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A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter

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Re: A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter

#221

Post by skissane »

heyjamesknight wrote: post #64
wat10000 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I skimmed it. There's one mention of "qualia" and I didn't spot anything to connect their theory with the actual experience of consciousness besides them saying they think so.

Better let Nature know their Peer Review committee screwed up then!

> Better let Nature know their Peer Review committee screwed up then!

The article you cite [0] is labelled as "opinion". The standards for peer review of opinion articles in scientific journals are a lot lower than those for ordinary research articles. While precise standards vary from journal to journal, for opinion articles peer reviewers often see their role as simply excluding egregious misinformation and blatant errors, as compared to research articles where their role is to make sure the article is presenting high quality evidence in support of its conclusions. [1]

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn.2016.44

[1] https://ecologyisnotadirtyword.com/2021/02/24/lets-talk-abou...

Re: A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter

#222

Post by red75prime »

Apocryphon wrote: post #188
red75prime wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with sci-fi and this matter is that the author can portray anything that suits his/her ideas. Can Rorschach exist as described? Who knows.

Watts also believes in the Ganzfeld effect, as per Starfish , yeah so his beliefs in the mind should definitely be taken with a grain of salt.

What's wrong with the Ganzfeld effect? I can experience it personally even without a uniform visual field by suppressing saccades for about thirty seconds.

Or, at least, I could. It seems I lost the knack of controlling saccades. When I was younger I was able to suppress saccades and induce nystagmus-like eyeballs movement.

Ah, I still can do it after some tries. Amplitude of induced nystagmus seems to have diminished though. And it's more uncomfortable than it was.

Re: A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter

#223

Post by ben_w »

andoando wrote: post #218
szvsw wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any matrix multiplication can be trivially unwrapped into a bunch of for loops with basic arithmetic. In fact, that is exactly what any GPU kernel ultimately does in some sense. What differentiates a “traditional computer program” from a single matmul? How about a bunch of matmuls? How about a bunch of matmuls with some non-linear arithmetic thrown in between them? And if we are adding in sampling from a distribution…

What you seem to be saying is that the machinary your traditional computer program executes on is capable of executing intelligence. What I said is thst a traditional computer program (say Excel) is not intelligent in itself, as it cannot, itself, without further input from a human, adapt.

> What I said is thst a traditional computer program (say Excel) is not intelligent in itself, as it cannot, itself, without further input from a human, adapt.

Excel is as capable of adapting to new input as any AI, and the input need not come from a human specifically: the act of adapting to input is an automatic consequence of being able to perform linear regression.

In fact, this is the real value of a spreadsheet over a piece of gridded paper where the sums are done by hand.

If "adapting to input" is your test for intelligence, however, it is a test which a thermostat will pass.

Re: A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter

#224

Post by heyjamesknight »

skissane wrote: post #221
heyjamesknight wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better let Nature know their Peer Review committee screwed up then!

> Better let Nature know their Peer Review committee screwed up then! The article you cite [0] is labelled as "opinion". The standards for peer review of opinion articles in scientific journals are a lot lower than those for ordinary research articles. While precise standards vary from journal to journal, for opinion articles peer reviewers often see their role as simply excluding egregious misinformation and blatant…

That would be because I linked the wrong article. The original is here, different journal:

https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/jo...

Re: A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter

#225

Post by naasking »

skissane wrote: post #209
_1tem wrote: post #121

Here's an interesting thought experiment. Take any definition of consciousness or intelligence that is not based on biological components. For example "reacts to stimuli, exhibits anger". You can apply that definition to other entities like the United States. Does the United States react to stimuli (i.e. invasion) and exhibit anger? Yes (e.g. Pearl Harbor). Therefore the United States is conscious? If a person argues…

There's a great philosophy paper making this argument: Schwitzgebel, Eric. “If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious.” Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, vol. 172, no. 7, 2015, pp. 1697–721. https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/USAconscious... Discussed previously on HN: July 2015 (210 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item…

> There's a great philosophy paper making this argument: Schwitzgebel, Eric. “If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious.”

Maybe, but this strikes me as a borderline category error, like saying, "If databases can order results, then they are probably sorting algorithms". The argument makes assumptions that consciousness is transitive or "sticky" in some sense, where if a property applies to a part of the system it must also apply to some aggregate of those parts.

Re: A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter

#226

Post by _1tem »

naasking wrote: post #225
skissane wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a great philosophy paper making this argument: Schwitzgebel, Eric. “If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious.” Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, vol. 172, no. 7, 2015, pp. 1697–721. https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/USAconscious... Discussed previously on HN: July 2015 (210 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item…

> There's a great philosophy paper making this argument: Schwitzgebel, Eric. “If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious.” Maybe, but this strikes me as a borderline category error, like saying, "If databases can order results, then they are probably sorting algorithms". The argument makes assumptions that consciousness is transitive or "sticky" in some sense, where if a property applies to a par…

The difference here is we know the definition of sorting algorithms, but we don't have a working definition for "consciousness". The argument is, if we use materialist definitions, then lots of unexpected things fit the definition.

