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Consciousness as a State of Matter (2014)

arxiv.org

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Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter (2014)

#21

Post by [deleted] »

curo wrote: post #9
hackinthebochs wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel you have it backwards. That there are observers doesn't seem like much of a mystery: there doesn't seem to be anything mysterious about observers beyond the right kind of computation. The mystery is the qualitative experience of conscious observers, the feel, the what it is like to be, etc.

> "beyond the right kind of computation" Could you explain this? The observer isn't a mystery, I agree. But the original comment seems spot on: if you are describing consciousness as a state of matter, then you're saying something like, "matter inherits a different set of qualities when it's in a consciousness state (as opposed to a solid or liquid state)." If the state change leads to a change of quality, then you'r…

[deleted]

Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter (2014)

#22

Post by abritinthebay »

djtriptych wrote: post #16
irickt wrote: post #3

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=6551 >>> Tegmark’s career is a rather unusual story, mixing reputable science with an increasingly strong taste for grandiose nonsense. In this book he indulges his inner crank, describing in detail an utterly empty vision of the “ultimate nature of reality.”

Unless this vision can be directly disproven, why should anyone attach labels like "grandiose" or "nonsense" or "empty"?

That's the exact opposite of the correct approach.

Unless it can be proven (and he doesn't, at all, prove his case) then there is no reason to not describe it as such.

(Grandiose is the exception - that's a stylistic judgement and quite apt here, irrespective of its truth value)

Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter (2014)

#23

Post by irickt »

djtriptych wrote: post #16
irickt wrote: post #3

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=6551 >>> Tegmark’s career is a rather unusual story, mixing reputable science with an increasingly strong taste for grandiose nonsense. In this book he indulges his inner crank, describing in detail an utterly empty vision of the “ultimate nature of reality.”

Unless this vision can be directly disproven, why should anyone attach labels like "grandiose" or "nonsense" or "empty"?

It's a fair question. The quote is one reviewer's opinion. I posted it without explanation as context for the paper.

A more neutral warning is that Tegmark has moved from conventional science towards untestable speculation. That and the fact that he has cultivated funding sources more aligned with the occult than with science has left many of his peers seemingly resentful.

Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter (2014)

#25

Post by selimthegrim »

akyu wrote: post #24

The math in this paper is beyond your average Hacker News poster. So no wonder these comments are just name calling.

Scott Aaronson left a smoking hole where Tononi's theories used to be not too long ago. If you want quantum theorizing about consciousness I suggest you start here instead - https://www.quantamagazine.org/20161102-quantum-neuroscience...

Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter (2014)

#26

Post by blechinger »

robertothais wrote: post #11
curo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "beyond the right kind of computation" Could you explain this? The observer isn't a mystery, I agree. But the original comment seems spot on: if you are describing consciousness as a state of matter, then you're saying something like, "matter inherits a different set of qualities when it's in a consciousness state (as opposed to a solid or liquid state)." If the state change leads to a change of quality, then you'r…

If consciousness is a physical thing, how can you be so convinced that it is impossible to talk about it in physical terms? Couldn't the difficulty be due to a deficiency in our current explanatory power, as opposed to something more fundamental? What evidence do you have to support that biological talk (about consciousness, or otherwise) is necessarily irreducible to physical talk? These questions are very interesti…

[dead]

Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter (2014)

#27

Post by vixen99 »

Elrac wrote: post #4

To me, this read like Alan Sokal's Postmodernism troll piece. I understand Tegmark is a reputable physicist, but the abstract could have been written by Deepak Chopra after skimming a math text.

But it wasn't and certainly not the paper which the abstract introduces.

Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter (2014)

#28

Post by ghughu »

None of us seem qualified to judge this paper as valid or not valid or to say which parts are valid and which aren't and why.

But the only active thing we can do in Hacker News is leave a comment and this article tickles with me enough to want to leave a comment.

I guess the best comment I can leave here is one that avoids the ignorant-about-own-ignorance pitfall of false expertise and just leave a meta-comment about the comments.

Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter (2014)

#29

Post by Insanity »

(disclaimer: I did not yet read the whole paper)

This part stood out to me in their idea of how philosophy views consciousness

> A traditional answer to this problem is dualism — that living entities differ from inanimate ones because they contain some non-physical element such as an “anima” or “soul”.

I believe this makes it sound like philosophers are actively looking for the soul, or another explanation of consciousness that lies outside of 'physics'.

This might be true for some philosophers, but there are other philosophies to adhere to. More contemporary would be the works of Daniel Dennett or John Searle.

Cartesian Dualism is surely something not a lot of philosophers would get behind anymore.

Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter (2014)

#30

Post by xapata »

Insanity wrote: post #29

(disclaimer: I did not yet read the whole paper) This part stood out to me in their idea of how philosophy views consciousness > A traditional answer to this problem is dualism — that living entities differ from inanimate ones because they contain some non-physical element such as an “anima” or “soul”. I believe this makes it sound like philosophers are actively looking for the soul, or another explanation of conscio…

I understood Searle's "Chinese Room" argument to advocate dualism -- that there's something more to being intelligent than just behavior. Searle says the more is consciousness, but I don't see the distinction between that version of the concept and a soul or "ghost" in the machine.
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