No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about • Hacker News Board

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#41

Post by seiji » Sun, Aug 11, 2013, 11:55 PM UTC

guard-of-terra wrote: post #37

seiji wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is not evidence whatsoever that consciousness emerges from neural activity. None? Ever? Consciousness could just be a free floating quantum mechanical genie attached to my back? Hogcock. We are only brains. If your brain gets squished, you don't really care because you'll cease to exist in this light cone.

That's what your player character in an action video game "thinks". If I get killed, I won't care anymore, because there would be nothing left of me. Guess what, his consciousness is you and you will close the game and walk away. In a consciousness dimension your character can't even imagine. This is absolutely unrooted parable, except that consciousness remains a mystery. What does it hide? We don't know.

Video game characters aren't consciously autonomous though.

There's always the reductive argument of "Well, we could be running in a computer simulation and when you die here you're perfectly recreated in another simulated universe."

But, we're not.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#42

Post by seiji » Sun, Aug 11, 2013, 11:57 PM UTC

beowulfey wrote: post #36

robbiep wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what is wrong with 'it emerges from neural activity'? really, it is quite an adequate solution for a species with our current level of philosophical and scientific understanding. That doesn't mean it is right, and doesn't discount potentially other options such as something that, despite my own strong scientific background, I have a fondness for through buddhism and meditation - and which is mentioned in the orig…

Saying it emerges from neural activity doesn't explain the mechanism; it's merely the result of something we don't understand. So neurons fire and we see this pattern of activity in a state of wakefulness etc, etc... well, okay but WHY? I would say it will never be explained until we can recreate a consciousness artificially, and since it's next to impossible to experience another's consciousness, it might be an unso…

So neurons fire and we see this pattern of activity in a state of wakefulness ... well, okay but WHY?

We see ones and zeroes go into our ALU and the result is an operating system. Okay, but WHY?

Or, we see two molecules joining... and the result is a human baby! Okay, but WHY?

You can't necessarily see the entire outside system from micro-components.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#43

Post by negamax » Sun, Aug 11, 2013, 11:59 PM UTC

I think it's worth adding to this thread that Buddha in his teachings said, eye has eye consiousness, ear, tongue, mind.. has their consiousness. He described consiousness as one of the five aggregates of human state. I never could wrap my head around the concept that awakening means also to see consciousness as empty.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#44

Post by pknight » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 12:18 AM UTC

I don't know why people don't think about this topic more, especially if you are curious person. A very interesting line of research that could have profound implications on science and our understanding of consciousness is being done by Radin et al. Specifically he's looking deeper at the possible role of consciousness and the collapsing of the wave in quantum theory with some really interesting repeatable experiments. He's taken the classic double slit experiment and has been testing to see whether conscious observers can affect the results merely by focusing their attention. So far the results are positive. Here's one paper: http://www.deanradin.com/papers/Physics%20Essays%20Radin%20f...

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#45

Post by tocomment » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 12:29 AM UTC

dglittle wrote: post #23

it's so exciting to me that this community has some interest in consciousness. my background is 'hacker', but looking forward, I think consciousness is highly relevant (soon, we really will be able to hack our own brains, and when that happens, I think we'll care a lot about consciousness theory). anyway, I've written some blog posts with some thoughts on this topic that I'll throw into the mix: http://realgl.blogspo…

Interesting reading. I like your writing style it's very clear and easy to understand even though these are complex concepts.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#46

Post by saym » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 12:40 AM UTC

paganel wrote: post #34

TelmoMenezes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neuroscience hasn't been able to produce a single theory on the origin of consciousness, unless one accepts "it emerges from neural activity" as an explanation. Consciousness appears to be the ultimate mystery. There is something very fundamental about it that we don't understand at all. This makes a lot of people uncomfortable, especially the type of people that would like to turn Science into a religion. We just do…

> There is something very fundamental about it that we don't understand at all. This makes a lot of people uncomfortable, especially the type of people that would like to turn Science into a religion. I could be wrong, but as an European my understanding is that there are people in the States who actually believe in non-science things like Adam and Eve and all that, so that when you begin to say that maybe Science do…

There are people that believe in 'non-science things' on every continent.

