My take on why indeed the study of consciousness may not be as simple

[Dancing David]

Except the ones you mentally define as physical

And again it does not matter, either the mental states of perception show consistency or they do not.

You can not get outside of your head and it does not matter if it is physical or illusions, godthoughts, butterfly dreams, Brains In Vats, or whatever.

It all comes to teh same.

It appears that a rock can bash you in the head regardless of your beliefs about the rock. (If the term rock applies to a large rocky mass suffiecient to break bone.)

It does not matter, unless there is something taht shows that the set of beliefs which are reffered to as 'the laws of nature' which are really about 'models of the behavior of reality', you can not jump off a building and violate the 'force' known as the 'law of gravitational attraction' regardless of your 'mental state'.

Now it maybe tahte ach time something falls there is an alternative universe split where it floats, but we can not access it.

 

[RandFan]

The truth is that I can get a review paper publish by only referring to other papers and this is regarded as definitive science. I need not have any perceptions of what it is I am only reviewing. I only need to understand the deductions, the scientific method and statistics and I can make a logical inference from these premises.
When we read a scientific paper or thesis we also do not understand and/or except/criticize it due to our own perceptions, but because of our abilities described above.

This sounds like your version of the Chinese room.

Let me give you a better example to make certain I understand you. I could get all of the data for an experiment in a code I don't understand, say binary, and I could, using tables and charts, process the information and render reports that could be decoded by someone else or even a computer for that matter all the while never perceiving if the experiment were about tomatos or kittens.

No. You still need perception. You've just moved the perception of the experiment back to someone else.

 

[westprog]

Actually, I'm happy excluding neurons as a requirement for consciousness under exactly the same terms that I exclude bricks as a requirement for houses. I don't think my house has a single structural brick in it (although I admit there are some decorative faux-brick facades along some interior walls). But I still think of it as a house. Apparently we can build houses out of brick or out of wood. I've even seen instances of houses being build entirely of metal, of mud, or of sod.

And depending upon where you go, you may or may not see all those types of houses. If you live in the American Southwest -- especially if you lived there two hundred years ago -- you might not have seen a single wood building in your life.

So what does the study of bricks have to do with houses, again, if we can build houses entirely out of something other than brick? Well, bricks have properties, you see. They have things like solidity and tensile strength and compressive strength and insulation and thermal mass and all the rest of the things that structural engineers study. So by studying the properties of bricks, structural engineers can learn how to build houses out of other things. Wood, for example, has some pretty good structural properties -- in fact, it's got better shear strength than brick -- so maybe we could use the compressive strength of wood to build a house where the walls were made entirely of wood instead of brick.

!Kaggan and westprog are in the position of a Hopi Indian denying that houses can be made of wood, because all the houses he's ever seen have been made of mud. Because all the conscious systems that we've seen involve neurons, therefore consciousness must be made of neurons. The fact that neuroscientists have analyzed neurons pretty thoroughly and have identified lots of properties that we can duplicate in a non-neural framework is irrelevant, just as it's irrelevant to our not-very-bright Hopi that things other than mud bricks can have compressive strength. Because houses must be made of mud brick, darn it!

And somewhere there's a not very bright Finn or Swede out there insisting that houses must be made of wood, and somewhere there's a not very bright American living in a trailer park insisting that houses must be made out of sheet aluminum. What ties all of these people together is an inability to recognize the validity of abstract properties.

And there's someone out there who insists that a duck is a fish. There's more than one kind of category error.

 

[drkitten]

And there's someone out there who insists that a duck is a fish. There's more than one kind of category error.

There is indeed.

In fact, there's a third kind of category error -- the person who insists that different things can't be similar. Because ducks are different than fish, and fish are edible, ducks can't be edible.

Or because computers are different than humans, and humans are conscious, computers cannot be conscious.

 

[!Kaggen]

Commopn sense is neither, common sense leads to racism, bigotry and prejudice, unfair and unethical support for biased social structures.

Common sense says that torture extracts the truth, etc...

Common sense is not sense, it is confirmation bias.

Well yes it has its problems.
But then again so does being human

 

[westprog]

That's correct. And it is what is being attempted (well, reverse engineering is being attempted).

Blue Brain Project.

Reverse-engineer the brain

Consciousness is at best on the distant horizon though there could be at anytime a break through akin to realitivity or QM.

