Objects of consciousness • Hacker News Board

Re: Objects of consciousness

#51

Post by pdonis » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 2:21 AM UTC

drdeca wrote: post #50

pdonis wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you apply the same force as you would to a cup handle it order to pick up the cup, to a single atom of the surface of the cup, couldn't that remove the atom? No, because the forces holding the atoms of the cup together are much stronger than the forces holding the cup to the floor. That's the underlying physical reason why it makes sense to consider the cup as an "object".

Really? Not just per mass? Huh. I am somewhat surprised. Hmm, but one can scratch a cup fairly easily, can one not? (depending on the type of cup). This is removing some part of the cup. Hmm, I guess that still might take more force than picking it up? But what if one has like, a really big thing of uh, I want to say talc but I don't know how much of that one could hold up without part of it breaking off... uh, googl…

> Really? Not just per mass?

Yes. Think of it this way: if the force you used to pick up the cup could remove atoms from the cup, then you wouldn't be able to pick it up; when you tried, you would just come away with some atoms, instead of the whole cup.

> if one had a column of gypsum 254.1 meters tall, and picked an atom at the top of it to pull up with force more than that of the whole weight of the pillar, certainly the whole pillar would not rise into the air, because its weight would be too much for the tensile strength

Yes. With typical materials that cups are made of, you could probably make the column somewhat taller; but in any case, 254.1 meters is way larger than a cup, and weighs a lot more, which is why you don't have trouble picking up a cup, even though you would if you had a tall enough column of the same material.

> Yet it certainly seems like this would be termed an object.

If you choose to, sure. The term "object" is not given by physical law; it's a human convention. Obviously there are going to be edge cases where the term's application becomes somewhat strained.

Re: Objects of consciousness

#52

Post by kleer001 » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 2:26 AM UTC

drdeca wrote: post #28

kleer001 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is it considered separate from the floor? Because it can be easily moved. That is the property all objects share. There are a few exceptions, but they are illustrative. Consider a rusted on bolt. Can it be moved? Not without a lot of effort. However a fresh new loose bolt of the same kind demonstrates movable-objectness. What about a chair bolted to the floor? It was once loose, it's an object. What about a cha…

If you apply the same force as you would to a cup handle it order to pick up the cup, to a single atom of the surface of the cup, couldn't that remove the atom? "Can be removed using a specific level of force" is then not sufficient for determining whether a collection of particles form an object. Perhaps if one instead uses some amount of force applied on the collection of particles which depends on the mass of the…

I think by "force" I'm imagining a physics type theoretical uniform force with god-like imaginary hands as opposed to a engineering type force in real life with hands and levers.

Re: Objects of consciousness

#53

Post by goblin89 » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 10:59 AM UTC

dgreensp wrote: post #11

There are some real howlers in here, such as when the author is quick to point out that the theory of natural selection in biological evolution assumes DNA exists even when you aren't looking at it, but we can patch this hole in the argument by saying we aren't talking about that natural selection, but natural selection in the abstract. It's like using the fact that apples fall from trees as evidence for gravity, but…

I admit that the DNA/natural selection point is somewhat over my head still. However, with my limited understanding of the research, I’d somewhat disagree with this:

> …author's claim that objects aren't really there turns out to be more provocative than substantial. The author takes conscious agents as the building blocks of reality, and the conscious agents are still there when you aren't looking. They are just a different representation. You can replace the term "conscious agent" with anything.

My understanding is as follows: conscious agents, as the foundation, exist unperceived. What we see, however, is not a representation of said agents—not a ‘map’. Rather, it’s a hugely simplified interface to the world of interactions between said agents. As symbols of the interface, objects or even space-time can’t be claimed to exist when we’re not looking.

It’s like an API spec that describes various entities and whatever manipulations we can request on them. These Users and Posts don’t actually exist as such, but for our practical purposes they’re always there, helpfully constructed. As API consumer we can fetch a user whenever we need it, but network can be down between our requests for all we know. (A precise map then could probably be raw SQL shell, the complexity of which API hides. I know this analogy is far from ideal, but it somewhat helped me understand some aspects of the idea.)

Re: Objects of consciousness

#54

Post by titzer » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 12:32 PM UTC

TelmoMenezes wrote: post #44

icebraining wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Platonism still has to explain why that fundamental consciousness arises only in particular material configurations, ie., if it underlies mater, why isn't all mater conscious? What are the building blocks necessary to channel that underlying consciousness?

