proto-consciousness field theory

[jrhowell]

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.

Sure, but this particular discussion was about a machine built to operate using the principles derived from the human brain. It would be an odd coincidence if human brains were constructed so as to fake consciousness without actually being conscious.

Stating that a faithful model of a brain must necessarily not be conscious when we don’t know enough yet to be certain of the outcome seems to be an instance of incredulity to me. The same goes for with stating that it must be conscious.

 

[Robin]

Sure, but this particular discussion was about a machine built to operate using the principles derived from the human brain. It would be an odd coincidence if human brains were constructed so as to fake consciousness without actually being conscious.

Stating that a faithful model of a brain must necessarily not be conscious when we don’t know enough yet to be certain of the outcome seems to be an instance of incredulity to me. The same goes for with stating that it must be conscious.

"Detailed model of..." and "Machine designed to operate on the same principles..." are two different things.

I am pretty sure a machine that works on the same principles - (ie a chimpanzee's brain is a machine that operates on largely the same principles as a human brain, is conscious).

I don't think a calculation that could be written down on paper could be conscious.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

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'.

You keep posting stuff like this as if it in any way contradicts what Carroll has said. This demonstrates that either you don't understand what Carroll has said, or that you're choosing to deliberately misrepresent it.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

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.

I'd say that depends on how well we understand the calculations. If we could understand and image the human brain well enough that we could look at a particular brain state and say with certainty whether or not it was experiencing pain then we could do the same with the raw calculations, no matter how they were being performed.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

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.

Again, you would if you knew enough about the brain in order to determine what the feeling of pain looked like.

You're not talking about a difference of type, just of degree.

 

[baron]

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.

You keep going on about gaps but this is something you invented. There is no need for a gap, you're misconstruing a religious argument as relevant to debates on consciousness, and the future of science as a whole. I don't know what to call it when someone declares that any significant future discovery in science must be a result of a fanciful 'gap', as opposed to the process of ongoing discovery being the very essence of science itself.

Furthermore, your response isn't related to the post you replied to. I quoted the Director General of CERN who is willing to spend a minimum of £25bn on a new LHC-type machine because he believes that discoveries comparable in magnitude to that of the electron may be waiting to be evidenced. He's not worried about sheds, or gaps, and nor is he claiming that we've got all the big stuff sorted out and all that's left is fettling around the edges.

You keep posting stuff like this as if it in any way contradicts what Carroll has said. This demonstrates that either you don't understand what Carroll has said, or that you're choosing to deliberately misrepresent it.

No, I'm accurately representing it. He says there are no more significant fields of force or long-lived particles yet to be discovered that impact our 'everyday' universe in any way whatsoever. Do you want me to quote him or will you admit you're wrong?

 

[Chanakya]

I think you're being misled somewhat by the idea of mirages. ... I have no idea how the conscious field could be detected, or what would be used to detect it, but I don't see why it can't in theory be done.

My point was: 'detectable, in theory, by physical instruments' may not be an adequate definition for 'exists in reality', since this definition does not necessarily filter out mirages.

I believe the field is consciousness, not that it causes consciousness.

I get that, but although you use the word 'conscious' (-ness), are you actually speaking of conscious(ness) as we commonly know it?


We're trying to see if 'consciousness exists', yet we don't seem to to have arrived at satisfactory definitions, yet, of what consciousness is (that is, whether your conscious-ness field refers to my personal conscious-ness as I sit here typing this), or what it means to exist in reality (as opposed to 'exist' as illusion).

 

[Darat]

You keep going on about gaps but this is something you invented. There is no need for a gap, you're misconstruing a religious argument as relevant to debates on consciousness, and the future of science as a whole. I don't know what to call it when someone declares that any significant future discovery in science must be a result of a fanciful 'gap', as opposed to the process of ongoing discovery being the very essence of science itself.



Furthermore, your response isn't related to the post you replied to. I quoted the Director General of CERN who is willing to spend a minimum of £25bn on a new LHC-type machine because he believes that discoveries comparable in magnitude to that of the electron may be waiting to be evidenced. He's not worried about sheds, or gaps, and nor is he claiming that we've got all the big stuff sorted out and all that's left is fettling around the edges.







No, I'm accurately representing it. He says there are no more significant fields of force or long-lived particles yet to be discovered that impact our 'everyday' universe in any way whatsoever. Do you want me to quote him or will you admit you're wrong?

Again you simply show your lack of our current knowledge, you seem to be stuck around the 1970s in regards to what we do know.

We know your consciousness field doesn't exist, that is not saying we know everything that does exist, but we know what interactions happen at the scales of which such a field would have to exist to be able to be influenced/interact/react to the brain and there is no gap for your field.

The only way your proposed field could exist is if it was supernatural, which is of course then a logical impossibility.

