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Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism

#211

Post by kypro »

adwn wrote: post #113
kypro wrote: post #84

Am I the only one who thinks the consciousness question is really quite easy to understand and answer? The illusion of consciousness is obviously beneficial. For example, I could tell a computer, through the use of sensors, to report that it's in pain when it's hit. But you wouldn't take it seriously, or care for its suffering, because it hasn't also declared that it is under the illusion that its suffering has a kin…

You seem to be misunderstanding the question of consciousness. It's not about how you observe others to appear conscious, but about how you yourself observe your own consciousness. > It's a lie our brain tells us [...] Who is "us"? Or, to be more precise, if your brain tells you that you're experiencing pain, than what is " you ", and what is " experiencing "? That's the question of consciousness. This is not somethi…

> You seem to be misunderstanding the question of consciousness. It's not about how you observe others to appear conscious, but about how you yourself observe your own consciousness.

Well yeah, I experience something which I understand to be a conscious experience, but I don't think it's real. I accept there is an experience of consciousness, but I don't see any reason to believe it is real even though I think I experience it.

> Who is "us"? Or, to be more precise, if your brain tells you that you're experiencing pain, than what is "you", and what is "experiencing"? That's the question of consciousness.

I think my brain is sensing pain and telling me to perceive the pain in the context of "self".

I've never understood why some people don't think this logically consistent honestly. It seems like the only possible explanation unless you start assuming consciousness is a metaphysical, almost magical thing.

> You'll probably say that they're both not conscious, although there is no hard evidence either way. And that's because we don't know how to reliably observe consciousness.

This isn't a good argument. There's no hard evidence that there isn't an invisible elephant sat next to you right now. I don't understand why you are even assuming that there might be something such as consciousness? There is literally no objective physical evidence for it, where as there is mass amounts of data to show neurologically it's probably an illusion. Really all I am saying is that I don't think we should believe our minds when they tell us our experiences are important because we are so bias, and there are clear evolutionary incentives for us to think that way.

Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism

#212

Post by eeZah7Ux »

dilap wrote: post #27

An interesting thought experiment is to imagine an incredibly-detailed computer simulation of a brain, down to the level of individual cells and neurotransmitters. (While this is beyond our current capabilities, it is in principle possible.) Hook the brain up to some decent IO devices, and you’d have an extremely human-like “AI”. (I’m glossing over some tricky details like, do you start with a fetus/baby brain and le…

> An interesting

Not really.

> So the question is, this simulated brain, which is behaving very similarly indeed to a biological brain: does it have consciousness?

Obviously yes. Either that or our brains are filled with magic unicorn dust.

Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism

#213

Post by ohyes »

jjmorrison wrote: post #80
ohyes wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think anything that “sounds like” science but is pretty clearly not measurable or verifiable gets treated with harsh ridicule. This is really a very different philosophical take on our own self importance in the universe. In western philosophy consciousness has been the pervasive thing that “makes us better” than everything else on the planet. (This is true even biblically if you think about it). The idea that…

> I think the idea exists already to some extent. It's almost as if we've always known the true nature of our consciousness, we just keep overlooking it :)

To some extent it’s about inconvenience, right?

Having limited time and not being special (as in connected inextricably to everything else but being not unique or important), really changes ethical considerations, many of which are the basis of our society. A lot of our human selfishness is natural and ingrained, survival of the fittest is fairly ugly. So we justify ourselves in various ways.

But once you know it’s hard to unknow, so there’s a lot to feel empty about in the quiet moments when you remember.

Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism

#214

Post by karmakaze »

I'm trying to be open-minded and make sense of the position.

The first big leap is considering experience to be a continuum from humans down to inorganic matter. This is stretching the meaning of 'experience'. If I walk on snow, does it experience deformation, or does it just deform?

The second leap is saying science only tells us what matter does and not "the intrinsic nature of matter: what matter is, in and of itself." I can't see how this gets you anywhere, you can say it's anything and it's self-satisfying.

The Hollywood ending really lost me. Let's just sweep this consciousness problem into a tiny tiny place and call it intrinsic: "So it turns out that there is a huge hole in our scientific story. The proposal of the panpsychist is to put consciousness in that hole. Consciousness, for the panpsychist, is the intrinsic nature of matter."

Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism

#215

Post by deelowe »

willtim wrote: post #208
dilap wrote: post #27

An interesting thought experiment is to imagine an incredibly-detailed computer simulation of a brain, down to the level of individual cells and neurotransmitters. (While this is beyond our current capabilities, it is in principle possible.) Hook the brain up to some decent IO devices, and you’d have an extremely human-like “AI”. (I’m glossing over some tricky details like, do you start with a fetus/baby brain and le…

> imagine an incredibly-detailed computer simulation of a brain, down to the level of individual cells and neurotransmitters. (While this is beyond our current capabilities, it is in principle possible.) The laws of physics start to become relevant here. It is quite likely that it is not possible to simulate a human brain using a classical computer, at least not at any kind of speed such that it can experience the wo…

Agreed. Are Kurzweil's predictions holding true? I've not read any of his work, but I recall many doubting whether it would stand the test of time due to similar concerns around physical limitations.

Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism

#216

Post by gloriousduke »

codeulike wrote: post #195
adwn wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To build on your thought experiment: > So the question is, this simulated brain, which is behaving very similarly indeed to a biological brain: does it have consciousness? Does it feel? If you answer "yes" to this question, what happens if you split the computations of that simulated brain over a million people equipped with pen and paper? Where is its consciousness happening now? I have yet to hear a satisfying answ…

I have yet to hear a satisfying answer from anyone ... Here's Dennett on this very subject, about 20 years ago. In Consciousness Explained he imagines what a Turing Test conversation between a human 'judge' and a 'Chinese Room' might look like: Judge: Did you hear about the Irishman who found a magic lamp? When he rubbed it a genie appeared and granted him three wishes. “I’ll have a pint of Guiness!” the Irishman rep…

> then you get a picture of an extraordinarily complicated system, and the nuts and bolts of exactly what that system is running on fall away into irrelevance

I think this is a common failing of thought experiments. Gedankenexperiments help us ask better questions and design better real experiments, but if you're trying to use them to make fundamental conclusions about reality in an a priori way, you're likely going to fail.

Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism

#217

Post by phn »

criddell wrote: post #177
phn wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We probably are not yet able to tell if we can simulate a brain fully, with something we call a computer nowadays. If we can, then indeed consciousness comes from the collective function of individual cells. But maybe there's more to the workings of the brain?

Or maybe there's less to consciousness.

Depends on the person :)

Joking aside, I agree with you. My point was simply that we're very ignorant about the brain and its workings, one way or another.

Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism

#218

Post by Veedrac »

adwn wrote: post #90
dilap wrote: post #27

An interesting thought experiment is to imagine an incredibly-detailed computer simulation of a brain, down to the level of individual cells and neurotransmitters. (While this is beyond our current capabilities, it is in principle possible.) Hook the brain up to some decent IO devices, and you’d have an extremely human-like “AI”. (I’m glossing over some tricky details like, do you start with a fetus/baby brain and le…

To build on your thought experiment: > So the question is, this simulated brain, which is behaving very similarly indeed to a biological brain: does it have consciousness? Does it feel? If you answer "yes" to this question, what happens if you split the computations of that simulated brain over a million people equipped with pen and paper? Where is its consciousness happening now? I have yet to hear a satisfying answ…

Alice: We can agree the brain is conscious, yes?

Bob: Of course.

Alice: But what if you scaled up all the neurons in the brain a factor of 2? Would it still be conscious?

Bob: Sure, if it's the same system running the same way. There's no reason to expect it to matter.

Alice: Then if it was a factor 4 larger?

Bob: Absolutely. Human brains are sized as they are as a matter of evolutionary coincidence. Bird neurons are much more compact than ours, and still manage much of the same work.

Alice: Right, but if every neuron also contained chloroplasts?

Bob: Which did what? There isn't much light there.

Alice: Nothing, they're completely ancillary.

Bob: Then yes, evidently it's still the same system... at what point does this become a hard question?

Alice: Just hold on a few orders of magnitude...

Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism

#219

Post by hasbroslasher »

ajuc wrote: post #9

Mu. The definition provided ("consciousness is experience") explains nothing, you cannot experimentally decide if atoms experience anything, the fact that they do or don't doesn't change any prediction for how they behave over time. It's meaningless, like wondering if magic exists but is actively hiding from us. Paranoia is that way. > Despite great progress in our scientific understanding of the brain, we still don’…

> You cannot experimentally decide if atoms experience anything, the fact that they do or don't doesn't change any prediction for how they behave over time. It's meaningless, like wondering if magic exists but is actively hiding from us. Paranoia is that way.

This has so much potential to become a semantic death trap - but let me ask if you think even human experience could be experimentally tested? If you put me in a room, what could you do to see whether or not I'm "having an experience"? Would the mere act of placing me there be an "experience" or would it be a false positive? What does "non-experience" even mean? I don't see it as counterintuitive to suggest that normally inanimate things like rocks can have experiences - though their experiences are fundamentally different than ours. For instance, we will never be smelted, turned into concrete, etc. and rocks don't have memory or feeling apparatus like we do.. but they do "experience" reality on a very simple level.

Re: Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about panpsychism

#220

Post by russdill »

karmakaze wrote: post #214

I'm trying to be open-minded and make sense of the position. The first big leap is considering experience to be a continuum from humans down to inorganic matter. This is stretching the meaning of 'experience'. If I walk on snow, does it experience deformation, or does it just deform? The second leap is saying science only tells us what matter does and not "the intrinsic nature of matter: what matter is, in and of its…

If you'd like to hear someone who disagrees with Goff discussing the idea, I'd highly recommend his podcast with Sean Carroll:

https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2019/11/04/71-p...

A somewhat similar discussion is here:

https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2020/01/06/78-d...

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