Consciousness and the Laws of Physics • Hacker News Board

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#71

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 2:43 PM UTC

EMM_386 wrote: post #24

lbrandy wrote: post #6

Here's my attempt at a tldr. 1. The laws of physics at the time scales, space scales, and energies of the human brain are "known" and we have deep reasons to believe that more will not be discovered. He spends a great deal of space explaining and arguing that the credence that physics is "complete" in this regime should be very, very high. 2. Given the current laws of physics, there is no place or room for non-physic…

How does free will play into this? If the world is run by all physical laws, then I had no choice typing this out and submitting it, rather then closing the tab right now. My "decision" isn't real. If it is an actual conscious choice, that was not calculatable by the exact state prior, then consciousness is fundamental.

I recommend reading "Elbow Room: the varieties of free will worth wanting" by Daniel Dennett to get a better handle on what the term "free will" might actually mean.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#72

Post by morpheos137 » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

hsn915 wrote: post #29

sampo wrote: post #16

Personally, it amazes me how many people find it difficult to believe or accept, that human consciousness would just be an emergent property of how neural cells function and are connected together. That all of human consciousness would reside on a higher level than the laws of molecular physics and chemistry. That consciousness emerges from the level of cell biology. No need to postulate anything supernatural, or any…

Would it not surprised you if you learned that the program you wrote in C++ and compiled to machine code would produce "subjective" feelings in the CPU when executed?

If the program was coded to produce subjective feeling, no. Otherwise, it would suprise me very much. I believe what we call consciousness is selected for and is written into the structure our brains have. I do not beleive that consciouness exists outside of living brains. Maybe I am wrong but so far there has not been much evidence. I also do not believe consciousness is simply an accident but that it was specifically selected for by evolution.

People who have taken psychedelics may disagree but I think consciouness is tightly connected with sense of self, the ego. An organism that is conscious can have a sense of self. An organism with a sense of self may have a greater degree of flexible self preservation / flexible self promotion than a simple stimulus response network. Because we are conscious we focus on what we are feeling about our selves not just on the immediate sensory stimulus. Pyschedelics may break down the connection / integration of senses with self giving rise to the illusion of consciousness outside of the self-brain. But I would say this is an illusion.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#73

Post by BoiledCabbage » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

dominicl wrote: post #50

sampo wrote: post #16

Personally, it amazes me how many people find it difficult to believe or accept, that human consciousness would just be an emergent property of how neural cells function and are connected together. That all of human consciousness would reside on a higher level than the laws of molecular physics and chemistry. That consciousness emerges from the level of cell biology. No need to postulate anything supernatural, or any…

Would love to discuss this over drinks. For me it's the opposite. It's feels pretty natural to me to imagine that intelligence and (perceived) free will are emergent properties. But consciousness troubles me, we still can't prove for anyone but ourselves that it does in fact exist - while it's existance is "apparent" to oneself. Also it does not make logical sense to me why such a feature should even develop, why hav…

> Also it does not make logical sense to me why such a feature should even develop, why have consciousness if you can have intelligence and problem solving without it?

Who/what says that you can? Consciousness seems to make most sense as a sliding scale than as a sudden switch.

But even if you do argue that it's optional with intelligence, the reason it would be present would simply be: is the most efficient way to implement it.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#74

Post by smokel » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

sampo wrote: post #16

Personally, it amazes me how many people find it difficult to believe or accept, that human consciousness would just be an emergent property of how neural cells function and are connected together. That all of human consciousness would reside on a higher level than the laws of molecular physics and chemistry. That consciousness emerges from the level of cell biology. No need to postulate anything supernatural, or any…

I agree that it is amazing that people keep believing in obsolete theories, but it may not be all bad. In some areas of life, and to some people, very old theories have more explaining power than modern day science has. And they are often more comforting.

If neural networks explain consciousness (which they may or may not do), then there are still some remaining issues to explain. For example, how can it be that our universe exists, and why are the laws of physics in place? And why are they so consistent?

The consciousness problem may be unrelated to these problems about the fundamentals of science. It may well be that we can understand consciousness as a thing that exists entirely inside the laws of physics, but some people are not yet convinced. It may even be the case that the consciousness problem and the fundamental science problems are intrinsically related. Hence the interest in the combination of quantum mechanics and consciousness.

One hint that points in this direction is that neural networks are a great basis for abstraction and logic. And by some coincidence this is exactly what can be used to form theories that explain everything we observe.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#75

Post by foxhop » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

morpheos137 wrote: post #72

hsn915 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it not surprised you if you learned that the program you wrote in C++ and compiled to machine code would produce "subjective" feelings in the CPU when executed?

If the program was coded to produce subjective feeling, no. Otherwise, it would suprise me very much. I believe what we call consciousness is selected for and is written into the structure our brains have. I do not beleive that consciouness exists outside of living brains. Maybe I am wrong but so far there has not been much evidence. I also do not believe consciousness is simply an accident but that it was specifical…

Check out some documentaries on the octopus or the crow. You might have to revisit some of these theories.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#76

Post by bobthechef » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

creamytaco wrote: post #19

skohan wrote: post #7

This paper reminds me of one of the "wow" moments I had when first studying neuroscience: a professor passed on the realization that everything in the universe we can observe and understand must have a neurobiological representation. Reality as we experience it is in fact always represented in brain activity.