There is no known experiment one can perform that tests if something is conscious or not. We know we are ourselves conscious, so we assume that entities resembling us also are, and entities that are too different are not. Maybe that's the truth, but for now it's just a personal belief, not a scientific theory. For something to be a scientific theory it must be testable and falsifiable. Some people actually believe th…

Even though solipsism is not falsifiable, falsifiability is not the only measure of scientific credibility. E.g. solipsism is less credible than materialism, since more observations support materialism and are relatively hard to explain under solipsism, not the least of which are object permanence, the apparent existence of other people who seem more intelligent than the solipsistic mind, disagreement, injury, pain, Occam's razor...

Falsifiability doesn't apply to essentially any metaphysics, anyway. Which is where all the woo about panpsychism and morphic resonance and whole series of theories that make consciousness into some weird thing outside our universe.

The question is what metatheories are _compatible with observation_, or at the least, under _what level of gymnastics_ they are.

All this talk about "we don't know what consciousness is; therefore XYZ" is filled with woo.

Even if we don't know what conscious is or can't exactly _test_ for it, most people agree there are at least different levels of sophistication of consciousness, and that some animals appear to be at least partially conscious. That's not odd if we explain this in relation to brain capacity and along normal evolutionary lines. Is it anything other than the evolution of brains really necessary to explain consciousness? Why do you believe so?

So what new dimensions of reality would you like to request in order to explain consciousness? Does anyone have any evidence these other dimensions exist? No, of course they don't.

Re: Objects of consciousness

#55

Post by deciplex » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 3:44 PM UTC

p1esk wrote: post #37

deciplex wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A mathematical model of hurricanes won't create rain What about a detailed simulation of global climate at a granularity of, let's say, individual quarks. Is there a point at which a map is so detailed that it becomes, in some sense at least, itself a territory?

I think there's an important distinction between a rain and a consciousness. Rain is a movement of physical objects, that's all it is. Consciousness, on the other hand, is not just movement of physical objects (e.g. electrons), it's more than that. The movement of electrons that gives rise to consciousness (or is interpreted as consciousness), creates information. This process is an abstraction from the physical worl…

> The movement of electrons that gives rise to consciousness (or is interpreted as consciousness), creates information. This process is an abstraction from the physical world.

It's not clear to me what you mean when you say consciousness is an abstraction - is this dualism? Consciousness seems pretty thoroughly grounded in real stuff. Intelligent agents might "create information" in some sense, but there is no indication that they do it by breaking the laws of thermodynamics.

Re: Objects of consciousness

#56

Post by p1esk » Mon, Jul 06, 2015, 5:28 AM UTC

deciplex wrote: post #55

p1esk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's an important distinction between a rain and a consciousness. Rain is a movement of physical objects, that's all it is. Consciousness, on the other hand, is not just movement of physical objects (e.g. electrons), it's more than that. The movement of electrons that gives rise to consciousness (or is interpreted as consciousness), creates information. This process is an abstraction from the physical worl…

> The movement of electrons that gives rise to consciousness (or is interpreted as consciousness), creates information. This process is an abstraction from the physical world. It's not clear to me what you mean when you say consciousness is an abstraction - is this dualism? Consciousness seems pretty thoroughly grounded in real stuff. Intelligent agents might "create information" in some sense, but there is no indica…

No, not dualism. I meant this abstraction in the same sense as moving from the level of transistors when talking about a computer, to the level of, say, C++ objects in the software that runs on that computer. I'm not sure I understand your reference to thermodynamics. Information is created when a certain meaning is assigned to a pattern. Who assigns that meaning? As you said - an intelligent agent. This intelligent agent is the abstraction I'm talking about. It can be implemented with electrons flowing between neurons, or with photons in some kind of an optical computer - the physical implementation is not important. The high level structure and operation are important, that's why I think that simulating a human consciousness on a computer will result in a real consciousness, unlike simulating a rain. It might not be exactly the same consciousness as the original one, but it can be arbitrary close. For example, we can simulate Atari 2600 console on a modern computer in sufficient detail to play games exactly the same as we would play them on the real, physical console. We don't need to simulate every transistor in the original console for that.

Re: Objects of consciousness

#57

Post by deciplex » Mon, Jul 06, 2015, 7:53 AM UTC

p1esk wrote: post #56

deciplex wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The movement of electrons that gives rise to consciousness (or is interpreted as consciousness), creates information. This process is an abstraction from the physical world. It's not clear to me what you mean when you say consciousness is an abstraction - is this dualism? Consciousness seems pretty thoroughly grounded in real stuff. Intelligent agents might "create information" in some sense, but there is no indica…

No, not dualism. I meant this abstraction in the same sense as moving from the level of transistors when talking about a computer, to the level of, say, C++ objects in the software that runs on that computer. I'm not sure I understand your reference to thermodynamics. Information is created when a certain meaning is assigned to a pattern. Who assigns that meaning? As you said - an intelligent agent. This intelligent…

Fair enough. I brought up thermodynamics because you seemed to be implying that intelligent agents would assign meaning to things without doing any work. It wasn't clear to me from where the "information" was being created.

