Are You Conscious?

[nescafe]

And nobody thinks it's strange or exotic to have a physical understanding of what goes on when running.

True, if by "physical understanding" you mean "mixed folk physical and folk biological understanding". If you are talking about "full physical understanding", then no-one understands running, and the primary obstacles to that understanding right now is the seeming incompatibility of General Relativity and the Standard Model, and the sheer logistics in modelling the quadrillions of particle interactions involved.

 

[Belz...]

Because I've had the experience of pain. And I've read about how pain is produced. The description of how pain is produced would not tell us anything useful about what it feels like to experience pain. A description of the behaviour of someone who is experiencing pain will not tell us what it is like to experience pain.

This is such an obvious fact that I find it strange that anyone can seriously put forward a contrary view.

Nobody is putting forward a contrary view. I've already said so a few posts upthread.

Nobody is saying that the knowledge of the experiences gives one the experience. Knowing about millionaires doesn't make me one. I'm saying that the experience of pain IS pain. You're adding a useless layer to pain.

 

[Dancing David]

It's because it's clearly a confusing use of the word that I'm disinclined to accept it. Experience - what we feel - is something entirely different to behaviour - what we do. Saying that experience is actually behaviour, but a different sort of private behaviour that only we see, is just a way to combine two things together when the entire discussion is about their relationship.

Accepting that pain is a private behaviour is just another way of accepting that we understand what pain is - when we don't.

No it is a description from psychology of the term behavior as used in behaviorsim.

Saying pain is a private behavior is a way of saying that there are events of tehe xperience of pain that are not directly observable without some special tools.

the sensation from the pressure, heat or disruption of nerve cells , the transmission of the sensation through the nerves, the processing of the sensations in the somatic areas of the cortex and other parts of the brain.

Now one stated what you think they stated, as usual.

 

[Dancing David]

The sensation is what is produced by the signal. It's possible to describe all the signals in the system, without describing the sensation. They cannot be the same thing.

And that is inherent in your construction of the term sensation, other people use it differently, in psychology, sensation refers loosely to the interaction and nerve impulse prior to the point where they are processed into perception.

So a photo-receptor interacting with a photon, a retinal nerve impulse, an optic nerve impulse, the relay to the visual cortex, these are all terms which roughly fall under sensation. Now when the visual cortex begins the integration of signals and the construction of perception, the sensations are transferred and create the perception of the visual field.

But you statement that you can't describe the sensation is silly, the qualia, the part that is not 'objectively' defined under the current model is the perception.

the sensation is mostly understood (there are some cool areas where it is not like the vestibular integration of the visual field and the cochlear sensations) , the sensation of a photoreceptor is the signal, the qualia of the color red is not the sensation, it is the perception created by the visual cortex. The sensation of the long wave photo-receptor and compilation of other receptors in cross reference creates the perception of red. But the sensation is the transmission of the separate and partly referenced data streams transmitted through the optic nerve.

At least in psychology.

 

[Frank Newgent]

the sensation from the pressure, heat or disruption of nerve cells , the transmission of the sensation through the nerves, the processing of the sensations in the somatic areas of the cortex and other parts of the brain.

Uncontrolled cellular growth, the invasion and destruction of adjacent tissue, the spread to other locations in the body via lymph or blood... is cancer a private behavior?

 

[AkuManiMani]

The fact that you've even made this statement demonstrates that you don't understand what I'm arguing. That consciousness carries out a KIND OF information processing is [forgive the pun] a no brainer. What distinguishes conscious information processing from unconscious processing [in our own brains, mind you] is the physical context of that processing.

Physical context of that processing, meaning what? That only brains can do it? You seem to be waving your hands about.

What the--?!?

Excuse me for asking, Ichneumonwasp, but is there some dimmer switch to your comprehension skills that you turn down at your convenience? I'm pointing out that consciousness [and the range of experiences that come with it] is clearly a physical product of the brain's physiological activity. The computational aspect of the whole enterprise just describes the functional constraints that serve to organize those experiences in a manner that models the subject's environment in an adaptive way. But again, computation itself cannot explain the physical capacity to have those experiences in the first place because 'computation' is just an abstraction.

Those cells still have the same IP features during conscious and unconscious states. The brain does not shut off or cease processing information when the subject is in deep sleep, or otherwise unconscious. What differs between varying states of consciousness and unconsciousness is the energetic state of the brain; Consciousness is a biophysics problem, first and foremost. Trying to re-create consciousness in artificial systems while ignoring the relevant physical states that are correlated with -known- examples of consciousness in actual living brains is -- quite frankly -- unspeakably asinine.

That makes no sense whatsoever.

Then I've given you way too much credit, it seems... -_-

You continue to make the same mistake -- saying that information processing does not equal consciousness. No one is saying that any old information processing does. You have yet to provide a single example of what a brain does during consciousness that cannot be recreated in a computer system

WTF!?!?

