The hidden variable of consciousness experiment

[RecoveringYuppy]

Thanks, Roborama, for saving me from typing some of this.

And basically everything is just particles and fields interacting. But neither of those things implies that there are no interesting questions or surprises left.

Yeah, that explanation was definitely true but still incredibly vacuous. Short of nuclear reactions, what theprestige said could apply to everything else.

He seems to be implying that neuroscience and psychology are complete. Which is nonsense. Now, I says seems, because it's also clear that's not what he meant, that he's simply saying that there's nothing supernatural going on, and I do think we have very good evidence that he's right.

This is a recurring problem on this forum, especially on this subject. It can't be discussed because it gets shutdown with people lying about anyone who claims neuroscience is complete enough to explain memory, thought, or consciousness. There was a recent thread that went 400 posts before any dualists or "soulists" showed up, yet that didn't stop the accusations of being a theist or the one line zingers ("mind is what the brain does") that only make sense to say to theists.

But somehow those two ideas are being conflated, even by him, otherwise he wouldn't be arguing with RY after RY said:

Yeah, that's what you get on this forum. People who can only argue against you by completely misrepresenting you.

 

[Cheetah]

ServiceSoon, do you basically want to compare identical people to each other in the hope that they will in some way behave differently from each other?
The conclusion being that the difference cannot have a material origin and therefore consciousness must have a supernatural aspect.


Definitely impossible to do in practice.
The best way to do it would be to use a either a matter replicator or a time machine, or both.

Even though consciousness is not understood it's really no less mysterious than many other things neural networks can do. There is absolutely no reason to suspect any supernatural input.

Yes, of course. But as an explanation for human memory, that's a totally pathetic non-starter. Do you have an explanation or not?

Presumably in a similar way that a neural network can look at a bunch of photos and memorize them so that it can fill in the details in a blurry photo from memory, even though it has not seen that specific photo before.
Or the same way it can learn to control a bipedal robot and learn to balance itself and to walk by trail and error, or play chess, even discovering brand new strategies never seen before.


If simple small NNs can do that, imagine what one with a 100 billion cells, each with about 10,000 connections, arranged in who knows how many specialized modules and honed over millions of years of evolution is capable of.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

What specifically is impossible to achieve?

You need 30 genetically identical subjects raised in identical environments and with identical life experiences. Even if that were possible to some arbitrary level of precision, you're investigating consciousness so (I dare to presume) the test subjects ought to be capable of consciousness. If that does not mean humans, what does it mean?

Agreed! I am not attempting to measure something. I cannot measure something if I’m unaware of its existence. At this stage I’m not interested in speculating what that something might be. This experiment was designed to determine if that something exist.

You hope to infer the existence of some unidentified effect by measuring other phenomena. Exactly which phenomena are relevant indicators of a difference between subjects' consciousness? How do you choose what differences to look for and how do you prove their relevance?

 

[Cheetah]

Just to add, you cannot have two identical people. You cannot even have two identical cells, never mind a multi-cellular organism.

 

[Mojo]

What specifically is impossible to achieve?

Agreed! I am not attempting to measure something. I cannot measure something if I’m unaware of its existence. At this stage I’m not interested in speculating what that something might be. This experiment was designed to determine if that something exist.

How can you determine that something exists without defining characteristics by which it could be detected?

Are you attempting some sort of “God of the gaps” argument?

 

[ServiceSoon]

Please explain why it is that Langton's ant invariably builds a highway regardless of starting conditions? Can you do that?

I've never seen this before. I appreciate your introducing me to it. I believe that the 'highway' pattern is an artifact of the programming. The pattern may have been an unintentional result of the programming, but it a result none-the-less.

No, but memory is simple in concept. Store and recall information.

Hans

Memory is conceptualized as a three step process similar to computers; encode, storage, & retrieve. Accepting those assumptions for the process of memory means that plants have memory. If memory is implicated in consciousness then plants deserve this most elusive designation.

 

[MikeG]

........This experiment was designed to determine if that something exist.

Erm...........no. Everyone saw through that from the very first post. This experiment, if you can call it that, was designed to show that something you want to exist, exists.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Memory is conceptualized as a three step process similar to computers; encode, storage, & retrieve. Accepting those assumptions for the process of memory means that plants have memory. If memory is implicated in consciousness then plants deserve this most elusive designation.

