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No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

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Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#141

Post by lmm »

seiji wrote: post #42
beowulfey wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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?

Right, but we can answer those questions. We can explain how the high-level OS is written in lower-level primitives, how these correspond to machine instructions, and how those correspond to electrical impulses. You wouldn't say "oh yeah, an OS is just electrical pulses firing, there's nothing you don't already understand here", or "oh, you understand basic organic chemistry, now you understand all animals".

I'm not saying there's anything mystical to it, but there's this great big chunk that we don't understand yet, and saying "oh it's all electrical impulses" doesn't really shed any light on that.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#142

Post by lmm »

seiji wrote: post #41
guard-of-terra wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Video game characters aren't consciously autonomous though.

What distinction are you claiming exists between your own subjective experience and that of a video game character? (follow-up question: why do you believe this?)

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#143

Post by lmm »

EGreg wrote: post #134
Xcelerate wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Yes - from the subjective perspective of Schrodinger's cat. Yes - from the subjective perspective of the detector. From the outside we observe the cat's state becoming entangled with that of the radioactive sample, but from the cat's perspective it made the observation, collapsed the state, and either died or didn't.

It's exactly the same for us, making the observation - from our perspective we observed one result or the other, collapsing the wavefunction. But to an outside observer we entangled our own state with that of the cat and the sample, and we're in a superposition of (observed cat dead, observed cat alive) - and will be until they observe us, at which point our wavefunction will collapse to one or the other. And so on.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#144

Post by rickhanlonii »

eloff wrote: post #117
rickhanlonii wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We are only brains. If your brain gets squished, you don't really care because you'll cease to exist in this light cone. I agree with you. However, we both have to give serious consideration to the objection that our brains are a necessary but not sufficient condition of consciousness. We do not know, as of yet, that our brains are not merely some sort of wireless router for some higher existential consciousness. I…

A wireless router that evolved through a process of natural selection from simple, not conscious single-celled (and simpler) life-forms? That seems a bit far-fetched don't you think?

I agree; that does seem far-fetched. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a legitimate objection that demands respectable consideration.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#145

Post by tatumizer »

yohui wrote: post #135
tatumizer wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Of course? It's the same kind of "of course" as heavy objects fall faster than light ones. Because Aristotle said so.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#146

Post by lmm »

oblique63 wrote: post #22

> I respectfully submit that this attitude should be considered harmful, for several reasons, not the least of which is that it stifles intellectual curiosity into a subject that is still an open book Indeed. It is quite discerning to see smart people fighting against what they believe to be anti-intellectualism with a fair share of anti-intellectualism of their own. I believe it might have more to do with a lack of…

>It really is odd how when philosophy is explicitly brought up, it is generally labeled as a useless endeavor, yet in most other discussions you see philosophical questions being raised all the time with the intention of using them as 'appeals to ambiguousness', when (as you mentioned) most of these questions have already been asked and thoroughly answered by philosophers ages ago. Not that there's anything wrong in not knowing about this, but clearly there's an interest to know these types of answers that arises organically, which makes the dismissal of philosophy an ultimately misguided exercise in cognitive dissonance.

Do you have examples? As a scientist I'm inclined to see science as the true heir to ancient philosophy, and the part that still calls itself "philosophy" as, well, an inferior branch. When I spoke to philosophy students at university they seemed to study a really weird mix of things - about 1/3 history, 1/3 mathematical logic but covered less formally (which was intensely irritating when we shared lecturers because if there's one field where you really need to be formal it's mathematical logic), and 1/3 these very... abstract arguments that felt like they might say something interesting if any of the terms they used were defined rigorously and the arguments were written out symbolically, with small pieces of what should be science thrown in almost at random, but it was missing the desire to connect all this up and actually perform experiments to see what was right.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#147

Post by Gravityloss »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #111
Gravityloss wrote: post #10

Everybody keeps getting the Schrödinger's cat experiment 100% backwards. It was created by Schrödinger to highlight how absurd the interpretation of quantum mechanics was at that time. Since then, even the Copenhagen interpretation basically says that the "observation" happens already at the Geiger counter: "Analysis of an actual experiment found that measurement alone (for example by a Geiger counter) is sufficient…

The cat experiment is a simplification. It doesn't matter that it was created to show the absurdity. People are not getting it wrong. All you need to know at the end is that the bigger / more energy a system has, the less time it can stay superimposed before collapsing by itself into one state. For anything macro-scale this timeline is basically zero.

"For anything macro-scale this timeline is basically zero." People don't get this.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#148

Post by JackFr »

waveman2 wrote: post #136
JackFr wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 unde…

As consciousness is tamed by scientific material reductionism, would you expect 'free will' to become as absurd a notion 100 years from now as 'elan vital' seems to us?

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#149

Post by Gravityloss »

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…

If we connect electrodes (or use non-invasive potential and current measurement techniques), we can reverse engineer the functionality. We see that electrons hit the screen. Where do they come from? The emitter. What controls its voltage? The amplifier. What are the inputs to it? We can see that there is a measurable signal coming to the television through the wire. There is nothing supernatural or even quantum level stuff going on.

Re: No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

#150

Post by bittired »

bittired wrote: post #114

Great post. I personally think that people that reply indicating that anyone who doesn't believe in the traditional sciences, not including Philosophy but rather using our "accepted body of Physiological and Psychiatric knowledge" as truth, are one step away from Asperger's. I do not mean that in a derogatory sense, since many with Asperger's are highly functioning, but their tendency to clinch onto mathematics and i…

Not sure why I'm surprised I got -1'd, but I'm guessing it is because someone wanted to prove my point?
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