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Is Consciousness Everywhere?

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Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#181

Post by hntrader »

kkoncevicius wrote: post #172
hntrader wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no paradox here. When a lottery is drawn, someone has to win it and be left with the question "what are the odds?". Well, the odds that there will be a lottery winner in a position to ask that question is 1.

If someone wins a lottery we can then say "what are the chances of this specific person winning - they are very low" - that would be Texas sharpshooter fallacy, because the chance of _some_ person winning somewhere is high, we simply drew a target around the winner and restated the question. But this is not what is happening. What is happening is more like you finding three tickets under your rug in the morning, chec…

I think you're making a good point, but anthropic reasoning is hard so I'm still mulling it over.

What you're saying is that panpsychism implies a lower probability of you ending up as you, because you may have ended up as a conscious bacteria instead.

I'm going to tentatively disagree with that because the counterfactual of you ending up as a bacteria instead of a human is impossible, and therefore it doesn't factor into the probability estimates. Whether a bacteria can be conscious is besides the point. I may be committing some kind of Monty Hall fallacy, but don't currently think so.

The Veil of Ignorance is false if we're talking about physical reality.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#182

Post by forgotmypw17 »

anthk wrote: post #178
morpheos137 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Materialists see information as deriving (resulting) from a spatial - temporal - state distribution of matter or energy. Informational people see information as giving rise (causing) to matter and energy. I subscribe to the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis more or less and am sympathetic to Cyclic Conformal Cosmology. Thus cause and effect are reversed.

I always was more impressed on why information on the atoms (how interact between themselves) is not as researched as the matter itself, is truly fascinating.

We think we have it so hard with our 9-5 jobs and 2 weeks vacation.

Meanwhile, atoms have been working without as much as a fucking smoke break for literally billions of years! >_<

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#183

Post by kkoncevicius »

hntrader wrote: post #181
kkoncevicius wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone wins a lottery we can then say "what are the chances of this specific person winning - they are very low" - that would be Texas sharpshooter fallacy, because the chance of _some_ person winning somewhere is high, we simply drew a target around the winner and restated the question. But this is not what is happening. What is happening is more like you finding three tickets under your rug in the morning, chec…

I think you're making a good point, but anthropic reasoning is hard so I'm still mulling it over. What you're saying is that panpsychism implies a lower probability of you ending up as you, because you may have ended up as a conscious bacteria instead. I'm going to tentatively disagree with that because the counterfactual of you ending up as a bacteria instead of a human is impossible, and therefore it doesn't factor…

The argument I am pondering over here is very similar to the one about human population, you might have heard about it, it goes something like this: "human population is now likely highest it will ever be and will be drastically reduced in the future, because if we were to be born as any human randomly we would likely be born during a period where there are highest number of people alive".

Sadly I don't remember the name of it, but this argument about consciousness is in the same fashion. Except the odds are a _lot_ more surprising when compared with the population argument.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#184

Post by morpheos137 »

carapace wrote: post #154
morpheos137 wrote: post #61

Before we can ask intelligent, falsifiable questions about consciousness we need a rigorous definition of what consciousness is. Personally I think the word is a vague term and that a rigorous definition is impossible. Therefore, if my hypothesis is true, we can not not scientifically investigate "consciousness" any more than we can scientifically investigate "divinity" or "spookiness." If you disagree with my hypoth…

There can be no rigorous definition of what consciousness is, just names (experience, subjectivity, awareness, self, you) because it has no qualities. Consciousness is impossible to describe. It is neither hot nor cold, it has no size, and it experiences no passage of time as it is always now, eternal. There are no sides to it and no parts. It has no extent. It cannot be pointed to. It is beyond all possible signific…

Ok I actually understand what you mean. You are defining "consciousness" to be the "essence of being" in that case I agree it exists but as you mention

>[Essence of being] is impossible to describe. It is neither hot nor cold, it has no size, and it experiences no passage of time as it is always now, eternal. There are no sides to it and no parts. It has no extent. It cannot be pointed to.

Therefore it is not amenable to scientific or logical study. Study of essence of being is a spiritual quest for the individual and the Universe as a whole.

