The Hard Problem of Gravity

[westprog]

I suppose childhood memories have the same epistemological status as fossil evidence. They may be old and fragmented but they're the best window we have to the past

I'm certainly inclined to believe them. It's only in pure skeptic mode that I'd be so ungracious.

 

[PixyMisa]

Well, I would agree that the HPC is not as solid as it might seem, but for me it's clear that there are still issues. For Blackmore and Baars it seems this is also the case.

Anyone who thinks there is any meaning to HPC does not understand HPC. This applies in particular to neuroscientists, who, being strongly grounded in reality, cannot easily grasp just how fundamentally nonsensical immaterialist philosophy can be.

That's not really the point. The point is that self-reference is not what makes the difference between what GWT proposes as conscious and unconscious processing.

Yes it is.

Thus there is still an explanatory gap here and whilst this remains the HPC can creep in.

No, it can't. HPC is meaningless drivel.

If you disagree, you can easily prove me wrong: Simply produce a statement of HPC that is logically coherent.

With a computer it would be much simpler, I agree. But with a human it's harder to work out what's going on.

Yes, the human brain is far more complex than any computer system that works on single problems. (The human brain is far simpler than the Internet as a whole, but the Internet is far more modular.)

We don't know enough about the neural basis of actual phenomenal consciousness yet.

We don't know everything about it; whether we know enough depends on what the question is. We certainly know enough to say that self-reference is critical to consciousness, that it happens, where it happens; that there is no neurological mechanism for global communication, that this cannot happen, that it does not happen.

What does this 40Hz mean?

That's the cycle time for the self-reference awareness loop. The inverse of this number - 25ms - pops up in sensory awareness all the time. I don't know, but suspect, that the two are related.

Why should information in the global workplace be consciously available whilst similar concurrently processed information is not?

Self-reference.

We don't know the answers to these questions yet and this is why Baars says, get back to us in 100 years.

Baars is talking about tracking detailed neural activity. I'm talking about fundamental mechanisms. There is only one thing that it can be. Baars wants to build a map, which is valuable research (though it won't take 100 years any more than the Human Genome Project did). But we already know what it is a map of.

All models will require some level of self-referential processing to exist.

Yes.

This does not however close the explanatory gap.

What gap?

I am not trying to explain everything that happens in the brain. I am merely pointing out that consciousness is self-referential information processing.

Dennett's problem is the same as yours. You develop what appears to be a working model that can replicate many of the features of human consciousness in a machine.

No.

But, as actual research into brain function continues so elements of the theory become increasingly unsound.

No.

The brain developed in a manner quite different to a computer and we just don't know enough to replicate what it's doing.

Irrelevant.

And because we don't know enough we're still left with the HPC always lurking in the wings.

HPC is not lurking in the wings. HPC is not lurking anywhere. HPC is irrelevant to everything except a sociological study into how philosophers get away with talking so much nonsense.

I don't personally believe the HPC is valid, but it's clear for me that until we know more about the neural basis of phenomenality, about global availability, then we can't discount it completely.

As soon as you say "phenomenality" you have fallen into the trap. We can discount HPC completely, right now, because it is nonsense.

And there is no global availability. It doesn't exist. There's just neurons talking to neighbouring neurons.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

We don't know everything about it; whether we know enough depends on what the question is. We certainly know enough to say that self-reference is critical to consciousness, that it happens, where it happens; that there is no neurological mechanism for global communication, that this cannot happen, that it does not happen.

One minor quibble, but just in the way you stated the above.......there are mechanisms for "global communication"; we use them during NREM sleep and they take over the brain during generalized tonic-clonic and absence seizures. The "global pathway" is probably just the same stuff used for alertness in the reticular activating system. If the entire cortex does the same thing at the same time (cycling through whatever loop), then it is off line.

I bring the point up to drive your ultimate point home -- there is no mechanism for meaningful global communication. But doesn't this model only mention "global access", which is a pretty meaningless term when you come to think of it.

 

[Nick227]

I don't think your evaluation fits what they say in their model. This reverberant state involves frontal and parietal structures. As I tried to mention earlier, they speak of these areas for two reasons. Both parietal and frontal areas are involved in directed attention and the parietal lobe is specifically important for the body map. Frontal lobes are vitally important for the pairing of emotional input/feeling states with motor output -- all of which is a part of consciousness.

They use the term "global" but this cannot mean that the 'reverberant loops' involve the entire brain. If that occurred, there would be no feeling, no experience. It is the localized involvement of parietal and frontal structures in these reverberant loops that are thought to constitute a sense of self.

Once again, this is not the story self that can self-reflect. This is more akin to Dennett's "body self". That is the self-reference that Pixy has been speaking about.

