What’s so hard about understanding consciousness? • Hacker News Board

Re: What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?

#361

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 2:18 AM UTC

naasking wrote: post #348

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe Dennett is an eliminative materialist, so he would consider qualia to be an illusion. That's correct, mostly, but it also means this position is nonsensical. What is notable about qualia is that it is possible to have them at all. An illusion is definitionally a qualia. You cannot have an illusion without qualia existing. Dennett tries to finesse this, but in my opinion fails. I think he wants it to be po…

> What is notable about qualia is that it is possible to have them at all. An illusion is definitionally a qualia. You cannot have an illusion without qualia existing. I think that's incorrect, as it relies on a definition of "illusion" that begs the question on the existence of a subject, just like Descartes. Define illusion as "a perception that directly entails a false conclusion", and there is no subject needed.…

Where does that false conclusion occur? What is the entity in which it occurs?

There is no "conclusion" here in the sense of "2+2=4". What is at stake is not a reasoned, or evidential analysis of how the world is. It is, rather, that subjective experience exists (we know it exists because we have subjective experience, and whether the experience is of something invented and false does not change the fact that the experience exists).

Regardless of whether there is a singular "you" or, in Minsky's term, a "society of mind" (or self, to line up with Dennett a little more), something enjoys subjective experience, and you call that that "you". It doesn't really matter how it arises, whether it accurately reflects the operations of the brain/body: the existence of subjective experience creates a self.

Re: What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?

#362

Post by mistermann » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 2:37 AM UTC

krapp wrote: post #26

zubspace wrote: post #23

What I find fascinating about consciousness is that it seems to be bound to your location. But how and why? Why are you inside of your body and not in someone elses? The article poses this question, but leaves it unanswered. For me it begs the question: If conscousness is bound to a location, is it possible to transfer consciousness from one entity to another? Is there some kind of thing we did not yet detect? What h…

This is only fascinating if you refuse to accept a non-supernatural or non-metaphysical definition of consciousness. Otherwise, most of these questions become trivial when consciousness is considered as a physical, biological process bound to the brain. Why is consciousness bound to a person's location? Because their brain is bound inside their skull. Why are you inside your body and not someone else's? Because your…

> Otherwise, most of these questions become trivial when consciousness is considered as a physical, biological process bound to the brain.

They're also fairly trivial if you imagine God created and controls everything and that's just the way it is.

> What happens when you die or someone is born? Nothing. No afterlife, to karma, no reincarnation, no bardo, nothing.

It's certainly plausible. But is it true?

> And finally, are those questions even answerable?

> Yes, I believe they are, but many people are uncomfortable with the ramifications of the answer as best supported by available evidence - we are purely physical beings existing within a purely physical universe. Despite all of the evidence from biology, neurology, chemistry, physics, etc. failing to show any credible evidence of a supernatural or non-biological component of consciousness apart from the brain, many people keep hoping someone will discover the soul someday and be free of the prison of material reality.

Similarly, many people are uncomfortable with acknowledging that what is actually true about these matters. There seem to be certain ideas that make all people fundamentally nervous, and the question of consciousness seems to be one of the most powerful ones.

Re: What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?

#363

Post by CallidusAsinus » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 2:49 AM UTC

CallidusAsinus wrote: post #289

PeterisP wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Can this possibly help explain how I can merge consciousness with someone (or something) else?" Wait, what? Why do you suppose that you can merge consciousness with someone (or something) else, can you elaborate on that? The split-brain patients are cases with presumably separate consciousnesses that are not merged and AFAIK never get merged, especially after corpus callosotomy which would make it physically impos…

Yours is a very reasonable question. First of all, merging consciousness is admittedly a bit woo-woo; however, I feel it's worth considering. According to the literature, when the corpus callosum is severed, it appears that the verbal part of the patient loses conscious access to parts of their body. However, those lost parts continue functioning independently, and are able to communicate non-verbally. Put another wa…

Additionally, I feel it's uncontroversial (from a materialist perspective) to claim that human consciousness can be built. Humans do it constantly through reproduction.

Re: What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?

