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

[westprog]

The sad part is that if we took a poll asking who that individual is, the vote would be nearly unanimous

But that aside, we are having a strange kind of argument. We are supposed to pretend that it isn't always possible to tell, usually within moments, whether we are interacting with a human being or a computer. This is in spite of the fact that on this forum we can only interact through computers. The arena of choice would tend to favour the artificial consciousness. We can't use facial expression, tone of voice, gesture, intimate physical contact or anything but very simple digital signals. And yet, we can quickly identify conscious minds. There's not the remotest chance that an algorithm is posting here, as soon as any kind of interaction takes place.

Yet simply noting this obvious fact is considered some kind of heresy. One may not doubt the computer faith. It's just a different kind of consciousness, that's all. One can't expect computers to be the same a human beings. But it's still consciousness, 100% certain of that!

 

[westprog]

Your method to determine whether or not something is conscious is wishful thinking.

Some of us want to move beyond the stone age and don't have any particular anthropic bias holding us back.

So you are abandoning the test that people actually use constantly during their waking hours, and you are going to replace it with what? The Turing test isn't good enough for you - so how are you going to determine whether something is conscious or not? Is it the Pixy way, by fiat?

 

[westprog]

I disagree, I do not know that you are conscious, I can assume that you show a range of responses that suggest you might not be a chat bot. But that is what the Turing test is about, I can only define behaviors i associate with consciousness, you very well may be a chat bot.

Granted a very sophisticated one.

And yet you know that I'm not.

That's not to say that real soon now someone mightn't come up with the perfect chat bot recipe that can converse normally. However, until they do we can't say that it's possible.

 

[westprog]

Not really. It might be me.

Your spelling is too bad. You have to be human.

 

[Belz...]

Oh, that VAOD again. How can I withstand the VAOD?

I would think observation would've been sufficient. Is that all you had to say about my post ?

 

[Belz...]

[6] I then said that even if they did compute the data it did not mean that they were conscious

Yes, and I never said cameras were conscious.

Which brings me back to my original question: How can cameras be said to observe if they are not conscious?

Again, conscious <> aware.

That same would be true if the data were mined by an automated system instead of being uncovered by natural processes. Data doesn't become knowledge, scientific or otherwise, until a conscious subject becomes cognizant of it.

But a computer, unlike a river or stratum, has the ability to make associations and calculate probable causes or outcomes. Isn't that doing science, especially if we imagine computers somewhat more powerful than the ones we have today ?

How is a thermostat anymore aware than a comatose human? After all, the coma victim's mammalian body regulates it's temperature just like a thermostat.

The unconscious human is not aware of the outside world but that doesn't mean it has no awareness at all. In fact, unconscious people often still think, which I think you'd label as part of consciousness; and the body is still aware of itself, otherwise it couldn't continue to function. The thermostat isn't CONSICOUS, but it is AWARE of at least one thing.

The difference between computing an output and formulating a conclusion is one of kind rather than degree.

Well, that seems to be the crux of the discussion, doesn't it ? Why do you think it's a matter of kind and not of degree ?

I'm just a bit frustrated and disappointed at the level of reasoning that produced the question. The fact that you can't seem to see whats wrong with the question just bothers me even more.

That's nice. I'm dissapointed that you don't even consider the implications of the question. You just lash out at me for mentioning it.

Is every phenomenon a computation?

Obviously not. Otherwise I wouldn't have said that you can label a process as something else than computation.

I can easily fathom conscious computers. After all I am one. The thing is, I realize that I compute regardless of whether or not I'm conscious, so I find the "consciousness is computation" argument dubious at best.

Perhaps you're using two definitions of "conscious" at the same time.

However, as I've already pointed out, we currently have no means of definitively establishing this capacity in any entities other than ourselves, what it is about our physiology that generates this capacity, or the knowledge of how to synthetically reproduce it.

In that case, we don't even have that capacity. We INFER that other humans are conscious. Care to tell me why ?

