Reading 1- Do Martians See Red Flashcards
What do we mean when we say qualia?
-Qualia is the raw feeling of sensations. It is subjective i.e. we cannot know how someone else perceives a certain thing only how we ourselves do.
-Google says: “characteristics or qualities that determine the nature of a mental experience (sensation or perception) and make it distinguishable from other such experiences”.
-Qualia can also be given the definition of: aspects of my brain state that seem to make the scientific description incomplete-from my point of view.
What are Ramachandran’s ‘Three Laws of Qualia’ ?
-Need a stable fixed representation, irrevocable (“tamper resistant”) whereas a non-qualia laden perception is flexible. Qualia are irrevocable in order to eliminate hesitation and to confer certainty to decisions.
-Need potentially infinite implications (choices) as Qualia implies subjectivity in experience which only comes when there is not a lone representation (flexible output)
(so… irrevocability on the input side and flexibility on
the output side)
-Need to be able to hold the representation in short term memory in order to make choices
What is the difference between perception and conception?
-Perception is seeing, conception is knowing.
-Perception is understanding something based off incoming neural signals (bottom up) while conception is the process of constructing + understand something within ourselves (top down).
