Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience?

arxiv.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–179 of 179 posts

Re: What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience?

#171

Post by prmph »

naasking wrote: post #167
prmph wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, it doesn’t show that, it merely asserts it. I’ve given you an example that proves it. > Sure there is, because it's approaching the point of causing damage. There are plenty of damaging processes in the body that produce no pain. But that’s not even the issue. What I’m interested in is how sensations are produced; it’s not just computation

> I’ve given you an example that proves it. Except you didn't. The black box you described does have feelings because the human inside has feelings. The fact that every component of a sentient system doesn't have feelings isn't particularly interesting. > There are plenty of damaging processes in the body that produce no pain. Because they didn't need to for fitness purposes. > What I’m interested in is how sensation…

> Because they didn't need to for fitness purposes.

Huh, damaging process are not relevant for fitness purposes? Wow

Your link is full of speculation, and indeed for consciousness, speculation may be all that can be done, since no one can define it, only experience it.

> You don't know that.

It seems self-evident. If a program computes the temperature of the sun, does it feel the heat?

Re: What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience?

#172

Post by didericis »

Nevermark wrote: post #159
didericis wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but those experiments are inevitably restricted to the aspects of consciousness available for indirect observation and comparison. There is no way to distinguish between an unconscious machine mimicking the functional aspects of consciousness we are able to indirectly observe and compare to our own experience and something having the same experience. We could easily (and I think almost definitely are given the…

> True, but those experiments are inevitably restricted to the aspects of consciousness available for indirect observation and comparison. As noted before, all observations are indirect. That has not been the unique challenge for studying consciousness. The unique challenge has been an inability to create constructive or destructive experiments. We didn't know how to construct consciousness candidates or precursors,…

You’re reiterating a point I acknowledged. There are subtleties you’re ignoring.

Our conscious experience is in fact a unique phenomenon because it is all perceivable phenomenon.

You can create as many self reflective machines as you like and experiment on them and compare them to output from humans, and maybe you’ll learn things, but you can’t ever get to looking at consciousness at all. There is no indirect or direct data you can use to compare all of your experience to something that sits inside a fraction of it.

What you’re talking about are behavioral experiments comparing the reported thoughts and actions of separate acknowledged conscious actors, ie other people, to the internal states and outputs of machines.

You’re not looking at consciousness when you do that. Looking at consciousness requires looking at all experience. Which is fundamentally impossible. When you try to look at all of experience as a single object to study nothing is differentiated. There is zero information.

Re: What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience?

#173

Post by didericis »

conrod_ wrote: post #48
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…

Perhaps. But we don't know. Maybe a plausible theory exists waiting to be discovered. New findings in neuroscience and computer science give us tantalizing clues and hints about what may lie behind the curtain. This is a question that has haunted humanity for millenia and we are fortunate to be alive in the best time in history to ask it. Its not time to throw in the towel yet!

> Its not time to throw in the towel yet!

Of course not! Regardless of whether the core phenomenon is fundamentally impossible to explain (which I think it has to be for philosophical reasons), it’s an incredibly productive question to ask/am also curious about cutting edge theories and related findings.

Re: What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience?

#174

Post by naasking »

prmph wrote: post #171
naasking wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve given you an example that proves it. Except you didn't. The black box you described does have feelings because the human inside has feelings. The fact that every component of a sentient system doesn't have feelings isn't particularly interesting. > There are plenty of damaging processes in the body that produce no pain. Because they didn't need to for fitness purposes. > What I’m interested in is how sensation…

> Because they didn't need to for fitness purposes. Huh, damaging process are not relevant for fitness purposes? Wow Your link is full of speculation, and indeed for consciousness, speculation may be all that can be done, since no one can define it, only experience it. > You don't know that. It seems self-evident. If a program computes the temperature of the sun, does it feel the heat?

> Huh, damaging process are not relevant for fitness purposes? Wow

Cancer or heart disease in your 50s does not impact your reproductive fitness, for instance. Way to attach a strawman.