It's obviously not worth us discussing this any further as you have a non evidenced belief rather than a theory or even a hypothesis.

Remember they also laughed at Bozo the clown.

 

[baron]

My point was: 'detectable, in theory, by physical instruments' may not be an adequate definition for 'exists in reality', since this definition does not necessarily filter out mirages.

I was just saying that mirages aren't a good example, because viewing a mirage is effectively the same as viewing any other object or scene. I suspect you are thinking more of hallucinations or illusions? Mirages are as easily photographed and recorded as are normal landscapes.

I get that, but although you use the word 'conscious' (-ness), are you actually speaking of conscious(ness) as we commonly know it?

We're trying to see if 'consciousness exists', yet we don't seem to to have arrived at satisfactory definitions, yet, of what consciousness is (that is, whether your conscious-ness field refers to my personal conscious-ness as I sit here typing this), or what it means to exist in reality (as opposed to 'exist' as illusion).

This is part of the issue, as demonstrated by certain posters in this thread. They are unable to separate the easy and hard problems of consciousness and routinely confuse functionality with experience. We are told that consciousness really exists, but at the same that it is no more real than running, which of course does not. I say consciousness is real and measurable but posters like Darat cannot accept this, and instead claim that I am insisting the opposite.

Again you simply show your lack of our current knowledge, you seem to be stuck around the 1970s in regards to what we do know.

We know your consciousness field doesn't exist, that is not saying we know everything that does exist, but we know what interactions happen at the scales of which such a field would have to exist to be able to be influenced/interact/react to the brain and there is no gap for your field.

You just keep repeating the same thing without any justification or evidence. You have latched on to a guy whose beliefs support your own and have thus proclaimed the end of science as defined by any discovery that is revolutionary or of historic significance. Luckily, scientific consensus does not agree with you. History, like your mythical shed, is full of people making such laughable claims and every single time they have been proven false, and quickly.

The only way your proposed field could exist is if it was supernatural, which is of course then a logical impossibility.

That sentence is logically incoherent. Taking it in the spirit it was intended, however, it is simply false and baseless.

It's obviously not worth us discussing this any further as you have a non evidenced belief rather than a theory or even a hypothesis.

Remember they also laughed at Bozo the clown.

Bozo the clown would have been funnier if, after running to his clown car in his oversized shoes and honking his big fat horn, he had declared through a bullhorn that humanity had witnessed the end of science on account of how he'd overheard some guy on YouTube proclaiming we've now discovered everything of significance.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

He says there are no more significant fields of force or long-lived particles yet to be discovered that impact our 'everyday' universe in any way whatsoever. Do you want me to quote him or will you admit you're wrong?

The highlighted is what you have added in to your paraphrasing for the first time, and it's very, very important. This is the first time you've paraphrased him correctly. He's talking about things at certain scales. If you truly understand what he's saying, as you claim to, you'll understand why citing anything that requires a particle accelerator larger than the LHC to detect is irrelevant.

It's like someone is saying that the laws of motion WRT objects the size and speed of snooker balls are completely described by Newton with no room for new laws of motion at that scale which would noticeably change the objects' behaviour, and you're saying that that's nonsense because mass increases as objects move towards lightspeed. Since snooker balls don't come at all close to lightspeed, what happens to objects when they move that fast is irrelevant.

 

[baron]

The highlighted is what you have added in to your paraphrasing for the first time, and it's very, very important. This is the first time you've paraphrased him correctly. He's talking about things at certain scales. If you truly understand what he's saying, as you claim to, you'll understand why citing anything that requires a particle accelerator larger than the LHC to detect is irrelevant.

So tell me, what 'scale' represents that of the brain? It seems that for some reason you have ruled out the very idea that quantum processes can influence macro behaviour. This is demonstrably false, and it seems likely that if there is a conscious field then it would interface with the brain at the quantum scale. Indeed, what other option could there be?

To give Carroll a bit of credit he's talking about evidential effects. Consciousness does not fall into this bracket. Either you believe it does not exist, in which case there's nothing to talk about, or you do accept it exists and further accept that at this moment there is not a shred of evidence to support that conclusion. Therefore, it could be considered not part of the 'everyday' universe.

It's like someone is saying that the laws of motion WRT objects the size and speed of snooker balls are completely described by Newton with no room for new laws of motion at that scale which would noticeably change the objects' behaviour, and you're saying that that's nonsense because mass increases as objects move towards lightspeed. Since snooker balls don't come at all close to lightspeed, what happens to objects when they move that fast is irrelevant.

It's not. To take your analogy, I maintain that you can rig up a device to smack one of those pool balls off the table and through the window solely on the trigger of a single, random sub-atomic event. You deny this is possible and say that Newton's laws are always sufficient to describe the balls' motions, and when I explain how I'm right you say, "Oh, sure, but I'm talking about everyday stuff!"

