Are You Conscious?

[westprog]

Er, yes.

Unfortunately you've become either an ontological dualist, or an idealist.

Pixy etal will point out "that's Magic".

Non-determinism is not magic. We've known the universe wasn't deterministic for about a century.

 

[rocketdodger]

Non-determinism is not magic. We've known the universe wasn't deterministic for about a century.

Which is great, because that isn't what Aku is talking about.

Aku is talking about that special kind of event that only appears determined, because it has the same outcome every time, but just *might* be different if the spirit in question decides differently, although the spirit never would decide differently because it doesn't want to.

 

[FedUpWithFaith]

None of them require or attempt to equate consciousness with human consciousness.

Well, it sounds to me like you are, for example the following statement:

Our consciousness is the only consciousness we really know. You can't establish others by fiat. What you can do is dissect human consciousness and ask yourself, and us, is this really essential for consciousness?

Nope. You missed my point entirely. I believe that we, some/most animals and potential AI all share certain fundamental elements of consciousness. I'm applying reductionism realizing that it can only be reduced so far before it ceases to be consciousness.

But you aren't telling the whole story here.

Our own subjective experience is the only subjective experience we really know. As far as the rest of consciousness goes -- external behaviors -- we are clearly not talking about the same thing (and neither is Pixy).

Because I really know your external behaviors, and whether I want to call them conscious behaviors or not. I also really know the behaviors of my dog, or a chimp at the zoo, or a chipmunk in my back yard. And I call them all conscious as well.

You just made my point without realizing it . All those behaviors you believe are conscious in animals are because of the correlation they have to behavior you have you know are conscious and you knowledge that they probably share some similar brain architectures. When your dog effortlessly runs someplace you probably correlate that to unconsciousness because you run without thinking about or "feeling" how you need to move your legs. You assume its unconscious. However, since the dog seems to be running to play or achieve some goal-directed behavior you naturally correlate that to your conscious feelings engaged with such volition.

All humans can do is define things in relation to what we perceive and can understand which is ultimately limited by our brains and language - a huge barrier. I am perfectly willing to accept there are aspects of awareness, cognition, thinking, etc. we can never grasp except perhaps in their shadows and by abstract extrapolation and analogy. I think mankind will one day, upon the singularity occurring perhaps, create a new form of superconsciousness (SC). The SC will probably be able to directly sense such things as 4-D Kline Bottles that we can only imagine shadows of. They will be able to maneuver and understand a limitless range of dimensions. For them QM will be intuitive. They may experience what is called hive-mind and simultaneous experience an untold variety of interconnected realities of their own making. But beyond this are probably things I can't describe because my mind isn't even wired to enable me even to imagine it. I'm the amoeba to their mouse. How could a mouse or you dog infer everything it is to be humanly conscious? If there was such a thing as dog science, their brains would limit their epistemology analogous to how ours must be limited.

And furthermore I can look at the neural activity in a chipmunk while it is conscious and try to elucidate how those external behaviors arise. To me, that is the same thing as trying to elucidate how consciousness arises, because the external behaviors are an aspect of consciousness.

Yes, I'd do the same thing. But it begs the question. It's ultimately constrained by the behaviors you call conscious to begin with. How do you know that a turtle is swimming to the other side of the pond because it wants to or is aware of what its doing? Or a worm burying itself? or a bacterium moving away from light?

I've argued in earlier posts how science needs to go about this. But you can't just define consciousness by an external behavior. You have to understand the principals of the computations that are generating them, not simply map behavior to brain signals. When we glimpse the fundamental algorithm(s) that yield consciousness I think it may be immediately self-evident that they must yield consciousness (though not necessarily sufficient for all forms of consciousness.) even before we test them. I think it will turn out to be simple and elegant like most deep fundamental discoveries and afterwards we'll wonder what the big deal had been about. That's science.

We have this argument all the time here, and it is why I wish people would be more specific in what they are referring to. A chipmunk can be conscious, because it can also be unconscious, yet a chipmunk clearly cannot have the same subjective experience as a human. So what are you talking about -- the subjective experience of a human, or the external behaviors that people label "being conscious" in animals (including ourselves)?

Neither, as I've just explained.

You also have to be able to tie an observable in consciousness itself to an operational definition that explains it to have a complete definition.

We have done that with SRIP.

