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

[Dancing David]

A sentence denying the self which uses the first personal pronoun seven times.

Your inability to respond politly to posts and questions is noted.

But then you are just a p-rudejerk, you exhibit all the behaviors of a rude jerk but are not one.

I asked some questions that you just igonre?

What is the difference between a quale and a percpetion?

And a new one:

Is a neurological-zombie conscious?

 

[Third Eye Open]

No, it is not silly, because for all the effort, no computer has come anywhere near passing the Turing test, after half a century of trying. So any discussions about what we'll do when a computer does do that should really be put on hold.

Could an ape past the Turing test? Humans are adapted through millions of years of evolution to be VERY good at telling what is human and what is not.

Just because I can tell that something is not a human consciousness does not mean it is not conscious at all.

 

[Frank Newgent]

Is a neurological-zombie conscious?

Only if behaviorism is true.

Problem is conceivable zombies violate their own definitions

 

[AkuManiMani]

Functionally, a Windows kernel and MS Word are very different. Provided they're utilizing the same hardware, physically they are the same.

And does it make a difference when I run on a different box?

Functionally, no. Physically, yes. My point is that consciousness is a physical effect of neural processes and not just a computational function performed by them. When it comes to consciousness, the physical composition of the "box" running it makes the difference.

Wiki has: "Consciousness is subjective experience or awareness or wakefulness or the executive control system of the mind," which I can work with.

Okay, so atleast we can agree on the basic definition.

 

[cyborg]

My point is that consciousness is a physical effect of neural processes and not just a computational function performed by them.

Yes, I know that is your point.

When it comes to consciousness, the physical composition of the "box" running it makes the difference.

Yes, this is your assertion. Again I am going to have to ask why you say this is so and how that will affect any computational aspect of consciousness at all.

 

[Third Eye Open]

When it comes to consciousness, the physical composition of the "box" running it makes the difference.

This is the first argument that computers can't be conscious that has made any sense to me.

I mean, it doesn't make 'sense' sense to me, but at least it is coherent.

How did you come to this conclusion? Or were you just searching for a way to make consciousness exclusive to biology and came up with this?

 

[AkuManiMani]

My point is that consciousness is a physical effect of neural processes and not just a computational function performed by them.

Yes, I know that is your point.

When it comes to consciousness, the physical composition of the "box" running it makes the difference.

Yes, this is your assertion. Again I am going to have to ask why you say this is so and how that will affect any computational aspect of consciousness at all.

Because, in humans atleast, conscious experience is only produced by a particular tissue type [neurons], in a particular organ [the brain] and only during particular physiological states [during waking an some phases of REM-sleep]. The various cell and tissue types of the body perform many of the same computational functions as neural cells in the brain that differ only in their physical context. The difference between consciousness and unconsciousness is the physical state of the brain.

 

[AkuManiMani]

This is the first argument that computers can't be conscious that has made any sense to me.

I mean, it doesn't make 'sense' sense to me, but at least it is coherent.

How did you come to this conclusion? Or were you just searching for a way to make consciousness exclusive to biology and came up with this?

I'm not so much as searching for a way to make conscious exclusive to biology as pointing out that, to our knowledge, it only occurs in a very specific biophysical context. My entire position from the get-go has been that we need a solid understanding of what it is about this context that produces consciousness before we can replicate it artificially.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I don't understand why Robin and you are insisting that the relevant sequence must be between the arrayed copies.

Why can't the relevant sequence be between the brain prior to the copy + the copy?

Then you have no problem. It is just a whole bunch of separate instances of the same algorithm, some unlucky ones terminating much sooner than the others.

I'm not following you. I thought the probes each have the inputs for one instruction in the algorithm, then execute that one instruction. How can there be any consciousness in one instruction execution?

~~ Paul

 

[Belz...]

If you were, you couldn't tell anything. If you weren't, you would know it.

Actually, by definition, there IS no difference between a p-zombie and a not p-zombie.

And you're asserting that I'd know, but not explaining why.

 

[Belz...]

If my experiences don't exist, then nothing exists.

Not necessarily. If your experiences aren't real then it simply means you have no way to gather any sort of knowledge.

I might decide what my consciousness is based on external factors, but the fact of its existence doesn't depend on them, because those external factors are only experienced through my consciousness.

Again, an assertion. You ignored my example, as well.

 

[westprog]

Your inability to respond politly to posts and questions is noted.

Is this some group etiquette thing I'm not aware of? No gentleman would ever parse another gentleman's sentences?

I'm not making personal attacks, I'm pointing out the clear fact that just as the argument moves towards denying the existence of self, the affirmation of self gets all the stronger.

 

[cyborg]

The various cell and tissue types of the body perform many of the same computational functions as neural cells in the brain that differ only in their physical context.

Are they computing the same things?

 

[AkuManiMani]

The various cell and tissue types of the body perform many of the same computational functions as neural cells in the brain that differ only in their physical context.

Are they computing the same things?

Well Yes, and no. Often the same stream of information involves transduction into different signaling pathways which utilize different signals [like molecules, membrane potentials, etc.]. In other cases the opposite is true; the same pathway could involve multiple types of information. The same bit of information [be it some external stimuli, or endogenous] is often amplified and split off along multiple lines of processing. The body is really one vast network of overlapping information processing loops.

But, for some reason or another, only a particular line of cells produce conscious experiences from a very small portion of this information, and only then for limited periods of time. These very same neural cells still process information during periods of unconsciousness, and even during periods of consciousness most of the processing they carry out is unconscious. This shows that there are physiological constraints on conscious experience, which is why I stress the importance of understanding the physics of consciousness, and not just the computational architecture.

 

[westprog]

Could an ape past the Turing test? Humans are adapted through millions of years of evolution to be VERY good at telling what is human and what is not.

Just because I can tell that something is not a human consciousness does not mean it is not conscious at all.

And just because something doesn't pass the Turing test it doesn't mean it is conscious either.

 

[Belz...]

So if I am a p-zombie in denial then I have this - what I am seeing, hearing, touching etc - this apparently qualititative experience.

What's a p-zombie in denial ?

So that is what I am calling consciousness. Maybe "real" consciousness is this other unrelated unknowable thing, but what I call consciousness is this experience that I think is consciousness.

By the way, do you have chtuich?

I'm not following.

 

[Belz...]

I'm having a hard time fathoming how some of you can write of your own experience as "superfluous" and "assertions" when thats the very subject of this discussion.

That's the difference between science and introspection. You shouldn't trust your intuitions.

The capacity to experience some as some subjective quality is what it means to be conscious and is the fundamental basis of empiricism. Without conscious experience there would be no science.

Really ? So a non-conscious computer is incapable of doing science ?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

When it comes to consciousness, the physical composition of the "box" running it makes the difference.

The materials that the box is made out of, or the architecture of the box, or the particular classes of computation that the box is performing?

~~ Paul

 

[Belz...]

Qualia are not magic and they don't exist, but they do happen.

Huh ?

 

[Belz...]

Functionally, a Windows kernel and MS Word are very different. Provided they're utilizing the same hardware, physically they are the same.

That is an odd definition of "physical", since everything is physical, including functions.