Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

nautil.us

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 280 posts

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#271

Post by natosaichek »

goatlover wrote: post #75
posterboy wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A calculator processes maybe 64bits, in a machinery that is rather limited, certainly not enough to emulate it's environment, unless a more complex machine operates it.

However, bits, information and software have the same problem as math that was mentioned in the article. And that is that they are abstract and relational, unlike the concrete qualities of experiencing color, pain, a dream, etc. So I doubt that any amount of bits will do any good, just like no math equation is going to become conscious. What would it even mean for an equation or bits of information to have conscious…

However, voltages, ion channels and chemical messengers have the same problem as math. They are abstract and relational, unlike the concrete qualities of experiencing color, pain, a dream, etc. So I doubt that any amount of neurons will do any good, just like no math equation is going to become conscious.

I think you're confusing the components of a map with a characteristic of the territory. We use 'bits' and 'equations' to describe the world. They do not themselves have conscious experiences, any more than a neuron. They are convenient components in a model of a larger system, which has consciousness or self-awareness as an emergent characteristic of the interactions of its components.

This is like saying that because an individual spring or gear cannot tell time that a mechanical watch is an impossibility... The characteristic of interest 'maintenance of time keeping' emerges from the complex interactions of a variety of subcomponents, each of which alone has no reference to time.

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#272

Post by ddingus »

kamaal wrote: post #257
ddingus wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would one not just infer the universe is conscious? There is no boundary problem then, just one of degree. Seems silly, but everything has a point of view and whatever level of complexity it has determines what consciousness it presents. A rock has very little complexity. It literally is just an expression. What has happened to it equals what it is. When something has enough complexity to be aware of the boundary bet…

>>When something has enough complexity to be aware of the boundary between "it" and everything else, then we have a being of some kind. Not necessarily. Humans learn anything through inputs of sight, sound, feeling and smell. Different conscious bodies could have different ways of learning about things around them, and hence a totally different model of reality around them. They can't tell us anything about their con…

That does not change their state of being.

How they get the data is a matter of their nature, not whether they are beings.

I also did not speak to their state, only what may define actually having one, as opposed to being something simpler, an expression as I put it above.

We can get the message of the stone, the stone also is changed by us having done it. It literally is what happens to it.

There is that.

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#273

Post by dhruval »

state_less wrote: post #269
dhruval wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With infinite time and infinite space, you could do all the computations required for the nematode worm neural network with a pencil and paper rather than an electronic computer. Would you say that this pencil and paper is now conscious? Does the speed of computation cause emergence? How? Does building a computer out of organic particles cause consciousness? How? "Emergence" is mostly lazy thinking and lack of unders…

Couldn't you argue similarly in a paper and pencil simulation that you never create electricity, atoms, DNA and that all you have is pencil scratches on the paper?

Sure, we can distinguish the difference between computation and electricity, or computation and atoms etc.

However somehow we conflate computation with consciousness.

I think this is primarily because the human brain 1) performs computations 2) is also somehow related to consciousness in a way we don't quite understand.

However we have lots of examples of computation without consciousness (mechanical compuaters, electronic computers, cellular replication, slime molds, Cellular automata etc).

So why would it follow that consciousness emerges from computation? There is really no good reason to think this other than the fact that our brains are both computational and conscious.

Consciousness is the reason that there is some experience of reality rather than no experience of reality. It is not computational in nature one way or the other.

So overall I think the emergence theory is hubris, not sound thinking. The reality is we don't currently have a good solution to the hard problem of consciousness.

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#274

Post by dhruval »

acqq wrote: post #241
dhruval wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With infinite time and infinite space, you could do all the computations required for the nematode worm neural network with a pencil and paper rather than an electronic computer. Would you say that this pencil and paper is now conscious? Does the speed of computation cause emergence? How? Does building a computer out of organic particles cause consciousness? How? "Emergence" is mostly lazy thinking and lack of unders…

> you could do all the computations required for the nematode worm neural network with a pencil and paper rather than an electronic computer. Yes. > Would you say that this pencil and paper is now conscious? No. But your experiment involves "you with a pencil and a paper" where "you" is conscious. > Does building a computer out of organic particles cause consciousness? It's not necessary to use organic particles. We…

>No. But your experiment involves "you with a pencil and a paper" where "you" is conscious.

Ok if it was mechanical computer, or an electronic computer what difference would it make ?

At what point does the computer start to have an independent experience of reality ?

To be clear I should mention I am not against consciousness emerging from physics, I don't think it is very likely that it emerges from computation at the level of neural networks.

