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No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

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Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#81

Post by wpietri »

calhoun137 wrote: post #78

Since we are doing another meta-discussion on how supposedly nasty the comment section is sometimes, I'd like to say I don't have a problem with the tone of the comments at all, and I for one would be really sad if people started pulling their punches. The extremely high degree of criticism found in the comments is actually something I value very highly about this community. One of the things I love about the comment…

Criticism and nastiness are orthogonal.

Indeed, I think effective criticism is bound up with kindness. I know the times I've been an ass while criticizing somebody aren't about fixing the problem; they're about me looking smart at somebody else's expense. At best, I'm making them work past my obnoxiousness to get to the hopefully valuable bits. At worst, they discard the criticism as pure meanness.

On the other hand, if I'm really delivering criticism because I'd like someone to get better, then it usually works best when I make it easy to see that I'm on their side.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#82

Post by haliax »

jdietrich wrote: post #68

If you believe in the existence of consciousness, what would prove to you that your qualitative experience is fundamentally no different to the state of a Turing machine? What would persuade you that what is called "consciousness" is of no special interest? OP states that "[consciousness is] a situation where a root cause is murky and escapes testability", which is simply special pleading. If you cannot test your hyp…

Why should it matter whether or not "qualitative experience is fundamentally no different to the state of a Turing machine"? I don't see a claim anywhere that a Turing machine can't be conscious.

"but it must exist because my subjective perception tells me it does." seems like a rhetorical trick, consciousness is the underlying mechanism of perception, so it's not my perception of it that tells me it exists, it's the fact that I have perception at all.

As for a null hypothesis, how about this: "If my qualitative experience is no different to the state of a Turing machine, it should be possible to temporarily modify my mental state to remove all qualia -- so that I perceive nothing, but am still able to process everything" (In short, if I'm running code like sensoryData.processWithFeedbackTo(consciousness.Perception), it should be possible to do sensoryData.processWithFeedbackTo(null) temporarily)

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#83

Post by bglusman »

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…

I commented elsewhere, linking to Integrated information theory[1] but it's relevant here also because you claim theres no way to measure consciousness, but as soon as you accept a formal definition of consciousness like IIT than there is a way to measure it, at least hypothetically. So this is a fallacy preserving the immeasurability of consciousness as a side effect of rejecting any specific formal definition of it as incomplete [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#84

Post by a3voices »

jdietrich wrote: post #68

If you believe in the existence of consciousness, what would prove to you that your qualitative experience is fundamentally no different to the state of a Turing machine? What would persuade you that what is called "consciousness" is of no special interest? OP states that "[consciousness is] a situation where a root cause is murky and escapes testability", which is simply special pleading. If you cannot test your hyp…

The effect of your actions on the physical world is no different than an advanced Turing machine.

But the internals of your mind might contain some sort of consciousness that isn't understood yet scientifically.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#85

Post by RivieraKid »

calhoun137 wrote: post #78

Since we are doing another meta-discussion on how supposedly nasty the comment section is sometimes, I'd like to say I don't have a problem with the tone of the comments at all, and I for one would be really sad if people started pulling their punches. The extremely high degree of criticism found in the comments is actually something I value very highly about this community. One of the things I love about the comment…

I think what you're saying is quite stupid.

I often find HN discussions... not sure how to describe it... I guess I just don't like many of the commenters for some unconscious reason. It could be: passive-agressiveness, people who are not emotionally mature (pg), overall negativity, stupid people who try to sound smart. Or something else.

The atmosphere on other online communities is more positive, which is a good thing. You can disagree without being negative.

I also noticed that for some strange unconsciouss reason, I really dislike people who use cliché phrases like: "Just to play devil's advocate." or "X and Y are orthogonal".

(This comment is intentionally quite negative because you sound like an adult capable of taking criticism.)

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#86

Post by jimmaswell »

blueprint wrote: post #50
TelmoMenezes wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

well, gravity is actually distortions, curves in spacetime, not something carrying energy, as far as I know.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#87

Post by Daniel_Newby »

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…

> there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that damage to brain will impair an entity's level of consciousness

There is loads of evidence from studying states that alter the brain.

For example, damage to certain parts of the brain produces hemispatial neglect. The person loses awareness of not just one half of the universe but the concept of that half. This is not consistent with an incorporeal soul, which would continue to make judgements about the full universe albeit with hemispatial blindness.

Then there are dissociative states, as with some migraine auras, where some aspect of self-awareness is lost, leaving the person with the sense that they are watching their own actions in the third person, but with otherwise intact behavior.

There are the dissociative anesthetics like nitrous oxide and ketamine, which create a solipsistic disconnection from the outside world without abolishing self awareness.

The memory function can become disconnected while consciousnes remains, as with some sleep disorders and drugs.

There are delirious states, seen in illness and with some drugs, where the person is conscious but experiencing imagination on the same footing as reality.

The corpus callosum connecting the two halves of the cerebrum can be severed, leaving each side with an independent partially-disconnected consciousness.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#88

Post by jasonkolb »

pradocchia wrote: post #55
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…

And what is wrong with 'it emerges from neural activity'? Nothing terribly wrong, but consider this: a) images on the television emerge from electrical activity in the television set; b) break the television and the the images cease. If we didn't already know that televisions receive signals , we might suppose that one day, after our science had progressed far enough, we might understand how televisions produce all t…

This is the best comment I've seen in this thread. It illustrates the key point IMO, which is that pretending like you have all of the relevant information precludes you from understanding the real cause of the phenomenon you're observing. Having a closed mind should never be celebrated as a rational thing to do even if it means not accepting the dogma du jour.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#89

Post by jasonkolb »

dvanduzer wrote: post #13
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…

It's perfectly reasonable to define consciousness as "that which emerges from neural activity" if your model is able to describe that emergent behavior.[0] This is not the same as describing what it "feels like" from the inside. From your comment, I infer that you are rejecting the explanatory powers of neuroscience because you are expecting it to speak to the "feels like" question. [0] http://lesswrong.com/lw/iv/the…

Reasonable, but just a theory nonetheless.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#90

Post by RivieraKid »

jasonkolb wrote: post #88
pradocchia wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what is wrong with 'it emerges from neural activity'? Nothing terribly wrong, but consider this: a) images on the television emerge from electrical activity in the television set; b) break the television and the the images cease. If we didn't already know that televisions receive signals , we might suppose that one day, after our science had progressed far enough, we might understand how televisions produce all t…

This is the best comment I've seen in this thread. It illustrates the key point IMO, which is that pretending like you have all of the relevant information precludes you from understanding the real cause of the phenomenon you're observing. Having a closed mind should never be celebrated as a rational thing to do even if it means not accepting the dogma du jour.

What the fuck is dogma du jour?
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