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

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#131

Post by absolution » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 4:51 AM 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…

> Saying it emerges from neural activity doesn't explain the mechanism; it's merely the result of something we don't understand.

You make an interesting point, however I think the case could be made that consciousness emerging from neural activity could be the result of emergence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#132

Post by artagnon » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 5:01 AM UTC

For a theory to be good science, it must fit a very large number of observations and not contradict any a single one. Here's my attempt.

We must get a tight definition of consciousness to begin with. Are animals conscious as well (and to what degree)? What about amoeba and plants? If you classify "living" things as conscious, and "dead" things as unconscious, what is your definition of "life"? In their work, various people (notably, Metzinger) have isolated certain characteristics that make up various degrees of consciousness.

The "conscious experience" is a product of evolution: clearly, "self-aware decision makers" have better chances of survival than "hard-coded automatons". In recent evolution, the part that has changed most significantly is the neocortex. Scientifically speaking, it's very easy to figure out what is responsible for a high degree of consciousness: removing neocortex consistently leads to a lower degree of consciousness => the neocortex is responsible for a large part. Dissect, stick electrodes, and get unbiased data: then do a best fit.

Quantum mechanics is quite misunderstood: if you separate out the observer from what is being observed, it looks like humans are operating the universe (because their "observation" causes "collapse", right?). Highly egotistical and inelegant. If you exclude M-theory (because it's not able to make verifiable real-world predictions), a lot of people subscribe to quantum decoherence as an alternative to the classical Copenhagen interpretation.

On conscious computer programs. Essentially, I think of consciousness as a higher degree of interaction with its surroundings (it "learns" from its surroundings and adapts more quickly than it would normally take for natural selection to pick a genetic mutation). Aren't we just describing computer programs that interact with humans via a high-level language?

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#133

Post by Xcelerate » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 5:25 AM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #121

mcguire wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does your soul observe and affect your body? (I'm assuming you mean a two-way path there; "observing your body and being affected by it" would be one-way, and would be problematic. "A difference that makes no difference", and all.) Can this connection be distorted or interrupted? What are the effects of doing so? If you accept that a drug-induced solipsistic, out-of-body effect[1] is an alteration of subjective e…

Imagine looking out the window and seeing stuff that is happening outside. If the window gets foggy, you don't experience everything that's happening outside the window. That doesn't disprove that you are observing stuff outside the window. On the other hand, having "uncaused effects" has been found in quantum mechanics, but it's too much of a leap to suppose that your consciousness controls your body through quantum…

> Although there's something eerie about the waveform collapse having to do with conscious observers.

Fortunately, it doesn't. Any measurement of a system constitutes an "observer", conscious or not.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#134

Post by EGreg » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 5:48 AM UTC

Xcelerate wrote: post #133

EGreg wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine looking out the window and seeing stuff that is happening outside. If the window gets foggy, you don't experience everything that's happening outside the window. That doesn't disprove that you are observing stuff outside the window. On the other hand, having "uncaused effects" has been found in quantum mechanics, but it's too much of a leap to suppose that your consciousness controls your body through quantum…

> Although there's something eerie about the waveform collapse having to do with conscious observers. Fortunately, it doesn't. Any measurement of a system constitutes an "observer", conscious or not.

So does the wavefunction collapse when Schrodinger's cat observes it? Or when the detector observes the radioactivity?

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#135

Post by yohui » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 5:59 AM UTC

tatumizer wrote: post #120

Dylan16807 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens when that cell dies? Lots of neurons die, it must happen all the time.

Do you know that MANY cells in our body are not replaceable? E.g. those that control muscles. If this cell dies, the man dies, it's that simple. BTW, bacteria (=~cell) intelligence is an active area of research (google it, you will be surprised). That's the only form of intelligence we know. Apparently, we are not familiar with the most intelligent ones yet - they (certain species) may have very developed knowledge o…

As someone with a modicum of biological knowledge, I am not aware of any single cell that is critical to human survival in the way you describe.

As for your analogy, it is true that microorganisms can perform wonderful feats, but it is a bit misleading to equate that to general intelligence. It is like saying a compiler is smarter than a programmer, because its design incorporates tricks the human may not know. (The bacteria being "designed" by the trial-and-error process of natural selection, rather than an intelligent entity, of course.)