If this is so then why is phenomenality itself not inherently self-referencing? For me it's clear that self only comes in with ancilliary processing - inner dialogue and identification.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

We don't know everything about it; whether we know enough depends on what the question is. We certainly know enough to say that self-reference is critical to consciousness, that it happens, where it happens; that there is no neurological mechanism for global communication, that this cannot happen, that it does not happen.

The term "global" may not be the best choice, I agree. But I don't think anyone believes every neuron in the brain is involved.

Baars is talking about tracking detailed neural activity. I'm talking about fundamental mechanisms. There is only one thing that it can be. Baars wants to build a map, which is valuable research (though it won't take 100 years any more than the Human Genome Project did). But we already know what it is a map of.

Baars states that we are in the study of consciousness where Franklin was in the study of electricity in the 1800s. For me this makes it clear that he does not believe that we fundamentally understand consciousness.

As soon as you say "phenomenality" you have fallen into the trap. We can discount HPC completely, right now, because it is nonsense.

That perspective is not based on awareness. If you look at something from only one angle then maybe this is how it looks.

"Can" is the operative word in your statement. Of course we "can." I can completely discount the HPC right now, simply by choosing to define terms in one way. That unfortunately does not mean that you get the right answer at the end of the day.

And there is no global availability. It doesn't exist. There's just neurons talking to neighbouring neurons.

No one is disputing this. You are as usual railing against windmills and straw men.

The point is that we do not understand what creates the difference between conscious and unconscious processing in GWT. We do not know why so-called "global access" equates to consciousness. I have not seen any published scientist dispute this. Baars, Dehaene, Shallice, whoever. I have not seen any one of them do anything other than admit that we do not know.

Yet, Pixy would have me believe that they have somehow overlooked the notion that it is the presence of self-referencing in one neuronal area and its absence next door that creates the difference. This is complete fantasy. If it were not why does Dehaene not say this when he asks exactly this question of himself in the linked paper? Why does Baars not say this when Blackmore asks him precisely this question? If Pixy's answer is so right and so simple why do none of these totally established neuroscientists appear to be even aware of it? I think I can answer that question. Because it's drivel.

We do not know why global access = consciousness and because of this, whilst GWT remains the most viable model, we do not know for sure whether or not there actually is an HPC.

INW, Pixy - if you have evidence to the contrary please link it.

Nick

 

[RandFan]

Anyone who thinks there is any meaning to HPC does not understand HPC.

There I've got to disagree. The problem is not unsolvable anymore than the problem of flight was unsolvable prior to the Wright brothers but IT WAS a problem then and HPC IS a problem now.

Now, we can debate the meaning of "problem". For neuroscientist it simply means an inability to *explain and understand the emergent phenomenon of the brain that some call mind. And FTR, I think the term useful but if and only if you accept that the mind is what the brain does.

Aside from that I agree with everything else and I'm more than happy to agree to disagree on this one point alone. You and I both agree that, like flight, cognition will very likely be understood in the not too distant future the way flight is understood now.

I don't mean to put words in your mouth so if you would like to amend the above that's fine. I'm not at all dogmatic.

*Explain and understand at least as much and to the extent that we can explain and understand flight via aerodynamics. And yes, let me hasten to add that our understanding isn't complete ignorance. neuroscientists do in fact understand a lot and are making great advances regularly.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

There I've got to disagree. The problem is not unsolvable anymore than the problem of flight was unsolvable prior to the Wright brothers but IT WAS a problem then and HPC IS a problem now.

I don't think that example of flight is very forthcoming to you. There is the force of gravity that pulls things down, and you'll need (physical) forces to counteract this gravitational pull enough to keep things up. If this happens then things are said to "fly." Strictly speaking, heavier-than-air flight has never been any kind of problem at all; birds, rockets, kites, arrows and even stones all flew quite well even before the brothers Wright.

 

[Apathia]

I don't think that example of flight is very forthcoming to you. There is the force of gravity that pulls things down, and you'll need (physical) forces to counteract this gravitational pull enough to keep things up. If this happens then things are said to "fly." Strictly speaking, heavier-than-air flight has never been any kind of problem at all; birds, rockets, kites, arrows and even stones all flew quite well even before the brothers Wright.

Wow. This is a pretty good illustration of the disconnect that's been going on throughout most of this thread.
And also why at one point consciousness was being attributed to rocks.

 

[rocketdodger]

There I've got to disagree. The problem is not unsolvable anymore than the problem of flight was unsolvable prior to the Wright brothers but IT WAS a problem then and HPC IS a problem now.

Not really the same thing.

A better analogy is the question "why should things that have enough upward force exerted on them fly at all?"

Your educated response would be "because that is the way physics works."

But why?

The HPC isn't concerned with how subjective experience arises, it is concerned with why it arises. There is a subtle difference -- one question can be answered and the other cannot.

