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A Neuroscientist’s Theory of How Networks Become Conscious (2013)

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Re: A Neuroscientist’s Theory of How Networks Become Conscious (2013)

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to make this point to two neurosciences a few weeks ago and they basically said "but consciousness IS well defined" and I really had to scratch my head because they appealed to "I know it when you see it" logic which is completely useless when trying to figure out the physical phenomena that produces conscious experience. Actually, on reflection it seems that it makes the point that we do not even have a good…

hofstadter has a pretty decent defintion worked out in 'godel, escher, bach" and "i am a strange loop": consciousness arises when systems in the brain model the external world, and then begin modeling their modelling of the external world, and then begin modelling their modelling of their modelling...

And can do this without crashing/hanging forever.

Re: A Neuroscientist’s Theory of How Networks Become Conscious (2013)

#42
That theory is not even close to point in the right direction on research.

Consciousness is not computation.

An do not just emerge from complexity. If it would, then the ammount of quantum information and complexity in any tropical thunderstorm would make it a supergenius entity. And is not (or prove me wrong).

Consciousness is also not mind. Mind is more like the sum of intelligence. Consciousness something else, more fundamental. Only quantum biology could be interesting on researching this.

Re: A Neuroscientist’s Theory of How Networks Become Conscious (2013)

#44

> Why we should live in such a universe is a good question, but I don’t see how that can be answered now. His last point here is salient. Much like the various interpretations of quantum mechanics, any theories of consciousness are untestable. But my problem with "consciousness" is that it's not even a well-defined concept. Suppose I replace all occurrences of "consciousness" in that article with the word "qualgma".…

Well and thoughtfully said, thank you. I find consciousness perhaps the hardest of the hard problems, in particular the self-awareness aspect of the phenomenon. I experience it, as I suspect (but can't prove) do the rest of HN's participants. But damned if I can figure out how it emerges from organized systems such as ourselves or even whether it's necessary. I can imagine going about my day emitting behaviors withou…

>I can imagine everyone and everything else doing the same - behaving, absent awareness.

In which case you are reasoning in error: people's behavior depends on their subjective experience quite a lot of the time. You simply couldn't get the same behaviors without the experiences.

Re: A Neuroscientist’s Theory of How Networks Become Conscious (2013)

#45

This brings me to an interesting thought experiment I struggle with: Most likely most people here would agree that if you make an exact copy of a person's brain, whilst leaving the original intact, it would be a new person, identical but divergent from the original. A new thread of consciousness by such definition. But then, what if you destroy the original at the moment of copy? It would appear to the same. But then…

There's nothing fundamental we're missing: the reality beneath our intuitive understanding of personal identity and continuity is just a lot messier than our intuitions allow for. Nondiverging copies are, in some sense, the same person, but they're also completely useless: the instant you "wake them up", they diverge and become different people. Destructive "moving" preserves personal identity, but is goddamn creepy because it provides no way for the "moved" person to verify that they remain the same before-and-after. The "continuous stream of consciousness" model is intuitive and lets us detect when something in our heads changes (you can feel yourself going from "sober" to "drunk" while awake in a very different way than if I just injected you with booze while you slept... For Science, of course).

Re: A Neuroscientist’s Theory of How Networks Become Conscious (2013)

#46

> Why we should live in such a universe is a good question, but I don’t see how that can be answered now. His last point here is salient. Much like the various interpretations of quantum mechanics, any theories of consciousness are untestable. But my problem with "consciousness" is that it's not even a well-defined concept. Suppose I replace all occurrences of "consciousness" in that article with the word "qualgma".…

I think you partly nailed it with I am experiencing existence. We experience the process of experiencing. Then I think you're wrong when you say consciousness can't be measured. It probably can.

What we have here is a system receiving inputs, observing how it reorganises itself under these inputs and influencing this reorganisation based on the results of previous experiences. For sure we can measure that a system doesn't merely learn but influences its own learning process depending on previous learning experiences. This may be what allows us to project knowledge from a domain to another, and what allows us to produce artificial knowledge by learning from others. We produce arbitrary connections through memory / continuity of experience and communication. This would provide a basis and a reason for language and societies.

What we miss here is a self-sense, and Koch hints at it IMHO. Integration may be key. I'd say dependency to make it clearer, state dependency. Two linked states where one reflects exactly the value or the other could effectively be labeled as one. They would feel as one, too. What I define as "me" is what has direct influence on me and what I have direct influence on. There isn't a clear boundary though. This definition still has a problem as we define me as what is related to me, so maybe a better definition could be found by taking it by the other end and defining as feeling like an individual "me" every intergrated conscious instance significantly disconnected from the others. A fragmented big abstract me, for short.