I think it can be done but you haven't proven it sufficiently to call it a definition yet. Neither you nor Pixi have dealt with the problems of qualification and equivalence in the definition I think I demonstrated conclusively.

Really, it is painfully clear to me that you simply consider the term "conscious" to be stronger than we do. I wish we could move on. You know what, I will even come to your side of the fence if it means we can move on. If you want me to reserve "consciousness" for something more complex, I can do that, since you agree that SRIP is a necessary requisite.

What do you want to move on to exactly? I don't care what side of the fence you're on. I just want to provoke greater understanding and read good arguments.

You can take any premise for consciousness you want to and run with it all you like. But if you pick the wrong ones you can end up believing rocks are conscious.

I'm happy with this definition: Consciousness is the mental state that initiates when the alarm clock wakes you up and ends after consuming too many beers.

 

[AkuManiMani]

I think that while there's undeniably a chain of mental rationale behind all of our choices they are still non deterministic in the sense that, in most cases, the conclusions reached by such processes are inherently open ended. Yes, there was a definite line of reasoning that let you to choose McDonald's over Burger King. But what makes it non-deterministic is that you are not algorithmically compelled to select one choice over another.

A person can follow a formal line of logic, reach the conclusion that is consistent with those given formal rules, and still chose against it. Conscious thought process has the inherent ability to override or modify preconditioned dispositions, and may even spontaneously formulate novel patterns of behavior.

Er, yes.

Unfortunately you've become either an ontological dualist, or an idealist.

Pixy etal will point out "that's Magic".

I'm not following how the argument for indeterminate volition implies dualism or idealism

 

[FedUpWithFaith]

I'm not sure I know who the bull-headed one is here RD. If I'm guilty, so are you.

Yes, but in different ways. I usually try to resolve communication problems. You seem to exacerbate them!

Perhaps you haven't been noticing the evolution of my posting but I decided within my last 30-40 posts or so to abandon much of FUWF's abrasive style here at JREF and take it to the level commonly seen here. There is an insufficient critical mass of people here who enjoy that kind of rough-and-tumble style and some of the more ascerbic elements of his humor that have been enjoyed (or hated) at some other forums. Normally I would have left this forum but I consider the quality of people and dialogue here to be sufficiently high to say "when in Rome"... I'll leave when it gets boring or the censorship too confining.

The part I bolded suggests you have an ideological agenda of some kind propelling your arguments. I'm not even sure I know what HPC stands for - did you mean the Human Potential Club? If so, I'm not a member. I'm looking for nothing but the truth. I have no agenda to support or undermine anybody's value judgments.

You have no agenda to support, yet your screen name is FedUpWithFaith!!!

HPC == "Hard Problem of Consciousness"

Thanks for the definition.

I try not to let my truth seeking get in the way of my agenda. I'm open to seeing evidence and argument to support why faith, in the sense I define it, is true and good. And if and when I get there I'll change my name.

Perhaps I can support this claim by telling you more about me. I'm an atheist and skeptic. I don't want to support woo or faith in any manner because I don't believe in them and I find they do net harm.

However, as I have evolved my views on digital physics and consciousness over recent years I can see how they could potentially open the door for some sort of god-like super-being being associated with creation(s) as well as woo of many forms. Do I believe any more in such things? Absolutely not, I see no evidence, only a potential avenue of possibility (which I think probably do exist in other universes though). Have my ideas provided refuge and argument for people like Limbo, UE, and others to justify their woo and mysticism. Yes. You can see that here repeatedly. Am I happy about that? No, because it serves an agenda I actively oppose and even donate money against. But, I'm not going to let that influence how I seek the truth and what I believe.

I am pretty sure both Dennet and Pixy know that there is an attribute that many visual percepts have in common, and that they have learned to label this attribute the color "red."

I am also pretty sure that they can invoke a very similar sensation when they visualize a "red" object.

So there you go -- this thing called "redness" is just what is in common between a bunch of percepts.

I don't speak for Dennet or Pixy,

[my bold] Correct, you don't.

but I would bet that they don't like the notion of "qualia" because everyone who uses it (except for you, apparently) mean it to be more than just this relation between percepts yet none of them can specify what that entails.

It's not just me, at least not outside JREF. I can't help what others think. All I can do is to argue as rationally for my position as I can and try to shed unnecessary biases.

I, on the other hand, realize that people just don't know what they are talking about when they say "qualia" and I automatically interpret their use of the word to mean "relationships, that I am not educated enough to realize are relationships, between things that my brain has subconsciously caught on to."

