qasp
Original: qasp on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
A bald, white-bearded philosopher addresses the reader.
Philosopher: I have solved the philosophical problem of qualia, using a simple theory I like to call QASP.
On screen / title card he holds up: "Qualia Are Shitty Perception"
Panel 2:
Philosopher: Imagine a perfect perception sense organ. Surely you'd complete quantum-level information about color. You'd literally call it exquisalia.
Panel 3:
Philosopher: If I and my friend Sue exquisaliate the color, we agree in precisely every conceivable detail about the color. We decide there is no philosophical puzzle here, so instead we go out for smoothies and watch TV.
Panel 4:
Philosopher: Note that QASP solves all classic philosophical qualia problems. Can we experience the same color? Yes, to be a bit fuzzy. Because we have imperfect / shitty perceptions.
Panel 5:
Philosopher: When you see what I see, it disagrees a little. It is possible you're actually perceiving red as blue, because we have shitty perception. I would be fine if we could exquisaliate, but we are shitty so we can't.
Panel 6:
Philosopher: If Mary were raised in a black-and-white world but learned about color, would she know what color is like? She knows everything but the shitty version, because Mary's perception is even shittier.
Panel 7:
Philosopher: Can you have a philosophical zombie that behaves like it feels qualia but says it has no internal experience? No -- it's depressed by its shitty perception, but is not shitty enough.
Panel 8:
Philosopher: So does that mean a human-level machine intelligence would have qualia?
A second person (off to the side): You dropped it on the floor enough times?
Votey:
A loosely drawn face (the bearded philosopher) speaks.
Text at top: SMOOTHIES ANYONE?
The philosopher offers smoothies, calling back to the "go out for smoothies" line from earlier.
A bald, white-bearded philosopher addresses the reader.
Philosopher: I have solved the philosophical problem of qualia, using a simple theory I like to call QASP.
On screen / title card he holds up: "Qualia Are Shitty Perception"
Panel 2:
Philosopher: Imagine a perfect perception sense organ. Surely you'd complete quantum-level information about color. You'd literally call it exquisalia.
Panel 3:
Philosopher: If I and my friend Sue exquisaliate the color, we agree in precisely every conceivable detail about the color. We decide there is no philosophical puzzle here, so instead we go out for smoothies and watch TV.
Panel 4:
Philosopher: Note that QASP solves all classic philosophical qualia problems. Can we experience the same color? Yes, to be a bit fuzzy. Because we have imperfect / shitty perceptions.
Panel 5:
Philosopher: When you see what I see, it disagrees a little. It is possible you're actually perceiving red as blue, because we have shitty perception. I would be fine if we could exquisaliate, but we are shitty so we can't.
Panel 6:
Philosopher: If Mary were raised in a black-and-white world but learned about color, would she know what color is like? She knows everything but the shitty version, because Mary's perception is even shittier.
Panel 7:
Philosopher: Can you have a philosophical zombie that behaves like it feels qualia but says it has no internal experience? No -- it's depressed by its shitty perception, but is not shitty enough.
Panel 8:
Philosopher: So does that mean a human-level machine intelligence would have qualia?
A second person (off to the side): You dropped it on the floor enough times?
Votey:
A loosely drawn face (the bearded philosopher) speaks.
Text at top: SMOOTHIES ANYONE?
The philosopher offers smoothies, calling back to the "go out for smoothies" line from earlier.
Alt text
An eight-panel black-and-white SMBC comic. A bald, white-bearded philosopher addresses the reader. He announces he has solved the philosophical problem of qualia with a theory he calls QASP -- shown on a title card reading "Qualia Are Shitty Perception." He explains that a perfect perception organ would give complete quantum-level information about color, which he dubs "exquisalia"; if two people could 'exquisaliate' a color they'd agree on every detail and there'd be no puzzle, so they'd just go get smoothies and watch TV. He then runs the standard qualia thought experiments through this lens: we can roughly share the same color experience because our perceptions are imperfect ("shitty"); your red might be my blue because perception is shitty; Mary, raised in black and white, knows everything but the experience because her perception is "even shittier"; and a philosophical zombie can't exist because it would be depressed by its shitty perception but "not shitty enough." In the final panel he muses whether a human-level machine intelligence would have qualia, and a second person deadpans, "You dropped it on the floor enough times?" The votey (bonus panel) is a loosely sketched drawing of the philosopher's face with the text "SMOOTHIES ANYONE?", calling back to his earlier offer to go out for smoothies.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.