#364

Post by mistermann » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 3:01 AM UTC

eatsyourtacos wrote: post #187

krapp wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is only fascinating if you refuse to accept a non-supernatural or non-metaphysical definition of consciousness. Otherwise, most of these questions become trivial when consciousness is considered as a physical, biological process bound to the brain. Why is consciousness bound to a person's location? Because their brain is bound inside their skull. Why are you inside your body and not someone else's? Because your…

Completely strange people downvote this comment. It is completely logical, and if you disagree with any of this- it is up to you to prove otherwise. Obviously it does make people uncomfortable talking like this.. I don't understand why, I guess they are scared of the simple truth that we are simply the most evolved animals on our planet- but still animals. There is nothing special about our brain (compared to other s…

> Completely strange people downvote this comment. It is completely logical, and if you disagree with any of this- it is up to you to prove otherwise.

Technically, the burden of proof lies with the one making an assertion.

> Obviously it does make people uncomfortable talking like this

And people talking like this often get uncomfortable if someone doesn't accept their opinions as fact. People are weird in the most wonderful ways!

> I think the truth is a lot less interesting than people want to believe.

And also a lot more difficult to find than it seems, the nature of consciousness being what it is.

Re: What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?

#365

Post by alar44 » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 4:12 AM UTC

p_noumenon wrote: post #303

alar44 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nothing like that. Your memory is wiped out, you don't know who you are, you don't know when you are. It's like you're in an alien world, nothing looks familiar. Your ears are kind of buzzing and ringing, your visual field is fucked up, etc. The last layers of your neural network aren't turned on yet. It's pretty weird.

...sounds exactly like waking up from a dream.

No post body was provided.

Re: What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?

#366

Post by darkscape » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 4:27 AM UTC

naasking wrote: post #356

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From that post; > There's no one thing, not even a collection of things, that can be identified with what we think of as the conscious mind. Instead, we've got a whole bunch of different things, none of which has "consciousness" in a traditional sense, and these come together in a way that makes it seem as though we're conscious. I just don't buy this at all. This seems precisely as I described it: > "well, we have d…

> I just don't buy this at all. This seems precisely as I described it: "well, we have detectors for this and that and these predictive capabilities and these modelling systems, and so ... ta-da, we're conscious!" No, it's actually, "ta-da, we're not conscious! but here's why we think we are!" > but he and they are not addressing how it possible for there to be any subjective experience at all. Because neuroscience w…

> No, it's actually, "ta-da, we're not conscious! but here's why we think we are!"

And of course the "think" has a quality to it that the hard problem is about. It's interesting how illusionists and eliminativists explain away aspects of SE by invoking (other) aspects of SE. "You merely have an illusion of being conscious" - that illusion is the hard problem, so now explain that illusion. I could be having an illusion of an illusion of consciousness.

Imagine something that doesn't exist in the usual physical sense e.g. a dinner table on the Moon. Does that table exist? Not in the usual physical sense. Your thought or imagination of it does, though. What is that thought or image in your mind's eye "made of"? Sure, you might be able to correlate it precisely with certain neurons and yet you've not answered the question. You might call the mind's eye table an illusion, but you're not gonna deny that the picture of it exists in some sense. Three things exist: the physical table, your neurons and, separately, although not entirely independently from the neurons, (the picture of) the mind's eye table. Hence, the latter is part of the universe and the fundamental substrate of the universe must support if somehow, in a way that's different from the usual physical matter tables and neurons. Is your visual brain circuitry involved in the imagination, perhaps even generating the image in your mind's eye? Perhaps, but this doesn't answer the question. If we're nothing but our perceptions, then what the heck is that imaginary table that I'm visualizing quite well while there's no perception of an actual table? What are the physical laws characterizing such mind's eye objects, somehow coupled to ordinary physical matter and yet not of the same "stuff"?

Models like the one linked don't explain why SE exists in the universe. They posit certain physical/mathematical strucutures and claim that if this or that structure is present, then ta-da there is SE (or the illusion of it, which is the same thing). People in the stone age had a model of that kind: "this piece of matter, structured with two arms and legs - it's conscious". At some point we developed language and the model got a bit more precise by demanding the piece of matter emit certain sounds from a specific location on their body. What we have today is no different in kind. We've just become more precise at locating the pieces of human matter to verify the presence of conciousness (or illusions). None of that says why that configuration of neurons experiences or has illusions, only that it does. Science tells us that experience is in the nature of certain pieces of matter and we just have to accept that without further explanation, like the fact that electric charge exists and follows certain rules. Deeper "why" answers are out of the scope of current science.