Is there an experiment which will confirm or deny the hypothesis?

 

[drkitten]

Is there an experiment which will confirm or deny the hypothesis?

Not at this point, no. The science isn't well-enough developed yet for that kind of clear-cut experiment. One of the things that's necessary, for example, is a better set of results from the neuroscientists about the structural underpinnings of consciousness.

 

[westprog]

There is indeed.

In fact, there's a third kind of category error -- the person who insists that different things can't be similar. Because ducks are different than fish, and fish are edible, ducks can't be edible.

Or because computers are different than humans, and humans are conscious, computers cannot be conscious.

I think we've established that there's an analogy for everybody's argument. Analogies can be used to explain an argument, but they cannot prove it unaccompanied. Whether you think that a brain is like a house, that can be built with other materials than bricks without affecting its function, or you think that it is like a fish, and that asking whether a computer can think is like asking whether a submarine can swim. It doesn't get anyone anywhere, apart from the popular pastime on JREF of proclaiming intellectual superiority without demonstrating it.

 

[!Kaggen]

And again it does not matter, either the mental states of perception show consistency or they do not.

You can not get outside of your head and it does not matter if it is physical or illusions, godthoughts, butterfly dreams, Brains In Vats, or whatever.

It all comes to teh same.

It appears that a rock can bash you in the head regardless of your beliefs about the rock. (If the term rock applies to a large rocky mass suffiecient to break bone.)

It does not matter, unless there is something taht shows that the set of beliefs which are reffered to as 'the laws of nature' which are really about 'models of the behavior of reality', you can not jump off a building and violate the 'force' known as the 'law of gravitational attraction' regardless of your 'mental state'.

Now it maybe tahte ach time something falls there is an alternative universe split where it floats, but we can not access it.

Yes rocks feel solid and the influence of gravity can be sensed, but "the laws of nature" and "models of the behavior of reality" are abstract ideas created by thought. This certainly does not imply that these ideas have no relevance or are somehow incorrect because we constructed them or are somehow surmountable because they originate in our minds and were not sensed like the influence of gravity or the solidity of rocks.
Why is this a problem?

 

[westprog]

Not at this point, no. The science isn't well-enough developed yet for that kind of clear-cut experiment. One of the things that's necessary, for example, is a better set of results from the neuroscientists about the structural underpinnings of consciousness.

I think the fact that it's impossible to even conceptualize an experiment which would disprove the computational hypothesis shows just how far there is to go.

 

[!Kaggen]

apart from the popular pastime on JREF of proclaiming intellectual superiority without demonstrating it.

Hmm you have noticed this too....

 

[drkitten]

Hmm you have noticed this too....

Yes, but because this is an educational forum, we try to keep pointing out that your claims of intellectual superiority -- or even of coherence -- are unsupported. Doesn't keep you from making them, but it does keep rational observers on the thread from taking you too seriously.

 

[RandFan]

I think the fact that it's impossible to even conceptualize an experiment which would disprove the computational hypothesis shows just how far there is to go.

"Impossible"?


Clarke's three laws.

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

What is your field of expertiese westprog and how old are you?

Imagine for a moment a book describing a few modern scientific concepts like DNA, relativity, Quantum Mechanics and radio waves. As to the concepts the book contains descriptions only but it does also explain the scientific method. Imagine that it is sent back in time to the Ancient Greek philosophers. Would they be able to conceptualize experiments to falsify the theories?

 

[!Kaggen]

Yes, but because this is an educational forum, we try to keep pointing out that your claims of intellectual superiority -- or even of coherence -- are unsupported. Doesn't keep you from making them, but it does keep rational observers on the thread from taking you too seriously.

Then again rational thinkers might actually have something to contribute to the questions I ask on this educational forum instead of intellectually superior jibes.

 

[drkitten]

Then again rational thinkers might actually have something to contribute to the questions I ask on this educational forum instead of intellectually superior jibes.

And we've provided them. Including actual answers. That you dislike the answers makes them no less of contributions.

It simply means that, once again, you're wrong.

 

[yy2bggggs]

No. If her study was complete, her brain has already undergone those paterns. If her brain has not already undergone those patterns, her study was not complete.

You're simply starting at a different place...

I don't think that's a good analogy at all. All mental states are physical states, but not all physical states are mental states.

