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Consciousness is not computation

joe-antognini.github.io

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Re: Consciousness is not computation

#181

Post by epgui »

zarmin wrote: post #157
russdill wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or more succinctly, all the known laws of physics effect things in a way that can be simulated by sufficiently complex computation. The idea that there's something going on in a wet, warm l, mushy brain that has a macroscopic effect, and yet isn't accounted for by the currently known physics or bonkers.

>The idea that there's something going on in a wet, warm, mushy brain that has a macroscopic effect, What kind of complex computation simulates the subjective experiences of wet, warm, and mushy? EDIT: my account appears to be rate limited, so i am unable to post a reply until idk when.... By "subjective" I am referring to my conscious inner life, that there is something it is like to be me. I am an experiencer becau…

Reply to your edit:

I know it would be ideal if there was a simple, short answer, but this question is nearly the equivalent of "please explain all the core ideas of neuroscience/neurology/neuropsychology to me". It's a good question, but it's a big question. This is why in the other thread [1] I've tried to point you in the direction where you will find the answers you are looking for: the answers exist and are for the most part known, but you have a lot of reading ahead of you, and there's no way around that.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31806312

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#182

Post by [deleted] »

dibujante wrote: post #166
stormbrew wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea that evolution has a purpose and a direction is more than common enough that when someone says something like that things that evolve never lack a purpose, they've gone wrong in their understanding of evolution, even if only in subtle ways they may not be aware of themselves. Anyways, I think the juxtaposition is funny no matter how seriously they meant it. We all want to believe that consciousness i…

Um, no, the idea that evolution has a telos is dumb. Anthropomorphization is a useful short-hand. Nature has no opinions about a vacuum. Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literal_and_figurative_languag...

[deleted]

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#184

Post by antognini »

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.

(Author here.)

This is a false dichotomy. Saying that consciousness is not fundamentally a computational process does not mean that it then has to be magic.

We could say the same thing about life. Life is not a computational phenomenon. But it is also not magic. It is, fundamentally, a particular kind of chemical process. Perhaps the same is true of consciousness, or maybe it is some other kind of physical process. I don't believe that saying that it is not computation means that we need to throw up our hands and resort to magic, though.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#185

Post by fouronnes3 »

stocknoob wrote: post #176
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.

> If two thing cannot possibly be observed to be different then they are the same. I think that suffers the same flaw as logical positivism: if my axioms can't find a difference, there isn't one, no way my assumptions are wrong. (Namely, my axiom is that external observations capture the entirety of reality, there is nothing subjective.) If two people laugh at a joke, one faking and one actually finding it funny, wha…

The fake laugh can be observed to be different by the person faking it.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#186

Post by whittingtonaaon »

hoseja wrote: post #183

Why keep bringing up the Chinese Room. The guy is just a substrate, it's the necessarily intelligent set of rules he's performing (for astronomically large time) that is conscious.

Think of feeling pain? How is pain „a set of rules“? To my mind Searle proved that the mind is not a turing machine.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#187

Post by lgas »

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?

I think that's the argument for why the Chinese room is not a particularly illuminating thought experiment after all.

Edit: Or as fouronnes3 said in a sibling comment, why it's actually evidence against Searle's original argument.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#188

Post by epgui »

antognini wrote: post #184
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.

(Author here.) This is a false dichotomy. Saying that consciousness is not fundamentally a computational process does not mean that it then has to be magic. We could say the same thing about life. Life is not a computational phenomenon. But it is also not magic. It is, fundamentally, a particular kind of chemical process. Perhaps the same is true of consciousness, or maybe it is some other kind of physical process. I…

I would absolutely argue that life is a particular category of computation as well, and that is actually closer to my area of expertise (biochemistry) than consciousness / neuro.

For clarity: when I say "computation", I refer to any physical process ("physics") which involves information.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#189

Post by dkbrk »

> So if we accept that qualia exists (which, after all, seems intuitively sensible), we are burdened with the apparently impossible task of explaining how consciousness can be generated by physical processes.

No, you don't get to just gloss over that. I don't think it's "intuitively sensible" that "qualia" exist. I don't think think it's intuitively sensible that they don't exist either: the question is ill-defined until it's first been established it's a well-defined concept that actually means something. And the burden is on you to do that.

If you make up a word without requiring it somehow maps to the real world in some way you can prove or disprove anything you like about it -- because you've made up the rules.

I can play that game too:

1. I define a word "foobles".

2. By definition, I claim, humans have foobles and computers do not.

3. I write many long essays pondering the question of where foobles come from, why they exist, and whether or not computers can ever have them. Some people are very impressed when I call this "the hard problem of foobles".

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#190

Post by lowwave »

kazinator wrote: post #130
_moof wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until you start dreaming.

It's when you're anaesthesized for surgery that your consciousness goes away. No dreams, nothing. You don't exist during those hours. You cannot account for them later; they are deleted.

Or that we just don't remember the dream states. Have you ever woken up and the dream rapidly fades away?
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