Are You Conscious?

[westprog]

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

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.

The main reason is that that is how we understand everything else. Every physical thing in the physical universe is understood in physical terms. Yet this one thing we are supposed to isolate from the physical world in terms of mathematical abstraction. What other biological process is treated this way? I asked for an example before and I wasn't given one.

 

[Myriad]

The main reason is that that is how we understand everything else. Every physical thing in the physical universe is understood in physical terms. Yet this one thing we are supposed to isolate from the physical world in terms of mathematical abstraction. What other biological process is treated this way? I asked for an example before and I wasn't given one.

Almost all biological processes are treated this way, at least some of the time in some fields of study.

Here are a few examples:

1. Population dynamics in ecology. For instance, we study the effects of predator populations on prey populations using models that rarely if ever take into account the physical mechanisms by which predators kill prey. We can say a rabbit population crashes due to an overpopulation of owls; we don't bother specifying that the rabbit population crashes due to an excessive concentration of owl chiton impinging on rabbit neck vertebrae.

2. Most genetics. Obviously many initial strides in understanding genetics were made before any of the underlying physical mechanisms (e.g. DNA replication) were known, and while some work on mechanisms is ongoing, most study takes place at the level of abstraction of A, C, T, G and higher levels of abstraction, rather than the chemistry or physics of the molecules those letters stand for.

3. Epidemiology. Even for diseases whose physical mechanisms are quite well understood (such as influenza), a sizable number of epidemiologists manage to keep quite busy studying and predicting (using mathematical abstractions) the effects at the population level.


At the level of physics and biochemistry, brains are just tissue; most of what brain cells do is the same stuff all cells do. We don't expect eating brain cells to make someone smarter, for instance. It's only at the level of mathematical abstraction where computation is examined (neural networks and beyond) that brains become interesting. It seems a pretty safe assumption that the phenomena that make brains different from livers -- the ones that enable neural computation -- is where we should look for the explanations for why consciousness occurs in brains and not in livers.

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[nescafe]

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.

From the standpoint of understanding consciousness it is. Since it explains everything else in the universe, what gives it special explanatory power when it comes to consciousness?

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).

Again, this is trivial stuff you are going on about.

Since consciousness is clearly a concrete physical product of field interactions in living brains,

There is no reason to think that the field interactions are as significant as you seen to think they are. In a sense, they are the substrate of consciousness, but that is trivially true -- they are the "substrate" of virtually everything "real", and there is no reason to think that the emergent properties of consciousness are critically dependent on the fields of the various forces in a way that nothing else (like the electrons, quarks, photons, gluons, Higgs bosons, atoms of various types, long-chain organic molecules, cells, etc) are.

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.

Indeed. And a good first step is to focus on the unique aspects to the physical systems that we know are conscious, which are the neural networks of our brains and their associated sensorimotor systems. We have no reason to believe that there is anything particularly special about the neurons themselves or the signaling mechanisms that that they use -- variations on the same systems are used in far more non conscious systems than ones we recognize as conscious ones, so we should probably focus our attention more on how the neurons are wired. Neurons that are wired together form what we know as neural networks.

Some of us hold the wacky belief that because we can emulate the behaviour of neural networks using universal turing machines there is a level of substrate independence involved, and we can focus on the computational engine the neural networks in our skulls implement instead of having to take into account everything right down to the atoms that make up us -- at worst, we just have to simulate the entire neural network, not the field equations that define it.

Hook that derived computational engine or simulated neural network up to the appropriate I/O channels (yes, simulated neural network wired to real sensory apparatuses and robotic manipulators, scary level of abstraction violating stuff, I know), and there you have it.

 

[Frank Newgent]

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.

The problem is the wording of your analogy is as bad as, like, whatever.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

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.

What a flatter you are.

First, you didn't say anything of the kind before. You spoke first about objections to computational operations being consciousness to which I responded and then in general terms about needing to understand the physics and nothing more - so I asked what you meant by that. Westprog responded to that latter issue but you did not.

Now that I recall what your actual arguments have been in the past I realize that you are probably talking about this earlier idea about the electrical field around the brain being responsible for consciousness. If you mean something else, then please tell me.

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.

Who said anything about superficially mimicking computational functions of the brain in an effort to produce consciousness? I don't recall making that argument. I don't recall even thinking such a thing.

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?

Can you provide a definition? Pixy asked you for one and you said that you couldn't define it further. When I asked "what is awareness?" you replied that it couldn't be defined further, that it couldn't be broken down in to individual parts. Yet, that is what we have done.

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.

I have no idea what your impression of our interactions have been but I don't recall that many. I'm sorry that I don't follow your posting history.

Yes, EEGs measure changes in potentials in different areas of the brain. It is an extremely gross measure of what transpires in the brain; it doesn't even localize lesions very closely.

Telling a neurologist who reads them for a living that EEGs are related to a subject's state of consciousness is a waste of your time and a waste of mine. Look, I know a lot about EEGs. You needn't waste your time trying to instruct me.

