proto-consciousness field theory

[Darat]

If he's suggesting that we have got it all - or most of it - figured out, then it's up to him to evidence that claim and show how his claims are different from those of the countless people who have said the exact same thing over the past three thousand years and have been proved wrong. If he doesn't maintain this then I have no issue with him on this score.... Snip..

You've not understood the point, since you like analogies (your consciousness field) I'll use one at the end.

Today we know at scales down to an incredible level what energies are involved in whatever the universe is made of, so anything akin to your consciousness field has to be within that range. (If it isn't then it ain't interacting with “matter".) There simply isn't the space for the particle that would lead to your counciousness field.

We - as he says in the video - absolutely do not know everything but in some areas we know what can and can't fit in.

Which takes me back to the analogy of the shed. We can measure the volume of the shed without ever going into the shed, so we may not know what is in the shed, what is holding the roof up, how many of those rusted and unusual metal tools that no one ever know the use of and so on but if someone comes along and says there is a full grown African elephant in the shed we can rule that out because there isn't room in the shed for such a beast.

With your idea of a "consciousness field" you are saying there is a fully grown African elephant in the shed.

We know there isn't as it wouldn't fit in the shed.

Your idea of consciousness is another one of those speculations that reality has ruled out.

 

[Bikewer]

Calling this notion of a consciousness field a “theory” is a considerable misuse of the term.
Rather, unsupported and untestable speculation.

Increasingly this is sounding like the “universe is a simulation” arguments where the primary point is.... “You can’t prove it isn’t so.”

That’s quite a lot different than providing any evidence.

 

[Belz...]

The brain processes information. This produces a distortion of the conscious field which in turn produces - or rather is - experience.

Sounds like consciousness is an extraneous entity, then. The brain processes information and does its thing regardless, right?

If the brain stops processing information, or disappears, then the distortion - the experience - vanishes too.

Unless...

...no, best to leave that one alone.

Oh, do go on.

Imagine, then, that some distant alien species creates, by pure chance as far as we're concerned, a robot that behaves exactly like a human and is of the same level of intelligence. It is composed of alien metal and that sort of thing. It might have neurons, it might not, it doesn't matter.

Why do you believe this alien machine must share the attribute of consciousness with the human animal? And what common element would cause this consciousness to manifest?

In the exact same way that legs can produce running.

See, I think you betrayed your fundamental idea when you claimed that my answer of "neurons" implied that I think they're special. They're not, and neither is consciousness. There's really no reason to believe in that consciousness field of yours because it changes nothing and makes no useful predictions. The use would be if YOU consider consciousness to be special i.e. different from normal, material stuff.

But actions don't exist any more than flolloping does.

Huh? Of course they do. When I move my arm, the movement isn't a thing. It's an action. That you could call it something else doesn't change its nature.

It is, and so is tree, but the difference is that trees and consciousness are words that represent things, running and flolloping are not.

I'm sorry but I can't fathom what could make you say that. Running exists, obviously, otherwise you couldn't run. You have no basis to declare that consciousness is more akin to a tree (an object) than to running (an action).

 

[Belz...]

Yep, the morons from Descartes and Locke to Chalmers and Nagel just made stuff up for something to do and JoeMorgue (ISF, 2019) has the right of it.

You do understand that philosophy and science have moved on since the 17th century, right?

How can the brain be consciousness? The brain is a piece of meat, you can hold it in your hands (not your own brain, I advise). You can't hide one of your entities on that sneaky basis.

Ah, there we go. You DO think that consciousness is special, beyond normal matter. You can't fathom that a piece of meat can generate it, which is why you're looking for an out.

To answer your earlier question, the reason why there's no made-up hard problem of running is that people's sense of self isn't threatened by the idea of pieces of meat creating running.

Nope, because the 'run' is not self-aware.

And again: why is being self-aware so much more qualitatively different than being running? Because it feels so? Of course it does, that's not surprising.

One in a long line of scientists who like to announce that science knows everything about X there is to know.

It sure beats laymen.

 

[Belz...]

Let's get this clear, you are asking me why I believe that any physical object can be entirely explained by the laws of physics.

No, the fundamental of the question is why you think consciousness is a different sort of thing than mere neural activity. How do you know that (certain types of) neural activity aren't the same as what we call "consciousness"?

I think it would help people a lot to understand that the philosophical theory of MATERIALISM, that everything is matter, is only a theory. It happens to fit well with certain scientific observations though it kind of collapses when confronted with Quantum Physics and the alterations of things due to them being observed.

No, Quantum Mechanics are PART of that framework. And "only a theory"? Really? Are there anybody left on the internet who don't know what that word means in the scientific context?

 

[Darat]

Sounds like consciousness is an extraneous entity, then. The brain processes information and does its thing regardless, right?







