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Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

nature.com

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Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#141

Post by interlinked »

wilonth wrote: post #120

Trying to understand how the 86 billions of neurons in humans achieve consciousness is like trying to understand how the billions of weights in ChatGPT interact with each other. Basically impossible impossibility. For a system which derives its behavior from complex interactions between those billion components, you can only understand its origins how it was tuned, and some high-level concepts of its workings. (Which…

We can ask it complex questions and see how the neurons activate similar to an MRI. I bet someone in OpenAI is doing it right now.

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#142

Post by TotalCrackpot »

rozab wrote: post #51
pa7x1 wrote: post #7

I wouldn't be surprised if consciousness ~conscience~ is just an emergent phenomenon resulting from any sufficiently powerful cognitive system (either biological or artificial) with sufficient inputs of its environment and, crucially, of itself. So as to be able to develop a rich model of itself and its relationship with its environment, and that thing will resemble a whole lot what we call consciousness ~conscience~…

Blindsight by Peter Watts has some interesting ideas about how consciousness may not be a necessarily condition for advanced life, and indeed may be a hindrance and an evolutionary dead end. The appendices also have a lot of good references on the subject. You can read under CC here https://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

Blindsight is lit! Great novel.

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#143

Post by westurner »

pa7x1 wrote: post #7

I wouldn't be surprised if consciousness ~conscience~ is just an emergent phenomenon resulting from any sufficiently powerful cognitive system (either biological or artificial) with sufficient inputs of its environment and, crucially, of itself. So as to be able to develop a rich model of itself and its relationship with its environment, and that thing will resemble a whole lot what we call consciousness ~conscience~…

Automata: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automata_theory#Hierarchy_in_t...

Sentience: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience#Digital_sentience

Artificial consciousness > Testing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_consciousness

Constructor theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructor_theory :

> In constructor theory, a transformation or change is described as a task. A constructor is a physical entity that is able to carry out a given task repeatedly. A task is only possible if a constructor capable of carrying it out exists, otherwise it is impossible. To work with constructor theory, everything is expressed in terms of tasks. The properties of information are then expressed as relationships between possible and impossible tasks. Counterfactuals are thus fundamental statements, and the properties of information may be described by physical laws.[4] If a system has a set of attributes, then the set of permutations of these attributes is seen as a set of tasks. A computation medium is a system whose attributes permute to always produce a possible task. The set of permutations, and hence of tasks, is a computation set . If it is possible to copy the attributes in the computation set, the computation medium is also an information medium.

Is computation medium sufficient to none, some, or all of the sentient computational tasks done by humans?

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#144

Post by Balgair »

interlinked wrote: post #141
wilonth wrote: post #120

Trying to understand how the 86 billions of neurons in humans achieve consciousness is like trying to understand how the billions of weights in ChatGPT interact with each other. Basically impossible impossibility. For a system which derives its behavior from complex interactions between those billion components, you can only understand its origins how it was tuned, and some high-level concepts of its workings. (Which…

We can ask it complex questions and see how the neurons activate similar to an MRI. I bet someone in OpenAI is doing it right now.

Be very careful with MRI studies : https://www.wired.com/2009/09/fmrisalmon/

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#145

Post by Balgair »

wilonth wrote: post #120

Trying to understand how the 86 billions of neurons in humans achieve consciousness is like trying to understand how the billions of weights in ChatGPT interact with each other. Basically impossible impossibility. For a system which derives its behavior from complex interactions between those billion components, you can only understand its origins how it was tuned, and some high-level concepts of its workings. (Which…

Neuro research is diverse, just like any field.

In my neck of the woods, intracellular stuff, some of the large findings are (in no particular order):

-Cilia regulate hormonal changes (thing we thought did nothing, does a lot)

-Astrocytes participate in non-electrical modulation of the synapse (it's not just electricity you have to worry about now)

-CLARITY, just in general

-Opsins and light based stimulation of the neuron (use light to make them fire)

-Just all the crazy shit from CRISPR-CAS9

Anyone in other fields of neuro, please chime in.

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#147

Post by alienicecream »

pa7x1 wrote: post #7

I wouldn't be surprised if consciousness ~conscience~ is just an emergent phenomenon resulting from any sufficiently powerful cognitive system (either biological or artificial) with sufficient inputs of its environment and, crucially, of itself. So as to be able to develop a rich model of itself and its relationship with its environment, and that thing will resemble a whole lot what we call consciousness ~conscience~…

Claiming something might be emergent is a way of hand waiving away your responsibility to explain the mechanism in your hypothesis. It means nothing.

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#148

Post by arp242 »

pa7x1 wrote: post #7

I wouldn't be surprised if consciousness ~conscience~ is just an emergent phenomenon resulting from any sufficiently powerful cognitive system (either biological or artificial) with sufficient inputs of its environment and, crucially, of itself. So as to be able to develop a rich model of itself and its relationship with its environment, and that thing will resemble a whole lot what we call consciousness ~conscience~…

I don't think this really explains anything though; even if we assume what you're saying is true (it might be, although not something I would bet on) that still leaves us with unexplained mechanisms of action.

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#149

Post by kbelder »

liamwire wrote: post #117
hnfong wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the "hard" qualia question can potentially be answered by the emergence argument. The much more difficult part of "why do I have qualia" is not the qualia part, but why am "I" attached to this body's consciousness, as opposed to the billions of other candidates?

Something akin to the anthropic principle seems relevant here. Feeling that ‘I’m’ attached this body is what it feels like to be these atoms. If I were instead composed of your atoms, it follows I might find myself wondering the exact same question.

Right. There's no way you wouldn't be asking that question, therefore it's kind of meaningless.

Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends

#150

Post by galacticaactual »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #10

How droll, isn't this the equivalent of trying to figure out how an operating system works by trying to look at activity on an encrypted SSD? And how exactly is this a win for philosophers? I'm not aware of any philosopher having made meaningful strides within the subject either. I'm sure once someone figures out how consciousness works it'll be irrefutable while seeming incredibly obvious in hindsight. Which, honest…

Clearly in the midst of your dismissive arrogance, you did not come across John Vervaeke.
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