Earlier quoted context omitted.
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/
Decades-long bet on consciousness ends
151–160 of 305 posts
Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends
#152Consciousness is not a well-scoped object of scientific investigation. It doesn't have a definition or characterization based on observable things or behavior. If I were a natural scientist, I wouldn't take a bet that I can scientifically explain a phenomenon which I can't even describe in terms of observable things.
There are at least two observable things:
1. you have consciousness
2. people are speaking about consciousness
The second point makes it likely that consciousness is not simply a consequence of physics, but e.g. that it loops back into it; or perhaps it is more likely (because simpler) that physics is a consequence of consciousness.
Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
The first sensation was probably chemical rather than light. Organisms long predate photosynthesis. The early earth had plenty of energetic molecules floating in the water.
I thought light was chemical? I think photosynthesis is a highly evolved process. Much higher evolved to be considered the beginning.
In this case I mean that the first sensor is probably something that responded to gradients of molecules in the water, so that the proto cell could move in the direction of more food.
So I'd say that the first sensation was smell/taste. Though that is, of course, speculative.
Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends
#154Consciousness is not a well-scoped object of scientific investigation. It doesn't have a definition or characterization based on observable things or behavior. If I were a natural scientist, I wouldn't take a bet that I can scientifically explain a phenomenon which I can't even describe in terms of observable things.
> If I were a natural scientist, I wouldn't take a bet that I can scientifically explain a phenomenon which I can't even describe in terms of observable things. Conscious experience is an observable thing, meaning that we can subjectively experience it and infer its existence in other sentient beings (including in cows and pigs), and it is part of nature. The problem is, we still have no good idea how it comes to be.
> The problem is, we still have no good idea how it comes to be.
Does that matter? We also don't have a good idea how gravity comes to be.
Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends
#155I 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
> consciousness may not be a necessarily condition for advanced life
This will probably be shown true when silicon-based life takes over.
Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends
#156I 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~…
The problem with this argument is that everything is conscious at that point. The consciousness may operate at geological or faster than human time scales but who is to say that we operate very quickly or slowly to begin with? Your computer is already conscious before you even loaded software into it, before you added your fancy machine learning AI. The software merely gives the conscious processor its ability to exp…
> The problem with this argument is that everything is conscious at that point
This is like saying that the Earth and other planets have gravity, and then somebody else saying, well the problem with this argument is that everything has gravity at that point.
Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends
#157Consciousness is not a well-scoped object of scientific investigation. It doesn't have a definition or characterization based on observable things or behavior. If I were a natural scientist, I wouldn't take a bet that I can scientifically explain a phenomenon which I can't even describe in terms of observable things.
There are at least two observable things: 1. you have consciousness 2. people are speaking about consciousness The second point makes it likely that consciousness is not simply a consequence of physics, but e.g. that it loops back into it; or perhaps it is more likely (because simpler) that physics is a consequence of consciousness.
Can you please elaborate why point 2 does that? You can never prove others have consciousness, no matter what they say (I'm not saying they don't).
Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends
#158Consciousness is not a well-scoped object of scientific investigation. It doesn't have a definition or characterization based on observable things or behavior. If I were a natural scientist, I wouldn't take a bet that I can scientifically explain a phenomenon which I can't even describe in terms of observable things.
Definition:
Consciousness is those parts of the workings of the brain that are available to introspection.
People so love to throw all kinds of babble under the heading of consciousness, so there's scant chance that people will agree on any kind of definition, let alone this one.
But it's what I've been using, and I find that it makes all the supposedly hard questions about consciousness very simple to answer.
Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends
#159How 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…
And how exactly is this a win for philosophers? I'm not aware of any philosopher having made meaningful strides within the subject either
Seems quite an odd and dismissive thing to say. Pretty much every "stride" within the subject seems to have been made by philosophers.
Re: Decades-long bet on consciousness ends
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought light was chemical? I think photosynthesis is a highly evolved process. Much higher evolved to be considered the beginning.
In this case I mean that the first sensor is probably something that responded to gradients of molecules in the water, so that the proto cell could move in the direction of more food. So I'd say that the first sensation was smell/taste. Though that is, of course, speculative.
right but maybe it is photonic energy that created a disparity in pressure...