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What is it like to have a brain? Ways of looking at consciousness

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Re: What is it like to have a brain? Ways of looking at consciousness

#161

Post by jungturk »

jungturk wrote: post #129
prng2021 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He believes that consciousness cannot be reduced to atomic level phenomena. That kind of discussion is only about his so-called easy problem. To him, there is something beyond that. I refer to that "something" as magic because I believe there isn't anything beyond matter/energy to describe all examples of emergence, including consciousness. Going to my original comment's example of removing atoms from a brain, the nu…

I agree with your two statements: > Essentially everything is an example of emergence and this is no different. > There's no magic behind it, just mystery because we don't understand it. But I still believe there's a hard problem (that is, its difficult to explain my sense of interiority using the dynamics and grammars of the substrates that surely give rise to the emergent behavior we call consciousness). By substra…

On further exploration, attention schema theory does a good job of connecting the dots - with the layers being biology, neurology, psychology (which then hosts the elements of AST that produce the claims/experiences of consciousness)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_schema_theory

Re: What is it like to have a brain? Ways of looking at consciousness

#162

Post by meroes »

qudat wrote: post #149
spoonfeeder006 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are describing regarding inputs, brain activity on data stream, and how its just a recursive ETL function and such, is describing behavior and computation though You have some input that goes into the brain, and produces neural firings that trigger actuators to respond to that stimulus What I don't understand is why are we conscious beings instead of extremely complex bio-computation machines exhibiting memo…

> What I don't understand is why are we conscious beings instead of extremely complex bio-computation machines exhibiting memory, inputs, and complex behaviors such as attention and decision making models, all with behavioral actuators, and all this simulating thought and intelligence but really have no entity whatsoever thats actually experiencing stuff? Subjective experience and the "self" are just emergent propert…

You say on a scale difficult to comprehend. But where's the scale that's deep enough to be incomprehensible? It's usually doubted anything sub cell-scale is responsible (like quantum microtubules of Penrose are almost universally derided) for consciousness.

Re: What is it like to have a brain? Ways of looking at consciousness

#163

Post by meroes »

namero999 wrote: post #157
rogerclark wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument is not "eliding" the hard problem. This argument is saying that Chalmers' hard problem does not actually exist. We have many explanations for what people describe as "the hard problem". But nobody who believes in "the hard problem" accepts these explanations, which have been given for decades by philosophers like Dennett. There is no way to reconcile your view, that there IS a hard problem and that no p…

Dennett's argument is that consciousness is an illusion. Where would such illusion take place? I'm genuinely convinced that Dennett is a troll.

I only don't think he's a troll because the non-illusion options seem just as wild to me. I think it's fair to say we've made almost zero progress on how sensations/experience physically work, and there's not much more room to look. For one critique of the progress toward a computational theory of mind, Tim Maudlin (philosopher of physics) says we are no closer today than thinking water and trough computation could get us to explaining how toothaches feel.

As for how illusions occur and from what things, it does hardly seem possible. But the alternatives are hardly better.

Re: What is it like to have a brain? Ways of looking at consciousness

#164

Post by meroes »

thenext10years wrote: post #134

If I am God, I will be bored because I am all knowing, all powerful, all present. Is like playing a RPG game with all the cheat codes. So I created a world that I will not remember who I am, when I reborn, I randomly spawn in a family. This way, I can play the game, without getting bored, forever and ever. Deep down knowing that if the game eventually ends, I am still omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent

Sadly (or not!) this is just as good of an answer as the rest to the hard problem. Dualism, computational theory of mind, etc. People talk about a scandal of string theory, they should talk about the cross-disciplinary search for explaining consciousness from compsci, physics, biology, chemistry, and psychology instead.

Re: What is it like to have a brain? Ways of looking at consciousness

#165

Post by NateEag »

lioeters wrote: post #115
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not unexpectedly, I do not agree with this characterization. Short of panpsychism (which could be a thing), I think we mostly all agree that there are almost certainly objects in the world in which there is no experience By contrast, I think we mostly all agree that we (each of us as individuals, and humans as a group) are things in which experience does occur. This naturally gives rise to the question: if some set o…

Depending on the definition of "mind", panpsychism sounds rather reasonable: "the view that the mind or a mindlike aspect is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism It could be that a rock, an ant, a computer, and a human being are all experiencing its existence at varying levels of awareness. And that this "experience" isn't necessarily exclusive to living things -…

> Maybe people experience consciousness so differently, for some it's "invisible", and for others it's undeniable and obvious that it exists.

Indeed. I have seen it proposed by hard problemists that people to whom it is "invisible" may in fact be p-zombies.

