Consciousness and the Laws of Physics • Hacker News Board

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#151

Post by bmitc » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 11:29 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…

I'm not sure that is a satisfying critique. If I'm reading you right, you seem to be taking a particulate or reductionist view (apologies if not). This is also a well known battle between particle physicists and others, say condensed matter physicists, like P. W. Anderson. In that context, he was a fan of the "more is different" approach which basically said that certain complex behavior can't be understood by simply breaking things down to their constituent parts, that emergent behavior (more) is indeed different and needs different approaches. His paper and many writings say it better.

https://cse-robotics.engr.tamu.edu/dshell/cs689/papers/ander...

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#152

Post by skohan » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 11:51 PM UTC

acituan wrote: post #150

skohan wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

> 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.

That's exactly the argument I am making. I believe the most plausible explanation is that there is a precise structural and functional integration located in the brain which gives rise to consciousness. It's many many orders of magnitude more complex than an engine, we don't understand all the details and maybe we never will, but even based on the current understanding of neurobiology there is no reason to believe we have to look elsewhere for an explanation.

> 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?

There are psychoactive drugs which can effectively dampen sensory inputs to the brain, which is similar to your "brain in a vat" case, and people who have used them self-report having subjective experience while they were under.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#153

Post by dwaltrip » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 11:58 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.

A decision is a situation in which you did one thing but could have imagined doing something else. It is a necessary concept due to human uncertainty about what will happen in the world -- including our own behavior.

We will never be able to perfectly calculate the causal chains of the universe before they unfold, so we operate in a world of uncertain chances and maybes.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#154

Post by acituan » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 12:15 AM UTC

skohan wrote: post #152

acituan wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

> 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. That's exactly the argument I am making. I believe the most plausible explanation is that there is a precise structural and functional integration located in t…

> I believe the most plausible explanation is that there is a precise structural and functional integration located in the brain which gives rise to consciousness.

Without sufficiently explicating what that structure may be and how it interfaces with the purported non conscious parts of the body, it is too big of a leap to claim that a locale that is not even the whole brain is essential to consciousness.

Regarding the psychoactive compounds, I am not convinced it gives the evidence you think it does. There are way too many confounds, and I don’t think dampening creates the brain in a vat condition anyway.

There are plenty of counter examples though, if you’re interested check out embodied cognition. There are cool experiments like people’s cognitive skills diminishing when they are prevented from making hand gestures.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#155

Post by hnedeotes » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 12:52 AM UTC

jcims wrote: post #89

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…

'Emergent phenomena' is the 'draw the rest of the damn owl' of this conversation. It's doing way too much work to be useful. It's like saying that life is an emergent phenomena from condensed energy.

It's more hand-wavy than it's admitted. When you think about it, the idea of emergent phenomena amounts to:

- There's no underlying consciousness or conscious originator (no god, no panpsychism, no underlying conscious layer at the basis of reality, no nothing) - At some point, two or more elements (rocks, atoms, etc, that weren't conscious), aligned precisely in a given configuration and zap!, they became conscious and interactive - All consciousness then sprang from that.

So the question would be, if systems favour inertia, stasis and conservation of energy, why would there be consciousness at all and just not an endless void, or a perfectly stable (as in homeostasis) system without conscious agents, or just rocks floating in the space.

I'm not saying the idea of emergent phenomena is wrong, just that you better answer the complex questions other "supernatural" theories try to address, before declaring it some sort of obvious and correct answer.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#156

Post by ne0flex » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 12:57 AM 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…

Last year, a good friend of my friend passed away. His death affected my friend deeply to the point that my friend was determined to find evidence of the continuance of consciousness after death and becoming extremely depressed. My friend believes that life is utterly meaningless if there is no consciousness after death, to the point where he's considering suicide because once he's dead he wouldn't know he committed suicide, and those around him will eventually die and not know that he committed suicide.

Due to this, he doesn't want to accept that consciousness may just boil down to natural processes and is hoping that there is something more.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#157

Post by hsn915 » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 1:40 AM UTC

foxes wrote: post #117

hsn915 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The things that happen when a program execute are all emergent behavior, but it's behavior that is well understood and we know everything about how it emerges. It's all just that, a "behavior". Things that move. Signals propagate across wires. Pixels light up. All the is well understood. Consciousness is nothing like that.