Would you agree that, in order for simulated rain to be "really rain", you would require a conscious person inside the simulation who regards it as such?

Re: Objects of consciousness

#58

Post by carapace » Mon, Jul 06, 2015, 4:58 PM UTC

Elrac wrote: post #38

carapace wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that individual neurons (indeed all cells) are conscious. Every micro-video I've ever seen leads me to credit that these tiny creatures are "people" in the same way that any multi-cellular living being is a person. I think consciousness is an intrinsic aspect of the Universe, which seems to be fundamentally made of it and something we can call the flux which is everything else. The flux has pattern/form and…

> I believe that individual neurons (indeed all cells) are conscious. OK, I'll bite: Just what makes you believe that? What evidence convinces you this is true?

There is nothing I can point to that serves as evidence of consciousness. As I said above, the only way we know that the word "consciousness" has a referent in the real world is that we experience it. I have no evidence that microbes and cells are conscious any more than I have evidence that I am, or you are.

I have, myself, had some experiences that seem to me to have something to do with some of the statements I sometimes make about "consciousness".

But there is no way to share that experience with you, no symbols I can transmit. There is no consciousness-o-meter (except for consciousness itself maybe.)

Re: Objects of consciousness

#59

Post by p1esk » Mon, Jul 06, 2015, 7:11 PM UTC

deciplex wrote: post #57

p1esk wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not dualism. I meant this abstraction in the same sense as moving from the level of transistors when talking about a computer, to the level of, say, C++ objects in the software that runs on that computer. I'm not sure I understand your reference to thermodynamics. Information is created when a certain meaning is assigned to a pattern. Who assigns that meaning? As you said - an intelligent agent. This intelligent…

Fair enough. I brought up thermodynamics because you seemed to be implying that intelligent agents would assign meaning to things without doing any work. It wasn't clear to me from where the "information" was being created. Would you agree that, in order for simulated rain to be "really rain", you would require a conscious person inside the simulation who regards it as such?

"Would you agree that, in order for simulated rain to be "really rain", you would require a conscious person inside the simulation who regards it as such?"

I'm not sure about your question: are you asking if we should regard the simulated rain to be real if it's real for a simulated person?

This reminds me: "If a tree falls down in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

Let's compare two situations: 1. There are real people on the other side of the world, who experience a real rain (but we, on this side of the world, can't experience that rain directly). 2. There are simulated people who experience a simulated rain, which is real to them.

The simulated people have real consciousness, and are indistinguishable from real people if viewed within their virtual world. They can even control robotic human-like bodies in the real world. Can we say the simulated people are real? What if we regard the virtual world to be an extension of the real world, like the "New World" (the Americas) was considered to be an extension of the Old World? In that case, the rain experienced by virtual people is just as real as the rain experienced by the real people on the other side of the real world.

Thanks for such an interesting question!

Re: Objects of consciousness

#60

Post by Elrac » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 8:31 PM UTC

carapace wrote: post #58

Elrac wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe that individual neurons (indeed all cells) are conscious. OK, I'll bite: Just what makes you believe that? What evidence convinces you this is true?

There is nothing I can point to that serves as evidence of consciousness. As I said above, the only way we know that the word "consciousness" has a referent in the real world is that we experience it. I have no evidence that microbes and cells are conscious any more than I have evidence that I am, or you are. I have, myself, had some experiences that seem to me to have something to do with some of the statements I so…

Fair enough! We share most of our view of what's what, and differ mainly in interpretation.

For what it's worth, I consider consciousness to be a capability, like the ability to digest cellulose or to echolocate; and I consider it to exist on a continuum, with us humid beings being the most capable (that we know of) and unicellular microbes arguably the least. And the degree of capability looks to be strongly related to the complexity of a living being's brain (or what passes for it - microbes cogitate, in a very dim but adequate-to-their-needs way by discharging and detecting chemicals in their protoplasm). From all the examples we're aware of, it appears that consciousness is a process, what brains do, kinda like a flame is what a candle does.

We've only ever (reliably) observed the phenomena we associate with consciousness in living brains. If we work hard enough at mimicking brains in silicon, we may one day see consciousness in man-made machines. I, at least, have a lot of trouble imagining that consciousness can arise independently of structures painstakingly evolved in that direction or even more painstakingly constructed. Humans pay a huge price for their capable brains - the difficulty and risk of childbirth, the prodigous consumption of (I think) one-fifth of the body's energy. If consciousness were something lying around elsewhere, evolution would not have needed to take this costly route.

That's me, science and reason talking. Of course there's always a possibility we're surprisingly wrong about this.