Primordial consciousness is not an intuitive thing to understand. I see a lot of hubris and arrogance from people who conflate consciousness with computation or intelligence.

Are are lots of examples of computation without consciousness. So there is not much reason to think this other than the fact that our own brains are both conscious and perform computation (and even then the vast majority of the computation happens at a sub-conscious level)

>It's not necessary to use organic particles. We will probably soon build the electronic computer which will, from the perspective of the humans communicating with him, indeed behave "as a conscious person": soon we won't need you to write the answer you wrote, the computer will be able to make even better one.

Just because humans believe something is conscious doesn't make it conscious. The hard problem of consciousness is understanding why we have any experience at all. Consciousness is the illuminating quality of our minds, computation causes permutations in the nature of this experience, however it doesn't follow that it is what creates this experience to begin with.

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#275

Post by lisper »

kamaal wrote: post #255
acqq wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. We already have a complete nematode implemented as a computer program. We already have a realistic simulation of the living creature. Twenty years ago the current output of Google Translate was a pure science fiction, compared to what it was possible then. Today it already often translates better than a lot of humans knowing both languages. Had anyone seen the output of Google Translate of today some 20 years ago…

>>Apparently, the computer learned chess better than the long developed programs by only playing the game with itself for four hours! https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/the-man... Basically the machine isn't exactly thinking. It simulates a model of thinking. There lies the biggest difference.

Congratulations, you have re-discovered Searle's Chinese Room argument.

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#276

Post by lisper »

kamaal wrote: post #267
lisper wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That means this has more to with ability to communicate/signal your consciousness. Communication is the only data you have to support the theory that there are conscious beings other than yourself. Hypothesizing a conscious being that can't communicate at all (not to be confused with the temporary inability to communicate brought on by sleep or locked-in syndrome) is like hypothesizing an invisible leprechaun livin…

Then the real problem is how do we communicate with a rock?

That's right. I think you should start working on solving that right away.

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#277

Post by TaupeRanger »

Retra wrote: post #215
TaupeRanger wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You misunderstand. A function cannot offer a description of the taste of chocolate. That is the kind of description I am referring to.

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#278

Post by TaupeRanger »

visarga wrote: post #217
TaupeRanger wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 - w…

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

Not at all. There is absolutely no reason that the behavior of distinguishing berries should have any felt experience at all from a functional perspective. What we'd like to explain are the feelings themselves. A robot can distinguish berries without feeling a thing.

> 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.

This is just sidestepping the actual question. This doesn't explain the nature of felt experience at all. The question is why these feelings exist at all. What about "computation" leads to the complex experience of falling in love or tasting chocolate? And why would it lead to the particular qualities that we actually experience, rather than some other qualities? Even if you believe that qualia exist to causally affect our behavior (a contentious and problematic view, given that we can't measure them), why those specific qualities and not some others that could produce the same behavior? There are so many deep mysteries here that you are simply handwaving by feigning understanding.

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#279

Post by naasking »

taneq wrote: post #253
naasking wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think stating that there's a "hard problem of consciousness," which is not explained by self-awareness, is begging the question. We just kind of assume that there's something inherently special about qualia, raise them on a pedestal, and claim that they are unique to humans. Merely asserting the existence of self-awareness or describing how self-awareness arises doesn't address any of the questions raised by qual…

Would you be able to explain some of these questions further? It seems self-evident to me that there are only a few options: - Human brains aren't conscious (which we humans tend to dispute) - Human brains are conscious and have experiences as an inherent byproduct of accepting and processing sensory input which includes input on their own internal states (ie. there is no 'hard problem') - Human brains are conscious…

> - Human brains are conscious and have experiences as an inherent byproduct of accepting and processing sensory input which includes input on their own internal states (ie. there is no 'hard problem')

My point was that even concluding this were true basedo n some compelling evidence, it still doesn't explain all of the strange qualitative aspects of our subjective experience. There's a lot missing that needs to be explained. For instance, such an explanation would have to address p-zombies, Mary's room, and other philosophical puzzles. I think it's possible to do so, but there is an explanatory gap that needs filling.

Re: Is Matter Conscious? (2017)

#280

Post by jacobsimon »

audunw wrote: post #218
jacobsimon wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Even when you strip out those other concepts, which you probably shouldn't, there is an underlying element of conscious awareness that is not "nothing," but an awareness of nothing, like the "I" in "I think therefore I am."

My problem is that people confuse talking poetically about consciousness with actually coming to a conclusion about how this thing works.

Post reply on HN