Re: What is it like to have a brain? Ways of looking at consciousness

#166

Post by [deleted] »

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #102
aeneasmackenzie wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does he answer the question “why qualia, of any kind, ever?” > Dennett most certainly tackles the "hard problem", by convincingly arguing the problem is ill-defined and not a real problem. No, like everyone else he admits defeat before it and tries to define it away. Whatever the relationship between qualia and physical reality, we experience them (I do. Dennett might not, haha) which requires some explanation. Once…

I'm not a philosopher, but arguments for the hard problem always come off as very circular to me. And when I dig deeper, it essentially boils down to "but it sure feels like there are qualia, so there must be" Look, it certainly feels that way to me too. But that's not an argument. It's not even evidence. It also feels like it's impossible for me not to exist, and yet the evidence has me entirely convinced that will…

[deleted]

Re: What is it like to have a brain? Ways of looking at consciousness

#167

Post by spoonfeeder006 »

stoniejohnson wrote: post #135
spoonfeeder006 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are describing regarding inputs, brain activity on data stream, and how its just a recursive ETL function and such, is describing behavior and computation though You have some input that goes into the brain, and produces neural firings that trigger actuators to respond to that stimulus What I don't understand is why are we conscious beings instead of extremely complex bio-computation machines exhibiting memo…

Your basically describing the P-Zombie thought experiment posited by David Chalmers. I always thought it was a bad argument. If you assume consciousness is not required for some of the advanced “bio-computation” that we do, then of course it’s going to be superfluous. You know at the very least that you feel conscious. And it feels like you are actively participating, guiding your body and mind to do cool and nuanced…

Eh, I am not saying consciousness is not required for advanced bio-computation

I am saying that going from observation of behavior (computation, memory, actuation, etc...) to saying that "poof! that explains consciousness" is a leap of assumption without having deescribed the mechanism that brings about actual awareness

The P-zombie thing is pretty interesting honestly. So far on initial read it seems to make sense to me, except that to me the idea of "non-physical" doesn't mean anything magical or otherworldly. But rather that maybe theres more to the universe that the 5 senses do not interact with, and maybe someday we will discover physical artifacts of free will in living things that are able to manifest an attribute of consciousness like free will

For instance, quantum mechanics shows matter is intrinsically non-deterministic, although the statistics of outcomes are robust

Maybe that, or some other physics we have not discovered yet, can help show artifacts of consciousness that would not be feasible in a very complex and sophisticated classical computer?

Maybe there lies the distinction?

But again, I am not saying that such a physical artifact would cause consciousness, but rather shows that the human being allows consciousness to manifest in the human kind of like a mirror (the body) reflecting light (the conscious being, or the soul)

From Baha'i: "Know thou that the soul of man is exalted above, and is independent of all infirmities of body or mind. That a sick person showeth signs of weakness is due to the hindrances that interpose themselves between his soul and his body, for the soul itself remaineth unaffected by any bodily ailments. Consider the light of the lamp. Though an external object may interfere with its radiance, the light itself continueth to shine with undiminished power. In like manner, every malady afflicting the body of man is an impediment that preventeth the soul from manifesting its inherent might and power. When it leaveth the body, however, it will evince such ascendancy, and reveal such influence as no force on earth can equal. Every pure, every refined and sanctified soul will be endowed with tremendous power, and shall rejoice with exceeding gladness."

Re: What is it like to have a brain? Ways of looking at consciousness

#168

Post by staticman2 »

gjm11 wrote: post #100
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's too much here to really reply to, but I will say this: 1. the existence of GPT3 and its cousins I think comes close to, if not actually proving, then severely tilting the scale in favor of "you do not need consciousness or qualia to participate in relatively human conversation and self-reporting". This means that scenarios where you interrogate a system to see what it thinks are going to rapidly become less a…

The point of my thought experiment isn't "a computer does something relatively human", it's "a computer does the same things a human does at the level of neuron activations, leading to the same things a human does at the level of actual actions". And the point isn't "can you deny that the simulation has qualia?" (though I do find denying that pretty implausible); it's that it feels pretty clear to me that having the…

Wikipedia states "according to a 2020 Philpapers survey, 29.72% of philosophers surveyed believe that the hard problem does not exist, while 62.42% of philosophers surveyed believe that the hard problem is a genuine problem"

The boring answer to your question is given your thought experiment scenario the numbers would probably change to the hard problem of conscousness philosophers being the minority rather than the majority. If everyone has a seemingly conscious A.I. best friend like in the science fiction stories the numbers will continue to go down, but you won't be able to definitively solve the issue.

Philosophers can't even agree whether the biblical God is running the universe behind the scenes, which would potentially have unadressed implications for your thought experiment scenario.

The survey results for religion are:

God: theism or atheism?