Belz, its one thing to ask me an asinine question. Its quite another to ask it again when you know I've already answered it repeatedly. Quit trolling.

I ask you a serious question, and you answer by calling it stupid, asinine and trollish. In other words you insult me for no reason, and you think _I'm_ the troll ?

 

[westprog]

I would think observation would've been sufficient. Is that all you had to say about my post ?

Pretty much. If you have a comment about how you accumulate the VAOD that would be of interest.

 

[!Kaggen]

DD I eventually found the time to work through this

What I mean by common sense is not thinking about but figuration. In other words figuration is that part of appearance which we add to from our experience.

Okay, yet that seems to be subject to error and bias, at least in the application of some models vs. the behavior of reality. So I am always cautious about it. (As an aside. Especially personally, as a person living with depression and anxiety my 'formations' are often out of balance.)

We should be cautious, especially in a society with so much freedom and very little cultural boundary's. In the past whole societies functioned exclusively on unconscious figuration based on collective representations. Many still do, even in western societies re. religious fundamentalists. We can free ourselves from unconscious figuration and can now consciously direct figuration using the scientific method. I still believe that we end up with a collective representation which informs our figuration. However we can choose not to be informed by certain individuals with certain agenda's, but through our own thinking based on rational evidence. I understand and appreciate your personal experience, but I really think that because you have thought about your condition, as explained by science, you are able to make the observation of having unbalanced formations. In other words you have adjusted your figuration accordingly.

So if I duck because someone throws a punch at me it is not because I think about it, but because I know from experience that a fist is solid.

Sure that is a learned habit, often habits are empty of actual validity. Again caution advised.

I was not so much referring to ducking, but more to the fact that a fist is solid. I would not call realizing the solidity of a fist a habit.

I am not claiming a special position for common sense as opposed to the scientific method.
I am saying that it is difficult to avoid everyday common sense and we should embrace it consciously and direct it wisely rather than dismiss it as unreliable.

Well there may be areas where that is true and areas where that is false, as I have stated there are many places where such habits are unreliable and very prone to bias and error. So caution is advised..

Now perhaps this forum is one area where more caution is observed than normal.

Sure, being a forum for skeptics I would expect this to be the case. However implicit in the questioning of common sense is to come up with a more reliable common sense.
Of course solipsism is always the possible outcome for a sceptic, but could hardly be a philosophy embraced by a scientist.

Yes, but we describe the results based on a common percept. Otherwise we would not be understood.

In some areas yes introspection will provide some reliable effects, but you have to be very careful, especially here to define and discuss the parameters.

Often the actual results of introspection as reported are widely variant. Take prayer or other forms of meditation, different people will report different result and consequences.

This is the case were consequences are merely reported. I tend to be more interested in the the physical results of introspection, in which case they speak for themselves.

I was not meaning a metric when I used the term data, but perceptive information (sensory neurochemical data).

that too is prone to error of many sources between observers, which is again my point. Introspection unless carefully defined is such a broad term as to be fraught with communication errors alone, much less differences of perception. I am fairly certain that my best friend and I actually perceive the color red differently, part of it is language usage and self idiom, but I seriously suspect that his eye and brain perceive a higher red content than mine.

Now I have not done a pattern matching test with different shades to see if we would identify the same quantative vales. But he calls 'pink' what I often call 'purple'. Now part of that is language patterns and application but I seriously believe that he perceives more red than I do or that I perceive more blue than he does.

Much less when we get to an abstracted concept like 'pretty'.

That may be especially when it comes to verbal communication of the results of introspection. However we need not and in fact mostly do not communicate introspection solely by rational means. We mostly do it through artistic expression. The question then is how much of this expression conveys something meaningful. The best artists tend to convey a common meaning better.

Communicating concepts such as beautiful is interesting since as you pointed out to Robin you believe that Mary does not learn to experience a concept.

