Consciousness and the Laws of Physics • Hacker News Board

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#131

Post by roberttod » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 7:40 PM UTC

Koshkin wrote: post #97

roberttod wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain why only some of our neurons are part of our consciousness? If it's emergent then why does only part of our nervous system get to experience the world, or is the other part also concious but we are not aware? There's a lot of tricky questions here that no one can really explain. I don't think the answer need be any "spookier" than any phenomenon that's unexplained - except maybe it's just surprising…

> why only some of our neurons are part of our consciousness Specialization. The same reason a why during ontogenesis some cells became neurons in the first place while other ones, something else.

What is the property that makes those cells not concious? As you explain, there is some sort of difference there but it's not clear how that works.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#132

Post by skohan » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

srean wrote: post #118

skohan wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it need to exist? I feel like you're reaching for a philosophical argument here for a question which is already adequately resolved by physics and biology.

Nothing to do with philosophy but with existence of fixed points. Are you familiar with the mathematical notion of a fixed point (think y-combinator) and fixed point theorems ? The gist of it is that if there is a continuous mapping from a set to itself with the property that the mapped points are closer than the original points there must exist a point that maps to itself. Now if the pain location mapping is smooth…

I just don't think this is a very interesting thing to contemplate, because I don't think any single neuron can be "aware" in isolation. Neurons are just information processing units and transmission untis. Awareness surely has to be a function of the activity of multiple neurons communicating with one another.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#133

Post by skohan » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 7:45 PM UTC

throwanem wrote: post #91

skohan wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it need to exist? I feel like you're reaching for a philosophical argument here for a question which is already adequately resolved by physics and biology.

It seems like the question is fundamentally that of whether a given system can perfectly model its own state, but in this context that entails an implicit assumption that the brain's model of body state is perfect, which it is anything but.

I guess I don't really think any system would be able to model it's own state 100% accurately. Basically any model implies a reduction in information.

I don't see what this has to do with pain perception in the brain. I am sure you could find an example in the animal kingdom of a creature which has pain receptors in its brain if you look hard enough.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#134

Post by skohan » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 7:45 PM UTC

srean wrote: post #123

skohan wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's exactly what I was saying. It doesn't need touch receptors because it's inside your skull. It makes sense to evolve pain sensitivity in your bones because if you are doing something which is causing damage inside your bones, you had better have a signal to stop. For most of the evolutionary history of humanity, if your skull was compromised, you would be dead.

Ah! I understand your point better now. You didn't mean skull enclosure to be the direct reason but something that influenced the lack of pain sensing nerve endings to have a reason to develop there.

Exactly

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#135

Post by skohan » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 7:51 PM UTC

roberttod wrote: post #131

Koshkin wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why only some of our neurons are part of our consciousness Specialization. The same reason a why during ontogenesis some cells became neurons in the first place while other ones, something else.

What is the property that makes those cells not concious? As you explain, there is some sort of difference there but it's not clear how that works.

> What is the property that makes those cells not concious?

The only kind of evidence we have that anything is conscious is self reporting from other humans. For many vertebrates it seems plausible they have some level of consciousness based on observed behavior, but we don't really know.

I'd say the burden of proof lays squarely on the side of proving that anything besides an advanced CNS is involved in consciousness. I see no reason anyone should have to disprove the existence of consciousness anywhere outside of a fairly advanced brain.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#136

Post by skohan » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 7:56 PM UTC

gus_massa wrote: post #125

skohan wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

AlphaStar[1] is an AI program that plays StarCraft against humans. The second version, that has a limited vision of the map and a limited number of clicks per second, plays quite humanlike. > * In order for the human animal to function, we need to understand the past, predict the future,* AlphaStar can do that (or at least simulate that). It it has seen a invisible helicopter, it remembers that. It also understand th…

I suspect things like this will converge towards AGI, and at a certain point, AI is going to be so embedded in our lives that whether or not it's truly conscious is going to seem like a pedantic distinction.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#137

Post by dr_dshiv » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 7:58 PM UTC

bobthechef wrote: post #98

dr_dshiv wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Purely materialist explanations, you mean? Platonic dualism, as advocated by folks like Max Tegmark, isn't non-physicalist. And it needn't be dualist even — if the world is made of math and the materials emerge by implication.