I agree that most people don't know what they're talking about when it comes to qualia or consciousness, which I equate in subjective observation.

The part that I underlined is too devoid of specificity to do any explanatory work. On its own it's just a sloppy way of assuming materialism as a given which means you're guilty of bias as the HPC crowd you despise. I'm not saying you're wrong about your conclusion or that i disagree with it. But you're, once again, subsuming your conclusions in your definitions.

Lol, yes, I am assuming that materialism (rather, physicalism) is true. In my defense, I am not sure how anyone would make any progress in science if they took the magic faerie dust scenario as seriously as the rest of the hypotheses.

I'm assuming Model Realism, not physicalism, is true yet we both converge on most of our convictions. My point was really how you assume and argue and take for granted, not the correctness of your conclusions in this case.

If consciousness didn't require a "novel" explanation in terms of computation, some computational model, or anything else for that matter then we must completely understand consciousness then. Is that your claim???? Do you have such a complete computational model in mind? Of course you don't.

You still don't get it.

We call SRIP conscious because that is the only qualitative difference between the set of things we consider conscious and the set of things we consider not-conscious.

It has literally nothing to do with anything else!

I'm sorry, I "get" that and you have not yet specifically and directly reputed my arguments for over-qualification and equivalence in a previous post.

When I do my best to filter out the incoherence from your sentence, I think all you are really entitled to claim is that there is no good reason to believe that consciousness depends on anything else but some form of computation that is not beyond science to discover. That I agree with.

You don't think I am also entitled to claim that such computation will fall within the bounds we have known about for 50 years I.E. Turing equivalence / universal computation and all that jazz?

Sure, but that's superfluous. It's subsumed in "computation".

 

[FedUpWithFaith]

I think that while there's undeniably a chain of mental rationale behind all of our choices they are still non deterministic in the sense that, in most cases, the conclusions reached by such processes are inherently open ended. Yes, there was a definite line of reasoning that let you to choose McDonald's over Burger King. But what makes it non-deterministic is that you are not algorithmically compelled to select one choice over another.

A person can follow a formal line of logic, reach the conclusion that is consistent with those given formal rules, and still chose against it. Conscious thought process has the inherent ability to override or modify preconditioned dispositions, and may even spontaneously formulate novel patterns of behavior.

Er, yes.

Unfortunately you've become either an ontological dualist, or an idealist.

Pixy etal will point out "that's Magic".

I'm not following how the argument for indeterminate volition implies dualism or idealism

Aku, Al, and others:

With all due respect can you guys set up a separate thread (or does one already exist) for your emerging free-will debate if you want to continue it? I'd love to participate and I have lots to say on the subject for anyone that cares to hear it but if it's like other forums I've been on, it will completely derail this thread.

 

[rocketdodger]

You just made my point without realizing it . All those behaviors you believe are conscious in animals are because of the correlation they have to behavior you have you know are conscious and you knowledge that they probably share some similar brain architectures. When your dog effortlessly runs someplace you probably correlate that to unconsciousness because you run without thinking about or "feeling" how you need to move your legs. You assume its unconscious. However, since the dog seems to be running to play or achieve some goal-directed behavior you naturally correlate that to your conscious feelings engaged with such volition.

Ahhhh.. I see where you are coming from now. I agree, then.

 

[Limbo]

Have my ideas provided refuge and argument for people like Limbo, UE, and others to justify their woo and mysticism. Yes. You can see that here repeatedly. Am I happy about that? No, because it serves an agenda I actively oppose and even donate money against.

ref⋅uge

1. shelter or protection from danger, trouble, etc.: to take refuge from a storm.

Don't worry FUWF. It's not like my paradigm of thought was in danger and then you came along and saved it with the shelter of your ideas. I don't need your ideas to justify my woo and mysticism.

I'm interested in your ideas though, and I get a kick out of seeing you struggle against where you know deep down they are gradually leading you.

Sooner or later you will become a woo mystic, or you will become a neurotic. You are on a slippery slope. All you need is a little time and maybe a transpersonal experience or two to push you to woo. Shall I pray to the universal computer and the advanced beings on your behalf, and ask them to send you one or two? Are you ready?

Incidentally, I'm FUWF too. You'll find that woo mystics don't really need conventional exoteric kindergarten faith. They have experience.