Actually I am claiming something else, it is my belief that she will not develop color vision, and will be unable to tell the 'color red' from a similarly matched and saturated 'color grey'. There are many issues with this, she may have photo receptors in her fovea, but there is a rather complex neural network that develops in the retina, hers will not be as developed as those of humans who are exposed to colors from birth on. So even at the level of the retina I believe her neural circuitry will not be developed to perceive color they way it could be.

then there is the whole issue of perception and pathways and processes of perception. Much of that is developed and learned in response to the stimulus of exposure to color.

So there are many possible outcomes:
-she will not develop color vision, she will be unable to distinguish shades of tint from similar shades of grey tint.
-after considerable exposure, say a matter of days and weeks , she may begin to develop some rudimentary form of color vision, which may develop in acuity and discrimination-however due to her lack of exposure during developmental phases of her growth, she may never have more than very broad and gross color vision, she is likely to not have the acuity of vision, the ability to distinguish shades that people who develop in exposure to color do.

Then the question remains, without a common objective measure of colour experience, will Mary experience beauty the same way someone with color perception does?

She actually won't have the capacity to experience the colour red through the lack of real experience. The wavelengths of red light and the physiological response of her sense organs is surely still happening,

maybe, maybe not, it sure will be very different. And a highly unethical experiment.

Hmm, surely there are cases similar to Mary were we would have recorded a physiological response to a stimulus of which a person is unaware?

but her brain is not primed to recognize what she sees due to lack of exposure to what her brain receives as a stimulus.

yes! However there are often crucial stages in development that occur roughly at 1.5-3 years of age, 8-12 years of age and so on, where brain growth is occurring and associations are forming.

So she may be rather limited or not capable of color vision.

I am not sure I follow, are you agreeing that her brain receives the same signals as someone with colour vision or are you saying that her physiological response before the brain would be differently to colours than someone with colour vision?

In another way if Mary only ever saw colours and never was given any information about what she saw would she be able to recognize that one specific colour was "red" when explained all the information we know about the colour red without any reference to what she was seeing?

well that is the subject of a rather abstracted derail right now, I would say that she could recognize color and would learn to use idiomatic reference to color in exposure to others.

But the 'complete knowledge' argument is a fallacy of construction, which you have wisely avoided.

I am not so sure that it is not relevant. Mary's awareness of colour is not just a matter of her physiology, but also her ability to abstract one from the other. If she has no cultural references to the differences in colour, why would we expect her to abstract one colour from the other just because her physiology can?

I do not believe so. Would it be the same for a chair? If Mary had never seen a chair before? Would she recognize one when it was put in front of her, by answering the question, what is this?, after being provided with enough information about what a chair looked like? I do not believe she would.

Well that hinges upon the phrase 'information of what a chair looked like', I have identified the common name of birds that have been described to me verbally without seeing them.

Yes, but we are not talking about differentiating between types of chairs once she knows what a chair is, but between a chair and no chair.

Based on the above, I do not believe that we can communicate our experience of reality without both having a percept and a concept which are related by thinking.

yes, and language is a very specific set of symbolic self referencing and idiomatic set of symbols.

it is a set of experience but not related to all experience.

Ok.

I am even more optimistic and believe there are methods of refining the consistency between different observers through exercises in active perception. Active perception being when we consciously direct our figuration.

Sure , I would as well, but I think that this thread alone has had three derails based exclusively upon the problems of language usage. Where people seem to me to often not be interested in actually using the idiomatic reference to communicate but rather to show gaps in the logical application of language as though that alone is proof of an underlying reality.

The equation of 'complete knowledge' to a critique of 'materialism' is a very good example of that.

Which is why I truly believe that often in the se discussion is really does come down to the vagueness of the concepts.

The 'hard problem of consciousness' seems to me to be inherent in the sloppy usage of language and an unwillingness to actually try to define terms. Which is also why I avoid qualia like the plague.

Time to rest....

I still do not think it useful to avoid the difficulty in communicating our introspections by reducing them to algorithms.
All we end up doing then is dismissing all other means of expression as mere entertainment.