Memory is a part of consciousness, but it does not indicate consciousness. Nuts and bolds are parts of cars, but they don't indicate cars.

I can design a simple two transistor circuit for you that has memory.

hans

 

[Belz...]

Biology of consciousness is old news. Quantum Biology may be the future. I wasn't aware of this area of inquiry until today. SG provided the keywords I used to find it.

 

[Belz...]

Yes, of course. But as an explanation for human memory, that's a totally pathetic non-starter. Do you have an explanation or not?

What's that have to do with consciousness? Computers have memory.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Erm...........no. Everyone saw through that from the very first post. This experiment, if you can call it that, was designed to show that something you want to exist, exists.

I think what everyone suspects is that the experiment is designed to give the appearance that something you want to exists, exists, whether it does or not. If all variables appear to be controlled, then any difference in outcome will be attributed to some mysterious other factor; but in reality it's impossible to control all variables sufficiently precisely to make all outcomes identical in a chaotic system, so it's more or less assured that a positive result will be claimed.

Dave

 

[JoeMorgue]

What's that have to do with consciousness? Computers have memory.

Because consciousness as it is used in threads like this doesn't exist.

It's a vague term of vague vaguness that boils down to "I want magic to be real so I'm more than a sack of meat and bones driven by electrical impulses" so "Just keep screaming 'Explain this!' and 'Explain that!' about things that aren't even related" is used.

If this discussion picks up steam in a few pages the usual suspects will be in here screaming about materialism and subtext will become the text and will then go nowhere.

 

[ServiceSoon]

I'm an atheist who has never believed in a soul and believe that we'll develop artificial intelligence, including consciousness, in a computer. So try again.

Cite the explanation if you have it. You can't, there isn't one. FFS we don't even know the mechanism that stores memories, and that's part of the simple problem.

Im existentialist agnostic who believes that scientist will invent an operational definition for consciousness, create AI which mimics those characteristics, and then claim to have created a conscious entity.

 

[ServiceSoon]

I believe that the proposed experiment is unworkable due to the effects of chaos. The end result will be so extremely sensitive to the initial conditions and uncontrollable minute differences between the subjects that it will be impossible to detect the effects any other influences. The approach is all wrong.

Added: Say you run the experiment as you propose, controlling as best you can for differences between subjects and as a result you find minute differences in the pH of their urine samples. What would that tell you about consciousness? What would your next step be?

Insufficient data to make any determination. The outcomes of such an experiment are numerous. We could speculate, but it would make more sense to conduct it. The data may or may not be usable.

There are many different definitions of consciousness, none seem to really cover it. This has lead people who would like there to be a "soul" to claim that this is sign of such a thing.

I'm not sure who these people are, however, I am not one of them.

 

[jrhowell]

Insufficient data to make any determination. The outcomes of such an experiment are numerous. We could speculate, but it would make more sense to conduct it. The data may or may not be usable.

I don't think that you have convinced anyone of the value of conducting this experiment. If you are wealthy enough to afford to finance it then you are free to give it a go.

 

[Cheetah]

Insufficient data to make any determination. The outcomes of such an experiment are numerous. We could speculate, but it would make more sense to conduct it. The data may or may not be usable.

Your experiment is completely impossible and won't prove anything in any case.
You aren't even the same person 5 minutes apart and could as likely make different choices in the same situation.


If you would like an idea of how the brain works, I read a pretty good book a few years ago, Incognito. It might be a few years old already and the field has progressed in leaps and bounds, but it's an easy and fascinating read.
I think we will eventually, probably, figure out brains and consciousness, not by studying a meat brain, but by studying a replica modeled on a computer.
Then we will finally realize computers also have souls.

 

[abaddon]

I've never seen this before. I appreciate your introducing me to it. I believe that the 'highway' pattern is an artifact of the programming. The pattern may have been an unintentional result of the programming, but it a result none-the-less.

That is so wrong it is amusing. You can do this in the real world and get the same result.

It matters not in the slightest whether you do it in a computer or on your living room floor.

Why do you not understand this?

Or is it simply an excuse of convenience?

Get it into your head. Langton's Ant behaves the same way regardless of whether or not it is modeled on a computer or a floor.