 

[Z]

I'm happy with this definition: Consciousness is the mental state that initiates when the alarm clock wakes you up and ends after consuming too many beers.

Oh, dear... I'm never conscious, then. I don't use an alarm clock to wake up! Nor do I consume too many beers... anymore, anyway.

FUWF, I appreciate your last response to me. We're at least on the same sheet of music now, and I have enough now to think about for a while. Back on lurk for me until something else really, really interesting comes up!

And I'm by no means whatsoever a doctor. Rev. Z will work just fine for the time being. Thanks!

Rocketdodger, as much as I usually hate to change opinions, I think FUWF has something. Still not 100% sure what, but something.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

For the record , I do not think that explaining qualia will make negate their reality or significance any more than the reductive explanation of water negates its dynamic properties. The misguided efforts of Dennett et al. notwithstanding, qualia are unequivocally real and any attempt at a theory of consciousness that ignores them is folly.

OK, good, glad we agree about that. Don't know about Dennett again, but from what little I know he seems to argue that qualia are just not something special and they don't have special ontological status (as in they are not due to a new or different substance), but I don't know for sure since I don't spend much time on him.

I will say tho, that the experience of qualia -as- qualia is reference frame dependent. Clearly, if one were to observe the qualia of red from "the outside" it would not be red to the external observer. Unless there some means of having direct mental contact between two subjects [something that far out of our technological reach, atm] the experience of qualia as such is completely dependent upon one's subjective frame.

Yes, good, we are agreed.

However, in order for an entity to be a subject they must have being; a subject is not simply an abstraction but a Ding an sich -- a thing in itself. Hence my earlier statement that the phenomenal is noumenal. A conscious subject may not be the ground of all reality [as per Idealism] but they are unquestionably the ground of their own experience. Qualia are not possessed by subjects, they are emanations of the subject. To find qualia is to the the "I" that thinks.

With that said, from your subjective frame, I am an object external to you. I am not only an external object, I am an object that interacts with the physical world that you share with me. Therefore I am an external physical object and, by extension, so are my qualia.

I know what you mean by the phenomenal being the noumenal, but I still have a little problem with the terminology because it seems to imply something more than just this. Yes, there is no appearance/reality distinction we can make with consciousness -- we experience it, so it is real.

However there are two other issues: (1) we can be fooled about the contents of consciousness and (2) there is a sense in which to say that we experience "the thing itself" is to imply that that "thing" is irreducible. I do not think that is the case with qualia since I think they are likely reducible to simpler processes, but that is for another discussion.

Some time ago I read Ramachandran & Hirstein's Three Laws of Qualia. In the paper he reaches conclusions similar to the ones I've reached concerning qualia and the role they play in cognition. Interestingly, they point out the neurological distinction between 'strong' and 'weak'. Ramachandran & Hirstein categorize bottom-up [i.e. stimulus invoked] perceptions as examples of 'strong' qualia; they are vividly explicit and unambiguous. They define 'weak' qualia as the top-down experiences generated by conceptualization which are much less vivid; the reasoning is that this difference allows us to distinguish between imagination and reality.

For the most part, the Three Laws paper was a very interesting read. I think approaching consciousness primarily from the biological/neurological perspective is the way to go. IMO, computationalism is fundamentally flawed and the only theorists that will make any real progress in advancing our understanding of consciousness will take the position of "Its the physics, stupid!". Only after we understand the physics of consciousness can we ever hope to implement it technologically.

Thanks for the link; I'll try to get to it soon. I do have a slight problem with Rama's viewpoint, though, since he doesn't think that other animals are able to experience qualia. That strikes me as wrong.

I also do not think it follows necessarily that computationalism is wrong. I think it depends considerably what we mean by computation and not speak of simple computer programs as the prime example. Neurons perform computational tasks and I do not think these tasks are observer dependent as computation (I think Searle is wrong).

It could be that computationalism is wrong, though. Who knows? I do think we need to try as many approaches as possible, so any non-computational approach that works I'm all in for.

 

[rocketdodger]

I'll leave when it gets boring or the censorship too confining.

Well if you ever leave please send me a PM with details on how to find you later, since I have been learning a great deal from your posts.

It's not just me, at least not outside JREF. I can't help what others think. All I can do is to argue as rationally for my position as I can and try to shed unnecessary biases.

Fair enough, but I hope you can appreciate how repeated exposure or lack thereof to a certain type of individual can bias us.