You can see where this type of thinking leads just by reading this thread.

 

[RandFan]

I don't think that example of flight is very forthcoming to you. There is the force of gravity that pulls things down, and you'll need (physical) forces to counteract this gravitational pull enough to keep things up. If this happens then things are said to "fly." Strictly speaking, heavier-than-air flight has never been any kind of problem at all; birds, rockets, kites, arrows and even stones all flew quite well even before the brothers Wright.

You miss the point.

HOW did they fly? Was it the will of god? Was it a dualistic and or supernatural force capable of interacting with natural mechanisms?

I think it a great example. There is a mystery to the unknown that becomes pedestrian once known. Looking at the drawings of Da Vinci and the words of poets and writers gives us a hint into the insights and drive of the human mind to comprehend the mystery.

The day will very likely come when sentience and cognition is no more mysterious than flight. I think we should revel in the journey of discovery and acknowledge our ignorance in our attempt to understand what is arguably the most complex system in the known universe.

 

[RandFan]

The HPC isn't concerned with how subjective experience arises, it is concerned with why it arises. There is a subtle difference -- one question can be answered and the other cannot.

On what theory do you assert that the how cannot be answered?

 

[Nick227]

The HPC isn't concerned with how subjective experience arises, it is concerned with why it arises. There is a subtle difference -- one question can be answered and the other cannot.

The HPC is concerned primarily with how it arises. Chalmers states that even when all the easy problems have been answered actual phenomenality may still be a mystery. It may still be a mystery why it's so light in here. I think really he should have called it the MHPC - the maybe hard problem of consciousness.

Nick

 

[Lord Emsworth]

You miss the point.

HOW did they fly?

Yes, how did they? Or better yet, what do you mean by flying to begin with?

 

[Apathia]

Yup. There never was a hard problem of flight.
Just pick up a rock and throw it.
Why, pigs can even fly!

And we've always know how the sun shines.
It's fire, of course.
And don't you suggest its some kind of wooish nuclear thing!

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

The HPC is concerned primarily with how it arises. Chalmers states that even when all the easy problems have been answered actual phenomenality may still be a mystery.

Seems to me that it's possible that even if internal experience is brain function, humans may not have to capacity to grok how that experience emerges from brain function. There may be a human-HPC even if there is no actual-HPC.

On the other hand, we have people saying that consciousness is irreducible simply because it is internal.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

The HPC isn't concerned with how subjective experience arises, it is concerned with why it arises. There is a subtle difference -- one question can be answered and the other cannot.

You've got me baffled, too.

~~ Paul

 

[PixyMisa]

There I've got to disagree. The problem is not unsolvable anymore than the problem of flight was unsolvable prior to the Wright brothers but IT WAS a problem then and HPC IS a problem now.

Now, we can debate the meaning of "problem". For neuroscientist it simply means an inability to *explain and understand the emergent phenomenon of the brain that some call mind.

That is not HPC. That's the point. That is not what Chalmers is getting at.

Chalmers is claiming that even when we can explain and understand the mind in neurological terms, we will not have explained subjective experience.

And FTR, I think the term useful but if and only if you accept that the mind is what the brain does.

Chalmers is saying that this description - mind is what brain does - is necessarily incomplete. He's saying that materialism itself is false.

Aside from that I agree with everything else and I'm more than happy to agree to disagree on this one point alone. You and I both agree that, like flight, cognition will very likely be understood in the not too distant future the way flight is understood now.

Yep.

And Chalmers says that this is impossible. Quite literally impossible.

 

[PixyMisa]

The HPC is concerned primarily with how it arises. Chalmers states that even when all the easy problems have been answered actual phenomenality may still be a mystery.

It's a trap!

 

[rocketdodger]

The HPC is concerned primarily with how it arises. Chalmers states that even when all the easy problems have been answered actual phenomenality may still be a mystery. It may still be a mystery why it's so light in here. I think really he should have called it the MHPC - the maybe hard problem of consciousness.

Nick

When we can map out every neuron's firing pattern, and supercomputers can simulate entire brains, either there will or there won't be some twits wandering around demanding "but where is the experience in all these computations!?!?"

I say there will be.

You seem to think there won't.

I guess we will know who is right in a few decades.

 

[RandFan]

That is not HPC. That's the point. That is not what Chalmers is getting at.

Chalmers is claiming that even when we can explain and understand the mind in neurological terms, we will not have explained subjective experience.

Chalmers is saying that this description - mind is what brain does - is necessarily incomplete. He's saying that materialism itself is false.

Yes but Chalmes is not the end all be all of HPC. See Blackmore.

Yep.

And Chalmers says that this is impossible. Quite literally impossible.

Not all that long before the Wright Brothers some were saying sustained flight for humans was impossible. Again, there is a problem and Chalmer's version isn't the only flavor.