What is consciousness? Some new perspectives from our physics project • Hacker News Board

Re: What is consciousness? Some new perspectives from our physics project

#71

Post by wk_end » Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 6:22 AM UTC

neonological wrote: post #68

Zuider wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ostensive definitions can be indistinguishable from tautologies. A definition which ultimately boils down to a formula such as: "The thing that is indicated when you say 'that thing there!'" appears linguistically empty, because its meaning is not found in the words, but in something extra-verbal that it is intended to point to. The problem in the debate surrounding consciousness is that there are two basic positions…

>and a tangible consensus amongst those who are not blind as to whether an object can be called blue or not. >The latter is missing from the problem of consciousness, which makes it a far more difficult and fascinating problem. You are talking about whether some topic can be observed. The example you cite is observation through sight. A blind person cannot observe color. Observation is the key to gathering evidence.…

Whenever I encounter someone trying to tell me that consciousness is ill-defined or not a real thing that actually exists (which happens surprisingly often), I feel like I’m taking crazy pills - or perhaps that philosophical zombies walk among us. Not only am I 100% sure that (my) consciousness exists, it’s literally the only thing I can be 100% sure exists.

Re: What is consciousness? Some new perspectives from our physics project

#72

Post by marshmellman » Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 6:42 AM UTC

galaxyLogic wrote: post #70

We can hear our thoughts and we can remember having "heard" them. I think that is consciousness. It is sensory perception of some of our brain-processes, interpreted by our brain, just like brain can categorize seeing blue as just that.

Why do you say “sensory” perception? Do you just mean that we think about our brain processes, or something else?

Re: What is consciousness? Some new perspectives from our physics project

#73

Post by marshmellman » Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 6:51 AM UTC

arnoooooo wrote: post #2

No explanation of consciousness cuts it if it does not address how first person perspective comes about. No computation results in first person perspective.

If you think of your brain as a predictive machine that makes models of the world around it, then “first person perspective” is your brain’s model of itself in the world.

Re: What is consciousness? Some new perspectives from our physics project

#74

Post by matt-attack » Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 6:55 AM UTC

roughly wrote: post #60

matt-attack wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who else shares it? Or what else shares it?

At the point at which we can determine with certainty something else shares a phenomenological experience of consciousness, I think we're obligated to grant it personhood.

Not sure about that. There is a hypothesis that what you describe is simply a fundamental property of matter:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism

Re: What is consciousness? Some new perspectives from our physics project

#75

Post by jonsen » Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 10:10 AM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #47

jonsen wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, Einstein had a physics project? Like, with lab and everything?

He did not. But Einstein was still far more driven by experimental results (that is to say, by physical reality) than Wolfram is.

How can we tell what actually drives Wolfram?

Re: What is consciousness? Some new perspectives from our physics project

#76

Post by marosgrego » Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 10:15 AM UTC

archibaldJ wrote: post #11

Wolfram's idea about computational irreducibility is an interesting one. Going through it again reminds me a lot of how intriguingly difficult the Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness problem is. But in this article Wolfram's view on consciousness occurs to be nothing more than a bunch of abstraction layers put together in a badly baked Lasagna. For anyone who is computationally minded, I believe by just having a p…

What do psychedelics have to do with computability?

Re: What is consciousness? Some new perspectives from our physics project

#77

Post by patcon » Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 1:02 PM UTC

neonological wrote: post #13

Careful. "Consciousness" may just be a language issue. It seems like a profound concept but it's really just a word with a very vague and complex definition. If someone tried to formalize "consciousness" it would be a technical book about 1000 pages long or something and all we're doing is debating about what goes in the book. It's very similar to the question what is "life?" I mean we understand that biology is just…

> debating what "life" is as a general concept outside of biology is not a profound issue

I'm not sure this is true. I think I disagree with much of your neat frame-setting here. For example, some of my favourite recent podcasts from complexity science involve clever folks like Sara Imari Walker discussing "life" as what emerges from a dense information well.[1] These questions are not just simple inventories.

But yes, I do agree that this may be just "a language issue". But there are other streams of thought that are actively promoting language into a more respectable realm of complexity science, where "just a language issue" actually downplays what may be going on in that "resolving" process of language itself[2] (h/t Nicole Creanza, whose research in birdsong & human cultural evolution is profiled)

tl;dr - I would argue that these questions are "profound" all the way down, if we start looking at it in the right way.

[1]: https://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/40-ImRdTdBt

[2]: https://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/22-yTXhvGCS

Re: What is consciousness? Some new perspectives from our physics project

#78

Post by patcon » Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 1:08 PM UTC

OK, I'll admit that I enjoy Stephen's writing on this topic, though I find it very longwinded. I like that it gets me thinking in weird directions, very outside the box

Re: What is consciousness? Some new perspectives from our physics project

#79

Post by JackFr » Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 1:18 PM UTC

throw_away98321 wrote: post #7

I think of consciousness as a feeling and nothing more. Similar to the feeling of free will, both are an "illusion" and we're not actually aware or free. The universe is made of instructions that everything follows and including us. We believing in awareness is just instructions for how we operate as subsystems of the Universe and like or unlike other subsystems of the universe. I find the idea simpler to grasp if yo…

You sure use 'I' a lot for someone who believes in neither free will nor awareness.

Re: What is consciousness? Some new perspectives from our physics project

#80

Post by JackFr » Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 1:23 PM UTC

vletal wrote: post #42

nahuel0x wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But to feel is the core of consciousness/qualia. You can postulate free will as an illusion, but is harder with consciousness.

Exactly. I struggle hard with this topic. I feel like being here, perceiving the world. Yet, if I simulated every molecule of my body, the simulated me would seemingly "feel" the same things, think likewise. It feels there is more to "me" than what would be of the _simulated_ me. On the other hand I see no way to prove so.

Consider the possibility that your brain is a liar.

Maybe our brains, as an evolutionary strategy, have tricked us into believing that the universe is fundamentally knowable and that the brain is the only reliable knowledge machine.

How would you know it's not true?