Ichneumonwasp, I have NEVER said that the brain's activity could not be recreated by an artifical computer system. My point is, and has always been, that superficially mimicking computation functions of the brain in an effort to produce consciousness is foolish, especially when neuroscience has not yet established what it is about living brains that produces it in the first place.

outside of repeating the vague notion of 'subjective experience' which you refuse to define.

Wow...All of a sudden you have no idea what the term 'subjective experience' refers to? Is this really the same Ichneumonwasp I've been conversing with over the past couple years, or has some intellectually lazy troll logged onto his JREF account?

And to refer to a WIki page about EEG when discussing the subject with an EEGer is on of the dumbest moves I've seen by anyone on this board.

All I can figure is that you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. You keep talking about the biophysics, the energy state, etc. The EEG does not measure some mystical "energy state" of the brain. It measures the difference in potentials between two inputs and provides a graphical representation of those changes.

You know that I've never claimed, or even remotely suggested, that there is anything 'mystical' about what EEGs measure, so I can only assume that you're deliberately strawmanning. I know that EEG [ElectroEncephaloGraphy] directly measures the patterns of electrical activity in the brain. My purpose in mentioning EEG reading was to point out that those activities are intimately correlated with the state of a subject's consciousness. It stands to reason that conscious experience is a direct result of the physical activity of the brain's neural cells and not necessarily the computational ops being performed by those cells. Things like the "redness of red" or the "bitterness of bitter" are the physical results of specific physical processes. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to assume that they are substrate independent products of abstract computational functions.

And computers are capable of duplicating IP features of chemical combustion and fission; that doesn't mean that their processing will produce actual fire or nuclear reactions.

Computers are capable of simulating combustion and fission, not duplicating them. I have no idea what 'duplicating IP features of combustion' even means or what relevance such a statement has to an issue in which no other process than information processing makes any sense.

Do you even know what you mean when you use the words "information" or "information processing"? Computers are able to simulate things like combustion and fission because those events are themselves examples of information processing -- every process that can be described mathematically is an informational process.

Because the nature of your attempts at rebuttal indicate that, deliberately or inadvertently, you're misunderstanding what it is I'm actually arguing.

Perhaps so, but what I doubt is that you don't understand what you are saying. You are making no sense whatsoever.

I'm saying "Its the physics, stoopid!"

You continue to use extremely vague terms to describe issues that are very well known -- EEG -- as though they describe something that you call 'the energy state'. What in the world does that mean?

It means exactly what I said. Consciousness, and the different states of conscious, are associated with particular energetic states of the brain -- i.e. the actual PHYSICAL states of the brain that instruments like EEGs and MEGs measure. Why should the words 'energetic state' throw you for such a loop, anyway?

For goodness sake, give your ego a rest and take a step back. Unless you can define what it is that we are even discussing, because at this point you don't even seem to be talking about anything, only using some weird kind of word salad, then there is really no sense discussing this matter.

If you would just step back and actually make more than a casual effort to read and comprehend what it is I'm actually saying, instead of putting words in my mouth, you would see that its pretty strait-forward:

What we call consciousness is a product of the concrete physical activities of the brain. Its unjustified to jump from the observation that "neurons compute" to "therefore, consciousness is a computation". Computation cannot be ontologically identical to consciousness or even serve as its generative mechanism because computation itself is just an abstraction.

ETA:

Or, wait a second, are you honestly trying to tell me that gamma range EEG activity is consciousness? That there is some sort of electrical field that is consciousness? You're not still repeating that same silly idea from a few years ago are you? And if you are, why didn't you say so you haven't) instead of playing games. Your objections have been dealt with. It seems you are left simply with your opinion and with no data to back it up.

As I've told you already, it makes no sense to think of consciousness, in and of itself, as being computation because computation is not a thing -- it is an abstraction. If we are to ever gain a scientific understanding of consciousness we have to understand how the physics of brain activity produces it. Whether or not consciousness is produced by electrical field activity or is itself a kind of electrical field is an open question, but that is not the point I'm getting at.

EEGs measure what happens in neurons -- a comparison of one area of input vs. another area. That is all. They do not measure an electrical field capable of some other activity.

EEGs aren't measuring 'inputs'. 'Inputs' are an artifact of abstractive language; they are not measurable physical objects. What EEGs -are- doing is measuring the electromagnetic activities that are closely correlated with conscious states. It behooves anyone who wants to understand consciousness to understand the role that these physical processes play in it's generation and variance. Just what is it that you find so repellent about considering consciousness on the level of the physical as opposed to that of computational abstraction?

 

[Frank Newgent]

Would the sun consider the stove hot?

If he's UndercoverSun or WestSun, probably not. If he's PixyMisun or RocketSunner, most assuredly.

