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Consciousness is not computation

joe-antognini.github.io

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Re: Consciousness is not computation

#701

Post by simonh »

tgflynn wrote: post #697
simonh wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computation is a physical process though. To occur, it has to be performed in the physical world by a mechanism. I'm going to nitpick your terminology a bit I'm afraid. I don't see how an abstract representation can be operated on, surely to operate on a representation it has to be a physical representation, such as a physical state representing 0 or 1? I suppose the representation might be of an abstract object, dat…

You seem to be having a lot of trouble grasping the concept of abstraction, which is absolutely fundamental to what we are talking about. Mathematics, logic and computer science study abstractions, they do not study physical things. The mathematical fact that 1 + 1 = 2 is true regardless of whether we are counting apples or oranges. On the other hand 5 + 5 = 30 pounds is mathematically a non-sensical statement, even…

>It is true that to actually perform either a physical instantiation is necessary...

That's all I'm saying. When you say 'computation is not a physical process', I think that's an ambiguous statement. The actual computation of something must be physically performed for it to occur, otherwise no computation takes place.

>The guy who claimed that LaMDA was conscious wasn't basing his claim on something specific about the kind of hardware it was running on, he was basing it on the program's inputs and outputs, which are indeed a computational property and therefore abstract.

The kind of hardware doesn't matter, absolutely, but there must be hardware. You can't say that an abstract object such as a hypothetical computer program, or even an actual computer program that is stored but not running, is conscious. In order to be conscious, it would have to actually run. Consciousness, like the actual process of computation, is not an abstract property. It must be an instantiated property (I would prefer to say an instantiated behaviour) of a real system.

I think we can agree inputs are not conscious, nor are outputs, nor are both put together. What he was doing was inferring something, from those inputs and outputs, about the process that occurred in an actual computer to produce one from the other. That process is not abstract, it's a physical process. When it's physically happening there is (or might be hypothetically in the case of LaMDA) consciousness, when it's not happening there isn't.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#702

Post by whaaswijk »

V-2 wrote: post #356
whaaswijk wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What explanation are you referring to though? Just saying consciousness is an emergent property is not an explanation. Rather it is an assertion.

It's a working hypothesis where the element of "HOW does consciousness emerge out of computation" remains unanswered, but you could argue that you shouldn't assume the hypothesis is insufficient until it's shown that the question is not answerable without adding extra assertions (that there is something beyond computation). Just like we stick to the "planetary orbits are only shaped by gravitational interactions" hyp…

I’m not sure the analogy to gravity works. At least in the case of gravity we have a model which (largely) explains the planetary orbits. As far as I know, we are not even close to a model in the case of consciousness. And even if we had a model for the “easy problem” it’s possible that the “hard problem” would still remain.

Edit: to be clear, I’m agnostic on this problem. I just don’t really like the emergence “model”, where we have a bunch of supposedly non-conscious matter and if we put enough of it together in the right way consciousness just pops into existence.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#703

Post by 3g4o53g4o5 »

denton-scratch wrote: post #700
GoblinSlayer wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The animal world presents varying degree of consciousness from worms to humans. That's apparently evidence that consciousness is a spectrum.

How can the state of consciousness of a worm be evidence for anything, if you can't observe the worm's state of consciousness?

First prove that you have consciousness, then we can talk.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#704

Post by 3g4o53g4o5 »

feet wrote: post #695
GoblinSlayer wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The animal world presents varying degree of consciousness from worms to humans. That's apparently evidence that consciousness is a spectrum.

How is it neasured

No need because some one just said that consciousness is not a thing that can be measured, HA HA.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#705

Post by 3g4o53g4o5 »

denton-scratch wrote: post #698
i_like_apis wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're just re-stating (1). I understood (1) fine and addressed it directly. Observation isn't required for Turing machines to exist. A computer is still a computer even if it has no user or doesn't compute anything deemed useful. i.e., Whether something is a computer or not doesn't depend on interpretation or observation. (Directly saying 1 is wrong)

Yes, I'm restating (1). That's why my remark was introduced with the phrase "The argument was [...]". In particular, I was trying to rationalise the dumb "iron bar" example as a justification for (1). I don't think you addressed anything; you just flatly denied (1), without offering any reasoning. In particular, you don't seem to have tried to understand the author's attempt to justify (1) using iron bars. For my par…