Re: What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?

#367

Post by grishka » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 5:20 AM UTC

chasd00 wrote: post #271

grishka wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it's obvious: since consciousness arises from external and internal stimuli of the body, part of the physical world that it could perceive and affect is limited by the physical capabilities of the body. If there was a technology to hook up a computer to your brain and you could then have it feed you data from a sensor located somewhere far away, you would effectively extend the physical capabilities of your bod…

i wonder if the reverse is true. If you were very old and floating in space after the last blackhole has evaporated, entropy is evenly distributed, and time becomes meaningless would your consciousness end? Without any input there would be no output. edit: i suppose a counter point would be sensory deprivation tanks should reduce your consciousness however most report it to be enhanced during the experience.

It may be that in everyday life external stimuli always overpower internal ones, but in a sensory deprivation tank you eliminate the external ones altogether.

Re: What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?

#368

Post by jbotz » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 8:52 AM UTC

whaaswijk wrote: post #211

jbotz wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I do; but... 1) such a Turing machine may have to be a lot more powerful than anything we currently have. With or without invoking QM mechanisms, there is reason to believe that every single neuron does a lot more computation than our simplistic models in current ML neural nets. 2) it may not be possible to "program" a machine to be conscious in the way we feel consciopus, we'd probably have to literally evo…

I guess this is where we differ. I don't see a sufficient reason to believe that increasing computational capacity/complexity alone gives rise to consciousness. Moreover, I think there are common sense reasons to believe that consciousness is not substrate independent. Therefore, I don't see it as obvious that Turing completeness is sufficient for consciousness. For example, as someone else on this post has pointed o…

I think we do agree... "complexity alone" certainly will certainly not give rise to consciousness. Consciousness begins with feeling and separating the "I" from the "other"; I feel hunger, that there is food. That's why I said we'd have to evolve it in a simulated environment, one in which there are things for a nascent consciousness to feel. So in that sense yes, it depends on the substrate, but the substrate could be virtual, simulated on a powerful enough Turing machine.

Re: What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?

#369

Post by guerrilla » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 9:04 AM UTC

I think this discussion is probably dead being that it's 24 hours old now but I just came across this Wittgenstein quote and felt it might be relevant and inspire some thought on this.

    The limits of my language stand for the limits of my world.
    There really is only one world soul, which I for preference call my soul and as which alone I conceive what I call the souls of others.
    The above remark gives the key for deciding the way in which solipsism is a truth. (Wittgenstein 1961: 49)
    The I makes its appearance in philosophy through the world’s being my world. (Wittgenstein 1961: 80)
    Here we can see that solipsism coincides with pure realism, if it is strictly thought out.
    The I of solipsism shrinks to an extensionless point and what remains is the reality co-ordinate with it.
    . . .
    I have to judge the world, to measure things.
    The philosophical I is not the human being, not the human body or the human soul with the psychological properties, but the metaphysical subject, the boundary (not a part) of the world. (Wittgenstein 1961: 82)

    This is the way I have travelled: Idealism singles men out from the world as unique, solipsism singles me alone out, and at last I see that I too belong with the rest of the world, and so on the one side nothing is left over, and on the other side, as unique, the world. In this way idealism leads to realism if it is strictly thought out. (Wittgenstein 1961: 85)

Re: What’s so hard about understanding consciousness?

#370

Post by guerrilla » Sat, Feb 05, 2022, 9:16 AM UTC

rland wrote: post #259

Osiris wrote: post #196

I do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and a common submission technique is to cut off blood flow to the brain (known as a blood choke). I've lost consciousness twice after being put into a blood choke. The experience of regaining consciousness is visceral. For those that haven't experienced it, it's very much like a turning on a computer. Initially, your brain does not (or cannot) process input like vision, sound, touch, etc. Slo…

I've had the same, but in the opposite direction -- and then back again -- from hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). Over a much longer time period (several hours). Craziest thing I have ever experienced. Basically, when you have hypoglycemia, you lose "fine" things first, and you sort of lose things in order, from "fine" (picking things up, balancing, seeing small details) towards "coarse" (talking, walking) and then of…

Can you tell me more about emotion? Could you distinguish between a sense of calm or excitement? What about confidence verses doubt?