Objects of consciousness
journal.frontiersin.org
Objects of consciousness
1–10 of 69 posts
Re: Objects of consciousness
#2No.
Re: Objects of consciousness
#3No.
Do you care to elaborate on your disagreement?
Re: Objects of consciousness
#4I gave this a chance (seeing there were equations), but after reading the whole thing I still don't understand what they're talking about. It just doesn't make any sense. What would be the one paragraph summary of this paper?
The math in particular seems inappropriate to present in a Psychology journal, even a frontier one. I question the authors' motivation to cover such advanced mathematical topics, from so many different areas of science. Was the intent that the reader will understand, or just be impressed by the math?
The mention of Deepak Chopra in the Acknowledgment section lends further support to my "perception" that this is not a legitimate paper, but an intellectually-dishonest attempt at disguising improv-style nonsense behind impressive-sounding physics jargon.
Re: Objects of consciousness
#5No.
Do you care to elaborate on your disagreement?
I'll chime in with this conceptual map of the article (as far as i read it anyway):
Perception->Visual perception->Ontology of visual perception and consciousness->Quantum physics->No.
edit: Actually, when i think about it, there's something analogous to Goodwin's law in papers/articles about the mind and consciousness. Whenever quantum physics becomes a topic the whole article just unravels into nonsense. This is of course obvious to anyone who've studied the physical properties of the mind (We don't even understand how whole braincells work together to form mental phenomena and conscious thought, so anything on a sub-atomic level is just out on a bike-ride (Norwegian idiom, sorry)).
Re: Objects of consciousness
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you care to elaborate on your disagreement?
I'll chime in with this conceptual map of the article (as far as i read it anyway): Perception->Visual perception->Ontology of visual perception and consciousness->Quantum physics->No. edit: Actually, when i think about it, there's something analogous to Goodwin's law in papers/articles about the mind and consciousness. Whenever quantum physics becomes a topic the whole article just unravels into nonsense. This is of…
That was perfect, thank you. It's quantum woo.
Re: Objects of consciousness
#7"How can consciousness be cast in a mathematical formalism without losing something essential?
The mathematics does lose something essential, viz., consciousness itself. Similarly, mathematical models of weather also lose something essential, viz., weather itself. A mathematical model of hurricanes won't create rain, and a mathematical model of consciousness won't create consciousness. The math is not the territory. But, properly constructed, mathematics reveals the structure of the territory."
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/7/2745.full Bayesian learning of visual chunks by human observers
Re: Objects of consciousness
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll chime in with this conceptual map of the article (as far as i read it anyway): Perception->Visual perception->Ontology of visual perception and consciousness->Quantum physics->No. edit: Actually, when i think about it, there's something analogous to Goodwin's law in papers/articles about the mind and consciousness. Whenever quantum physics becomes a topic the whole article just unravels into nonsense. This is of…
That was perfect, thank you. It's quantum woo.
Had to look that up ("woo woo" = unfounded or ludicrous belief).
Re: Objects of consciousness
#9"How can consciousness be cast in a mathematical formalism without losing something essential? The mathematics does lose something essential, viz., consciousness itself. Similarly, mathematical models of weather also lose something essential, viz., weather itself. A mathematical model of hurricanes won't create rain, and a mathematical model of consciousness won't create consciousness. The math is not the territory.…
The eerie thing is that as far as we can tell, our brains are no more than models of consciousness, and yet they are conscious.
The line is very blury between a model of consciousness and the point where it can not only be described as conscious but truly has that ethereally, hard to define quality that we "feel" as consciousness.
Would the first truly general AIs simply be working models of consciousness, or would they also feel consciousness as we do? When does the viz creep into our model?
Re: Objects of consciousness
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you care to elaborate on your disagreement?
I'll chime in with this conceptual map of the article (as far as i read it anyway): Perception->Visual perception->Ontology of visual perception and consciousness->Quantum physics->No. edit: Actually, when i think about it, there's something analogous to Goodwin's law in papers/articles about the mind and consciousness. Whenever quantum physics becomes a topic the whole article just unravels into nonsense. This is of…
It is true that a lot of woo is produced by people who appeal to quantum weirdness without having a basic understanding of modern physics. This article seems to be no exception (I did not have the patience to read it all).
What you say, however, is dogmatic. You assume the emergentist theory of consciousness: that consciousness somehow emerges from the complex physical interactions in the brain. This theory is itself woo at the moment, because there is not even a proposed mechanism by how this could happen. There is just a magic step: complexity -> magic -> consciousness.
It makes all the sense to take into account the additional information about reality that quantum mechanics provides when trying to understand consciousness, which is so far a mysterious aspect of reality.