No post body was provided.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#706

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

vidarh wrote: post #643
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without an understanding of what consciousness is, there is also no reason to expect an implementation of an adder to not have some subjective experience. I don't think we need to understand what consciousness is , but rather define what it is that we want to talk about. The english word "consciousness" is a sloppy catch-all for a bunch of experiential phenomena including things like self-awareness (only marginally…

I feel you're falling in exactly the same trap as the article of assuming that the "feeling" is a property of the analytical machinery of our brains rather than gaining it's perceived complexity as an effect of being combined with that while being separate. It seems wildly presumptuous to assume that lack of ability to communicate some level of awareness necessarily implies the awareness itself is lacking. It could b…

Looking at things like anaesthetics, psychedilic drugs, delerium, sleep, etc, there seems to be plenty of evidence that the phenomena of consciousness is related to the mechanics of the brain.

There's also the interesting medical condition of "blindsight", caused by a specific type of brain damage, where the patient reports no conscious awareness of being able to see (they think they are blind), yet are able to competently complete tasks requiring vision (such as navigating a cluttered corridor). In other words. It's hard to imagine more direct proof of consciousness being related to brain connectivity.

I didn't say anything about ability to communicate about awareness, just the need for the brain to sense it (and therefore have introspective awareness of it). As the blindsight example shows, you can't have visual consciousness if you damage the feedback paths that make that possible.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#707

Post by 3g4o53g4o5 »

artificialLimbs wrote: post #677
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This implies that consciousness is some sort of “magic”, not obeying the laws of the physical universe as we know them . I’m not willing to completely discount this idea. However, it seems likely that both mammals and birds all have this magic. It’s pretty wide spread. Why assume that humans can never figure it how it works, and replicate it?

As far as most people are concerned, it may as well be magic. It certainly doesn’t lend itself to understanding in the general sense. We must explore wholeheartedly and with integrity to even begin at comprehending the possibilities of connecting with it. Even rocks and dead sticks have it. Some of us know how it works. I don’t claim to know, but I know more about it now than I did, let us say, some years ago. So it…

No post body was provided.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#709

Post by doliveira »

V-2 wrote: post #694
doliveira wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be arguing for conscience as the fifth force of nature, or something quite close to it. That's basically magic.

Only in the same sense as dark matter or string theory are "basically magic". It is naive to assume we've already discovered all properties of matter and energy and are now only refining our understanding of those.

Yes, astrology could also work due to a fifth force of nature. After all, it would be naive to just dismiss it based on our current understanding of Physics.

Re: Consciousness is not computation

#710

Post by tgflynn »

simonh wrote: post #701
tgflynn wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be having a lot of trouble grasping the concept of abstraction, which is absolutely fundamental to what we are talking about. Mathematics, logic and computer science study abstractions, they do not study physical things. The mathematical fact that 1 + 1 = 2 is true regardless of whether we are counting apples or oranges. On the other hand 5 + 5 = 30 pounds is mathematically a non-sensical statement, even…

>It is true that to actually perform either a physical instantiation is necessary... That's all I'm saying. When you say 'computation is not a physical process', I think that's an ambiguous statement. The actual computation of something must be physically performed for it to occur, otherwise no computation takes place. >The guy who claimed that LaMDA was conscious wasn't basing his claim on something specific about t…

If you say that there is a property X of computation that occurs independently of how the computation is actually carried out, whether it's by a current generation CPU, hydraulics, lego blocks, someone writing values and following instructions on index cards or some other method that no one has even thought of yet then that property is an abstract property of computation. That's all the word "abstract" means in this context.

What you are suggesting would be like saying that there's some property of addition that is not mathematical (because hopefully we agree that mathematics only studies abstract properties) but that you can only learn about by looking at all the different kinds of things that one can concretely apply addition to.

I would argue that such a thing is implausible. It would be completely unlike anything that anyone has seen in the real world.

One thing I think we do agree on is that conscious experiences are not abstract (very unlike the other person I've been exchanging comments with who denies that they even exist at all). Beyond that I argue that computation itself is entirely abstract and though I don't seem to be able to get you to admit that, I think most people, certainly most computer scientists would admit it readily.

So what we're left with is a claim that an abstract process can produce something that is not abstract and such claims are just not plausible. That would be exactly like a computer simulation of the weather producing actual water.

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