The unending quest to explain consciousness • Hacker News Board

Re: The unending quest to explain consciousness

#151

Post by monktastic1 » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 3:57 PM UTC

stromgo wrote: post #124

normalnorm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can point to a protein being expressed by DNA, and then understand how many protein molecules amount to cells, then tissues, then organs. There is a first principle guiding you all the way, even though the complexity is staggering. There is no such first principle with interactions of neurons, in the sense that we know of no quality or property of a neuron that could amount to the phenomena "consciousness", in th…

Consciousness is a computation, and neurons are certainly capable of elementary computation. So the building block has been pointed at (neurons), and its property given (computation). Is the problem that you don't believe that consciousness can emerge from elementary computation, or you believe that it is possible but we have no proof of it?

> Consciousness is a computation

This is begging the question. Consciousness is the sheer seeming-ness of my experience. Perhaps it is reducible to computation, perhaps not, but this is precisely what is under contention.

Re: The unending quest to explain consciousness

#152

Post by peteradio » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 3:58 PM UTC

riskneutral wrote: post #121

The last sentence sums it up: “if you simply rule in advance that the mind must be physical and assume that an understanding of consciousness must be a materialist understanding, because scientific materialism is obviously correct, you end up looking for your keys under the streetlamp because that’s where the light is.“

why search for tangible things in a place that specifically rules out tangible objects?

Re: The unending quest to explain consciousness

#153

Post by Buttons840 » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 4:01 PM UTC

mantap wrote: post #139

adwn wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or you could just ask them. I can easily make a computer program which, when asked "Are you conscious?", will reply with "Yes", but that doesn't mean that it is conscious. Conversely, you can ask someone who doesn't speak English, "Are you conscious?", and they will only stare at you confusedly, but that doesn't mean that they're not conscious. Therefore, "just asking" is not a reliable method at all to find out wh…

How could another human being be not-conscious while displaying all the signs of consciousness? Maybe I have a failure of imagination but if ask my mother "are you conscious?" and she says "yes" then that's pretty conclusive evidence to me. This is actually such a dumb thread I think I'm going to stop now.

It's not dumb, it's philosophy. Philosophy is applying logic to thought. We cannot physically interact with "consciousness", so instead we think about it, put forth ideas, and logically scrutinize those ideas.

If the answer to the question "are you concious?" is conclusive evidence, then evidently not all people are concious, because some will answer "no" to that question. Would you agree with this logic - this if-then statement?

Re: The unending quest to explain consciousness

#154

Post by monktastic1 » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 4:02 PM UTC

shrimpx wrote: post #47

alansammarone wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been researching and thinking about consciousness (and specifically the hard problem) for a while now, and while the whole discussion is interesting, it seems to me that invoking qualia as evidence for the existence of the hard problem (or for there being something "to explain") doesn't really make much sense. Its perfectly plausible, if not likelly, that qualia is also part of the emergent phenomenon . I'm sayi…

The crazy thing is that qualia is materialism. This computer you're typing on is a real thing that's also your qualia. The real failure is to say that qualia is a separate thing that doesn't matter in "materialism".

Under materialism, there's a hypothetical "real computer" that is the cause of your computer-qualia, but they are not identical.

Re: The unending quest to explain consciousness

#155

Post by JamOnItMahn » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 4:04 PM UTC

corporate_shi11 wrote: post #98

The closest we will ever come to describing consciousness is simply describing the correlates of consciousness. The "ultimate cause" of it will forever be a mystery, behind the veil. Consciousness appears to exist outside of the physical world, in that we can describe a physical process entirely without invoking consciousness. Because of this, consciousness is beyond the scientific method and our fundamental understa…

I don't know how to quote your post, so forgive me if I'm doing it wrong...

> The closest we will ever come to describing consciousness is simply describing the correlates of consciousness. The "ultimate cause" of it will forever be a mystery, behind the veil.

I don't agree about it being forever a mystery.

> Consciousness appears to exist outside of the physical world, in that we can describe a physical process entirely without invoking consciousness. Because of this, consciousness is beyond the scientific method and our fundamental understanding in principle, not just in practice.

I do like to think about this. A lot. I compare it to the experience of using a computer. Turn it on and supply it with an operating system and all of the sudden there is a "there" there, even thI don't know how to quote your post, so forgive me if I'm doing it wrong...

> The closest we will ever come to describing consciousness is simply describing the correlates of consciousness. The "ultimate cause" of it will forever be a mystery, behind the veil.

I don't agree about it being forever a mystery.

> Consciousness appears to exist outside of the physical world, in that we can describe a physical process entirely without invoking consciousness. Because of this, consciousness is beyond the scientific method and our fundamental understanding in principle, not just in practice.