How can we know that the definition of physical state is not dependent on a mental state?
In fact how do we even know that a physical state is not a mental state?

Ah, forgot to respond to this earlier!

You can't prove a negative !Kaggen, so it is on you to demonstrate taht a physical state id dependant upon a mental state.

And it would be up to yo to demonstrate that a physical state is a mental state.

Now of course our knowledge of such things is mental, and we can't know the actual construct of *it* whatever that *it* which is the world may be.

But we can't argue about gaps because there will always be more gaps than non-gaps.

All we can discuss are models.

Thats my point really. What if *it* is known by means of our mental construct and there is nothing else to know?

Which brings me back to the point of responding to the post:

How could you tell the difference. If a physical state was dependant upon a mental state (and I can think of some states taht are) how could you tell the difference.

So say we charge a capacitor with electricty, that is dependant upon construction, but not amental state. How would we show that it is a dependancy?

Now the label of 'charged' is linked to mental states associated with the word 'charged'.

Well if we assume the above, whilst we do not interact with the capacitor the question is moot. However as soon as we do our knowledge of the capacity is relevant to its behavior.

 

[Dancing David]

Your spelling is too bad. You have to be human.

Some days, yes. Other days, maybe.

Most of my recent errors have been transposition and typing, could be mimicked fairly easily.

 

[Dancing David]

DD I eventually found the time to work through this



We should be cautious, especially in a society with so much freedom and very little cultural boundary's. In the past whole societies functioned exclusively on unconscious figuration based on collective representations. Many still do, even in western societies re. religious fundamentalists. We can free ourselves from unconscious figuration and can now consciously direct figuration using the scientific method. I still believe that we end up with a collective representation which informs our figuration. However we can choose not to be informed by certain individuals with certain agenda's, but through our own thinking based on rational evidence. I understand and appreciate your personal experience, but I really think that because you have thought about your condition, as explained by science, you are able to make the observation of having unbalanced formations. In other words you have adjusted your figuration accordingly.




I was not so much referring to ducking, but more to the fact that a fist is solid. I would not call realizing the solidity of a fist a habit.



Sure, being a forum for skeptics I would expect this to be the case. However implicit in the questioning of common sense is to come up with a more reliable common sense.
Of course solipsism is always the possible outcome for a sceptic, but could hardly be a philosophy embraced by a scientist.




This is the case were consequences are merely reported. I tend to be more interested in the the physical results of introspection, in which case they speak for themselves.




That may be especially when it comes to verbal communication of the results of introspection. However we need not and in fact mostly do not communicate introspection solely by rational means. We mostly do it through artistic expression. The question then is how much of this expression conveys something meaningful. The best artists tend to convey a common meaning better.



Then the question remains, without a common objective measure of colour experience, will Mary experience beauty the same way someone with color perception does?



Hmm, surely there are cases similar to Mary were we would have recorded a physiological response to a stimulus of which a person is unaware?



I am not sure I follow, are you agreeing that her brain receives the same signals as someone with colour vision or are you saying that her physiological response before the brain would be differently to colours than someone with colour vision?





I am not so sure that it is not relevant. Mary's awareness of colour is not just a matter of her physiology, but also her ability to abstract one from the other. If she has no cultural references to the differences in colour, why would we expect her to abstract one colour from the other just because her physiology can?



Yes, but we are not talking about differentiating between types of chairs once she knows what a chair is, but between a chair and no chair.




Ok.




I still do not think it useful to avoid the difficulty in communicating our introspections by reducing them to algorithms.
All we end up doing then is dismissing all other means of expression as mere entertainment.




Thats my point really. What if *it* is known by means of our mental construct and there is nothing else to know?




Well if we assume the above, whilst we do not interact with the capacitor the question is moot. However as soon as we do our knowledge of the capacity is relevant to its behavior.

Thanks !Kaggen, I am glad I am still scanning the thread.

