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Consciousness is not computation

joe-antognini.github.io

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Re: Consciousness is not computation

#131

Post by somenameforme »

n8cpdx wrote: post #3

I think people start with the premise that consciousness is a specific “thing”, that it is unique and special to humans (and maybe dogs because we like them but definitely not spiders and flies because we don’t) and then try to work backwards to define it in some ways that keeps it special. I don’t think consciousness is so specific, and I think people aren’t clear about how they think about it as something separate…

I think it has nothing to do with "specialness" but with proof. I can prove I am conscious, yet only to myself. I cannot prove I am conscious to you, and nothing you could do could prove you are conscious to me. In fact, it's entirely possible that our entire reality is little more than a simulation - and other entities may not even really exist, let alone be conscious.

The entities one encounters in a dream each night certainly seem real at the time, yet that illusion is shattered each morning. All the "real" reality holds to it, is that it's a timeframe that I perceive to be much longer. Why am to I believe that after my ~80 years expire I won't simply awake yet again from a sleep I did not know I was in?

This is where the oft misinterpreted quote of cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am, comes from. He was not arguing that if something is thinking, then it is conscious, but rather that the only thing one can be sure of is of their own thoughts and thus their own existence.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#132

Post by pdonis »

The key error in the argument is here:

"[T]he only reason we call a box with a CPU in it a “computer” is because we happen to have a simple mapping between the voltage levels across different parts of the CPU to a set of bits we have defined, and when these voltages interact they do so according to the rules of a set of logical operations which we have also defined. But there is no meaning to the physical system apart from what we, as external observers, have imposed on it."

This might be an argument against a computer program with no inputs or outputs being conscious. But it is not at all an argument against a robot with a computer brain, hooked up to inputs and outputs in a way somewhat similar to a human brain, being conscious. In fact, one way of stating the position of physicalists about consciousness is simply that we humans are such robots! We have brains that compute things (granted, our brains do it with analog neurons, chemicals, etc. instead of digital circuits, but that doesn't mean what our brains are doing is not computation), but the things our brains compute have semantics because our brains are hooked up to inputs and outputs.

In other words, the whole article is attacking a straw man. The actual substantive point of the article is not that consciousness is not computation, but that for computation to produce consciousness, it has to have semantics--it has to be hooked up to iputs and outputs in a non-trivial way. Which is certainly not easy, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#133

Post by Imnimo »

antognini wrote: post #119
Imnimo wrote: post #70

The argument presented that a hot bar of iron would qualify as conscious if consciousness is computation also concludes that a hot bar of iron qualifies as a computer. Do you believe that a hot bar of iron is a computer? If your answer is no, then it seems like the argument presented here should be not be at all convincing.

(Author here.) > Do you believe that a hot bar of iron is a computer? This is the crux of it. The main objection to the triviality argument is that we've just used far too broad a definition of a "computer." If we're thinking that a hot iron bar is a computer, then this should suggest to us that it's the definition that's wrong. You are correct in saying that if the definition we use is wrong, the whole triviality ar…

Is empty space also a computer, because while we might naively interpret it as "all zeros", with the proper location and time-dependent mapping, it can be seen to be running Doom?

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#134

Post by artificialLimbs »

sebringj wrote: post #121

I have questions but first with a premise. Atoms configured in a certain way produce the rich behavior of awareness and agency that we can observe in humans and other animals. This awareness and agency seems similar enough to our own behavior that we associate our internal experience to be similar as well. This internal experience we assume exists can be called "consciousness". Based on the above definition of consci…

>> it seems reasonable to assume that one day, we could arrange atoms in a specific way to produce consciousness from an atom-based computer system.

There is no evidence for this. It does not seem reasonable to me at all. Internal dialog is not consciousness.

Many of the people who discuss consciousness at length do not need or simply do not engage in any internal dialog at all.

We will never 'build' consciousness. It is not possible. Consciousness comes from a source outside of our realm of experience as a gift. It does not come from the micro or small things (though it is entwined with them and everything), but from the macro, that which is above all.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#135

Post by zarmin »

epgui wrote: post #101
zarmin wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just curious as to when exactly quality arises from quantity

What do you mean? Are you referring to emergence? The issue is that we know very very well that “consciousness” is not “one thing”, but rather a collection of features, all (or most) of which can exist in isolation, and all of which can have a whole spectrum of both pathological and “normal” forms or states. Generally speaking, different features emerge at different scales, so there is no particular reason to think t…

I'm referring to subjective experience. Which neurons have to fire for me to experience the subjective taste of chocolate? And how many neurons do I need before that can happen?

