Is Matter Conscious? (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#211

Post by gotocake » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

raattgift wrote: post #163

gotocake wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can’t be stated enough: photons don’t have a perspective. Talking about what a photon “sees” is a non-starter. It’s also important to note that light follows null geodesics in spacetime, and while on paper that can look like no time elapses between emission and absorption, it still can’t tell us what it would “be like” to be a photon. If you want to go in that direction though, then this could help. As you approac…

> Talking about what a photon "sees" is a non-starter In QED or other photon-containing QFTs like the Standard Model, it is not only a "starter", it is essentially the point of the thing. Surely the photon "sees" the electron in a Compton scattering? Photons obey the spin statistics for massless gauge bosons, so they can pile up at one point in spacetime. Equivalently, null geodesics can intersect. There can be a spa…

You are a really good teacher, thank you!

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#212

Post by Retra » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 5:20 PM UTC

vagab0nd wrote: post #202

I've been wondering this for a long time: if we can understand every detail of the inner working of the brain, what happens if I observe my brain in real time? Is it like calling a function recursively without an exit condition?

Obviously not? Looking at your brain is not the same as executing it. You'd just be looking at pictures.

It'd be more like calling a function that reformats it own source code.

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#213

Post by hackinthebochs » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 5:25 PM UTC

CuriouslyC wrote: post #193

dalbasal wrote: post #179

Enough credible people have publicly considered the idea credible for me to open my mind. But... I have to keep my mind open with a brace. otherwise, it'll call occam's razor & snap shut. At the heart of consciousness particles ideas (I think) is the idea that conciousness can't emerge from nonconscious stuff. This is counterintuitive to me. We now know of all sorts of emergent phenomenon. Species emerge (from other,…

How does Occam's Razor apply here? You have evidence that some matter (yourself) experiences its existence. The simplest hypothesis that explains this is that all matter experiences its existence. Any hypothesis that posits that SOME matter experiences its existence and other matter does not requires two different kinds of matter (conscious and not) and a mechanism to switch between the two. Seems that hypothesis req…

>Requires two different kinds of matter (conscious and not)

This is just smuggling in the conclusion. We observe conscious matter and non-conscious matter. The simplest explanation (as in requires the fewest entities in our ontology) is that there is just one kind of matter and that physical processes that we already allow into our ontology for external reasons are sufficient to explain why some matter is conscious.

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#214

Post by simonh » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 5:27 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #194

simonh wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, I just don't see what the problem is. I am not just experiencing this input. I am aware of the fact that I am experiencing this input. Or even I am aware of the fact that I am aware of myself experiencing this stimulus. Also even a simple stimulus can have all sorts of context dependent meanings and associations. Is see red. That's the colour of blood, also the colour of one of my wife's dresses, and our car…

I think perhaps you're misunderstanding the hard problem. The hard problem is about why "experience" exists at all, why perceptions have a qualitative character that appears to be impossible capture using a third-party objective description, eg. a scientific or mathematical description. Think about it: every way you would describe a subjective experience seems to eventually rely on a first-person statement at some po…

And I'm with Dennett, that this is not really a problem but just a failure of imagination. That a description of a thing is not the thing itself is not a novel concept. I think the belief that there is a hard problem is just a new form of Vitalism.

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#215

Post by Retra » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 5:28 PM UTC

TaupeRanger wrote: post #24

visarga wrote: post #5

Not quite all the matter, but self replicating agents under the right circumstances (evolution) can be. Consciousness is fundamentally a function that preserves the agent in its environment. It's a combination of two optimisation processes - massive random search for its architecture, and learning. It's only purpose is to exist, thus it has to protect the needs of its body and make more of itself. If it doesn't take…

Not a good explanation. Why would a physically instantiated function feel like anything at all, rather than just a bunch of matter moving around? The question is about why the feelings themselves exist. "Functions" do not ever describe the feeling of the smell of chocolate or falling in love. That is the mystery. You have not remotely touched it.

Functions can describe pretty much anything. If you don't see how they can describe something, then you're just using the wrong functions.

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#216

Post by Retra » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 5:30 PM UTC

kwccoin wrote: post #89

Let us reduce this to a simpler question. Can Matter detect i.e. collapse quantum wave? If it is conscious but cannot even detect quantum event, is it really conscious? As this is physical event we can check, we can at least determine that.

Best learn some actual quantum physics before you start pretending to understand it.