I'm assuming Model Realism,

Same thing. I don't mean the old school physicalism, I mean the new mathematical physicalism. I like the phrase "modal realism" better though, I should start using that...

I'm sorry, I "get" that and you have not yet specifically and directly reputed my arguments for over-qualification and equivalence in a previous post.

I didn't?

I thought it was clear -- if I say SRIP is consciousness, with the understanding that SRIP (and hence consciousness) is certainly not a sufficient condition for human consciousness (or any other interesting flavor, for that matter), then your arguments no longer apply.

I agree that claiming SRIP is necessary and sufficient for consciousness -- period, end of story, nothing more to learn here -- is a pretty stupid thing to say. But I don't think anyone here has said that.

Sure, but that's superfluous. It's subsumed in "computation".

Yeah, well ... you just wait and see what the crazy people here say.

 

[rocketdodger]

Rocketdodger, as much as I usually hate to change opinions, I think FUWF has something. Still not 100% sure what, but something.

Yes he has something (I am assuming a "he").

But I don't see it as much of a "change" in your opinion, merely additional information.

I still think all of the educated individuals here agree on the important things.

 

[FedUpWithFaith]

Don't worry FUWF. It's not like my paradigm of thought was in danger and then you came along and saved it with the shelter of your ideas. I don't need your ideas to justify my woo and mysticism.

I'm interested in your ideas though, and I get a kick out of seeing you struggle against where you know deep down they are gradually leading you.

Sooner or later you will become a woo. You are on a slippery slope. All you need is a little time and maybe a transpersonal experience. Shall I pray to the universal computer and the advanced beings on your behalf, and ask them to send you one?

Limbo,

If your prayers might actually enable me to get a signal form the aether by which I could understand "what is", by all means pray for me. I won't be holding my breath though.

I've been hearing this sort of thing since I was a kid. "One day you'll find God" son..... I've heard it so much from loved ones and others with so much conviction that I have concluded that they must sense I have a gullible inner core or that God will be choosing me to be the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

If it's the latter, I just want you and everybody else here to know I will be smiting all of you the minute I get the chance.

 

[Limbo]

Limbo,

If your prayers might actually enable me to get a signal form the aether by which I could understand "what is", by all means pray for me. I won't be holding my breath though.

Ok.

I've been hearing this sort of thing since I was a kid. "One day you'll find God" son..... I've heard it so much from loved ones and others with so much conviction that I have concluded that they must sense I have a gullible inner core or that God will be choosing me to be the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Probably something in between. Though you will find that inflation of ego is a big challenge. That's why humility is so valued by mystics.

Do you come from a largely religious family?

If it's the latter, I just want you and everybody else here to know I will be smiting all of you the minute I get the chance.

Ha-ha, I'm not worried about it. You'll be too busy smiting yourself.

 

[FedUpWithFaith]

Well if you ever leave please send me a PM with details on how to find you later, since I have been learning a great deal from your posts.

There is always at least a small possibility I'll be banned unexpectedly due to my cantankerous nature. If you read the Dr. A banning thread and its relatives perhaps you know why - though some of my posts were removed. In any event, you can reach me at fedupwithfaith [at - you know what I mean to prevent spammers] yahoo.

I also post occasionally at a member-controlled Dawkins splinter forum called Rationalia that arose after the "Great Schism" there. I'd post there more but despite having some great people, there are too few still and the quantity of good debate is low. That's why I followed a few of its members over here. Rationalia is more like a pub where you can say stuff you're no longer allowed to say at Dawkins.

Fair enough, but I hope you can appreciate how repeated exposure or lack thereof to a certain type of individual can bias us.

Absolutely. Been there done that...

Same thing. I don't mean the old school physicalism, I mean the new mathematical physicalism. I like the phrase "modal realism" better though, I should start using that...

To be honest, I can't find the perfect label for me. Even Modal Realism doesn't fit perfectly depending on which of its proponents you read.

I didn't?

I thought it was clear -- if I say SRIP is consciousness, with the understanding that SRIP (and hence consciousness) is certainly not a sufficient condition for human consciousness (or any other interesting flavor, for that matter), then your arguments no longer apply.

I agree that claiming SRIP is necessary and sufficient for consciousness -- period, end of story, nothing more to learn here -- is a pretty stupid thing to say. But I don't think anyone here has said that.

