Consciousness and the Laws of Physics • Hacker News Board

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#141

Post by srean » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:05 PM UTC

skohan wrote: post #133

throwanem wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Don't get hung up on 'pain perception', my point sits at a higher level of abstraction. It has very little to do with biology, more to do with topology.

If 'events at point_a' gets consciously interpreted by participation of cells one of which, lets call it point_b, is singularly dedicated to sensing events at point_a, we have a mapping in a mathematical sense from point a to point b. We know all such point_bs form a strict subset of the body, a part of the central nervous system.

If this mapping is continuous in the mathematical sense and a contraction, then a fixed point has to exist (a location that does its own interpretation). But the fixed point seems biologically implausible, that leaves us with the alternative that there has to be dead-zones -- places where events can happen but cannot be interpreted. (Example blind spot in the eye)

The way to avoid dead-zone would be to break continuity, or contractive property of the mapping.

> I am sure you could find an example … of a creature which has pain receptors in the brain …

I think my point would be easier to state for this hypothetical creature. If interpretation of pain is done by a strict subset of its cells and there is a one to one mapping -- at least one location b that interprets pain occurring at location a exclusively (presumably that's how the creature knows the pain is at 'a'), can this creature be free of dead-zones if the mapping is continuous and contractive. Can any creature free of dead-zones exist under those conditions. You claimed 'why not'. I am saying that if the mapping is a continuous contraction then either there has to exist dead zones or there is at least one self interpreting location.

To give another example of this phenomenon, if you spread the map of your city somewhere in your city, there has to exist at least one point in the map that sits exactly above the point it is representing -- the fixed point. The way to avoid this would be to have 'tears' in the map, or to have points in your city that are not closer on the map than they are in the city (that would be an unusual map).

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#142

Post by Koshkin » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:16 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.

In case of neurons, specialization is not so much structural as functional, and the function is determined by the location inside the brain; it is, then, not a single cell that is “conscious” but an entire system (plexus) of cells. This is analogous to a single transistor vs. the circuit it is part of.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#143

Post by emrah » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:40 PM UTC

bobthechef wrote: post #66

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.

I don't see how this is a "wow" moment. It is a straightforward consequence of prior materialist commitments, not a discovery of empirical science. If everything is "matter in motion", then ipso facto all mental activity is matter in motion. The problem is that materialism is completely untenable given the way materialism understands matter (e.g., the problem of qualia, the problem of intentionality, etc). Some mater…

> I don't see how this is a "wow" moment

Questioning, debating and trying to refute someone else's wow moment is a wow moment!

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#144

Post by perfmode » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 10:05 PM UTC

Arun2009 wrote: post #40

One of the things I want to do before I die is to acquire an authentic knowledge of classical Indian philosophy (particularly the monistic idealistic strands of thought in it) and the modern scientific account of reality, and evaluate for myself how their claims fare against that of the other. I don't understand why more Indians and particularly Hindus are not doing this. This looks to me like a thrilling intellectua…

beautifully said

even better than an authentic knowledge is an authentic experience

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#145

Post by hallgrim » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 10:35 PM UTC

vermilingua wrote: post #37

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…

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…

What aspect of consciousness does it not explain?

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#146

Post by hallgrim » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 10:41 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. So far I have never heard any good arguments for why it should be more than an emergent property.

Any aspect of consciousness that is usually brought up can either be attributed to some brain function, or the aspect is a wishy washy, hand-wavy property the emergence-skeptic can’t quite define.

The insight from the study of the minds of brain-damaged people alone gives fascinating insight into the interplay of mechanical defects and their experiential effects.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#147

Post by roberttod » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 10:46 PM UTC

skohan wrote: post #140

roberttod wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think "cruelty" implies conciousness. You can't be cruel to a calculator.

And I think pain implies conciousness. A calculator can't feel pain because it experiences nothing. To feel pain a chicken must experience something, it must be concious.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#148

Post by mykowebhn » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 10:51 PM UTC

vehemenz wrote: post #44

mykowebhn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But facts are only facts if they correspond with that to which they refer, oftentimes other objects, so when you include facts, ultimately it boils down to external objects. I think you also failed to include Idealism, that the world's fundamental construction is of Reason. For the uninitiated or the naive, the notion of Idealism often degenerates in their minds to Solipsism, but it is far from that.

> But facts are only facts if they correspond with that to which they refer, oftentimes other objects, so when you include facts, ultimately it boils down to external objects. Only if ontological questions are legitimate questions about the world and not simply practical decisions about language. I, and many others, remain unconvinced.

What judges whether an ontological question is legitimate or not? In order to ask such a question you are implying that there is something beyond the ontological questioner who can determine these things. What or who is this ultimate judge? God? A phantom? A unicorn? When you write "I, and many others, remain unconvinced" you are already under the assumption that you, and many others, can be this judge. And what is it about you, and many others, that can make this judgment? REASON!

On one level you bring forth an argument against my points about Idealism, but your implicit assumptions in your arguments bely your reliance on many of these same points that I brought up.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#149

Post by NavinF » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 11:02 PM UTC

dandanua wrote: post #47

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…

This boring explanation is in the framework of classical physics. Quantum physics is very different. In QM, physical objects don't have definite states until observed. Any observation requires an observer. So, we have that states are relative to observers. But what is observer? It is our consciousness in the first place.

> But what is observer? It is our consciousness

You fell for a ruse. Your phone can use its camera to observe quantum phenomena such as shot noise just fine. Observations have nothing to do with consciousness.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#150

Post by acituan » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 11:18 PM UTC

skohan wrote: post #90

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…

Which part of an internal combustion engine creates the forward motion of a car? Is it the fuel injector? The spark plugs? The pistons? Of course it's none of these things: the function of an engine is obviously a result of all of these parts of a complex system working together. It would be silly to claim that internal combustion is some intrinsic property of matter which exists at some level in the metal of the pis…

> Which part of an internal combustion engine creates the forward motion of a car? Is it the fuel injector? The spark plugs? The pistons? Of course it's none of these things: the function of an engine is obviously a result of all of these parts of a complex system working together.

You can't make the word "complex" do the heavily lifting here. There is a precise structural and functional organization of that matter that makes the engine. For the case of consciousness, you can't throw neurons and emergence together to explain away the precise structural and functional integration of those components that bring out consciousness.

You have to have a continuity of explanation between the "list of parts" and the final thing.

Otherwise someone else could have just gotten away with saying "an engine is an emergent phenomenon of atoms slapped together". If we're going to lack rigor, why not just stay at the lowest zoom level of explanation after all...

> Consciousness is observably a property of the brain. Consciousness can be predictably altered or removed by interfering with the chemical function at the synapse, or by inflicting physical trauma on brain tissue. Honestly I don't see what is so difficult to understand here.

So a live brain in a vat would have consciousness? If not, what are the minimal components of the body you have to add before you can observe consciousness?

Cartesian entrapment of consciousness “upstairs” is actually younger than embodied models, and none are as simple as you make it.