> It seems self-evident. If a program computes the temperature of the sun, does it feel the heat?

The sun isn't computing a temperature, it's computing a nuclear fusion reaction. Also, "feeling" isn't a quality of individual particles to the best of our knowledge, but it is a quality of some aggregate of particles we call a human.

So if your question is whether a faithful simulation of a human would feel the heat from a faithful simulation of the sun, then yes, that's very plausible.

Re: What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience?

#175

Post by prmph »

naasking wrote: post #174
prmph wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because they didn't need to for fitness purposes. Huh, damaging process are not relevant for fitness purposes? Wow Your link is full of speculation, and indeed for consciousness, speculation may be all that can be done, since no one can define it, only experience it. > You don't know that. It seems self-evident. If a program computes the temperature of the sun, does it feel the heat?

> Huh, damaging process are not relevant for fitness purposes? Wow Cancer or heart disease in your 50s does not impact your reproductive fitness, for instance. Way to attach a strawman. > It seems self-evident. If a program computes the temperature of the sun, does it feel the heat? The sun isn't computing a temperature, it's computing a nuclear fusion reaction. Also, "feeling" isn't a quality of individual particles…

> Cancer or heart disease in your 50s does not impact your reproductive fitness, for instance. Way to attach a strawman

But there are plenty of cancers that can and do occur in ones reproductive years, that start without pain.

> The sun isn't computing a temperature, it's computing a nuclear fusion reaction.

I wasn’t comparing the program to the sun. I was comparing it to the human skin.

> Also, "feeling" isn't a quality of individual particles to the best of our knowledge, but it is a quality of some aggregate of particles we call a human.

Hmmm, now you are referring to particles and aggregates. Wonder what the source of that claim is. At least you agree computation (a process) is not the important thing, but particles (matter).

> So if your question is whether a faithful simulation of a human would feel the heat from a faithful simulation of the sun, then yes, that's very plausible.

Wow, now you're making a circular argument. Whats a “faithful” simulation of a human? How would we know it is “faithful”? What form would that even take?

Let’s say ChatGPT becomes “sufficiently” advanced, and is hooked up to a sensor that records the temperature of the sun. Would it feel the heat? The whole idea is preposterous.

Re: What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience?

#176

Post by epgui »

goatlover wrote: post #164
epgui wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Colors, sounds, tastes, smells, feels, emotions that makeup perception, imagination, inner dialog or visualization, dreams, hallucinations, illusions. All of which are things we can explain without any magic. The literature on qualia pretty much has the same problem as the literature on consciousness.

Who said anything about "magic"? That's straw-manning the literature on qualia. I'd like to hear your explanations for our sensations, because I'm not aware of any that actually explains them.

Pick up any introductory textbook on functional neuroanatomy. I recommend Blumenfeld!

Re: What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience?

#177

Post by naasking »

prmph wrote: post #175
naasking wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Huh, damaging process are not relevant for fitness purposes? Wow Cancer or heart disease in your 50s does not impact your reproductive fitness, for instance. Way to attach a strawman. > It seems self-evident. If a program computes the temperature of the sun, does it feel the heat? The sun isn't computing a temperature, it's computing a nuclear fusion reaction. Also, "feeling" isn't a quality of individual particles…

> Cancer or heart disease in your 50s does not impact your reproductive fitness, for instance. Way to attach a strawman But there are plenty of cancers that can and do occur in ones reproductive years, that start without pain. > The sun isn't computing a temperature, it's computing a nuclear fusion reaction. I wasn’t comparing the program to the sun. I was comparing it to the human skin. > Also, "feeling" isn't a qua…

> But there are plenty of cancers that can and do occur in ones reproductive years, that start without pain.

So? The incidence of these cancers is insufficient to impact reproductive fitness in our species. At no point did I claim that all damaging processes must produce pain, I only claimed that all pain originates from evolutionary pressures indicating high chance of damage that does impact fitness. That also does not mean that presence of pain is always directly indicative of damage, because biology is messy and precision has a cost to fitness.

