Response to Open Review of Kawakita et al., 2023 by Moharramipour & Lau
Genji Kawakita, Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston, Ken Takeda, Naotsugu Tsuchiya, Masafumi Oizumi
PsyArXiv March 6, 2025 preprint DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/tfzu6_v1 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Commentary |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that structural correspondence between individuals' similarity structures is a necessary but insufficient condition for shared qualia, and that their method does not assume identical similarity structures indicate identical subjective experience. The authors state they revised the manuscript to clarify terminology and emphasize the limits of claims about subjective experience, while retaining the Gromov-Wasserstein Optimal Transport alignment framework. |
Abstract
In this response to the open review by Moharramipour and Lau, we address misconceptions regarding our paper "Is my 'red' your 'red'?: Unsupervised alignment of qualia structures via optimal transport." We clarify that our research does not assume identical similarity structures indicate identical subjective experiences. Rather, we propose that structural correspondence is a necessary but insufficient condition for shared qualia. We distinguish between two propositions: (1) identical similarity relationships necessarily implying identical qualia (which we do not claim), and (2) identical qualia necessarily yielding identical similarity relationships (which we do assume). Our study introduces a novel unsupervised alignment method to compare similarity structures and quantify structural correspondence between individuals' color experiences. We have revised our manuscript to address all reviewers' concerns, clarified terminology, and emphasized the limitations of our approach in making claims about subjective experience. The technical contribution of our work—the Gromov-Wasserstein Optimal Transport framework for unsupervised alignment—remains intact while philosophical overreach has been carefully moderated.