That's not what the analogy is about...

Well, the argument stipulates that Mary knows everything there is to know about the physical perception of colour.

But there are two significant transformations here, not one. And surrounding them, there are three different Mary's, not two.

Mary₁ is ignorant of color.
Transformation₁₂ has Mary₁ learn everything there is to learn about color, with a restriction.
Mary₂ has "complete" physical knowledge.
Transformation₂₃ releases the restriction, and has Mary₂ see red.
Mary₃ knows more than Mary₂.

What you are doing, which is legitimate, is assuming that Mary₂ really does have complete knowledge, and arguing that Mary₃ shouldn't be learning anything new.

What I'm doing is assuming that the transformation₁₂ really does restrict Mary's brain from seeing red, and showing that Mary₂ doesn't have complete knowledge.

In particular, the restriction has a meta-level to it. Mary₂ is learning about things without actually doing them (that's the restriction). She's a cognitive scientist, so she is learning, in transformation₁₂, what a brain does when it is exposed to color. But learning what a brain does when it is exposed to color isn't the same thing as having your brain do that thing.

In transformation₂₃, the new thing Mary learns is a result of her brain actually doing that thing. This is different from her learning what a brain does when it does that thing in the same way that you flying is different than your learning what happens to a person that flies.

 

[RandFan]

Then again rational thinkers might actually have something to contribute to the questions I ask on this educational forum instead of intellectually superior jibes.

I honestly think that the rational thinkers have given more answers and less jibes than you. I'll concede that I'm subject to confirmation bias but I would hope that you would be as honest to admit you are not free of confirmation bias also.

 

[westprog]

"Impossible"?


Clarke's three laws.

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

What is your field of expertiese westprog and how old are you?

Imagine for a moment a book describing a few modern scientific concepts like DNA, relativity, Quantum Mechanics and radio waves. As to the concepts the book contains descriptions only but it does also explain the scientific method. Imagine that it is sent back in time to the Ancient Greek philosophers. Would they be able to conceptualize experiments to falsify the theories?

It's impossible now to conceptualize the experiment because we lack the knowledge to do so. That doesn't imply that it will always be impossible. I'm carefully not claiming that it will be always impossible to access consciousness experimentally. I'm just stating that it's impossible now.

 

[drkitten]

I think the fact that it's impossible to even conceptualize an experiment which would disprove the computational hypothesis shows just how far there is to go.

Perhaps. But given the fact that we don't have a test for consciousness in humans (as witnessed by the fact that someone just woke up from 'a coma' and announced that he'd been 'conscious' the entire time instead of unconscious as the doctors believed, or by the various reports of conscious-but-paralyzed under general anaesthesia), I don't consider this to be particularly damning of the reverse-engineering-the-brain research program, which is also in early stages.

 

[RandFan]

What you are doing, which is legitimate, is assuming that Mary₂ really does have complete knowledge, and arguing that Mary₃ shouldn't be learning anything new.

What I'm doing is assuming that the transformation₁₂ really does restrict Mary's brain from seeing red, and showing that Mary₂ doesn't have complete knowledge.

In particular, the restriction has a meta-level to it. Mary₂ is learning about things without actually doing them (that's the restriction). She's a cognitive scientist, so she is learning, in transformation₁₂, what a brain does when it is exposed to color. But learning what a brain does when it is exposed to color isn't the same thing as having your brain do that thing.

In transformation₂₃, the new thing Mary learns is a result of her brain actually doing that thing. This is different from her learning what a brain does when it does that thing in the same way that you flying is different than your learning what happens to a person that flies.

Very good post. Yes. But whatever brain state exists at the moment mary is exposed to color can be replicated without her seeing it. That's an empirical fact given physicalism. It could be argued that reading books with just text/math/charts, etc., can't put Mary's brain in that state. However, the knowledge of the experience of color doesn't require seeing color. It's possible to stimulate nerves in the blind and sighted so that one can experience color using electrical probes or chemicals.

Mary could know *all there is about color using nanobots to program her brain to know what it's like to experience color without actually experiencing it. It's possible that we could use electrical impusles and/or chemicals in a precise fashion to educate mary about the experience of red.

*I assume we are all using the term in a coloquial sense. There is no way to know that anyone knows everything there is to know about anything.