What does it mean to be "made of math"? This reads like gibberish to me. Mathematics deals with formal abstraction. Geometry, for example, abstracts the spacial characteristics of matter from matter and focuses on them solely while ignoring everything else. (This actually reminds me of Bertrand Russell's structuralist account of physics and how it omits much if not most of reality.) (Also, Platonism does posit an imm…

"Gibberish": Plato, Russell, Penrose and Tegmark?

Made of math is as Aristotle noted: "All is number" — Platonic-Pythagoreanism was at the heart of classical civilization and the enlightenment.

I can only suppose that there is something about these ideas that deeply disturbs or even frightens. But I wouldn't dismiss them as gibberish.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#138

Post by roberttod » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 8:27 PM UTC

skohan wrote: post #130

roberttod wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consciousness cannot be measured, the only concious being we can know for certain is ourself. It's not an observable property (or we haven't figured out how to observe it). You could remove the wheels from a car and observe the engine running and the axels turning but it wouldn't go forward. Do you see the difference to your analogy? Forward movement can be measured. And if you removed parts of the car you would even…

Oh I'd say we have plenty of ways to measure and observe consciousness. We can measure brain activity during sleep and understand with some precision whether someone is dreaming or not, which is a state of consciousness. We can give someone a psychoactive drug, and ask them questions about how their consciousness has been altered. > Forward movement can be measured. And if you removed parts of the car you would event…

Interesting point about observing conciousness changes in ourselves - that does indeed give us some insight. Though I'm not sure we could use this tool for a lot of the answers, it doesn't seem terribly precise (and doesn't let us know much about concious states that cannot be achieved with human brains).

> why should we jump to the conclusion that it somehow exists outside the bounds of the physical world rather than assuming that it's just one of many physical phenomena we have yet to fully understand?

I don't believe the cause of conciousness is magic or supernatural, it'll surely be a physical phenomenon. Just not sure if it emerges via some phenomenon that we haven't discovered yet.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#139

Post by roberttod » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 8:34 PM UTC

skohan wrote: post #135

roberttod wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the property that makes those cells not concious? As you explain, there is some sort of difference there but it's not clear how that works.

> What is the property that makes those cells not concious? The only kind of evidence we have that anything is conscious is self reporting from other humans. For many vertebrates it seems plausible they have some level of consciousness based on observed behavior, but we don't really know. I'd say the burden of proof lays squarely on the side of proving that anything besides an advanced CNS is involved in consciousnes…

I agree with most of this.

> I see no reason anyone should have to disprove the existence of consciousness anywhere outside of a fairly advanced brain.

There's a fairly big moral reason. Unless we can know what is concious and what is not, it's only right to be on the safe side and treat all organisms as if they are concious. How advanced should the CNS be before there's an obligation to not cause pain for an organism? (should we care about chickens in cages?)

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#140

Post by skohan » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 8:59 PM UTC

roberttod wrote: post #139

skohan wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the property that makes those cells not concious? The only kind of evidence we have that anything is conscious is self reporting from other humans. For many vertebrates it seems plausible they have some level of consciousness based on observed behavior, but we don't really know. I'd say the burden of proof lays squarely on the side of proving that anything besides an advanced CNS is involved in consciousnes…

I agree with most of this. > I see no reason anyone should have to disprove the existence of consciousness anywhere outside of a fairly advanced brain. There's a fairly big moral reason. Unless we can know what is concious and what is not, it's only right to be on the safe side and treat all organisms as if they are concious. How advanced should the CNS be before there's an obligation to not cause pain for an organis…

I guess I would see this differently: it's fairly hard to prove a chicken is conscious, but it's fairly easy to prove that they can feel pain. I don't think you need consciousness to advocate against cruelty to animals.