As to the issue of the physical activity of the cells as opposed to the 'computational ops', there is no distinction to be made. The electrical activity that EEG measures is a reflection of the computational/informational processing occurring in the brain. It is a measure of brain activity. Specifically it is a measure of only certain bits of brain activity -- the EPSPs (excitatory post-synaptic potentials) and IPSPS (inhibitory post-synaptic potentials), and even there only the EPSPs and IPSPs that summate in a particular plane because we can't 'see' potentials that 'move' down neurons 'vertically' as opposed to 'horizontally' -- only one part of the reason why actions potentials aren't part of this process.

You continue to say things like 'the redness of red' is a physical process, which is going to raise no issues with most people here; but you seem to mean something entirely different from what most others mean by saying that. Of course it is a physical process. Information processing in the brain is a physical process.

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.

I chose my words very carefully. There is a difference between simulate and duplicate. It is that difference that I was highlighting. A duplication is not a simulation.

I'm saying "Its the physics, stoopid!" [/WUOTE]

Now that I recall your old argument, I understand you. I disagree with you. Strongly.

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?

A loop? No. Confused that you would make this argument, yes. I say this because I work with EEGs for a living. I know the many different ways to interfere not only with EEG recording but also with the electrical field surrounding the brain. We have to know this because we can't do EEGs when the environment is replete with interferences that cause artifacts. A large part of the recording process consists of trying to eliminate artifacts.

Most of the artifacts, especially moving magnetic or electrical signals, cause problems with the recording equipment itself -- as you know, move a magnet near an electrical wire and and you produce an electrical discharge.

But the same things that affect the recording electrodes and wires also affect the 'electrical field' around the brain.

Or, are you making some other type of argument?

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.

Wait, wait. No one has made the argument that neurons compute, therefore consciousness is a computation.

First, it is not a computation, but a process. What people have said is that they believe that the type of computational processes that neurons perform is responsible for consciousness. We have lots of evidence that this is true for many mental functions. Why exclude this mental function?

I have already addressed the issue that computation is not just an abstraction and is not just an observer relative process. While in most instances this is true -- that we identify processes as computational only through our ascription of computation to them -- this is not always the case. When we compute, we do so intrinsically. No one needs to see me adding 1 + 1 to tell me that I am computing. I just do it, and when I do computation I do it as an intrinsic property of 'me'.

I would argue that the same is true of brains. They summate no matter what anyone wants to say, whether anyone knows they are doing it or not.

Computers only do it because we design them to do so. We define their computational ability, so that type of computation is observer relative -- an abstraction, in the way we describe it.

Calling computation an abstraction is simply wrong. The abstraction is the way we view it. But there are real processes occurring in neurons and in computers that change things in the world.

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.

OK, that explains quite a lot. You didn't understand or read the earlier arguments. So that is where we need to start. I assumed, since you did not respond to the arguments themselves, that you had both read and accepted them.

Computation/information processing is not just an abstraction. We can certainly view computation as a pure abstraction, but as I tried to argue previously, it does not follow that computation necessarily is a pure abstraction or that it is entirely observer-relative (which is just another way of saying that it is an abstraction as opposed to being an intrinsic property).

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?

Like hell they don't measure inputs. The inputs into an EEG are the electrical potentials -- actually only the EPSPs and IPSPs -- in the brain. The whole way that EEGs work is to compare input one to input two. Sometimes we use a reference, mostly we compare different brain regions -- there are advantages to both types of comparison.

I don't find anything repellent in the idea that consciousness is a physical process. I believe whole-heartedly that it is a physical process.

I find it silly to believe that consciousness results from the electrical field over the brain because I know how to disrupt that field easily and it does not affect consciousness. I've done it repeatedly. I've seen it done by others. It doesn't affect consciousness.

If you are trying to argue for something other than this, then please let me know, because I'm not at all sure what you are arguing for. You call it a physical process but you haven't defined it for me. To what physical process other than what neurons are doing do you refer? And if you have no issue with a computer doing it, why are we even having this conversation?

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

I think I need to follow up on this issue of computation 'being' a pure abstraction, because it is a common argument and I think a common misconception. I think this is a very important point, which I obviously must not have described very well earlier since I didn't get the point across.

Now, it may be that we simply use the wrong word when describing what neurons do if we ascribe computation, or information processing, to the summation that takes place in them. And it even may be that we use the same wrong word, or words, when we speak of computers doing the same.

Whatever word you want to use, it is always the case that cortical neurons take input from several cells (there may be exceptions in which a single cell influences another single cell, but I don't know of any) and integrate that input into a single output (fire/don't fire) that may then go to several other cells. We use the term summation when discussing it.

While it is true that philosophers have looked around and decided that computation is a pure abstraction and that we cannot find computation or information processing in nature, well -- look, there it is. We can look at what a neuron does and label it computation or information processing or any of a number of other terms. It certainly fits all the criteria for what I know of computation or information processing, but perhaps someone can disabuse me of this false perception?

That we use those same terms to refer to abstractions of behaviors is beside the point because what a neuron does it just does. I don't care what term you want to apply to it, neurons summate inputs to arrive at an output. We can emulate or duplicate that in a computer.

