well not arbitrary, but functional mappings

if you think of an electron as composed as activity across *multiple* fields which are arbitrarily mapped

then why can't the electrons "exist" in the field which defines their spin, near each other, and hence have high entanglement

while all their other properties defined on other fields are non-local?

functionally mapped

so yeah, consistently based on some function

that's fucking crazy to me

once you open that door, then there could be all sorts of crazy non-intuitive phenomena possible

also, it really helps me understand spacetime as emergent

there is no such thing as "spacetime"

spacetime is just the locality relationships between field mappings

which usually are coherent across fields, but sometimes not!

by coherent I mean, all parts of some particle or system are either all entangled, or not

it's so crazy to think of entanglement -> geometry

rather than things in geometry being close to each other being more causally related

it can help one understand a reality which is not physical at all

and then our perception is just that

well still physical

but just like... a different take

we're interpreting stable relations rather than actual volumetric space, filled with marbles, etc

yeah

and just intuitive perception and language

what i'm getting at is more of a universe of information that manifests as a spacetime with marbles

exactly

you have an arm, but you also have a schema of an arm

you can lose your arm without losing your schema

and in some cases lose your schema without losing your arm!

@ManAnimal do you know Dennett?

oh dang dude

one of the philosophers of our time

you probably have seen him before

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Daniel_Dennett_2.jpg

dan

he basically talks a lot about agency and the lack of any real hard problem

you know chalmer's hard problem certainly?

the "easy" problems being figuring how the brain parses objects in vision, how it uses language, how it records memories and recognizes faces and so on

the *hard* problem being to explicate internal experience, or qualia

like what is red, and how to explicate the experience of looking out of your eyes and feeling the pressure of your chair on your butt

one could imagine p-zombies, creatures just like us in every physiological way, who had all the same physical neurological machinery and cognitive capbility as us

who could sit next to you at a sunset, and tell you how beautiful it is to experience such a sight

but that we presume in this thought experience *do not have any lights on inside*

how could we tell otherwise?

what physical empirical test could we do

to explicate the p-zombie's self-reporting, knowing full well they don't have any internal experience?

there are some suuuuper interesting answers to this question, though most people are quick to give a smug take in dismissal

Have you ever heard of Clinical Neglect?

It's a term for a class of cognitive disorders which are absolutely bizarre

One of the most interesting is Blindsight

Wherein, a patient's visual eyes, and visual system are completely intact

But they self-report perfect blindness

And yet you can run a number of experiments on them, that prove that their brain is still actively processing AND integrating visual information into their world knowledge

Things from like avoiding obstacles in a room they've never been in

Or answering visual questions they can't possibly answer

If they were in fact actually blind

It's a case of partial p-zombieness

There are many other forms of neglect which are even stranger.

You can have people who were not blind.

Who have onset Blindsight or other forms of Clinical Neglect

So we can essentially be as sure as we can that the person self-reporting understands the difference

I'll reread

Yeah not sure what you mean then

We're not talking about subjective differences in color here

We're talking about "I used to be able to see stuff, now I can't see literally anything"

I'm not sure what language problems are present in a case like this.

What specifically presents that problem here?

Can you relate that to this example?

lol what?

what does that have to do with blindsight?

or am I confused and missing that you're just making a completely new point

_blinks_

what is?

i have no idea what point you're making, sorry

at some point we should go back to blindsight though because I was using as a bridge to other things

Sure, I'm a fan of Philosophy of Language and am familiar with some ideas about reference

Well in a real way you never can, this is mostly a reiteration of your red vs my red, or at least I don't see a distinction

You're referencing the privacy of internal experience.

How so?

Yes, but it's enough for us to have a shared idea of blindness as far as language will go, and be satisfied with the novelty that the patient would self-report blindness.

We can never know if the patient is even lying.

I know I'm saying we can't even do that much.

Much less if there's just some insurmountable gap between the language an internal experience.

I'm making your point.

I'm saying there's nothing to be done.

Not even in the case where someone tells you that the sunset you're both looking at is beautiful.

Much less in clinical cases.

Literally in no context.

This is literally the premise of the hard problem.

That internal experience is private, that you can't actually do an emperical test to determine whether someone's lights are on inside, like you would believe your own lights to be on.

Yes, you're right, but it isn't saying much.

Since that's true for all interactions between supposedly conscious beings.

So self-report of you saying you also see the sunset and the self-report of patients claiming blindsight are the same.

Same footing, and the self-report is of the same value.

So, yes, in science, we use self-report with the philosophical underpinnings in hand.

But not between sunset admirers and blindsight patients.

Their self-report is of the same value.

then so are sunset admirers

is that a burden you want to take on?

dude

either one of us can imagine a substantial change to the nature of our internal experience of vision

even if neither of ever experienced vision the same way