Re: A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter

#227

Post by naasking »

_1tem wrote: post #226
naasking wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a great philosophy paper making this argument: Schwitzgebel, Eric. “If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious.” Maybe, but this strikes me as a borderline category error, like saying, "If databases can order results, then they are probably sorting algorithms". The argument makes assumptions that consciousness is transitive or "sticky" in some sense, where if a property applies to a par…

The difference here is we know the definition of sorting algorithms, but we don't have a working definition for "consciousness". The argument is, if we use materialist definitions, then lots of unexpected things fit the definition.

> The argument is, if we use materialist definitions, then lots of unexpected things fit the definition.

No, this doesn't follow, that's my point. This depends on further constraining materialist consciousness to have the specific kind of property I described. It's possible that consciousness is like "sorting algorithm", a specific property of a specific kind of system, and aggregates of such systems don't necessarily have that same property. They might, but it's too strong to say they definitely or probably do.

Re: A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter

#228

Post by Apocryphon »

red75prime wrote: post #222
Apocryphon wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watts also believes in the Ganzfeld effect, as per Starfish , yeah so his beliefs in the mind should definitely be taken with a grain of salt.

What's wrong with the Ganzfeld effect? I can experience it personally even without a uniform visual field by suppressing saccades for about thirty seconds. Or, at least, I could. It seems I lost the knack of controlling saccades. When I was younger I was able to suppress saccades and induce nystagmus-like eyeballs movement. Ah, I still can do it after some tries. Amplitude of induced nystagmus seems to have diminishe…

He believes, or rather entertains, the parapsychology claims that the effect relates to ESP

https://www.rifters.com/real/STARFISH.htm#references

Re: A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter

#229

Post by skissane »

heyjamesknight wrote: post #224
skissane wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Better let Nature know their Peer Review committee screwed up then! The article you cite [0] is labelled as "opinion". The standards for peer review of opinion articles in scientific journals are a lot lower than those for ordinary research articles. While precise standards vary from journal to journal, for opinion articles peer reviewers often see their role as simply excluding egregious misinformation and blatant…

That would be because I linked the wrong article. The original is here, different journal: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/jo...

I think this article has the problem that it is addressing an interdisciplinary topic with too much focus on only a single discipline, which can be a sign of lacking sufficient diversity in disciplinary background of peer reviewers.

Scott Aaronson’s attempted refutation of IIT - https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=1799 - I think is better in that he actually tries to relate IIT to some of the philosophical literature (e.g. his distinction between Chalmers’ “Hard Problem” and the distinct “Pretty Hard Problem” which he sees IIT as trying to address)

I think it is a pity that Aaronson has never (to my knowledge) published his criticisms of IIT in a more formal setting-and I don’t know if Tononi has responded to them anywhere. I think Aaronson is probably right - that IIT fails as a mathematical model of what we intuitively consider conscious, since even though it excludes many common electronic devices we wouldn’t “conscious”, it is possible to mathematically construct an algorithm, capable of being physically implemented in electronics, which would be conscious per IIT but not per our intuition. And even if Tononi patches his mathematics to solve a particular case of that problem, someone with Aaronson’s skillset may just be able to construct another.

Tononi might then argue that if there is no mathematical model of our intuitions about consciousness lacking in special pleading, that’s a sign our intuitions are flawed. Okay, but then if we accept our intuitions can be flawed in some cases, why not in more cases? One could decide the intuition of consciousness is completely erroneous and become an eliminativist about it. Or, if IIT forces you to accept (contrary to our intuitions) certain (special cases of) simple electronic devices or computer systems as just as conscious as humans, why not violate those intuitions further and insist on that for even more cases?

Re: A new proposal for how mind emerges from matter

#230

Post by skissane »

naasking wrote: post #225
skissane wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a great philosophy paper making this argument: Schwitzgebel, Eric. “If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious.” Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, vol. 172, no. 7, 2015, pp. 1697–721. https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/USAconscious... Discussed previously on HN: July 2015 (210 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item…

> There's a great philosophy paper making this argument: Schwitzgebel, Eric. “If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious.” Maybe, but this strikes me as a borderline category error, like saying, "If databases can order results, then they are probably sorting algorithms". The argument makes assumptions that consciousness is transitive or "sticky" in some sense, where if a property applies to a par…

> The argument makes assumptions that consciousness is transitive or "sticky" in some sense, where if a property applies to a part of the system it must also apply to some aggregate of those parts.

I think the argument is really about substrate-independence. If consciousness is just about functional properties, then why can’t a social collectivity exhibit those functional properties?

Many materialists do in fact endorse substrate-independence - the common belief that an AI/AGI could in principle be as conscious as we are (even if current generations of AI likely aren’t) depends on it - and I think substrate-independent materialism likely does fall victim to this argument. Now, maybe not, if there is some functional property we can point to that individual humans and animals possess but which their social collectivities lack-but then, what is that property?

Other viewpoints don’t endorse substrate-independence. For example, Penrose-Hameroff’s orchestrated objective reduction, if you would call that materialism - I think you can interpret it as a materialist theory (e.g. the in principle empirically testable claim that neurons have a physical structure with certain unique quantum properties, plus the less testable claim that those properties are essential for consciousness) or as a dualist theory (e.g. these alleged unique quantum processes as a vehicle for classical Cartesian interactionism). The more materialist reading could be viewed as a substrate-dependent materialism which escapes Schwitzgebel‘s argument. But I don’t think most materialists want to go there (seems too dualism-adjacent), and the theory’s claims about QM and neurobiology are unproven and rather dubious.

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