It boggles the mind that you did not comprehend this. You can do it with playing cards on a floor FFS.

Computers and programming is merely a means of speeding it up.

The claim that it is a programming artifact is risible.

Memory is conceptualized as a three step process similar to computers; encode, storage, & retrieve. Accepting those assumptions for the process of memory means that plants have memory. If memory is implicated in consciousness then plants deserve this most elusive designation.

Every word you just said is wrong.

 

[bruto]

Just to add, you cannot have two identical people. You cannot even have two identical cells, never mind a multi-cellular organism.

I was planning to jump on this one. It appears from the first post that the proposed experiment is inherently impossible, and thus drops back into the usual speculative realm where most consciousness questions come to rest.

 

[ServiceSoon]

Humans behaviour is obviously chaotic in the sense of being very sensitive to initial conditions. Which makes your suggested experiment basically impossible, or at least impossible to do in a way that would offer meaningful results.

What if the subjects of the experiment were unicellular organisms?

Well, most likely this is one reason our increasingly complex computers don't suddenly develop consciousness, and probably never will: They are carefully built to be as deterministic as possible. If they do show chaotic signs, it is a malfunction (or a Windows feature ).

Not so with the biological brain. It has evolved to handle uncertainty. One trait of sentience is the ability to make useful decisions based on insufficient data. An animal in the wild can rarely afford to wait for sufficient data to show up (yes, that lion WAS coming for me), it must try to make the best possible decision with what it haves, and it fills in the blanks with previous experiences and pure fantasy.

I have worked with automatic routing algorithms. It sometimes happens that two paths are equally valid. It is then useful to program the router to make a random decision. It is not unlikely that biological brains do the same.

Thus, even theoretically identical beings might make different decisions in identical situation.

The OP (and others searching for the soul in similar ways) would also be wise to ask themselves: Is the sole purpose of the putative soul really just to add variability?

Hans

I'm not searching for the soul. I will still answer your question. Theologians believe that each individual persons soul is unique. If I accept that presupposition it would be self evident that individuality would present as a measurable variability.

You need 30 genetically identical subjects raised in identical environments and with identical life experiences. Even if that were possible to some arbitrary level of precision, you're investigating consciousness so (I dare to presume) the test subjects ought to be capable of consciousness. If that does not mean humans, what does it mean?

I cannot answer your question because consciousness hasn't been defined in any meaningful way. I'm not in position to speculate intelligently on that.

You hope to infer the existence of some unidentified effect by measuring other phenomena. Exactly which phenomena are relevant indicators of a difference between subjects' consciousness? How do you choose what differences to look for and how do you prove their relevance?

I'm unsure which phenomena would be different. The results would be shared and dialogue would help answer what differences were relevant indicators.

That is so wrong it is amusing. You can do this in the real world and get the same result.

It matters not in the slightest whether you do it in a computer or on your living room floor.

Why do you not understand this?

Or is it simply an excuse of convenience?

Get it into your head. Langton's Ant behaves the same way regardless of whether or not it is modeled on a computer or a floor.

It boggles the mind that you did not comprehend this. You can do it with playing cards on a floor FFS.

Computers and programming is merely a means of speeding it up.

The claim that it is a programming artifact is risible.

Every word you just said is wrong.

Programming can be described as a set of instructions that when followed have a specific result. A human or computer can follow those instructions in the same manner; the result will be the same.

There is no mystery to me that the result of the same instructions are independent of the medium used to carryout those instructions. The highway pattern is a result of the instructions, that is to say an artifact of the instructions/programming.

If I am completely overlooking something please share.

 

[Cheetah]

I'm not searching for the soul. I will still answer your question. Theologians believe that each individual persons soul is unique. If I accept that presupposition it would be self evident that individuality would present as a measurable variability.

Then you don't need to do your experiment.
It is estimated that the average human cell contains 10¹⁴ atoms.
Even if you could create two cells with the exact same number of atoms (impossible) and arrange every single atom in the exact same position in relation to every other (totally impossible) they would literally diverge and not be identical any more in the minutest fraction of a second.
Take just one of the estimated 75000 human enzymes, Carbonic anhydrase, it's one of the fastest and can hydrate 10⁶ molecules of CO₂ per second.
Chemical reactions happen really fast.
All individual cells are unique.