Comic #5903: qasp

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Description

Here's the transcription of the comic:

Panel 1:
Person with glasses and a beard speaking:
"I have solved the philosophical problem of qualia, using a simple theory I call Q.A.S.P."

Panel 2:
Blackboard text:
"Qualia Are Shitty Perception"
Person continues:
"Imagine a perfect perception sense organ, which gives you complete quantum-level information about a cow. Let’s call it Exqualibur."

Panel 3:
"If I and my friend Dave Exqualibrate the cow. We agree on precisely every conceivable detail about the cow. So instead we go out for smoothies and watch TV!"

Panel 4:
"Note that Q.A.S.P. solves all classic philosophical qualia problems. Can we even know what it's like to be a bat? No, because bats have different shitty perceptions."

Panel 5:
"When you see what I perceive as blue, is it possible you’re actually perceiving red? Hell yes! Because we have shitty perception! It would be fixed if we could Exqualibrate, but we are shitty, so we can’t."

Panel 6:
"If Mary were raised in a black and white world but learned about color, would she know what color is 'like'? Yes! More so than people with color perception because Mary’s perception is even shittier."

Panel 7:
"Can you have a 'philosophical zombie' that behaves like it feels qualia, but which has no rich internal experience? No! It’s perception is not shitty enough!"

Panel 8:
"So does that mean a human-level machine intelligence would have qualia?"

Panel 9:
"Maybe if you dropped it on the floor enough times?"

Panel 10:
[Shows a group of people in dialogue]

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