Oh, do go on.







In the exact same way that legs can produce running.



See, I think you betrayed your fundamental idea when you claimed that my answer of "neurons" implied that I think they're special. They're not, and neither is consciousness. There's really no reason to believe in that consciousness field of yours because it changes nothing and makes no useful predictions. The use would be if YOU consider consciousness to be special i.e. different from normal, material stuff.







Huh? Of course they do. When I move my arm, the movement isn't a thing. It's an action. That you could call it something else doesn't change its nature.







I'm sorry but I can't fathom what could make you say that. Running exists, obviously, otherwise you couldn't run. You have no basis to declare that consciousness is more akin to a tree (an object) than to running (an action).

Your arm moving is an emergent property of your muscles and nerves undergoing chemical changes therefore it doesn't exist! None of us have ever been able to move our arms!

 

[baron]

You've not understood the point, since you like analogies (your consciousness field) I'll use one at the end.

Today we know at scales down to an incredible level what energies are involved in whatever the universe is made of, so anything akin to your consciousness field has to be within that range. (If it isn't then it ain't interacting with “matter".) There simply isn't the space for the particle that would lead to your counciousness field.

We - as he says in the video - absolutely do not know everything but in some areas we know what can and can't fit in.

That's not actually what he says. He says we know all the components of any significance and, in essence, it's how they fit together than now comprises the future of science. He says that prior to this the discovery of the Higgs Boson was the most momentous particle discovery in all of science. In other worlds, the major discoveries of science are now over (as of... oooh, five years ago) and all we can do now is iron out the details and discover a few minor surprises around the edges. The same old guff that's been trotted out for the past three thousand years.

Which takes me back to the analogy of the shed. We can measure the volume of the shed without ever going into the shed, so we may not know what is in the shed, what is holding the roof up, how many of those rusted and unusual metal tools that no one ever know the use of and so on but if someone comes along and says there is a full grown African elephant in the shed we can rule that out because there isn't room in the shed for such a beast.

With your idea of a "consciousness field" you are saying there is a fully grown African elephant in the shed.

No I'm not, I'm saying the shed is surrounded and filled with air, which up until now you haven't even imagined could exist.

All the other points people have made I have already addressed multiple times.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

That's not actually what he says. He says we know all the components of any significance and, in essence, it's how they fit together than now comprises the future of science. He says that prior to this the discovery of the Higgs Boson was the most momentous particle discovery in all of science. In other worlds, the major discoveries of science are now over (as of... oooh, five years ago) and all we can do now is iron out the details and discover a few minor surprises around the edges.

That's not what he says at all.

 

[baron]

That's not what he says at all.

Yes it is.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I'm sure we could go "tis" "tisn't" for quite a while, but I don't really see the point. You've been provided the evidence that your belief is contradicted by the current scientific understanding of the universe. You've chosen to misrepresent that evidence in order to dismiss it out of hand without thinking about it or attempting to offer up any kind of refutation.

You are free to believe this is intellectually honest behaviour which establishes the validity of your belief, if you choose.

 

[Darat]

That's not actually what he says. He says we know all the components of any significance and, in essence, it's how they fit together than now comprises the future of science. He says that prior to this the discovery of the Higgs Boson was the most momentous particle discovery in all of science. In other worlds, the major discoveries of science are now over (as of... oooh, five years ago) and all we can do now is iron out the details and discover a few minor surprises around the edges. The same old guff that's been trotted out for the past three thousand years.



No I'm not, I'm saying the shed is surrounded and filled with air, which up until now you haven't even imagined could exist.

All the other points people have made I have already addressed multiple times.

Nope.

 

[baron]

I'm sure we could go "tis" "tisn't" for quite a while, but I don't really see the point. You've been provided the evidence that your belief is contradicted by the current scientific understanding of the universe. You've chosen to misrepresent that evidence in order to dismiss it out of hand without thinking about it or attempting to offer up any kind of refutation. You are free to believe this is intellectually honest behaviour which establishes the validity of your belief, if you choose.

I was thinking about it long before you Googled it, I promise you that. Your eagerness to use selective appeals to authority as substitutes for education and independent thinking is your decision, but it doesn't excuse your condescension, which you are supremely ill equipped to indulge in.

 

[Robin]

No, the fundamental of the question is why you think consciousness is a different sort of thing than mere neural activity. How do you know that (certain types of) neural activity aren't the same as what we call "consciousness"?

For the reasons I have been saying. But obviously I am not explaining myself.

If I can describe A completely without describing B then I can say that A is different from B.

Let's say we were talking about the Coriolis effect, which is an emergent behaviour from the lower level behaviour of normal particles.