If we define consciousness this way it exists in the positivist framework (which satisfies me a lot) and yet it can exist in more exotic frameworks too, like the ones where one can experience that everything ultimately depends on everything when seen under the right scale, and that the sense of self can be extended to everything.

I'm still unable to devise a clear experiment to prove consciousness defined this way though, maybe because I'm plain wrong and it's impossible !

Re: A Neuroscientist’s Theory of How Networks Become Conscious (2013)

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well and thoughtfully said, thank you. I find consciousness perhaps the hardest of the hard problems, in particular the self-awareness aspect of the phenomenon. I experience it, as I suspect (but can't prove) do the rest of HN's participants. But damned if I can figure out how it emerges from organized systems such as ourselves or even whether it's necessary. I can imagine going about my day emitting behaviors withou…

> I experience it, as I suspect (but can't prove) do the rest of HN's participants. Wouldn't it be interesting if science had to be advanced by resorting to individual proofs? In other words, currently we can perform one experiment and have everyone else verify what we have done by looking at our results. It may turn out that there are some aspects of reality that can only be "proven" at the individual level; however…

Where things gets interesting, is when you realize you can manipulate the other person's orange through your own view. that realization comes with the fact that consciousness, I believe, is shared across all living beings.

My experiences with my own practices indicate that these closed off views are indeed not closed off. be aware, that my practices involve the esoteric and the occult. Many people are not comfortable with these discussions and will actively refute any merit whatsoever. Interestingly enough, I do my own semi - scientific theories regarding the occult, only that N=1, me. And I also have to acknolodge that my own sensors also can actively deceive me (placebo).

I've given up on proving this or that phenomenon within an esoteric background. Either you practice and have seen these things for yourself (and another N=1), or you haven't.

Re: A Neuroscientist’s Theory of How Networks Become Conscious (2013)

#48
post #25

When we think of consciousness, we normally associate with the brain. But according to the complexity theory, shouldn't there also be consciousness in most of our organs? The liver is a massive network of cells that are in at least a moderate amount of communication, and yet I am not aware of its consciousness. But perhaps it is conscious, just at a level that's inaccessible to my brain, which is a nearly distinct st…

Yes, I share your belief in collective consciousness. I think there's little doubt we'll find they do exist, once we find a testable definition of consciousness.

BTW one doesn't even need to take acid to realize this. Humans have thought this for thousands of years. It's a common belief of ancient eastern philosophies (metaphysics) such as Taoism and Buddhism, that "we're one consciousness". Our egos just don't think about it, much like a cell of your body operates in another (lower) level of consciousness, where it thinks it's "independent of you".

Re: A Neuroscientist’s Theory of How Networks Become Conscious (2013)

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to make this point to two neurosciences a few weeks ago and they basically said "but consciousness IS well defined" and I really had to scratch my head because they appealed to "I know it when you see it" logic which is completely useless when trying to figure out the physical phenomena that produces conscious experience. Actually, on reflection it seems that it makes the point that we do not even have a good…

hofstadter has a pretty decent defintion worked out in 'godel, escher, bach" and "i am a strange loop": consciousness arises when systems in the brain model the external world, and then begin modeling their modelling of the external world, and then begin modelling their modelling of their modelling...

Perhaps Hofstadter has a definition of consciousness, but what you gave is a (right or wrong) description of how consciousness is implemented, which is not what most people would call a definition.

Re: A Neuroscientist’s Theory of How Networks Become Conscious (2013)

#50
post #16
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two thoughts: 1. Your nearest definition of consciousness "emergent properties of lower level functions" or something along those lines doesn't really cut it, either. To say that something is an emergent property of another thing, without showing the steps of that emergence is kind of like defining red as "an emergent property of the sun and a sheet of cellophane". It's HOW it emerges that's the hard question. 2. If…

In the same Discourse on Method, Descartes makes assumptions about how the human body works and these assumptions are completely wrong. Interesting read just to see how someone perfectly logical can be completely wrong at the same time.

It was not completely wrong if he was right about some things. It's one thing to say someone broke a window and another thing to say who and how and when. He proposed an explanation which know now to be false. But the thing to be explained is still there.

Sad thing is that much of the literature in philosophy of mind will discard dualism solely on the fact that past attempts to explain dualism have failed. And more over, some have just failed to convince the opposite side, which is open for subjectivity.

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