butter in your mouth. This cannot be learned by just studying peanut butter, thus it's not enough for Mary to just know all about the peanut butter, she also has to know everything about the brain.
This. I think it depends on how the OP defines information. You can give that person all the information about peanut butter including what it tastes like. But humans aren't just processors of data, they are the sensors of the data too. So feeding them peanut butter isn't necessarily giving them new information, it's just using a different detector to import the data rather than teaching them using sight and hearing. So in a sense you can't teach someone everything we know about peanut butter unless they use all the detectors available to them. If you gave them an electric stimuli to trick their brain into tasting peanut butter, then I'd consider that apart of the teaching process and consuming the jar itself actually wouldn't give any new info. The only thing it does is really is change the state of the detector.
A short, interesting discussion on a few of the intersections between philosophy and neuroscience,
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Knowing all information is different than knowing information and consuming the object. That would require knowing all there is about peanut butter and knowing all there is about consuming peanut butter
The point is that even if you read a book that describes in excruciating detail how peanut butter tastes like, you'll still have no idea how it tastes like until you actually taste it.
If the knowledge of taste isn't imparted, then you break your own premise. Stop using the word "everything" so lightly.
You, being a normal adult, are comfortable using doors, so comfortable that you likely don't even consciously utilize doors.
You encounter a door! What do you do? Maybe hopping on one foot while chanting the magic spell opens this door?! Or a little morse code spelling out, "Open Sesame" could activate the opening mechanism! Or...
Can you please apply the same logic that you apply to doors to brains as well?
You're just restating the black and white Mary thought experiment.
The problem comes from our lack of ability to imagine certain things. An experienced pianist can read sheet music and then construct a memory of what it would be like to hear it played. We can't do that with tastes because it's extremely complicated. Imagine if our brains were wired differently and we could imagine tastes as easily as simple shapes.
Which is what I'm saying, which is why I think the argument doesn't go as far as it could.
You wouldn't say, "knowing all there is to know about a key, you still couldn't explain how it opens a door." You would also know the inner workings of the lock. That's kind of obvious. Therefore I think the argument should be "Even if you knew all the physical properties of peanut butter AND the brain, there would still be a quality to tasting it that isn't described in purely objective terms. Maybe I'm a massive shitter and this actually is the argument, if so then I guess I don't have much problem with it.
And I argue that the book isn't good enough, but who's to say it never will be?
>>this person now has more information about peanut butter than they did before they consumed it
What a meat head.
They did know about the colour and a lot other information.
Now they know about the taste as well.
So what?
What's you point?
>There are informations science can't teach, and will never be able to teach.
>informations
This is one of the most retarded and pointless threads here on Veeky Forums.
if you didn't perceive the taste of peanut butter, you do not know everything there is about it. qed
I can imagine the taste of peanut butter. What are you talking about?
a scientist can't teach someone what peanut butter tastes like by having them taste it?
X is allergic to peanut butter. Explain to X what peanut butter tastes like.
You've tasted peanut butter and can remember it.
OP's question was concerning someone who's never tasted peanut butter knowing how it tastes from the chemical formula.
>X is allergic to peanut butter. Explain to X what peanut butter tastes like.
Nerves transmit electrical signals.
You need a replica of the signal.
You don't know for sure that this will not be achieved in the future.
>>this person now has more information about peanut butter than they did before they consumed it
I disagree. The "taste" sensation is not a quality intrinsic to the peanut butter, it is a subjective interpretation that exists solely in the human mind.
Your test subject does not gain any new information about peanut butter, but he does gain information about himself -- he learns how how brain reacts to information supplied by his taste buds in the presence of peanut butter.
>Your test subject does not gain any new information about peanut butter, but he does gain information about himself
Then you can extend this to everything.
What a retarded point of view.
Being able to be extended to everything is not the defining characteristic of a retarded point of view.
>Being able to be extended to everything is not the defining characteristic of a retarded point of view.
Jumping is not characteristic of major depressive disorder unless you jump from a bridge.
Science isn't about teaching it's about applying the scientific method to hypotheses and formulating theories and laws.
>informations
yeah ok
Well if you've never seen a fucking oval shape then you can't imagine that, either.
What drugs are you on like seriously
On wiki theres a really easy rebuttle to this. I forgot though. The guy who made the thought experiment even later rejected it. Qualia is a non problem.
Existence induces quality. Make transactions with existence.
I've been thinking about this stuff quite a while now, it's still mystery for me, and for everyone else I guess.
I recommend anyone who is interested in this topic to watch this
especially later part of the video
really interesting and they present some possible explanations of consciousness
youtube.com
If you could send signals to the brain to simulate all the traits of peanut butter,(taste, consistency smell ect) then they would have the same amount of information before and after eating the actual peanut butter.
Obviously this can't be done now, but maybe it might be possible in the future.
That feel when different receptors will have different outcomes on taste, making the taste of peanut butter extremely subjective.
So fuck off with your vague qualia.
1) Everyone put together doesn't know everything about peanut butter? The scenario is fallacious, so it lacks a rational answer.
2) You can "teach" and "preach" and "reach" [out to someone] all you want, but if someone refuses to "learn," it's time, effort and energy wasted. Most people stop learning after a few grades. They're immature and called the "masses" (if you listen to them in public you'll hear how unlearned they are).
>reading all of these autism-tier attempts at answering the question
Nothing being said actually strikes at the heart of the issue. Perception is an extravagance for a machine whose sole purpose is responding to environmental stimuli. In the near future, we will be able to make machines that can process images and information far better than people can, yet they will never truly see, feel, or think anything.
Personally, I find it funny that our existence is the only thing that we can be 100% certain is true, yet we can't even contemplate how to physically show that it is there.
But if he got more information than he didn't know everything there is to know about peanut butter before. You taught him wrong.
>If someone points out something we don't understand its an appeal to ignorance
OP isn't shoehorning in an explanation, or claiming something to be true because it hasn't been proven false. They're literally just saying that it seems like we don't know how qualia works (if it exists, and it seems like it does).
I actually agree with this entirely, but how could you possibly know if a machine could perceive?
You clearly didn't read the thread.
>I find it funny that our existence is the only thing that we can be 100% certain is true, yet we can't even contemplate how to physically show that it is there.
The solipsism problem doesn't exist in every model of consciousness, but somebody as ignorant as you probably thinks there is only one model.
If we can't contemplate how to physically show that it's there, don't you think it's ignorant to say with such certainty that future machines cannot have subjective experience?
Peanut butter tastes like peanuts.
QED.