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#217

Post by visarga » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 5:54 PM UTC

TaupeRanger wrote: post #24

visarga wrote: post #5

Not quite all the matter, but self replicating agents under the right circumstances (evolution) can be. Consciousness is fundamentally a function that preserves the agent in its environment. It's a combination of two optimisation processes - massive random search for its architecture, and learning. It's only purpose is to exist, thus it has to protect the needs of its body and make more of itself. If it doesn't take…

Not a good explanation. Why would a physically instantiated function feel like anything at all, rather than just a bunch of matter moving around? The question is about why the feelings themselves exist. "Functions" do not ever describe the feeling of the smell of chocolate or falling in love. That is the mystery. You have not remotely touched it.

> Why would a physically instantiated function feel like anything at all

Because its life depends on it. Seeing a berry and not distinguishing its colour could be fatal.

> rather than just a bunch of matter moving around

We're all a bunch of matter moving around. But we have perception - which is just a neural net converting images to image representations (and other senses in a similar way), and a value function - which rates the expected future rewards in a situation. Perception + value (emotion) creates what philosophers call qualia. These systems have been created by evolution because they are useful for survival.

> The question is about why the feelings themselves exist.

Again, because we have specific apparatus that computes perception representations and estimates future rewards related to our current situation and action, and because these representations are essential for life to continue.

The key differences between an agent and a non-agent are self replication and learning. We have these qualities while rocks don't. Self replication enables evolution and gives an intrinsic goal, a constraint if you will, to the agent. The constraint is what learning and evolution optimise against.

More fundamentally, it's a process that maintains low entropy (order) of the body inside the environment by actively compensating for perturbations.

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#218

Post by audunw » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 5:58 PM UTC

jacobsimon wrote: post #91

trixie_ wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think panpsychism argues that everything is conscious, at all levels, simultaneously. There are no boundaries. What you experience as a boundary is just the limit of your awareness. Just as you don't consciously beat your heart or heal your wounds. And if you think about it a lot it's tough to really tell where your own boundary brain/body ends and the environment begins. I like the panpsychism stuff because it res…

I don’t disagree with the problems you describe, but I don’t think panpsychism explains any of these problems either. It’s a non-answer, and functionally equivalent to saying nothing about consciousness. The “evolutionary illusion” you describe is precisely what we’re trying to understand: the brain is doing an extraordinary magic trick and no one knows how.

Well, that might just be because there's not actually much to say about consciousness. If you strip all the things we know it's not (memory, thoughts, etc) we're actually left with very little, if anything.

I think this is also what some meditation based philosophies are trying to teach. That is, they're saying something along the lines of: you are in one way everything at once, but you are not any of the things you think you are. They spend a lot of effort trying to teach people, essentially nothing. Not just the label "nothing" but something like a deep realisation of the concept.

My main problem with this philosophy is figuring out why we're conscious of a very specific subset of things at a time. Does the brain create a kind of nexus where several items of complex information are available in a small physical, and that makes it easy to be conscious of these things at once? But what limits it?

And the other problem is the link between consciousness and action. Most actions seem like a product of cause-and-effect.. but at the very least it seems that the existence of consciousness is making us talk about consciousness.

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#219

Post by visarga » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 6:09 PM UTC

cybervegan wrote: post #196

The neural network of nematode worms has been modelled in software, and a robotic avatar has been built for this "mind". It behaves very much like a real nematode worm. Real nematode worms appear to be conscious to an extent, in so far as they forage for food and mates, and retreat from danger or threats. I don't think we would argue that nematodes have the same level of consciousness as we do. If the mechanical mode…

I agree. I'd like to add that consciousness is an emergent property of the interactions between the agent and the environment. The environment is what feeds the agent with perceptions and reward signals, enabling learning to happen.

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#220

Post by visarga » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

CuriouslyC wrote: post #193

dalbasal wrote: post #179

Enough credible people have publicly considered the idea credible for me to open my mind. But... I have to keep my mind open with a brace. otherwise, it'll call occam's razor & snap shut. At the heart of consciousness particles ideas (I think) is the idea that conciousness can't emerge from nonconscious stuff. This is counterintuitive to me. We now know of all sorts of emergent phenomenon. Species emerge (from other,…

How does Occam's Razor apply here? You have evidence that some matter (yourself) experiences its existence. The simplest hypothesis that explains this is that all matter experiences its existence. Any hypothesis that posits that SOME matter experiences its existence and other matter does not requires two different kinds of matter (conscious and not) and a mechanism to switch between the two. Seems that hypothesis req…

I'd say an important part of consciousness is learning. Without learning we would not even be able to make sense of what is in front of our eyes. A particle doesn't learn, so it can't be conscious.