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#136

Post by dqpb »

antognini wrote: post #119
Imnimo wrote: post #70

The argument presented that a hot bar of iron would qualify as conscious if consciousness is computation also concludes that a hot bar of iron qualifies as a computer. Do you believe that a hot bar of iron is a computer? If your answer is no, then it seems like the argument presented here should be not be at all convincing.

(Author here.) > Do you believe that a hot bar of iron is a computer? This is the crux of it. The main objection to the triviality argument is that we've just used far too broad a definition of a "computer." If we're thinking that a hot iron bar is a computer, then this should suggest to us that it's the definition that's wrong. You are correct in saying that if the definition we use is wrong, the whole triviality ar…

Let's say you can initialize the first N bits of the hot iron to the initial state of your program. By what process does the hot iron use that information to compute the next state of your program?

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#137

Post by Barrin92 »

epgui wrote: post #18

The idea that you cannot get to consciousness from computation requires accepting on faith alone that consciousness is magic. It’s fundamentally a religious-like bias. It’s not magic, I’m afraid.

nope, the other way around. Thinking you can 'get' anything from computation is religious thinking, because it introduces a sort of dualism. As the author correctly points out, computation is not a 'thing that 'does' anything, it's a label for a subjective observation about a state of physical matter.

Taking the naturalistic position is to accept that matter is all there is. Consciousness is not divorced from the stuff it is made out of, and cannot be abstracted into some cloud of computation. It is a sort enlightenment era rationalism gone wrong which is also why it's so popular among folks in this industry. It actually comes with its own theology while we're at it. (Immortality, raising the dead, final judgement, and so on).

A person computes consciousness no more than a falling pen computes gravity. Even a literal computer does not 'compute' anything other than in the sense that human observers impose meaning on a bunch of electrons buzzing around, and the language makes sense to explain how it works.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#138

Post by fouronnes3 »

XorNot wrote: post #102
fouronnes3 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This exactly. Thank you for putting into words why I always thought the Chinese Room though experiment was absolute garbage. If two thing cannot possibly be observed to be different then they are the same.

I always thought the point of the Chinese room argument was that the man inside doesn't understand Chinese, but the whole system definitely does?

Yes. The "system" understands Chinese in the same way a native speaker does. It's two different implementations (room system and native speaker) of the same computation ("understanding Chinese"). There is no externally observable difference between actually understanding Chinese and a perfect simulation of a system that understands Chinese. The fact that the person inside doesn't speak Chinese as a result is irrelevant in the same way that the L2 cache alone without the rest of a computer cannot run Minecraft is. If anything the Chinese Room thought experiment is an argument in favor of consciousness being computation. It pains me greatly that someone could come up with it and conclude the opposite.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#139

Post by epgui »

zarmin wrote: post #135
epgui wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? Are you referring to emergence? The issue is that we know very very well that “consciousness” is not “one thing”, but rather a collection of features, all (or most) of which can exist in isolation, and all of which can have a whole spectrum of both pathological and “normal” forms or states. Generally speaking, different features emerge at different scales, so there is no particular reason to think t…

I'm referring to subjective experience. Which neurons have to fire for me to experience the subjective taste of chocolate? And how many neurons do I need before that can happen?

Blumenfeld won’t answer exactly that specific question, but it will help you understand how that works more generally.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#140

Post by somenameforme »

stormbrew wrote: post #73
trts wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My personal experience is that consciousness, like free will, is a useful illusion It is probably just a difference in semantics but for me, it seems like consciousness is the only thing that is assuredly not an illusion. That I am having a subjective experience is undeniable. The objects of my consciousness all might be (and probably are) something else than they appear to be (as is often the experience with diffe…

> That I am having a subjective experience is undeniable. If you wanted to go about proving (even to yourself) that you are not, say, an extremely advanced ML algorithm running on a system that provided synthetic inputs in the form of your senses, how would you go about it? Further, how would you go about proving to someone who doubted your subjective experience was real if they doubted it? Say, if they believed they…

He left two words off: "That I am having a subjective experience is undeniable [to myself]." You cannot prove, even to yourself, that you are not a brain in a vat. All you can prove is that you are experiencing something. And what little that is cannot even be proven to anybody else - no matter what you do.

Consciousness is quite a personal affair.

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