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Consciousness is worth thinking about

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Re: Consciousness is worth thinking about

#71

Post by mistercow »

Tichy wrote: post #68
mistercow wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I have with saying "consciousness is an illusion" is sort of similar to saying "God was the first cause". It pushes the question one layer away, because then the next obvious question is "an illusion to what, exactly?" How do you produce the illusion of qualia to something that does not experience qualia?

It rather seems to me talking about "qualia" is pushing the question one step away, or creating a circular argument. If I attach a light sensor to my Arduino and then upload code to the arduino that says "if sensor active, flash light", I'd say the arduino has a "qualia" of light. Perceiving light flips some bit in the arduino. That's all there is to it.

Except that non-sensory experiences also produce qualia, and some drugs produce qualia that are never triggered in ordinary experience. The question of whether qualia are real is still very much the subject of debate, and not something you can easily just wave away like that.

Re: Consciousness is worth thinking about

#72

Post by Tichy »

mistercow wrote: post #71
Tichy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It rather seems to me talking about "qualia" is pushing the question one step away, or creating a circular argument. If I attach a light sensor to my Arduino and then upload code to the arduino that says "if sensor active, flash light", I'd say the arduino has a "qualia" of light. Perceiving light flips some bit in the arduino. That's all there is to it.

Except that non-sensory experiences also produce qualia, and some drugs produce qualia that are never triggered in ordinary experience. The question of whether qualia are real is still very much the subject of debate, and not something you can easily just wave away like that.

I don't see the difficulty with that? If I read Wikipedia right qualia basically just means "subjective impressions"? Alright then, compute around for a while on your Arduino, and you get some subjective impressions. For example you could run some simulation that is known to exhibit randomness (like some cellular automatons) and then just pick some state of that.

I think this just boils down to the old and tired argument that "computers can only do what humans told them to do, therefore they can't be conscious", which is just misinformed. If I tell the computer car to turn left every time it sees a duck, I will have no idea where it will end up.

Also building a "drug me" button into an Arduino seems trivial. You could XOR all your data if the button is pressed, or do whatever else you fancy (even trigger a completely different program). I don't find drug experiences puzzling at all. If you want, overclock the Arduino so that it produces some computing errors. Hey presto, your Arduino has a drug experience.

Re: Consciousness is worth thinking about

#73

Post by _xhok »

I've wondered about this since I was twelve, though I didn't what it was at the time. My personal experiences have led me to conclude that it is actually impossible for consciousness to be biological.

If you look at consciousness from a third-party perspective, it makes sense for consciousness to be biological. Suppose we have a human named Bob; Bob thinks with his brain, and it's a safe bet to assume his brain also creates his consciousness. But now think about your own consciousness. If it's your brain that creates consciousness, why are you in the first-person point of view? Why is there a first-person point of view? Why are "you" not just a brain with its own consciousness? Where do "you" come into the picture?

On a somewhat related note, the only safe bet is to assume you're the only person in the world. You know you exist because you think and therefore are. You don't know, however, if anyone else does.

Re: Consciousness is worth thinking about

#74

Post by _xhok »

Tichy wrote: post #67
DennisP wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statement "consciousness is an illusion" has always struck me as a contradiction, since the nature of illusion is that there's something perceiving it.

You don't need consciousness to perceive something. It's just electrons interacting with atoms.

Saying that consciousness is just an illusion created by reacting atoms makes sense from a third-person perspective. It does sound inconceivable that a zombie could be the exact same as a "conscious" person atomically but simply lack a so-called consciousness. If we're talking about a person Bob, sure, all his thoughts are just atomic reactions.

But if that's the case, why does the first-person point of view exist? Yes, there will be a bunch of people, all supposedly with their first-person points of view, but why are you inside yourself? What is different about your illusion of consciousness such that you are inside it from the first-person point of view?

If consciousness is just an illusion created by chemical reactions, it shouldn't exist at all. Consciousness is a first-person thing, and were it just a bunch of reactions, no one would be able to call themselves I.

Re: Consciousness is worth thinking about

#75

Post by lutusp »

algopats wrote: post #62
lutusp wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By the way, if we were find why consciousness has evolutionary advantage we'll have a subset of what consciousness is. Not necessarily. There are plenty of fitness adaptations we can crudely quantify (group A had adaptation X and was more successful as a result) but can't explain (in a rigorous, falsifiable way). The reason is that nature (natural selection) is "smarter" than we are. Also, the Turing test -- the id…

elephant have been seeing their reflection when drinking water in lakes/ponds for millenia. Their brains evolved to identify with those patterns. Mirror test just proves if any species evolved enough to identify with that "pattern". humans are just animals. nothing special. their consciousness is no different than say a crows or fox(cunning) consciousness. I would say one thing though....human brain is probably one o…

> elephant have been seeing their reflection when drinking water in lakes/ponds for millenia. Their brains evolved to identify with those patterns. Mirror test just proves if any species evolved enough to identify with that "pattern".

