INTERLOCUTOR:
Anyone want to enlighten me on what is truth?
And how do we know something is true, or of truth?
TRANSCENDENT PHILOSOPHY:
as you know, my recent formulation is "truth is the set of patterns that exist"
to the second question, science is all about testing patterns, the pattern gives you a prediction of where it will go, then you observe whether or not the prediction was fulfilled. If not, you misunderstood the pattern. If so, then you have a grasp on the pattern.
INTERLOCUTOR:
what about feelings, perceptions, and thought? Morals, ethics, and laws? Or just personal experiences in general?
TRANSCENDENT PHILOSOPHY:
I think feelings break down into smaller building blocks and then into further smaller building blocks, and there is a pattern to their structure. For example - resentment is when you are low-status yet angry at high-status target. Anger is when your self is angry at equal-status target. Contempt is when you are high-status yet angry at a low-status target.
I believe that morality reduces to game theory, which is a pattern of how to play the game of life. You can adopt a psychopathically abusive life strategy where you hurt everyone around you, but then they wont cooperate with you, and might punish you, so that strategy backfires. Helping others gets others to help you, so that strategy is more successful, and then it becomes a morality. There are many different moralities just like there are many different ways to play chess. People/cultures/religions are experimenting with the best strategies as life is complex. Law is an instantiation of these strategies. But strategies are patterns that can be tested.
Qualia is the trickiest part of this paradigm. I tend to think that the existence of complex qualia requires the existence of fundamental qualia building blocks. Hence a complex qualia would be a pattern of fundamental qualia.
INTERLOCUTOR:
can you describe the thought process of layered qualia?
TRANSCENDENT PHILOSOPHY:
So, I am developing a couple theories of qualia. The simplest one is the "spark" theory of qualia. This idea is that energy can transform into a spark of qualia, this spark than then transform back into its original form. Energy is conserved. So when we see colors, something stimulates the conversion of energy into a spark of blue, red, or green. If a blue and red spark converge, they form a magenta spark, etc. The spark is our feeling - we see the color when the spark exists. When the spark transforms back into electricity, we no longer feel the color. In the brain, you can have multiple pathways that are generating multiple sparks. This gives you the ability to paint a 2D picture in the mind with different neuron pathways producing different sparks.
Moving away from color, the spark theory of qualia needs to address other things like pleasure and pain. My hunch is that when atoms bond together, a spark of pleasure qualia is summoned in the process. When atomic bonds are broken, a spark of pain qualia is summoned. But sparks can only be felt by a shared network. If the atomic structure isn't linked into your network, you wont feel it. But once you are linked, then if your flesh is ripped open, you can suddenly feel the pain generated by a bunch of ripped chemical bonds. The qualia can bubble up into more complex forms. This would also explain why it feels good when neurotransmitters like dopamine bond with a receptor, and it feels bad when our receptors are starved of their bonds.
A good example for thinking about this is the qualia of wetness. Wetness is a complex qualia made from more fundamental building blocks. There is no receptor in the skin for wetness. The brain infers wetness from temperature (cool skin) and touch (texture / affect on hair). The combination of these building blocks gives you wetness.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/rel.../2014/10/141001133416.htm
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS:
Fundamental qualia would definitely have to be an elusive element of the laws of physics to exist for sure, since we know everything that is not elusive.
My fundamental qualia paradigm is very different from the panpsychist "particles are agents that have subjective experience" paradigm. I call my paradigm the "spark theory of qualia". Certain particle interactions trigger an energy transformation, in which energy is in flux. Energy that is in flux can transform into a unit of qualia, and then revert back to their energetic form.
For example, when chemical bonds break, a "spark" of pain could be generated during this excitation and separation of energy. This "spark" detransforms from qualia back to energy, so the experience of pain is both disembodied and fleeting. The reverse would be pleasure sparks produced by chemical bonds forming.
Then you add in the network principle of qualia, such that all of these sparks, while individually incoherent, start to become more coherent when networked together. Darwinian systems can take advantage of energetic mechanisms for producing qualia. If a bacteria wants to warn its neighbor about harm, they can give them sparks of pain via bond breaking chemistry.
Panpsychism basically says matter is conscious by default, but then they have the problem of turning off consciousness (sleep, etc). Emergentism has the reverse problem. Emergentism says that matter is unconscious by default, but then they have the problem of turning on consciousness (abitrary threshholds).
Spark theory of qualia solves these problems by giving the laws of physics the ability to activate or not activate qualia - to network or not network qualia.