 

[cyborg]

So you are abandoning the test that people actually use constantly during their waking hours, and you are going to replace it with what?

The test you keep referring to is whether or not something behaves like a human, not a test for subjective experiences.

You simply don't seem to get that.

 

[westprog]

The test you keep referring to is whether or not something behaves like a human, not a test for subjective experiences.

You simply don't seem to get that.

Yes, I get it. You are going to replace it with what?

 

[cyborg]

Yes, I get it. You are going to replace it with what?

There is nothing to replace it with.

If you think p-zombies could exist you can't tell if they do exist.

If you wish to worry about subjective experiences/quales/qualia/whatever that is your problem, not mine.

 

[westprog]

There is nothing to replace it with.

If you think p-zombies could exist you can't tell if they do exist.

If you wish to worry about subjective experiences/quales/qualia/whatever that is your problem, not mine.

So any contention that computers are, or are not conscious is based on the nothing test. Forgive me if I find that less than conclusive.

I find it funny when I am sneered at for being concerned about subjective experiences. Like Cyborg doesn't notice when he has a headache.

 

[cyborg]

So any contention that computers are, or are not conscious is based on the nothing test. Forgive me if I find that less than conclusive.

Forgive me if I don't care.

I find it funny when I am sneered at for being concerned about subjective experiences. Like Cyborg doesn't notice when he has a headache.

I sense injuries. The data could be called "pain."

 

[westprog]

Forgive me if I don't care.



I sense injuries. The data could be called "pain."

And you can carry on pretending that that's how the world works if you like. But it sounds like massive denial to me. "I haven't really hurt myself, that is merely data being passed through my nervous system."

When things we know to be true are ignored, and things we have no evidence for are taken as certain facts, then it's Backwards Day.

 

[AkuManiMani]

Yes, and I never said cameras were conscious.

[...]

Again, conscious <> aware.

Just as I cannot me said to be observing sensory data if I'm unconscious [even if that data is being processed by my brain] an unconscious device like a camera cannot be said to be observing.

You're using the words "conscious" and "aware" differently than I am. When you use the terms you simply mean any IP system that referencing data about it's environment [aware] or itself [conscious/self-aware]. When I use those words I'm referring to lucid/semi-lucid states when our minds translate the data, or some portion of it, into qualia. So when when I use the word "observe" I don't just mean that system-p is referencing some stream of data, but that the data is producing a subjective experience of some kind within system-p.

But a computer, unlike a river or stratum, has the ability to make associations and calculate probable causes or outcomes. Isn't that doing science, especially if we imagine computers somewhat more powerful than the ones we have today ?

Whats at issue here is motive agency. For example, if a grand piano were to roll off a roof onto someones head, the event would not be a murder unless there were a conscious intention to kill the person, and the piano would not be "doing murder" unless the even were consciously initiated by the piano in some way. The piano in this scenario is a tool to accomplish murder but is not committing murder itself. It does not matter how complex the mechanisms were the initiated the fall of the piano; the significant factor is intention or lack there of.

Likewise, if the computer were simply mining, processing, and refining raw data, as per the designs of conscious scientists who intend to read an interpret it later, then it's being -used for- the purpose of science but is not -doing science- itself.

If the hypothetical computer has the capacity to intentionally initiate the processing, -know- what it's doing, and understand the results it was producing, then I would definitely concede that science was being done by the computer.

The unconscious human is not aware of the outside world but that doesn't mean it has no awareness at all. In fact, unconscious people often still think, which I think you'd label as part of consciousness; and the body is still aware of itself, otherwise it couldn't continue to function. The thermostat isn't CONSICOUS, but it is AWARE of at least one thing.

Like I said, we're not using the terms "aware" and "conscious" in the same way.

The difference between computing an output and formulating a conclusion is one of kind rather than degree.

Well, that seems to be the crux of the discussion, doesn't it ? Why do you think it's a matter of kind and not of degree ?