At what temperature above −459.67° Fahrenheit would PixyMisun or RocketSunner quit describing the stove as hot?

 

[rocketdodger]

RD, I'm fairly certain that you're a lot sharper than that; you're deliberately being obtuse. You know good & well that I'm not arguing that it can't ever be done. The fact of the matter is that it can't be done with the level of understanding we have at our disposal now, and its most certainly not possible with the descriptive level in your last response. Theres a term for a systematic failure to recognize one's limitations: its called arrogance.

But you aren't telling the whole story.

When you say "understanding we have at our disposal now" you really mean "understanding of the fundamentals of physics that we have at our disposal now."

And that is simply not true -- every shred of evidence, sans your favorite "but we haven't done it yet," suggests that it isn't a fundamental we are missing but rather the details of what happens when the known fundamentals work together in very complex and subtle ways.

So when I say "no, we do have the understanding at our disposal" it means we have all the fundamental knowledge we need and we simply need to work on the details of the complexity.

We all know you disagree with this, otherwise you wouldn't subscribe to that whole consciousness field idea, but evidence doesn't support your position. It supports ours -- current science is aware of all of the fundamentals needed to model any cell that could contribute to consciousness at all relevant granularities. There simply isn't anything that cells do that we can't model with a sufficiently powerful computer and figure out exactly what is going on.

 

[rocketdodger]

At what temperature above −459.67° Fahrenheit would PixyMisun or RocketSunner quit describing the stove as hot?

The point of qualitative difference, of course.

For temperature, that happens to be one infinitessimal above absolute zero.

 

[PixyMisa]

At what temperature above −459.67° Fahrenheit would PixyMisun or RocketSunner quit describing the stove as hot?

Define hot, Franksun.

 

[AkuManiMani]

RD, I'm fairly certain that you're a lot sharper than that; you're deliberately being obtuse. You know good & well that I'm not arguing that it can't ever be done. The fact of the matter is that it can't be done with the level of understanding we have at our disposal now, and its most certainly not possible with the descriptive level in your last response. Theres a term for a systematic failure to recognize one's limitations: its called arrogance.

But you aren't telling the whole story.

When you say "understanding we have at our disposal now" you really mean "understanding of the fundamentals of physics that we have at our disposal now."

And that is simply not true -- every shred of evidence, sans your favorite "but we haven't done it yet," suggests that it isn't a fundamental we are missing but rather the details of what happens when the known fundamentals work together in very complex and subtle ways.

So when I say "no, we do have the understanding at our disposal" it means we have all the fundamental knowledge we need and we simply need to work on the details of the complexity

Thats just a long-winded evasive way of saying that we do not understand how the known details of brain functioning produce consciousness. Quit the verbal gymnastics, RD. Its a shameful waste of both our time -- not to mention annoying.

We all know you disagree with this, otherwise you wouldn't subscribe to that whole consciousness field idea, but evidence doesn't support your position. It supports ours -- current science is aware of all of the fundamentals needed to model any cell that could contribute to consciousness at all relevant granularities. There simply isn't anything that cells do that we can't model with a sufficiently powerful computer and figure out exactly what is going on.

Modeling features of cellular activity is not the same as physically reproducing what those cells are actually doing. You're intelligent enough to realize this so why are you going to such great pains to avoid the obvious?

 

[Frank Newgent]

At what temperature above −459.67° Fahrenheit would PixyMisun or RocketSunner quit describing the stove as hot?

Define hot, Franksun.

Ask Belz, son. He started this.

In its simplest form, yes. But not at the same level as a human, obviously.

In the same way that a running stove is "hot", but not quite like the sun.

 

[Frank Newgent]

At what temperature above −459.67° Fahrenheit would PixyMisun or RocketSunner quit describing the stove as hot?

The point of qualitative difference, of course.

For temperature, that happens to be one infinitessimal above absolute zero.

Isn't it snowing in Madison today? Must be really really hot there

 

[Belz...]

At what temperature above −459.67° Fahrenheit would PixyMisun or RocketSunner quit describing the stove as hot?

I just love people who refuse to understand analogies whenever they're not the ones making them.

 

[rocketdodger]

Thats just a long-winded evasive way of saying that we do not understand how the known details of brain functioning produce consciousness. Quit the verbal gymnastics, RD. Its a shameful waste of both our time -- not to mention annoying.

I don't think it is a waste of your time since you have already told us that you think the known details won't be sufficient -- that physics will need to discover a novel force in the universe and it will be part of a "consciousness field" that is responsible for subjective experience.

BTW, it is pretty ironic to introduce the term "shameful" given what you have contributed to this debate thus far (which can be entirely summarized in the single above statement).

Modeling features of cellular activity is not the same as physically reproducing what those cells are actually doing. You're intelligent enough to realize this so why are you going to such great pains to avoid the obvious?