Thanks for clarifying that because it wasn't clear to me. I still don;'t think you fixed the qualification error though - do you intend to mean that all or any form of SRIP is conscious, e.g., simple recursion? And frankly, if you want to be concise and avoid unnecessarily potentially ambiguating words you might want to see if one of my previous definitions is a better fit. What you are doing is mixing colloguial and philosophical forms of definition and using philosophically logical qualifiers to fix the problem you yourself create by doing so. Abandon the word "is/are" unless you're on firm philosophical ground. It leads to ruin. People always confuse its colloquial meaning with the philosophical in arguments and lose sight of it even when they had known so themselves. I've made this mistake countless times forgetting how dangerous "is" is and made a fool of myself in the process drawing incorrect inferences from it like Pixi did with "Trees are plants".

 

[AkuManiMani]

I have to say that while your argument has some truth to it, it's not totally accurate. Its true that neural tissue has a relatively low rate of cellular turnover, but neural cells themselves still undergo metabolic turnover. In other words, individual brain cells have a much longer shelf life than most other cells but they still require continual maintenance and part replacement

However, cellular part replacement is very, very low for most cells. Most of the metabolic process involves energy production and usage and protein synthesis; the fundamental molecular structures are rarely, if ever, replaced in a cell. Granted, research is somewhat limited in this area; but the conventional consensus is that a long-lived cell has the same essential atoms in it that it had when it was created, with only a few rare repairs and replacements.

The fact still remains that all living cells are dynamic structures that must maintain themselves against the wear and tear of entropy. Our brains still require fats and proteins for cell growth and maintenance regardless of how slow neuronal turnover is relative to other tissue types.

None of which matters, though: unless you're wanting to claim that consciousness exists on a molecular (or even atomic) level, the fact remains that we largely consist of the same brain cells that we had at ages 2.9 and 10, and that consciousness could well be, in part, a physical phenomena as a result. Changing a tire doesn't mean that a car isn't an integral part of driving, for example.

A huge part of my argument is that the production of conscious experience must depend upon the physical properties of the neural substrate. My point in emphasizing metabolic turnover was to demonstrate that while the our existence as subjects depends upon the biological substrate we are not the substrate. This demonstrates that whatever minds are, they are not made of atoms, molecules, or cells but something generated/maintained by their aggregate activity.

I can't claim to speak for FUWF, but personally, if an artificial system exhibited behaviors indicative of volition I would consider it strong evidence that it is conscious. If we have a scientific theory of consciousness that meets the earlier criteria I mentioned earlier we would be able to prove whether or not an entity is conscious, rather than rely on personal intuition and inference.

My guess is that consciousness is extricable linked to biophysical processes and that to produce viable synthetic consciousness one would have to creating a living construct. IMO, if it's conscious it's a person.

Then there's something about personhood and life that you feel is inextricably part of consciousness. So now we get into defining 'person' - and why animals are not persons, and what the exact definition of 'life' is.

Assuming the animal in question has subjective experiences, I would consider it a non-human person.

I tend to remove concepts of personhood and life from consciousness simply because both concepts are, again, ill-defined and nebulous, and can be applied or misapplied to many people or things. Many definitions of life, for example, would claim that I am no longer alive, because I can no longer reproduce. Some definitions of personhood would claim I'm not a person because I don't have a deep personal relationship with Jesus. So these concepts are best stripped away, unless we further take the time to carefully define them as well - and that seems a slippery slope that leads to 'What does 'is' mean?'

Well, why don't we just agree on our terms and definitions to avoid confusion?

I would tentatively define 'life' as any autopoietic system that adaptively maintains itself against thermodynamic equilibrium [reproduction, IMO, is just a secondary feature of life].

I define 'person' as any entity that experiences a subjective life of any complexity.

I think that while there's undeniably a chain of mental rationale behind all of our choices they are still non deterministic in the sense that, in most cases, the conclusions reached by such processes are inherently open ended. Yes, there was a definite line of reasoning that let you to choose McDonald's over Burger King. But what makes it non-deterministic is that you are not algorithmically compelled to select one choice over another.

Evidence?

To our knowledge, no human is born with an algorithm specifying how to select one restaurant over another. There is no evidence of any algorithmic script of human behavior which compels them toward specific courses of action. Considering that most of the scenarios humans must navigate on a daily basis are unpredictable and complex, the likelier explanation is that our reactive behaviors are largely novel responses to contingency.