Because while computing an output and formulating a conclusion are both examples of information processing, they are qualitatively different. In the former example there isn't any subjective component to the operation; in the latter case there is.

That's nice. I'm dissapointed that you don't even consider the implications of the question. You just lash out at me for mentioning it.

Sorry for the temper, but I get kinda tired of answering the same question over and over again. I already made it abundantly clear that I am absolutely certain I'm experiencing my experiences. If you're not sure of your own thats your affair.

Is every phenomenon a computation?

Obviously not. Otherwise I wouldn't have said that you can label a process as something else than computation.

Can every phenomenon be simulated/described by a computation?

However, as I've already pointed out, we currently have no means of definitively establishing this capacity in any entities other than ourselves, what it is about our physiology that generates this capacity, or the knowledge of how to synthetically reproduce it.

In that case, we don't even have that capacity.

How does my inability to directly access the subjective states of others establish, or even imply, that I've none of my own?

We INFER that other humans are conscious. Care to tell me why ?

I just did.

I ask you a serious question, and you answer by calling it stupid, asinine and trollish. In other words you insult me for no reason, and you think _I'm_ the troll ?

You asked me a question which I already clearly gave you the answer to. You proceeded to ask me again and I answered it again. Why would you to continue to repeating the question after I'd already answered it and expressed annoyance at having it repeated?

 

[cyborg]

And you can carry on pretending that that's how the world works if you like. But it sounds like massive denial to me. "I haven't really hurt myself, that is merely data being passed through my nervous system."

"Merely" is your word, not mine.

 

[rocketdodger]

And you can carry on pretending that that's how the world works if you like. But it sounds like massive denial to me. "I haven't really hurt myself, that is merely data being passed through my nervous system."

When things we know to be true are ignored, and things we have no evidence for are taken as certain facts, then it's Backwards Day.

How about we try this properly.

"I have hurt myself, the pain is data being passed through my nervous system."

Now, please tell us what portion of the above statement you take exception with.

 

[Belz...]

You're using the words "conscious" and "aware" differently than I am. When you use the terms you simply mean any IP system that referencing data about it's environment [aware] or itself [conscious/self-aware]. When I use those words I'm referring to lucid/semi-lucid states when our minds translate the data, or some portion of it, into qualia. So when when I use the word "observe" I don't just mean that system-p is referencing some stream of data, but that the data is producing a subjective experience of some kind within system-p.

Why would you do that ? Why would "observe" be synonymous with "subjective experience" ? Of course, if you use them that way, thermostats and cameras don't "observe". But then why didn't you say so in the first place ?

Likewise, if the computer were simply mining, processing, and refining raw data, as per the designs of conscious scientists who intend to read an interpret it later, then it's being -used for- the purpose of science but is not -doing science- itself.

Agreed. But a computer is able, in principle, to read data on its own, analyse it and reach conclusions without human intervention. In fact, a bunch of computers could communicate to one another without any human action

Because while computing an output and formulating a conclusion are both examples of information processing, they are qualitatively different. In the former example there isn't any subjective component to the operation; in the latter case there is.

Your explanation sounds circular to me. Why do you think there is no subjective experience ?

Sorry for the temper, but I get kinda tired of answering the same question over and over again. I already made it abundantly clear that I am absolutely certain I'm experiencing my experiences. If you're not sure of your own thats your affair.

It's precisely when you're really certain about something that you should doubt it the most.

Can every phenomenon be simulated/described by a computation?

Perhaps. You mean a simulation or a model ?

How does my inability to directly access the subjective states of others establish, or even imply, that I've none of my own?

That's not what I said. I said that you have no idea if other humans are conscious (since you said there is no test to determine consciousness) so why do you still reach the conclusion that they are ?

You asked me a question which I already clearly gave you the answer to. You proceeded to ask me again and I answered it again. Why would you to continue to repeating the question after I'd already answered it and expressed annoyance at having it repeated?

I asked you WHY you are so certain of it. THAT was my question and all you've done is tell me that you are certain.