Why not? Series of complicated bio-electrical interactions? Vast numbers of connections, neurons firing together? Even our limited attempts at neural networks are not very well understood, and that is just code running on well understood computer. A brain is way more connected and complicated than something like deep mind, even if you think of that stuff like a first order approximation. So if we cant easily do that,…

Your reasoning seems to be:

Since complex interactions produce computations.

Therefore complex interactions produce subjective feelings.

Where's the connection?

Do you understand that the concept of information is just .. anything at all? Literally the arrangement of atoms in a rock can be considered information. The flow of water in sewer pipes can also be considered information. Not only that, but information processing.

It's not information that _we_ are interested in, but it is information none the less.

Why would consciousness only arise from the signals traveling across the brain, but not from water flowing in pipes?

> I think there are experimental results though, we can look at an brain scan and nearly deduce what people are looking at

ok this is all well understood. The brain does information processing and we can sort of tell what's happening in it.

That's not the question at all.

Why does the information feel like something? That is the question.

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#158

Post by hsn915 » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 1:52 AM UTC

avaer wrote: post #61

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?

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that my CPU had feelings, if the CPU was created in a million year evolutionary process in which the lack of appropriate subjective feelings would have resulted in its death.

I'm talking about the current CPU.

> if the CPU was created in a million year evolutionary process in which the lack of appropriate subjective feelings would have resulted in its death.

You can say that about flying too.

If the CPU was created in a billion year evolutionary process in which the lack of ability to flight would result in its death, the CPUs would fly.

Like, how is this relevant?

Can flight be properly explained in terms of signals flowing through a CPU? Yes or no?

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#159

Post by Whil- » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 3:51 AM UTC

roberttod wrote: post #147

skohan wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Cruelty, meaning to intentionally inflict pain and suffering, implies the sensation of said pain and suffering in the subject. Pain and suffering are (personal) conscious or subconscious judgements of sensory input. So to be cruel you must assume the subject you are cruel to can (1) feel sensations and (2) decide if the sensation is painful or inflicts suffering.

My take on the assessment of pain is that any entity with some self sustained direction (in life) will be able too suffer or feel pain when faced with sensations that signal an obstruction to that direction. If the entity is able to self correct the path after such sensory input, I claim that the entity can experience pain.

With that in mind: A calculator has no self sustained direction. And no sensory input to help with self correction either. So it naturally cannot feel pain.

A chicken has a self sustained direction. It lives (moves on its own) and at least want to continue to do so. It also has the ability to self correct when given sensory input. So it can feel pain, and you can (given the reasoning above) be cruel to chickens. Even without an assessment of whether the chicken is conscious or not.

To be conscious, to go into that as well, is in my book to be able to use reason and to be able to reflect on things. So that new sensory inputs are created and assessed based on other already experienced sensory inputs. I.e. to be able to self adjust ones path (in life) seemingly, from an external observer, without any new sensory input.

With that definition one should be able to construct experiments with chickens to decide whether they are conscious or not, or merely acting subconsciously, autonomously.

With that definition of consciousness it should also be possible to define an AI that is conscious. And given the definition of pain above, it should also be possible to inflict pain on (and be cruel to) an AI. The morality of inflicting pain on different subjects is a different story though... :-)

Cheers

Re: Consciousness and the Laws of Physics

#160

Post by mjrpes » Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 4:07 AM UTC

ne0flex wrote: post #156

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…

Last year, a good friend of my friend passed away. His death affected my friend deeply to the point that my friend was determined to find evidence of the continuance of consciousness after death and becoming extremely depressed. My friend believes that life is utterly meaningless if there is no consciousness after death, to the point where he's considering suicide because once he's dead he wouldn't know he committed…

It sounds like your friend is less worried about consciousness in general disappearing and more worried about his consciousness disappearing. Consciousness as thing can never completely go away. Even if the universe dies out, given enough time, even if the span of time seems infinite, a new hospitable universe will be born that contains conscious beings. If this wasn't true, how could we even exist right now?