Yes, but many animals see their reflections in watering holes -- only a few of them understand that they're seeing their own reflection.

> humans are just animals. nothing special.

That's certainly true.

> Take two humans...put one human in jail from birth (dont even teach language), and put other human in silicon-valley from birth, send him to stanford. Now, compare the "consciousness" of these two.

This diminishes the role of inheritance, but over time research, especially twin studies, has produced increasing support for the idea that we're much more shaped by inheritance than environment.

Re: Consciousness is worth thinking about

#76

Post by algopats »

lutusp wrote: post #75
algopats wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

elephant have been seeing their reflection when drinking water in lakes/ponds for millenia. Their brains evolved to identify with those patterns. Mirror test just proves if any species evolved enough to identify with that "pattern". humans are just animals. nothing special. their consciousness is no different than say a crows or fox(cunning) consciousness. I would say one thing though....human brain is probably one o…

> elephant have been seeing their reflection when drinking water in lakes/ponds for millenia. Their brains evolved to identify with those patterns. Mirror test just proves if any species evolved enough to identify with that "pattern". Yes, but many animals see their reflections in watering holes -- only a few of them understand that they're seeing their own reflection. > humans are just animals. nothing special. That…

> Yes, but many animals see their reflections in watering holes -- only a few of them understand that they're seeing their own reflection.

its the nature doing its thing. only few animals/species develop certain faculties. And humans just happen to develop "mind" faculty. I wouldn't be surprised if some other species on a different planet developed telepathy or some other advanced faculties.

> This diminishes the role of inheritance, but over time research, especially twin studies, has produced increasing support for the idea that we're much more shaped by inheritance than environment.

inheritance only gives you latent abilities ... They will not flower if there is no proper environment for them to be actualized. everything is just manifestation of the nature. we are all just different "expressions" of the ultimate (aka "god" in some religinos)

Re: Consciousness is worth thinking about

#77

Post by mistercow »

Tichy wrote: post #72
mistercow wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that non-sensory experiences also produce qualia, and some drugs produce qualia that are never triggered in ordinary experience. The question of whether qualia are real is still very much the subject of debate, and not something you can easily just wave away like that.

I don't see the difficulty with that? If I read Wikipedia right qualia basically just means "subjective impressions"? Alright then, compute around for a while on your Arduino, and you get some subjective impressions. For example you could run some simulation that is known to exhibit randomness (like some cellular automatons) and then just pick some state of that. I think this just boils down to the old and tired argu…

The question is not whether computers can have qualia, the question is whether qualia are real. The argument goes that if your Arduino is doing the kind of "computing around" necessary to have subjective impressions, then it is experiencing qualia, and it is in some sense conscious (although not, of course, if philosophical zombies are possible).

Re: Consciousness is worth thinking about

#78

Post by Tichy »

_xhok wrote: post #74
Tichy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need consciousness to perceive something. It's just electrons interacting with atoms.

Saying that consciousness is just an illusion created by reacting atoms makes sense from a third-person perspective. It does sound inconceivable that a zombie could be the exact same as a "conscious" person atomically but simply lack a so-called consciousness. If we're talking about a person Bob, sure, all his thoughts are just atomic reactions. But if that's the case, why does the first-person point of view exist? Y…

It's really easy to make a computer say "I".

Re: Consciousness is worth thinking about

#79

Post by colinm »

shuaib wrote: post #44

I regularly have a discussion with friends on "consciousness". And a question that regularly comes under discussion is following: Suppose we are living in a time when medicine has advanced tons. In this time, a friend of yours gets into an accident, and gradually starts to lose different body functions/parts. Each time a body part stops working, it is replaced with an artificial one. There comes a time when everythin…

Same old paradox.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

Re: Consciousness is worth thinking about

#80

Post by colinm »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #18
colinm wrote: post #14

What's the big deal about consciousness anyway?? I don't see the 'magic' about being self-aware. Surely it just a step up the cognitive ladder from existing without awareness.

What is "cognitive ladder"? Where does it come from? How many steps does it have? Are we the last one?

Probably an evolved gradation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test#Reactions_of_other_...

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