What seems apparent to me, and obviously isn't to you, is that the algorithm involved is immensly complex and recursive to some degree, but is still compelling and absolute. It's not open-ended at all, but there is a degree of feedback involved - most likely from the multiple consciousnesses within the brain - which gives it at least the appearance (useful illusion) of indeterminancy and free will.

Of what use would the 'illusion' of free will have? What evolutionary value does conscious decision making provide if unconscious processing is able to produce the same results more cheaply?

But I think your claim is strongly lacking in evidence or rational, in this case.

What evidence do you have that human behavior is algorithmic?

A person can follow a formal line of logic, reach the conclusion that is consistent with those given formal rules, and still chose against it. Conscious thought process has the inherent ability to override or modify preconditioned dispositions, and may even spontaneously formulate novel patterns of behavior.

Not purely novel, though...

Sure, in the sense that an author doesn't invent a new language from scratch every time they write a book. But a novel is still novel [pun intended ].

...and even the process of choosing against a rational line of reasoning is based upon another line of reasoning.

Which are often neither rational or even remotely systematic.

IN other words, just because the deterministic algorithm is complex and recursive, doesn't mean it's not a deterministic algorithm.

And just because humans often rationalize, does not mean that their behavior is algorithmic.

 

[FedUpWithFaith]

Probably something in between. Though you will find that inflation of ego is a big challenge. That's why humility is so valued by mystics.

I'm screwed then, my ego is gargantuan. Though I suppose that even people like you must have a pretty big ego. Posting in forums like this pretty much presupposes you think you have something to say that others should give a damn about reading. To me, that's the essence of ego.

Do you come from a largely religious family?

No, at least for immediate parents- father is non-practicing Protestant and a Believer. Mother was Jew, then Catholic, then atheist (but for mostly wrong reasons as repudiation to religion) and a woo-believer. Wider family (grandparents etc.) mostly very religious. More importantly, I grew up in a conservative Christian small mid-western town where all my good friends were religious (until their teens at least where I corrupted a few from repeated dangerous exposure).

 

[Frank Newgent]

However, cellular part replacement is very, very low for most cells. Most of the metabolic process involves energy production and usage and protein synthesis; the fundamental molecular structures are rarely, if ever, replaced in a cell. Granted, research is somewhat limited in this area; but the conventional consensus is that a long-lived cell has the same essential atoms in it that it had when it was created, with only a few rare repairs and replacements.

Fortunately the wife likes my Ralph Nader tattoo and jagged, thickly fibrous, and vicious scars.

 

[FedUpWithFaith]

I can't claim to speak for FUWF, but personally, if an artificial system exhibited behaviors indicative of volition I would consider it strong evidence that it's conscious. If we have a scientific theory of consciousness that meets the criteria I mentioned earlier we would be able to prove whether or not an entity is conscious, rather than rely on personal intuition and inference.

You would be right if we know it's true volition. But that's a big can of worms. That's why I tried to break volition up into computational pieces in one of my posts to Pixi. But if we had a free will thread you'd quickly see those pieces get mangled, even by me. I can't claim to have fully captured volition.

As you know, in my post to Pixi previous to expressing requirements for volition I also gave other pseudo-specific computational requirements for consciousness. Some, if not all of these, would probably be subsumed in supporting my conditions for volition as well.

My guess is that consciousness is extricably linked to biophysical processes and that to produce viable synthetic consciousness one would have to creating a living construct. IMO, if it's conscious it's a person.

Did you mean to use the word "extricably" or "inextricably"? Your second sentence suggest you meant "inextricably".

If the former we agree. If the later, we don't. I guess we'd just have to continue to agree to disagree on this. Physical brains are substrate for computation but they ARE not computation qua computation. If we want to learn how brains compute, then I agree we have to understand the biophysics. But the principles of conscious computation could probably be performed on a digital computer (or a quantum computer if by some remote chance Penrose is right).

Saying " consciousness is inextricably linked to biophysical processes" is analogous to saying "driving is inextricably linked to to the internal combustion engine". But we know we can drive electric vehicles too.

 

[FedUpWithFaith]

Fortunately the wife likes my Ralph Nader tattoo and jagged, thickly fibrous, and vicious scars.

Frank, I'm convinced from your often hilarious and pithy remarks that you understand the essence of consciousness but are withholding your revelations from us. If so, why? When will you come clean you big lug you?