> At least you agree computation (a process) is not the important thing, but particles (matter).

Nope, not what I'm saying at all. The particles are a computation in a simulation, so the information content of the computation is what matters.

> Wow, now you're making a circular argument. Whats a “faithful” simulation of a human? How would we know it is “faithful”? What form would that even take?

A faithful simulation is clearly a simulation that contains all of the information content of a human and replicates the mathematical relationships that govern the operation of a human's mind. Since a human is a bounded volume, it contains finite information per the Bekenstein Bound, and is thus amenable to simulation, unless you are asserting some kind of non-physical dualism.

It seems clear that you don't yet grasp the argument being made so maybe you should reserve judgment, like calling the argument "circular", until you do properly grasp it.

> Let’s say ChatGPT becomes “sufficiently” advanced, and is hooked up to a sensor that records the temperature of the sun. Would it feel the heat?

It wouldn't feel heat in the same way that humans feel heat because its sensor and information processing is not mathematically equivalent to human information processing and sensory systems. That does not mean it wouldn't feel something like its own version of heat. A whole lot of vagueness hides behind your "sufficiently advanced".

If ChatGPT v10.0 did reproduce the mathematical relationships underlying human information processing and sensory systems, then yes, it would feel heat in precisely the same way as humans do.

Re: What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience?

#178

Post by plutonorm »

prmph wrote: post #106
plutonorm wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While some people believe that consciousness cannot be reduced to probabilistic pattern recognition, I strongly disagree. In my view, the AIXI model is an excellent model of intelligence, as it can mathematically define a notion of Pareto optimal behavior across all possible environments. This model relies on compression at its core, specifically the minimum description length principle. Moreover, large language mode…

Your viewpoint is one I consistently have to push against. Computation is not necessarily experience. I can't emphasize enough how fundamental understanding this is. It seems some just can't grasp this concept. Would you say a program that echoes to the screen the responses of a hidden human is intelligent? Viewed as a black box, it would certainly seem so. But does it have any internal experience and understanding o…

"It seems some just can't grasp this concept.". Your confidence reveals your lack of knowledge. No one has a scooby what consciousness is or how to measure it. It could be that every atom has a modicum of conscious experience. It could be that consciousness is an emergent phenomena (although I think this claim is unlikely as it seems to me to be making a category error). It could be that it's actually Midi-chlorians. I repeat nobody knows. There are as many theories as there are people who have thought deeply about the problem. You coming along all confident with your debunking mindset and your scientism are just showing everyone who has any understanding that you do not know what you are talking about.

Re: What is a mathematical structure of conscious experience?

#179

Post by prmph »

plutonorm wrote: post #178
prmph wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your viewpoint is one I consistently have to push against. Computation is not necessarily experience. I can't emphasize enough how fundamental understanding this is. It seems some just can't grasp this concept. Would you say a program that echoes to the screen the responses of a hidden human is intelligent? Viewed as a black box, it would certainly seem so. But does it have any internal experience and understanding o…

"It seems some just can't grasp this concept.". Your confidence reveals your lack of knowledge. No one has a scooby what consciousness is or how to measure it. It could be that every atom has a modicum of conscious experience. It could be that consciousness is an emergent phenomena (although I think this claim is unlikely as it seems to me to be making a category error). It could be that it's actually Midi-chlorians.…

To me, it is those claiming that computation equals consciousness who are displaying hubris.

Think about it, if we accept the theory that computation equals consciousness, then then is little to investigate further. Just calculate something, and voila, consciousness exists.

It is this closing down of inquiry that I push against. My assertion is that consciousness is deeper, it cannot be reduced to computation.

How would you even prove otherwise? If it arises from computation, what is conscious? Is it the algorithm? Is it the electric circuits? It is the physical machine?

It is interesting to note my consciousness is bound up what a notion of what my body is. I can identify the limits of my body and make a distinction between it and my environment. What determines the conscious boundary of a entity performing calculations?

On the other hand, there are many strong arguments against consciousness arising from mere computation, some of which I have enumerated.

Post reply on HN