Yeah, good thing that has nothing to do with understanding what those cells are actually doing.

My point was that the currently understood fundamentals are able to account for all of the relevant behavior of any biological cell. We don't need to invoke QM, or consciousness fields, or any of this other stuff that people with ulterior motives are trying to sell.

Do you have a refutation of this point, or do you wish to just change the subject as usual?

 

[rocketdodger]

I just love people who refuse to understand analogies whenever they're not the ones making them.

There is a word for such an individual -- troll.

 

[AkuManiMani]

Thats just a long-winded evasive way of saying that we do not understand how the known details of brain functioning produce consciousness. Quit the verbal gymnastics, RD. Its a shameful waste of both our time -- not to mention annoying.

I don't think it is a waste of your time since you have already told us that you think the known details won't be sufficient -- that physics will need to discover a novel force in the universe and it will be part of a "consciousness field" that is responsible for subjective experience.

All the matterials that make up your body are fields and all their activities are the result of field interactions. What, pray tell, is wrong with proposing that we must understand how consciousness fits into all of that?

BTW, it is pretty ironic to introduce the term "shameful" given what you have contributed to this debate thus far (which can be entirely summarized in the single above statement).

I've pointed out profound errors in the thinking process that led to your conclusions regarding consciousness. I'd say thats an invaluable contribution for anyone who is interested in discerning the truth of the matter. If you wish to be in error about the issue and pretend that your pet ideology regarding consciousness [which you yourself admitted is a non-falsifiable belief akin to theism] is sufficient as a scientific theory, then be my guest. But don't attempt to present it as if it were a valid scientific stance or try to construe those who don't buy into it as being "uneducated" and irrational.

Modeling features of cellular activity is not the same as physically reproducing what those cells are actually doing. You're intelligent enough to realize this so why are you going to such great pains to avoid the obvious?

Yeah, good thing that has nothing to do with understanding what those cells are actually doing.

Which, as far as consciousness is concerned, is an understanding we simply lack. Anyone who does provide a valid scientific theory [that means its falsifiable] of what consciousness is and how to produce it artificially would be an easy candidate for a Nobel Prize.

My point was that the currently understood fundamentals are able to account for all of the relevant behavior of any biological cell. We don't need to invoke QM, or consciousness fields, or any of this other stuff that people with ulterior motives are trying to sell.

You mean like your attempts to promote your pseudo-religious afterlife theology?

Do you have a refutation of this point, or do you wish to just change the subject as usual?

Changing the subject is something -you've- consistently attempted to do every time I've presented a refutation -- exactly as you're doing right now.

 

[nescafe]

All the matterials that makes up your body are fields and all their activities are the result of field interactions.

Because it is a fairly trivial truth -- it applies to everything in the Universe, not just our bodies or our squishy head meat.

What, pray tell, is wrong with proposing that we must understand how consciousness fits into all of that?

Penrose and Hameroff aside, there is no reason to believe we have to work at that level of abstraction to understand consciousness. You assert that we do, but you have never provided a compelling reason to do so.

 

[AkuManiMani]

All the matterials that makes up your body are fields and all their activities are the result of field interactions.

Because it is a fairly trivial truth -- it applies to everything in the Universe, not just our bodies or our squishy head meat.

What, pray tell, is wrong with proposing that we must understand how consciousness fits into all of that?

Penrose and Hameroff aside, there is no reason to believe we have to work at that level of abstraction to understand consciousness. You assert that we do, but you have never provided a compelling reason to do so.

Its true that all things in our universe are energetic fields and all processes are interactions of those fields, but this is hardly a trivial fact. Fields are concrete physical entities -- they are the "stuff" of the universe. It's the concepts of "information" and "information processing" that are the vague 'trivial' abstractions. "Information" is not an object, but a general label we use for what is knowable -about- a given object(s).

Since consciousness is clearly a concrete physical product of field interactions in living brains, with real 'internal' and 'external' consequences, it's vital to understand how consciousness fits into the context of that activity if we are ever going to reproduce it in artificial systems. A scientific theory of consciousness must provide us an understanding of the physics of consciousness.

 

[westprog]

True, if by "physical understanding" you mean "mixed folk physical and folk biological understanding". If you are talking about "full physical understanding", then no-one understands running, and the primary obstacles to that understanding right now is the seeming incompatibility of General Relativity and the Standard Model, and the sheer logistics in modelling the quadrillions of particle interactions involved.

And people accept that we don't yet have all the answers to physical issues. Yet we still try and frame things in a physical understanding of the universe. This idea that there is a biological way of looking at things like "running" and that a physical approach is inadmissable for some reason is simple wrong. The physics of running is of legitimate interest.

The problem with the physics of consciousness is that we are way, way behind in our understanding. The attitude of the computationalists is that we don't need any more physical understanding than we have at present. All we need is more computational understanding.