 

[Belz...]

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!

Movement is an illusion.

 

[Belz...]

With the brain I could model it as much as I like but would not see the feeling of pain in the model.

Yeah but that's what emergent properties are. As Joe said earlier, you take a clock apart and you can't see the "ticking", but that doesn't mean it isn't there when the clock is working.

So what is it about consciousness that isn't like "running" or "ticking" or any other emergent property? Please don't say that it "feels" special or anything like that.

 

[Belz...]

Baron, since you haven't addressed my posts 423 and 424, let me summarize with my post above:

Do you understand and agree with the running analogy, namely that legs are physical objects, but that they can also produce motion, for instance? And why is the brain and consciousness different?

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Yeah but that's what emergent properties are. As Joe said earlier, you take a clock apart and you can't see the "ticking", but that doesn't mean it isn't there when the clock is working.

So what is it about consciousness that isn't like "running" or "ticking" or any other emergent property? Please don't say that it "feels" special or anything like that.

For running we can do all the calculations using known, even well-known trivial, formulae to explain how the signals control the muscles, how the muscles act, where the energy is coming from and going and completely explain it. We even now build artificial legs capable of running.

We can't do the same for consciousness. What units is consciousness even measured in? I can answer that question for running but not for consciousness.

 

[Robin]

Yeah but that's what emergent properties are. As Joe said earlier, you take a clock apart and you can't see the "ticking", but that doesn't mean it isn't there when the clock is working.

So what is it about consciousness that isn't like "running" or "ticking" or any other emergent property? Please don't say that it "feels" special or anything like that.

I don't know why I have to keep saying it.

If you put all the molecules of a ticking watch into the configuration of a ticking watch and had never seen ticking before you would observe ticking. "Ticking" would be directly descriptive of the action you would observe.

If you put all the molecules into the configuration of a person or animal running and had never observed running before you would observe running. "Running" would be directly descriptive of the action you would observe.

Put all the molecules into the configuration of a brain experiencing pain and had never experienced pain then you would not observe the experience of pain, you would observe neurons firing in a particular order and so forth.

If you see a video of Usain Bolt running the 100 metres and say "There is no running going on here" it would be a direct contradiction because "running" is descriptive of the action you are observing.

On the other hand if you observe a brain experiencing pain (by whatever instrumentation that would take) and say "There is no pain being experienced" there is no contradiction because those molecules would go on obeying the laws of physics even if there was no experience of pain (and if not then physics would be incomplete).

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

So tell me, what 'scale' represents that of the brain?

Neurons and chemical interactions.

It seems that for some reason you have ruled out the very idea that quantum processes can influence macro behaviour. This is demonstrably false, and it seems likely that if there is a conscious field then it would interface with the brain at the quantum scale. Indeed, what other option could there be?

You've gone from saying you have no idea about the mechanism by which a consciousness field could work to invoking quantum woo.

Either you believe it does not exist, in which case there's nothing to talk about, or you do accept it exists and further accept that at this moment there is not a shred of evidence to support that conclusion.

False dichotomy, predicated on your own unique definition of "exist".

Therefore, it could be considered not part of the 'everyday' universe.

Special pleading.

It's not. To take your analogy, I maintain that you can rig up a device to smack one of those pool balls off the table and through the window solely on the trigger of a single, random sub-atomic event. You deny this is possible and say that Newton's laws are always sufficient to describe the balls' motions, and when I explain how I'm right you say, "Oh, sure, but I'm talking about everyday stuff!"

In this analogy, the consciousness field gives rise to consciousness, which is still contained within the brain. I thought your belief was that the field itself was conscious, and that that consciousness resided outside of the brain?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

For running we can do all the calculations using known, even well-known trivial, formulae to explain how the signals control the muscles, how the muscles act, where the energy is coming from and going and completely explain it. We even now build artificial legs capable of running.

We can't do the same for consciousness. What units is consciousness even measured in? I can answer that question for running but not for consciousness.

This doesn't imply that they are not of a kind. There's nothing to suggest that we cannot do the same for consciousness simply because consciousness is far more complicated than running, as are the processes that generate it.

 

[Robin]

The only way your proposed field could exist is if it was supernatural, which is of course then a logical impossibility.

There is no reason to believe that there is anything supernatural.

But how is it logically impossible?

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

This doesn't imply that they are not of a kind. There's nothing to suggest that we cannot do the same for consciousness simply because consciousness is far more complicated than running, as are the processes that generate it.

So how many miles per hour does consciousness work at?

Right now, we can't even measure the "simple problem" aspect of how much of our brain's energy goes toward consciousness. I think there's at most one person in the thread who wouldn't agree that consciousness is expected to have an energy requirement.