Does Qualia Depend on an 'Internal OS'?

—Thinking about the emergence of subjective texture from CIM
Even when looking at the same red, it is not necessarily the case that everyone feels exactly the same way.
Even when listening to the same music, one person may feel nostalgia, another may feel pain, and another may feel nothing at all.

Why is that?

When considering this question, I view qualia not as "sensations given directly from the outside," but asa subjective texture that emerges through the structure formed within that personas I see it.

I would like to tentatively call the structure referred to here aninternal OS.

However, this does not mean that there is literally something like an OS inside the brain.
It is merely a metaphor.

Humans have bodies, touch the world, and accumulate experiences that cannot be undone.
Those experiences are not merely saved as simple records.
They are gradually structured within us as memories, predictions, emotions, value judgments, and ways of bodily response.

Could it be that this structure determines how current inputs—colors, sounds, words, scents, someone's facial expression—are received and what kind of texture they emerge as?

That is what I think.

Qualia is not the "input itself"

For example, look at a sunset.

A sunset can also be explained simply as wavelengths of light.
However, for humans, a sunset is more than just that.

For one person, it might be something that reminds them of the way home from childhood.
For another, it might be a color that reminds them of someone they have lost.
For another, it might be a sense of relief that signals the end of the day.
For another, it might be a scene that makes their chest tighten for no reason.

In this case, even if the light entering the eyes is similar, the texture that emerges is different.

In other words, qualia is not just input.
Is it not something like a subjective resonance that occurs when input passes through the structure of that person's internal experiences?

What is important here is not to mystify qualia too much.
At the same time, it is not to simply dismiss it as mere information processing.

Qualia is not born solely from current stimuli, but is tied to past experiences, the history of the body, and the accumulation of time that cannot be undone.
That is precisely why, even when looking at the same thing, the way people feel about the world changes.

The metaphor of an internal OS

The term "internal OS" that I use here refers to the foundation of how the world is perceived, which is formed by the accumulation of brain, body, and experience.

For example, we do not necessarily react the same way even when we hear the same words.

Some people find comfort in the word "daijoubu" (it's okay).
Conversely, some people feel a sense of loneliness as if they have been pushed away by that word.

Some people are encouraged by the words "do your best."
Others feel cornered by them.

I believe this is not because the words themselves have a fixed meaning,
but because the history within each person changes how those words resonate.

In what situations have they received those words in the past?
At that time, were they protected or hurt?
Were they accepted or abandoned?
How is that experience compressed within their body, memories, and emotions?

Because of this, the same input gives rise to different textures.

In this sense, might qualia depend on an internal OS?
At the very least, that is the direction in which I am thinking.

Connection with CIM

The CIM—Compressed Irreversibility Model—that I am considering is, roughly speaking, a perspective thatirreversible experiences are compressed, and subjective textures emerge as their residue.view.

Humans do not just process information.
We possess bodies, and we spend our time choosing, losing, getting hurt, and accumulating experiences from which there is no return.

What has happened once cannot be completely undone.
What has been lost once will not return to the state it was in before.
The path chosen once leaves the unchosen paths behind.

This irreversibility changes not just data, but the very way we perceive our world.

In CIM, this "inability to return" becomes important.
This is because qualia have a certain depth that cannot be fully explained by current input alone.

Nostalgia.
Heartache.
Painful beauty.
An indescribable sense of security.
A place that feels scary for no reason.
A sound that attracts you without cause.

These do not appear to be completed by the stimuli in front of us alone.
When past experiences are compressed and collide with current input, they emerge as subjective textures.

Thinking of it this way, while qualia are "sensations of this very moment," they are simultaneously "echoes of the history we have lived."

How to view the difference from AI

This discussion is also important when considering the differences from AI.

AI can talk about qualia.
"What does red feel like?"
"What is heartache?"
"What kind of emotion is nostalgia?"
It can return very natural text in response to such questions.

However, being able to talk about qualia and having qualia emerge are not the same thing.

At the very least, current AI does not have a human-like body.
It lacks a bodily history where the way the world is perceived changes through loss.
Its experience, in the sense of living through a one-time-only span of time and having its internal structure change due to that irreversibility, is also vastly different from that of a human.

Of course, this is not to assert that "AI absolutely has nothing."
It is just that, at least when considering human qualia, I believe we cannot ignore the accumulation of the body and irreversible experiences.

Even if an AI can linguistically explain qualia,
it is highly likely that the conditions for its formation differ from the qualia that arise through the human internal OS.

I want to think about this carefully and separately.

Qualia might not be the world itself, but rather 'the way the world passes through us'.

When I think about qualia, this is how I have been feeling lately.

Qualia is not the external world itself.
However, it is not merely a decoration inside the brain either.

Could it be the texture that emerges when the world passes through the internal OS that is 'me'?

Even though we live in the same world, we do not see the same world.
Even if we hear the same words, they do not resonate in the same way.
Even if we stand in the same scenery, the emotions that arise there are different.

I believe that difference is not merely a difference in mood,
but a difference in the irreversible experiences that each of us has accumulated.

Therefore, qualia is very personal.
But at the same time, it is not completely isolated.

We live on the same Earth, have similar bodies, lose things in similar ways, wish for things in similar ways, and get hurt in similar ways.
That is precisely why we can resonate with the words, music, and stories of others, even though they should be different from our own experiences.

They are not exactly the same.
However, they are not completely unreachable either.

Qualia might be what exists in between.

The mystery is not outside, but inside.

When we think about consciousness or qualia, we tend to want to seek a special answer somewhere outside.

However, I feel the exact opposite.

The mystery is not something that descends from the outside,
but rather something that is carved into the inside of matter as we possess a body and live through time that cannot be returned to.

The brain is not just a machine.
At the same time, it is not a magic box.

It is a place of living history that receives experiences, leaves scars, changes predictions, reweaves emotions, and updates the very way the world is seen.

When that history is compressed and meets current input,
we 'feel'.

Red looks red.
Music shakes the heart.
Words cause pain.
Silence becomes gentle.
The landscape ceases to be just a landscape.

I am considering its emergence from the perspective of CIM.

Qualia is not merely a label for sensations.
Could it be the subjective texture that arises when irreversible experiences, compressed as an internal OS, come into contact with the present world?

It is still just a hypothesis.
However, to me, this perspective feels very natural.

The mystery of consciousness is not something located somewhere far away.
It is the fact that we live in time to which we cannot return.
It is the fact that those experiences continue to be etched inside our brains and bodies.
And it is the fact that through that etched history, the world takes on a different texture for each individual.

I believe that is where the wonder of qualia lies.

I record what happens in my dialogues with AI twice a week.
Feel free to follow if you are interested.
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