I don't see how providing antagonizing labels based on nationality helps your argument at all.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#47

Post by quantumpotato_ » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 12:42 AM UTC

TelmoMenezes wrote: post #30

robbiep wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what is wrong with 'it emerges from neural activity'? really, it is quite an adequate solution for a species with our current level of philosophical and scientific understanding. That doesn't mean it is right, and doesn't discount potentially other options such as something that, despite my own strong scientific background, I have a fondness for through buddhism and meditation - and which is mentioned in the orig…

I am aware of this line of reasoning, but it contains a subtle problem: there is no way to measure consciousness. We assume a correlation between consciousness and human-like intelligent behaviour. We assume that we are unconscious when in deep sleep, for example, but we have no way of knowing for sure. It could just be that we are not recording any memories for later reference. Long story short, no, there is no scie…

Consciousness cant' define itself? Incompleteness theorem!

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#48

Post by simonster » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 12:44 AM UTC

orblivion wrote: post #14

Xcelerate wrote: post #4

I upvoted the original article not necessarily because I thought it was particularly well-written, but because I looked forward to seeing what the HN comments about the article would say. Nevertheless, I left to go somewhere before I had a chance to peruse them. I think in a conversation about consciousness, it's very important to define exactly what it is you're talking about. I'm not a neuroscientist, but I get the…

It occurred to me at one point - the fact that you and I even try to argue the point that consciousness exists, is evidence to outside observers that we are not philosophical zombies. (Which leads to an amusing, or perhaps disturbing, question about the people who scoff at the concept) Also, it may not be science but it is still philosophy and extremely important. Science is based on philosophy too.

It sounds like you're misunderstanding the concept of a zombie. Zombie simonster is physically identical to simonster. On Twin Earth he is also sitting in front of his computer talking about consciousness, and he also emphatically believes that he is conscious. The only difference between zombie simonster and me is that, when zombie simonster says he is conscious, he is wrong.

David Chalmers discusses this possibility in his book, and doesn't believe that it invalidates the zombie argument, but personally, I would prefer to think that the fact that I am sitting here writing about consciousness is somehow related to the fact that I am conscious. I'm still thinking this through, and have been for some time, but I think this requires that consciousness be physical in nature.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#49

Post by anigbrowl » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 12:46 AM UTC

Personally I lean towards the idea of consciousness as an emergent phenomenon, ie closer to Hofstadter than Searle (for anyone who has wondered exactly what Godel, Escher, Bach is about, it's essentially a long argument for strong AI). However, I'm not sure about this; the main reason I can't subscribe to Searle's point of view is that he's trying to prove a negative, and I'd rather not know the answer than handwave one. I thought Carson's article was a bit fluffy and lacking focus, but then it was meant to provoke discussion and debate rather than offer a final answer.

By far the most intriguing counter-proposal to the conventional wisdom is the late Julian Jaynes' The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind which is such a monumentally good book that it's worth reading even if it is entirely wrong.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#50

Post by blueprint » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 12:51 AM UTC

TelmoMenezes wrote: post #12

blueprint wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consciousness is a mystery only to those that cannot define what it is. What is the origin of awareness itself? It is the very activities one is aware of. The activities produce energy which we call consciousness. The dimension that the consciousness can see is determined by the quality of the very activities. Consciousness is thus not solely generated by neurological activities. Before denying this because of your f…

I tend to agree with the general tone of what you're saying, but have a problem with "The activities produce energy which we call consciousness". Either you are using the word "energy" in the regular sense or as a metaphor for something else. If it's the former, we're missing some physics. if it's the latter, you're still sweeping the problem under the rug.

I don't think the physics is missing - it should be all there, according to my confirmation. There are numerous examples around us. Waves propagate themselves owing to the very energy inside of them. Gravity is energy that is produced by the activities of everything in the world - the stress energy tensor says the same thing, but people don't seem to really recognize what it means.