I couldn't say that the Coriolis effect was something different from normal particle behaviour because if I model the lower level behaviour of the particles I can see the Coriolis effect emergent in the model, just as I can see the Bernoulli effect emerge from the models, just as I can get all the effects of angular momentum from a model which only contains particles moving in straight lines and having forces between them.

So if I had never observed the Coriolis effect of the Bernoulli effect I could predict these things from a model in which I had only modelled particles moving and bouncing off each other in a certain way.

With the brain I could model it as much as I like but would not see the feeling of pain in the model. I could not predict, purely from the model, that there would be a feeling like pain. Such predictions that we make about pain we can make because we have experienced pain and we can make the link.

The normal response to this is something like "A mathematical of model of water isn't wet either", but actually a mathematical model of water will show us everything that we can mean by "wetness".

 

[baron]

Someone should let these guys know there's nothing much else to be discovered. £25bn+ is a lot of money to spend on finding a few more 'transitory' particles and inconsequential forces.

CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti called the report "a remarkable achievement" that could help boost understanding of fundamental physics and advance technologies.

CERN said it was not possible to say exactly what benefits the new collider would bring to the world, but pointed out that the discovery of the electron in 1897 led to the electronics industry that now contributes $3 trillion annually to the world economy.

Hmm, that's a slightly more open-minded outlook than 'the shed is full'.

 

[Darat]

Someone should let these guys know there's nothing much else to be discovered. £25bn+ is a lot of money to spend on finding a few more 'transitory' particles and inconsequential forces.







Hmm, that's a slightly more open-minded outlook than 'the shed is full'.

Again all you are doing is showing you don't understand the current state of modern physics and what we now know and the ramifications of that on the idea of a "conciousness field" . Such a field simply can't exist else we would have noticed a gap, there simply isn't such a gap.

 

[jrhowell]

With the brain I could model it as much as I like but would not see the feeling of pain in the model. I could not predict, purely from the model, that there would be a feeling like pain. Such predictions that we make about pain we can make because we have experienced pain and we can make the link.

An argument from incredulity.

Would such a model fail to act as if it felt pain by not pulling its modeled hand away from a modeled fire?

How can you be certain that a detailed enough model of a brain would not actually experience pain?

 

[Minoosh]

Investigate what? What evidence, what unaccountable energy are we meant to be investigating? There is zero evidence that a conciousness field exists and these days there is as strong as evidence ever gets in science evidence that such a field can't exist.

The link in the OP has this subtitle: "a proto-consciousness field theory could replace the theory of dark matter, one physicist states." So it's an alternative. It might not be a better alternative. A few actual physicists buy into the possibility, but most don't. The links in the OP offer several avenues of inquiry.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

An argument from incredulity.

Would such a model fail to act as if it felt pain by not pulling its modeled hand away from a modeled fire?

No, any machine could easily succeed at doing that and not give the remotest hint of being conscious. BTW I don't see an argument from incredulity there.

How can you be certain that a detailed enough model of a brain would not actually experience pain?

Speaking for myself I would expect a detailed enough model would but that's akin to a religious belief. The point is how do you know it would? Whereas it is trivial to design a machine that pulls an actuator away from heat and show all the equations that lead to it doing that, what equation do you write for experiencing anything?

 

[Robin]

An argument from incredulity.

It is not enough to just say "argument from incredulity", you have to show why it is.

It seems to me that either you don't understand what an argument from incredulity is or you haven't understood what I am saying.

Would such a model fail to act as if it felt pain by not pulling its modeled hand away from a modeled fire?

An empirical point which can only be tested at such time that we have such a model. As I doubt I will live to see a computational model of the human brain I have previously said that I would settle to see if a computational model of a mouse brain would act as though it felt stimuli like pain.

Unfortunately I said that nearly 10 years ago in this forum (or its forerunner) and we don't seem to be any closer to a computational model of even a mouse brain since then.

How can you be certain that a detailed enough model of a brain would not actually experience pain?

Did I say that I was certain that it wouldn't?

Nevertheless I have my doubts. A detailed enough model could be worked out by hand in principle and I have my doubts that billions of years of a roomful of mathematicians working out a calculation on paper could produce a sensation of pain.

Or imagine a mechanical instantiation of a Turing Machine, sitting on a desk with a gigantic tape, ticking away, two operations per second for millions of years. I doubt that would produce a sensation of pain because only one tiny thing is happening at once and all other data is just sitting there as a symbol on a tape.

I am certain of one thing - if the mathematical calculation felt pain, we would not be able to read that off the mathematical calculations or the results of it.

 

[Myriad]

Nevertheless I have my doubts. A detailed enough model could be worked out by hand in principle and I have my doubts that billions of years of a roomful of mathematicians working out a calculation on paper could produce a sensation of pain.

Sure it could. Think of all the neck strain, writer's cramp, and paper cuts that would happen in those billions of years.