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Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy

quantamagazine.org

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Re: Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy

#71

Post by jahnu »

kovek wrote: post #44
sayonaraman wrote: post #7

I think "consciousness" is such a fuzzy term that talking about is at best premature when we are still trying to understand more fundamental things which underlie cognition, such as how human (or mice) memory works, or how the "cognitive maps" which drive spatial navigation generalize to navigation in abstract "concept spaces", how these "concepts" are represented, or how networks of neurons communicate and synchroni…

Qualia is the ability to experience for example the color red. Or the color blue. An exercise… The universe is interesting, it contains some fields, some particles, some quarks, protons, electrons, photons. Some places don’t have light and others do have light. The universe is even more interesting by the fact that it also contains experience. For some reason we see colors. It is absolutely true. Another thing that w…

To be a bit more precise, qualia are not the ability but they are the actual experiential event. The sensation, the conscious experience of seeing red.

What qualia are made up of are not easy to be accurate about. My favourite thought experiment that interrogates this question is,

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

Re: Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy

#72

Post by maceurt »

Some things are just beyond what Humans will ever understand in my opinion. Consciousness is one of those things. A computer that is able to understand itself completely would be infinitely powerful since its understanding would be recursive over each new understanding state.

Re: Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy

#73

Post by dennis_moore »

maceurt wrote: post #72

Some things are just beyond what Humans will ever understand in my opinion. Consciousness is one of those things. A computer that is able to understand itself completely would be infinitely powerful since its understanding would be recursive over each new understanding state.

Nah, it would be limited by its stack size ;)

Re: Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy

#74

Post by namero999 »

WithinReason wrote: post #64
sayonaraman wrote: post #7

I think "consciousness" is such a fuzzy term that talking about is at best premature when we are still trying to understand more fundamental things which underlie cognition, such as how human (or mice) memory works, or how the "cognitive maps" which drive spatial navigation generalize to navigation in abstract "concept spaces", how these "concepts" are represented, or how networks of neurons communicate and synchroni…

My favorite description of consciousness is from Max Tegmark: “I think that consciousness is the way information feels when being processed in certain complex ways.”

It strikes me as inconsequential since it presupposes that which is trying to characterize: feeling.

Re: Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy

#75

Post by yazanobeidi »

willis936 wrote: post #35
colechristensen wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feynman was perhaps a little bit too skeptical of some things. Everything at one time escaped basic explanation from parts (and there always will be, you can't really explain why the standard model, or whatever more fundamental system which might surpass it) Consciousness is on the edge of being understood quite a lot better as neurobiology is progressing quite quickly.

All that it reveals is that our suspicions of ontological nihilism were likely correct all along. The universe does not give you purpose or reason. You make your own.

That is not completely correct. We have inherent biological drives from lower level temperature regulation and such to nutrition intake and on an even higher level a proclivity for social interaction including reproduction. The ways these frames can be aligned and satisfied are not infinite. So some level of constraints and requirements are pre-specified. A person’s chosen behaviour must fit within this structure and that of others for it to be sustainable.

Re: Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy

#76

Post by codeisawesome »

monkeycantype wrote: post #41
codeisawesome wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which means that ordered systems must create disorder in order to maintain their own order, and the place where you find the greatest order to disorder is in other actively ordered systems. Wow, that also nicely explains how colonisation & impoverishment of some human groups is necessary in the current framework, so that high HDI can be achieved in other human groups (which then explains various historical facts).…

Your comment seems to have been slapped, perhaps on the interpretation that you are justifying colonialism, or perhaps on the interpretation that you are engaging in space billionaire boosterism, but I read you comment very differently. That our islands of enlightenment rest on pillars of violence, and restumping our civilisation on a foundation of justice and sustainability isn't anti-enlightenment, it is the enligh…

Yes, I’m definitely not supporting colonisation. I’m from a country who’s prospects were stunted by merciless resource extraction. I wish it didn’t happen. I’m simply saying that, it’s the “lowest common denominator” means of achieving progress and geo-local maxima by causing ethical global minima. Hence, space exploration is a noble alternative in comparison - extract your resources from dead zones in space and have a human utopia for all here on earth.

Re: Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy

#77

Post by namero999 »

sayonaraman wrote: post #7

I think "consciousness" is such a fuzzy term that talking about is at best premature when we are still trying to understand more fundamental things which underlie cognition, such as how human (or mice) memory works, or how the "cognitive maps" which drive spatial navigation generalize to navigation in abstract "concept spaces", how these "concepts" are represented, or how networks of neurons communicate and synchroni…

Yes, it's fuzzy just because there doesn't seem to be a general widespread agreement on terminology, even among "experts", so that someone uses the word consciousness meaning something completely different than someone else. It seems that each time one wants to embark in a consciousness discussion, there should be a glossary preamble to specify definitions.

