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What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience?

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Re: What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience?

#111

Post by crazygringo »

mxkopy wrote: post #98
crazygringo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's self-awareness. But it doesn't explain qualia like the sensation of the color red.

I suggest you look into Roger Scruton's interpretation of Wittgenstein's private language argument. I think it might go something like this: You want an explanation for the sensation of the color red? Alright, I'll try, as long as you help me out: what exactly is the sensation of the color red? I need to have a good grasp on what we're talking about here. Can you describe it? It's okay, take your time. FIN

If you're trying to suggest qualia don't exist or don't have anything to do with consciousness, then sure you'll find some people who agree. But it's not a mainstream position.

And of course the entire point is that qualia are ineffable. That's part of the definition. It's the feature, not a bug. But if you want to deny that you have conscious sensation then go ahead. ;)

Re: What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience?

#112

Post by theobromananda »

mistermann wrote: post #101
mahathu wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It's like trying to describe a house that you can't leave.

Psychedelics, schizophrenia and other mental illnesses, meditation and other techniques are reasonably valid examples of leaving I'd say. We don't really study them them to the degree that we could, but perhaps some day we will.

Psychedelics, meditation and mental illness show you or change the contents of the house - but you can never leave the house of the existence of consciousness. The closest thing we have to that would be death, and even then you only know if consciousness disappears if you die.

In fact, you would not even experience the disappearance of consciousness - because the consciousness that would experience this has disappeared. It is impossible to experience the absence of consciousness.

Re: What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience?

#113

Post by captainkrtek »

conrod_ wrote: post #13

Is there a book or resource that describes the state of the art in our knowledge and understanding about the nature of consciousness (Not cognition) and provides a survey of the popular and promising theories? Readable by someone who isn't in the field(s). Maybe even a good popsci book on the topic that is the neuroscience's equivalent of "Universe in a nutshell"

“Altered States of Consciousness” by Marc Wittmann was an interesting read for me, give the description a read to see if it aligns with what you’re looking for.

Altered States of Consciousness: Experiences Out of Time and Self (The MIT Press) https://a.co/d/ghPhlDW

Re: What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience?

#114

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

l33t233372 wrote: post #38
didericis wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on what exactly you mean by “the nature of consciousness”, it’s fundamentally impossible to answer. The fact that we think we can observe and comprehend a mechanism doing the observation does not preclude things we cannot see. You might be able to pan a cctv camera and get some insight about the camera itself if you find a reflection, but you can’t pan it over to the linux driver. It is not a given that all…

This school of thought strikes me as fundamentally opposed to the whole idea of the scientific method. We try to find out about these black boxes through repeated observation, theorizing, and testing. It seems short sighted to suggest we can’t find out things about consciousness in a similar way.

The scientific method is part of an empirical philosophy and requires the ability to make objective measurements.

The problem with consciousness is that we have no ability to measure it objectively because it is an entirely subjective phenomenon.

You have no way of knowing if I am conscious or just a sufficiently elaborate machine doing a really great job of acting like I am (a p-zombie).

Personally, I lean towards panpsychism. I assume I am not special and that everything in the universe, or to put it another way the entire universe itself, has an experience of being.

Re: What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience?

#115

Post by sambapa »

conrod_ wrote: post #13

Is there a book or resource that describes the state of the art in our knowledge and understanding about the nature of consciousness (Not cognition) and provides a survey of the popular and promising theories? Readable by someone who isn't in the field(s). Maybe even a good popsci book on the topic that is the neuroscience's equivalent of "Universe in a nutshell"

"The Ego Tunnel" by Thomas Metzinger

Re: What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience?

#116

Post by Valgrim »

inphovore wrote: post #96
drowsspa wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that calling this a hypothesis is quite charitable.

I didn’t really mean to question the phrase hypothesis, rather that “lacking proof is not proof of lacking”, and why not lay out more form of curious extrapolation if that is after all, why we are here.

Your original claim is that consciousness is a quantum phenomenon.

A) We can't even define consciousness, let alone describe it's physical nature.

B) Even if it depends on quantum mechanics, it doesn't make it magic or unique to biology.

C) It's an extraordinary claim, so back it up, man.

I don't care about curious extrapolation, except in science fiction.

Re: What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience?

#117

Post by naasking »

conrod_ wrote: post #13

Is there a book or resource that describes the state of the art in our knowledge and understanding about the nature of consciousness (Not cognition) and provides a survey of the popular and promising theories? Readable by someone who isn't in the field(s). Maybe even a good popsci book on the topic that is the neuroscience's equivalent of "Universe in a nutshell"

A somewhat unpopular but strictly pragmatic view on human non-specialness and what that means for consciousness is eliminative materialism, where the qualities we attribute to consciousness are actually illusory, like other sensory illusions. This puts it strictly within the bounds of known physics, no magic.

This paper is a good, accessible overview of how this would work in neuroscience:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2116933119

Re: What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience?

#118

Post by naasking »

kajaktum wrote: post #88
conrod_ wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the reply! I have to say, I am quite giddy. When I posted this question, I wasn't expecting to get a reply from an author and researcher on this very topic. I am a software engineer by profession, but this is a topic that has been on the back of my mind for many years. Even when I read popsci books about the universe and the big bang and so on, i felt spiritually unsatisfied because they often do not addre…

I am sorry to disappoint but I think consciousness is the one thing that we will never be able to solve physically. It is perhaps the only thing that is true about that universe, that I somehow exists. Everything else is simply derived from that and might as well be an illusion (perhaps a very consistent and steady illusion). > It really deserves more attention and awareness among geeks and the general public. There'…

> It is perhaps the only thing that is true about that universe, that I somehow exists. Everything else is simply derived from that and might as well be an illusion (perhaps a very consistent and steady illusion).

Actually, there is every indication that you are an illusion.

Re: What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience?

#119

Post by naasking »

noting0002 wrote: post #81
conrod_ wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the reply! I have to say, I am quite giddy. When I posted this question, I wasn't expecting to get a reply from an author and researcher on this very topic. I am a software engineer by profession, but this is a topic that has been on the back of my mind for many years. Even when I read popsci books about the universe and the big bang and so on, i felt spiritually unsatisfied because they often do not addre…

[dead]

> As we see with LLM consciousness is not needed to fake humans

You are just assuming that LLMs aren't conscious. We don't have a way to evaluate that at this time.

Re: What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience?

#120

Post by Valgrim »

inphovore wrote: post #95
goatlover wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bing chat being fed into chatGPT prompted by the thread's title?

Muddled minds of men, mincing meaning with more words.

Whenever I watch a western movie there's always this character type who uses much more complicated words and convoluted sentences than his counterparts. On Tvtropes they call it the "Southern-Fried Genius" and "Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness" (Damn I love this website, another lost hour)

I always love to imagine how fun an exercise it must be for a writer to invent those dialogues.

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