Accept or lean toward: atheism. 678 / 931 (72.8%)

Accept or lean toward: theism. 136 / 931 (14.6%)

Other. 117 / 931 (12.6%)

Re: What is it like to have a brain? Ways of looking at consciousness

#169

Post by grantcas »

notfed wrote: post #30
nsxwolf wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am glad, because for years the prevailing attitude was that there's nothing special or interesting about consciousness at all, that it doesn't really exist, it's an illusion, etc. I don't think we'll ever be able to fully explain it in scientific terms, because not everything is in the realm of scientific knowledge.

What scares me is that some leading AI researchers hold this view (that consciousness in general is nothing special) and it makes them come across as unempathetic, as if all conscious beings---meat or AI---are simply computers and in turn pain is just some kind of computation and therefore that it's silly to even discuss taking precautions to prevent any kind of AI suffering.

It's becoming clear that with all the brain and consciousness theories out there, the proof will be in the pudding. By this I mean, can any particular theory be used to create a human adult level conscious machine. My bet is on the late Gerald Edelman's Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. The lead group in robotics based on this theory is the Neurorobotics Lab at UC at Irvine. Dr. Edelman distinguished between primary consciousness, which came first in evolution, and that humans share with other conscious animals, and higher order consciousness, which came to only humans with the acquisition of language. A machine with primary consciousness will probably have to come first.

What I find special about the TNGS is the Darwin series of automata created at the Neurosciences Institute by Dr. Edelman and his colleagues in the 1990's and 2000's. These machines perform in the real world, not in a restricted simulated world, and display convincing physical behavior indicative of higher psychological functions necessary for consciousness, such as perceptual categorization, memory, and learning. They are based on realistic models of the parts of the biological brain that the theory claims subserve these functions. The extended TNGS allows for the emergence of consciousness based only on further evolutionary development of the brain areas responsible for these functions, in a parsimonious way. No other research I've encountered is anywhere near as convincing.

I post because on almost every video and article about the brain and consciousness that I encounter, the attitude seems to be that we still know next to nothing about how the brain and consciousness work; that there's lots of data but no unifying theory. I believe the extended TNGS is that theory. My motivation is to keep that theory in front of the public. And obviously, I consider it the route to a truly conscious machine, primary and higher-order.

My advice to people who want to create a conscious machine is to seriously ground themselves in the extended TNGS and the Darwin automata first, and proceed from there, by applying to Jeff Krichmar's lab at UC Irvine, possibly. Dr. Edelman's roadmap to a conscious machine is at https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.10461

Re: What is it like to have a brain? Ways of looking at consciousness

#170

Post by mistermann »

gjm11 wrote: post #112
mistermann wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will take a shot: > Question 1: Do you agree that something along these lines is possible in principle? Seems reasonable. > Question 2: If it happened, would you think there is still a "hard problem" left unsolved? Yes. > Question 3: If you think there would still be a "hard problem" left unsolved, is that because you think someone in this scenario could imagine all the machinery revealed by the simulator operating…

I don't understand the relevance of your paragraph beginning "If I see an amazing demo" to the question at hand. I assume it's meant to be an analogy that justifies your answer to Q2, or something of the kind, but I don't quite understand what's being analogized to what; could you give some more details? For the avoidance of doubt, the intention of the thought experiment is that it does indeed make accurate and preci…

> I don't understand the relevance of your paragraph beginning "If I see an amazing demo" to the question at hand. I assume it's meant to be an analogy that justifies your answer to Q2, or something of the kind, but I don't quite understand what's being analogized to what; could you give some more details?

I'm assuming we're ultimately talking about the capabilities of the human mind - comprehensively, it's capabilities are significant. But then, we also know it to be incredibly flawed, which should be kept in mind during such considerations.

> For the avoidance of doubt, the intention of the thought experiment is that it does indeed make accurate and precise predictions, so that if you give the real person and the simulated person the same experiences, they respond in the same way.

So something kinda like this (way more complex likely)?:

"select distinct [phenomenon] from [human_mind_capabilities] where [type] in ('experience','response')"

I wonder how many rows that would return. I also wonder how much diversity would be in the resultset. Either way, I think one would need a pretty powerful thought experiment for even remotely comprehensive coverage.

> So in cases where how you act is exquisitely sensitive to the details of your starting state or the experiences you have, simulation and reality might diverge.

One example (singular, at least kinda):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Dahmer

Another (when networked):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

> My guess is that many things aren't so delicate, and I personally would be pretty impressed by a me-simulation that consistently said and did things that are the sort of things I would be likely to say and do.

I too have an intuition that there is a very rich vein of ore at some level, and that it may be accessible, were we to look for it.

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