I do like to think about this. A lot. I compare it to the experience of using a computer. Turn it on and supply it with an operating system and all of the sudden there is a "there" there, even though physically there is not. I'm not an OS person, kernel-wise, and I've not had any conversations with them on this topic. But I imagine them to be too close to the topic... unable to see the forest through the trees. Take a step back and look at it. Amazing things can happen in a place that is not physically there. Maybe looking at the 80x25 isn't so spectacular (although I am a CLI guy at heart), but think about VR. There is certainly a there there. Simulated, sure, but it exists nowhere in the physical world.

To me, that scenario is something akin to, but certainly not the equivalent of, consciousness. That scenario is caused by electronics... chips and electricity. Physically damage the chips or turn off the electricity and it certainly changes, or even disappears. Yet, that simulation isn't physically extant.

ough physically there is not. I'm not an OS person, kernel-wise, and I've not had any conversations with them on this topic. But I imagine them to be too close to the topic... unable to see the forest through the trees. Take a step back and look at it. Amazing things can happen in a place that is not physically there. Maybe looking at the 80x25 isn't so spectacular (although I am a CLI guy at heart), but think about VR. There is certainly a there there. Simulated, sure, but it exists nowhere in the physical world.

To me, that scenario is something akin to, but certainly not the equivalent of, consciousness. That scenario is caused by electronics... chips and electricity. Physically damage the chips or turn off the electricity and it certainly changes, or even disappears. Yet, that simulation isn't physically extant.

Re: The unending quest to explain consciousness

#156

Post by Buttons840 » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 4:06 PM UTC

taneq wrote: post #82

tim333 wrote: post #11

An interesting thing to me is the unending quest may somewhat end during our lifetimes through us being able to build conscious AI and see how it works.

We'll never build conscious AI, purely because we'll never admit that "a mere computer" is conscious. I think we're more likely to inadvertently prove that qualia don't really exist in us any more than they do in computers.

What if "a mere computer" ends up being superior to a human mind in every way? We may not believe it is concious, but we might end up believing that we ourselves are also not concious in the process.

Re: The unending quest to explain consciousness

#157

Post by rebuilder » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 4:08 PM UTC

mantap wrote: post #139

adwn wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or you could just ask them. I can easily make a computer program which, when asked "Are you conscious?", will reply with "Yes", but that doesn't mean that it is conscious. Conversely, you can ask someone who doesn't speak English, "Are you conscious?", and they will only stare at you confusedly, but that doesn't mean that they're not conscious. Therefore, "just asking" is not a reliable method at all to find out wh…

How could another human being be not-conscious while displaying all the signs of consciousness? Maybe I have a failure of imagination but if ask my mother "are you conscious?" and she says "yes" then that's pretty conclusive evidence to me. This is actually such a dumb thread I think I'm going to stop now.

I am not conscious.

Prove me wrong.

Re: The unending quest to explain consciousness

#158

Post by abnry » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

toasterlovin wrote: post #123

abnry wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, this seems entirely obvious to me but so many people are stuck with a 100% materialism worldview that they expect their to be some scientific "explanation" for consciousness. And that truly baffles me.

A materialistic approach to explaining consciousness is necessary, since consciousness can be affected by physical changes to the brain, which implies that consciousness is fundamentally a physical process.

Obviously a materialistic approach is necessary, but to claim it _only_ requires a materialistic approach is different.

Re: The unending quest to explain consciousness

#159

Post by rebuilder » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 4:10 PM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #60

rebuilder wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it. We can't prove other humans are conscious, I don't see how AI will help clarify anything there.

I'm thinking along the lines of Feynman's "What I cannot create, I do not understand." If we can build machines with dreams, feelings and the like similar to human ones I imagine we'll have a better understanding of how the thing works. Bit like the difference between philosophers of old pondering how birds fly and how to define the word flying vs aircraft designers who build working aircraft and have degrees in aero…

How will we know when we've built such machines?

Re: The unending quest to explain consciousness

#160

Post by acqq » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 4:15 PM UTC

mannykannot wrote: post #132

acqq wrote: post #27

"It's very hard to change people's minds about something like consciousness, and I finally figured out the reason for that. The reason for that is that everybody's an expert on consciousness. (...) With regard to consciousness, people seem to think , each of us seems to think, " I am an expert. Simply by being conscious, I know all about this. " And so, you tell them your theory and they say, "No, no, that's not the…

On reading what was then the top comment on this article, I saw that it asserted as undeniably true a highly debatable proposition. I was about to reply, when I saw that the second did the same. The third was more of an aphorism that looked profound until you thought about it... There do seem to be a lot of people who want our consciousness to remain a mystery. I guess that it is vitalism's last stand. FWIW, I think…

> how come we (think we) have free will?'

That’s easier than you think: what those who use that term for discussions understand that term to mean is mostly based on work made by religious apologists through the centuries. So the answer to “how come” is “to somehow excuse the concept of having all-mighty all-knowing god while people still do whatever.” Thus so constructed “free will” is the limit over which that all mighty can’t cross. That’s why it’s so emotionally defended.