Here is another wow moment that follows from the one you mentioned: The universe you experience is different than my own. We use language and shared culture to consensually hallucinate a "shared" universe but no such thing truly exists for us. We can perceive objects and describe them in similar ways but the fact remains that we can't access the universe that the objects truly exist in (if that even exists) since, fo…

> The universe you experience is different than my own.

How would you know this if you've never experienced how I experience it?

> We use language and shared culture to consensually hallucinate a "shared" universe but no such thing truly exists for us.

You seem to suggest that culture is some shared fantasy superimposed on reality, but how could it be given your solipsism? How could anything be shared?

> We can perceive objects and describe them in similar ways

How would you know? Maybe I mean different things when I speak. Maybe my speech isn't speech at all and you're just construing it as such? Maybe there is no me?

> but the fact remains that we can't access the universe that the objects truly exist in (if that even exists)

How would you know without being able to "access" the universe to make that comparison? Are you a gnostic with secret knowledge (in which case, you do have access)? You've also already assumed a distinction between universe and mind, but how could you if all you have are these "representations", as you call them? The distinction would itself just be a mental "representation".

> since, for us, they have no independent existence outside of our mental representation.

If there is no reality to represent, then they aren't mental representations, are they.

> Or shortly, when you die the universe dies with you.

The universe you don't know actually exists? But if it exists, why should it die with you?

P.S. Less weed, more rigor.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#77

Post by francasso » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

roywiggins wrote: post #63

francasso wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't find it that difficult, in fact yours is just as much of a belief as the one of the people you subtly criticize. You believe that the standard model and gravity (or whatever unknown theory that can have some experimental evidence to generalize both) are enough to model the behavior of human beings/animal as an "emergent" phenomena, even though there is no direct evidence for that. Even worse actually, there i…

Emergent phenomena are often hard to predict, like the weather. That doesn't actually tell us a whole lot about the underlying physics, it seems to me. The halting problem is an emergent property of turing machines, and we know mathematically that the behavior of a Turing machine cannot usually be predicted or mathematically modeled without just running it. The mathematical underpinnings of superconductivity are stil…

I don't think either of those examples is in the same category as consciousness, or actually lets stick to "modeling of human and animal behavior", because I don't know what you mean by consciousness since we all have a feeling for what it is but there is no good precise definition, or framework in which you could give one.

In both examples you made we do in fact have good mathematical descriptions that allow us to describe the system and the way it works, and moreover we can infer/predict non obvious things about it. Do you know of anything similar that can be applied to human/animal behavior?

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#78

Post by esarbe » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

skohan wrote: post #36

sampo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the tv-series Big Bang Theory, there is a moment where Sheldon (a theoretical physicist) and Amy (a neuroscientist) argue, whose discipline is more important and fundamental. Sheldon says that physics studies the fundamental building blocks of the universe. And just like your professor, Amy says something along the lines that neuroscience studies the processes that study the fundamental building blocks of the univ…

I really hate that show, but along those lines I have sometimes wondered if when we are studying theoretical mathematics, are we actually discovering principals about how the universe works, or are we really mapping principals of how the brain processes information without realizing it.

We're all just the universe wondering about how it can perceive itself.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#79

Post by sdwr » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 2:52 PM UTC

skohan wrote: post #36

sampo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the tv-series Big Bang Theory, there is a moment where Sheldon (a theoretical physicist) and Amy (a neuroscientist) argue, whose discipline is more important and fundamental. Sheldon says that physics studies the fundamental building blocks of the universe. And just like your professor, Amy says something along the lines that neuroscience studies the processes that study the fundamental building blocks of the univ…

I really hate that show, but along those lines I have sometimes wondered if when we are studying theoretical mathematics, are we actually discovering principals about how the universe works, or are we really mapping principals of how the brain processes information without realizing it.

Love it, I've had the same thought.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#80

Post by maverick-iceman » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 2:53 PM UTC

skohan wrote: post #62

vermilingua wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This solution isn’t ignored because it’s boring, but because it isn’t rigorous enough. If consciousness just is an emergent property of the function of neural cells, define function, define neural cells? What is the lowest level of complexity of each that allows consciousness? Why only neural cells, that is if it is only neural cells at all? By the anthropic principle it is a given that consciousness arises from the…

Idk I tend to think it is rigorous enough, and maybe the fact that we don't intuitively believe it's rigorous enough is an artifact of an evolved spiritual impulse. It seems to me consciousness is something we have to have to exist the way that we do. In order for the human animal to function, we need to understand the past, predict the future, understand the motivations of others and come up with stories about the w…

There are various degrees of consciousness, awareness and abstraction capabilities between humans as well.

The smarter the human, the more conscious and aware they are about the surroundings, the higher their ability to create and understand abstract concepts etc.

Is this just the product of more numerous neurons? Better connected neurons? Higher density neurons in some areas of the brain? Is number of neurons correlated with IQ and in turn correlated to degree of consciousness and abstraction?

We don't know yet, but it seems better advised to start looking at the base biological components first vs "spooky stuff"