Regardless of the breadth of the spectrum of definitions, at the very bottom you find phenomenal consciousness. The given, undeniable fact that "it feels like something". We don't have a plausible avenue, not even in principle, to even start addressing this fact of existence, to the point that the most rational stance is to assume that it is fundamental in nature.

Re: Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy

#78

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

jahnu wrote: post #71
kovek wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qualia is the ability to experience for example the color red. Or the color blue. An exercise… The universe is interesting, it contains some fields, some particles, some quarks, protons, electrons, photons. Some places don’t have light and others do have light. The universe is even more interesting by the fact that it also contains experience. For some reason we see colors. It is absolutely true. Another thing that w…

To be a bit more precise, qualia are not the ability but they are the actual experiential event. The sensation, the conscious experience of seeing red. What qualia are made up of are not easy to be accurate about. My favourite thought experiment that interrogates this question is, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_argument

That's a transparently poor argument because it assumes that Mary's knowledge is complete.

Of course it isn't. We have a very poor understanding of brain states. So all we can say is that Mary will learn something new today. But it's not reasonable to extend this to an assumption that a physicalist explanation of qualia is impossible in principle and will become available in the future.

As it happens I'm not a physicalist, and I suspect - but can't prove - that physicalism won't solve this problem.

But I also don't like poor arguments, and I think the Knowledge Argument is not a good one.

The problem is more fundamental. Qualia are definitively subjective and the only way to prove that physicalism explains them is to somehow make them objective - with some kind of qualia-ometer. Or consciousness-ometer. Or something similar.

That doesn't mean finding correlates - neural states, chemical processes, quantum uncertainty, whatever. It means being able to measure experience itself.

Without that you can build simulacra that show all the correlates, and possibly behave as if they're conscious.

But all you've done is built a robot. You can't prove it actually has experience - including self-awareness - unless you can measure experience with objective instrumentation.

This is a nice paradox, because it requires science to measure subjectivity itself.

It may or may not be possible. But clearly it's not possible now, and is unlikely to become possible any time soon.

Re: Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy

#79

Post by sidlls »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #78
jahnu wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be a bit more precise, qualia are not the ability but they are the actual experiential event. The sensation, the conscious experience of seeing red. What qualia are made up of are not easy to be accurate about. My favourite thought experiment that interrogates this question is, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_argument

That's a transparently poor argument because it assumes that Mary's knowledge is complete. Of course it isn't. We have a very poor understanding of brain states. So all we can say is that Mary will learn something new today . But it's not reasonable to extend this to an assumption that a physicalist explanation of qualia is impossible in principle and will become available in the future. As it happens I'm not a physi…

"But all you've done is built a robot. You can't prove it actually has experience - including self-awareness - unless you can measure experience with objective instrumentation."

We build things all the time based on the models of the universe we've got. Your argument strikes me as more or less saying, "sure, we built that jet engine, but unless we can measure what 'being a jet engine' is we've just not really built the complete, real thing."

If we build a thing that appears to have "experiences" indistinguishably from how humans appear to, then that is it. That is, the notion of "experience," as you describe it, is more or less meaningless in the context of the very physical world we occupy.

Re: Anil Seth Finds Consciousness in Life’s Push Against Entropy

#80

Post by SuoDuanDao »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #78
jahnu wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be a bit more precise, qualia are not the ability but they are the actual experiential event. The sensation, the conscious experience of seeing red. What qualia are made up of are not easy to be accurate about. My favourite thought experiment that interrogates this question is, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_argument

That's a transparently poor argument because it assumes that Mary's knowledge is complete. Of course it isn't. We have a very poor understanding of brain states. So all we can say is that Mary will learn something new today . But it's not reasonable to extend this to an assumption that a physicalist explanation of qualia is impossible in principle and will become available in the future. As it happens I'm not a physi…

I wonder, might the fact that 'observation' has measurable effects, e.g. in the double-slit experiment, be a vector for inquiry into the question of qualia? I don't need to observe the path of a photon in the DSE to know whether someone else has observed it if I can see the presence or absence of an interference pattern. If we get better at formalising what 'observation' means in that context, do you think it could be used to arrive at a measure of subjectivity?
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