Maybe some "enlightened" or "adept" can use their insight or gifts but it is not a general technology that can be studied, measured, classified, boxed, etc.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#185

Post by sorokod »

tosser0001 wrote: post #109
justinpombrio wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're missing anything. Tononi made a formula related to how complicated a system is, and claimed that its measures consciousness. And what are you supposed to say to that, when no one can agree on what the word "consciousness" means, but people are still so attached to the word? For Scott Aaronson's take on "Integrated Information Theory": https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1799

Being able to model consciousness mathematically opens up some grotesque possibilities. Human suffering presumably has some sort of limit based purely on our physical makeup. Suppose though the very concept of subjective suffering could be modeled in some way. Is there any law in the universe that says there is a limit to suffering, pain (or pleasure)? Could an investigator of the future test out an algorithm on a co…

Has been explored in Altered Carbon ( the book ). Digitised conscience loaded into computer simulation and torture for practically infinite amount of time

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#186

Post by morpheos137 »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #122
morpheos137 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A single neuron is not an independent self replicating organism so I would not say a single neuron is alive (on its own) per my definition, although it is part of a larger living creature.

Are people actually independent self-replicating organisms. We are all parts of a superorganism, no? Each of our experiences are composed of the experiences of (billions?) of other people. We aren't islands.

Do you suppose neurons consider the super organism they are part of? No. So why should humans. Yes "we" are all fragments of the unified human experience, but our role, as individuals is to live as individuals.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#188

Post by anthk »

kkoncevicius wrote: post #75
skohan wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a reason you think consciousness can't simply be explained as brain activity?

I don't think consciousness can be explained as brain activity. To me that would lead to consciousness being a form of computation.

Well, physics work on a cause-effect basis, so does your brain.

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#189

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

carapace wrote: post #154
morpheos137 wrote: post #61

Before we can ask intelligent, falsifiable questions about consciousness we need a rigorous definition of what consciousness is. Personally I think the word is a vague term and that a rigorous definition is impossible. Therefore, if my hypothesis is true, we can not not scientifically investigate "consciousness" any more than we can scientifically investigate "divinity" or "spookiness." If you disagree with my hypoth…

There can be no rigorous definition of what consciousness is, just names (experience, subjectivity, awareness, self, you) because it has no qualities. Consciousness is impossible to describe. It is neither hot nor cold, it has no size, and it experiences no passage of time as it is always now, eternal. There are no sides to it and no parts. It has no extent. It cannot be pointed to. It is beyond all possible signific…

Agreed.

And because consciousness is not physical, I can't fathom where it comes from.

Like...I can grasp the idea of abiogenesis [0], the concept that organic molecules started self-replicating through chemical reactions that over millions of years started forming single-celled life that after a couple billion years turned into complex multi-cellular life and evolution has put us into the form we (and all other life) is today.

But this understanding just makes life look like nothing more than a very specific set of chemical and electrical reactions. To a naive external observer, the human brain is essentially nothing more than a highly complex electrical circuit, and yet, it is conscious.

We know what consciousness is, but it is very hard to define, because as you basically said, it is not physical. It exists, but can't be seen or even measured. You can see evidence of it by interacting with other life that appears conscious, but you can't prove it. If you could assemble a brain atom-by-atom, it could appear to be conscious, but would it? You won't know, and won't be able to know.

Even if we created "perfect" AI and put it into a "perfect" artificial body that was indistinguishable from an actual human (I'm imagining the hosts in the Westworld TV series), most people would say it wasn't conscious, but you couldn't prove it either way.

EDIT: In addition, we think about "conscious" decisions, but are your decisions truly made by consciousness? Think about how drugs will chemically affect the brain and can change behaviors. It makes me believe that free will is an illusion. Your consciousness doesn't make decisions, your physical brain does, and your brain can be altered. You're just a few million altered neurons away from an entirely different personality.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

Re: Is Consciousness Everywhere?

#190

Post by gowld »

morpheos137 wrote: post #180
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that a very strange statement for a supposedly conscious being to make. Consciousness does absolutely objectively exist, or at least I can say it does for me. That its existence is not objectively measurable doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it just means that the philosophy of empiricism is not complete.

>I find that a very strange statement for a supposedly conscious being to make. I don't claim to be conscious. I am alive and awake and thinking and sensing, etc. >Consciousness does absolutely objectively exist, or at least I can say it does for me. This sentence appears to confuse subjective experience with objective reality. >That its existence is not objectively measurable doesn't mean it doesn't exist If we can…

OK, Consciousness is a subjective opinion.

Are you claiming that subjective opinions do not exist, despite your own observations of your own subjective opinons?

Also, imagine you live in a box with a yellow ball. And you can speak to other people outside your box. They tell you they also live in a box with a yellow ball. You will never have proof that they actually have yellow balls in their boxes. And they will never have proof that you actually have a yellow ball in your box.

Would you say that yellow balls are merely a subjective opinion, and don't exist?

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