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#136

Post by waveman2 » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 7:43 AM UTC

JackFr wrote: post #104

aquaroris wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm thinking that consciousness, as it stands right now, is associated with a lot of things that should and ought to be reduced to mere sensation. Consciousness is associated with thought, emotion, and sensation. Yet as neuroscience progresses, I think we will eventually functionalize thought, emotion, and sensation as biological processes. Some may argue that our mental processes are fundamentally differently percei…

"Yet as neuroscience progresses, I think we will eventually functionalize thought, emotion, and sensation as biological processes." That, my friend, is your little divinity. Keep the faith!

It is a reasonable position I think. Given the progress with understanding many other things, it is reasonable to expect progress here - bearing in mind the incredible complexity of the brain.

If philosophers were going to solve this problem they would have done so already, given that they have been at it for 2500 years or so with no real signs of progress.

Science on the other hand has made enormous progress in understanding living things. Recall for example that only 100 years ago many or most people adhered to "vitalism" ie the view that living things contained an "elan vital" which distinguished them from inorganic matter. Enter biochemistry.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#137

Post by anigbrowl » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 8:17 AM UTC

dylangs1030 wrote: post #125

anigbrowl wrote: post #49

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…

I never came across The Origin of Consciousness - what makes it "monumentally good" in your opinion?

Oh dear, I can't easily sum it up in a couple of sentences. It's just a completely different way of thinking about how the mind works, the construction of personal identity, and the interaction between the individual and the rest of the world as to induce an acute sense of vertigo if you've grown up taking the Cartesian model for granted.

There's a summary at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_... but relying on the summary is like me telling you that Beethoven's 5th symphony is in C minor, opens with a distinctive motif, and is generally quite dramatic sounding...all true, but absolutely nothing like the experience of actually listening to it.

The book provided me with a completely different model for examination of the world, which is pretty unusual. While I don't feel wholly committed to Jaynes' model, I've found it enormously useful, in the same way as Understanding Media.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#138

Post by RivieraKid » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 8:26 AM UTC

calhoun137 wrote: post #94

RivieraKid wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

> I think what you're saying is quite stupid. I'm assuming this is meant to be ironic and to try and prove something. But I challenge you to find a serious comment on HN that is this over the top negative and backs it up with as little as you do. It really doesn't bother me to be told I'm wrong, if I'm saying something stupid I want to be told that in no uncertain terms so that I don't repeat the same mistake again.…

Interacting with positive people is simply much more pleasant. At least for me. I recently heard about experiment suggesting that positive feedback is much more effective than negative one.

I absolutely agree that if you think people are wrong, it doesn't make sense to lie to them and say that you think they're right.

But the problem is when poeople focus on the negatives – ie, someone made a pretty cool product and half of HN is complaining about some small insignificant issue. Very often, critticism is not motivated by a genuine attempt to help the person. Instead, it's motivated by the pleasant feeling some people get from correcting other people and finding problems in their arguments (http://xkcd.com/386/).

I like the atmosphere on Quora much more. It's more positive and the people are more diverse.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#139

Post by RivieraKid » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 8:32 AM UTC

csallen wrote: post #102

RivieraKid wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people get so used to the idea that science explains everything, that they became completely blind to opposing views. It's hardwired deeply into their brains. That's how I explain to myself this kind of blindness I witness in every discussion about consciousness. Why do I feel pain when the atoms in my brain are in a specific configuration? Current state-of-the-art physical models can't possibly explain that. An…

Science is not an opinionated entity that "explains" things. Rather, it is a method for learning more about the world around us while attempting to minimize influence from bias and other sources of human error. It's not that we can only discover things via science. It's just that we shouldn't trust discoveries made via flashes of insight, clairvoyance, intuition, guesswork, divine inspiration, etc.

Science (I mean physics specifically) is about finding patterns in our conscious experiences. For example, when I drop a rock, I can see it falling.

There are very solid arguments suggesting that consciousness is outside of the scope of current physics. But it's hard to proof that objectively, because consciousness is inherently subjective.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#140

Post by bhitov » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 10:41 AM UTC

RivieraKid wrote: post #79

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…

Some people get so used to the idea that science explains everything, that they became completely blind to opposing views. It's hardwired deeply into their brains. That's how I explain to myself this kind of blindness I witness in every discussion about consciousness. Why do I feel pain when the atoms in my brain are in a specific configuration? Current state-of-the-art physical models can't possibly explain that. An…

You are assuming that the "feeling" of pain is inherently different from neural activity during pain. He is saying that to do so without argument is special pleading.