So, any discussion of the words we use is just smoke and mirrors. Whenever someone wants to tell you that some action is just an abstraction but there is an obvious real life example of a concrete process staring you in the face, why believe a philosopher?

Sure, there are lots of examples where computation only exists by the fact that we see it as computation. Two rocks on the ground represent 1+1=2 only because we define them as such. But that is not the case with neurons who perform certain types of actions. No one has to look at a neuron and define -- input from that cell and input from that cell minus negative input from that cell, etc. all leading to the neuron summating all these inputs at the axon hillock to fire or not fire -- as computation or information processing for the cell to do what it does. That sort of computation is inherent to the cell, to the process at play.

I'm sorry, but philosophers who have tried to make this distinction -- that computation or information processing is purely abstract or observer dependent -- are simply wrong.

Neurons don't give a damn. Nor do neural networks.

 

[rocketdodger]

I think I need to follow up on this issue of computation 'being' a pure abstraction, because it is a common argument and I think a common misconception. I think this is a very important point, which I obviously must not have described very well earlier since I didn't get the point across.

Now, it may be that we simply use the wrong word when describing what neurons do if we ascribe computation, or information processing, to the summation that takes place in them. And it even may be that we use the same wrong word, or words, when we speak of computers doing the same.

Whatever word you want to use, it is always the case that cortical neurons take input from several cells (there may be exceptions in which a single cell influences another single cell, but I don't know of any) and integrate that input into a single output (fire/don't fire) that may then go to several other cells. We use the term summation when discussing it.

While it is true that philosophers have looked around and decided that computation is a pure abstraction and that we cannot find computation or information processing in nature, well -- look, there it is. We can look at what a neuron does and label it computation or information processing or any of a number of other terms. It certainly fits all the criteria for what I know of computation or information processing, but perhaps someone can disabuse me of this false perception?

That we use those same terms to refer to abstractions of behaviors is beside the point because what a neuron does it just does. I don't care what term you want to apply to it, neurons summate inputs to arrive at an output. We can emulate or duplicate that in a computer.

So, any discussion of the words we use is just smoke and mirrors. Whenever someone wants to tell you that some action is just an abstraction but there is an obvious real life example of a concrete process staring you in the face, why believe a philosopher?

Sure, there are lots of examples where computation only exists by the fact that we see it as computation. Two rocks on the ground represent 1+1=2 only because we define them as such. But that is not the case with neurons who perform certain types of actions. No one has to look at a neuron and define -- input from that cell and input from that cell minus negative input from that cell, etc. all leading to the neuron summating all these inputs at the axon hillock to fire or not fire -- as computation or information processing for the cell to do what it does. That sort of computation is inherent to the cell, to the process at play.

I'm sorry, but philosophers who have tried to make this distinction -- that computation or information processing is purely abstract or observer dependent -- are simply wrong.

Neurons don't give a damn. Nor do neural networks.

Yep.

However, everyone on the science side of this issue has already brought up this point, and those on the philosophy side just ignore it.

And I don't mean metaphorically. I mean, we have literally asked them "what, then, do you want to call the difference between a neuron and a rock, so that we may proceed in this discussion?" and the response is invariably crickets.

Literally, every single time it is brought up.

And I predict they will respond to this post with denials, yet still fail to address the point -- while denying their failure to address it!

 

[PixyMisa]

Almost all biological processes are treated this way, at least some of the time in some fields of study.

In science everything is treated this way. Some fields are better at it than others because they are modelling simpler systems, but that's what science does.

Westprog's objection is, as all his objections, based on his own misunderstandings.

 

[AkuManiMani]

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.

From the standpoint of understanding consciousness it is. Since it explains everything else in the universe, what gives it special explanatory power when it comes to consciousness?

Its not so much that fields lend special explanatory power to consciousness, per se, but that it makes sense to try and understand exactly what field processes are the sufficient correlates of consciousness. There must be some objective means of discerning whether a given physical system is conscious, or capable of supporting consciousness, without having to rely on guessing, indirect inference, or intuition.

What does it mean, in physical terms, for there to be a subject experiencing things "the redness of red", "the bitterness of bitter", or "the loudness of loud"? What is it thats having those experiences? Physically speaking, when does processed information become experienced? We each personally know that these phenomena are real; the scientific challenge is to identify what they are exactly. What I'm proposing is that what are referred to as qualia must be physically identifiable in theory atleast, if not in practice.

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).

Again, this is trivial stuff you are going on about.

Since consciousness is clearly a concrete physical product of field interactions in living brains,

There is no reason to think that the field interactions are as significant as you seen to think they are. In a sense, they are the substrate of consciousness, but that is trivially true -- they are the "substrate" of virtually everything "real", and there is no reason to think that the emergent properties of consciousness are critically dependent on the fields of the various forces in a way that nothing else (like the electrons, quarks, photons, gluons, Higgs bosons, atoms of various types, long-chain organic molecules, cells, etc) are.

And the question still remains: Exactly how does consciousness fit into that milieu?

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.

Indeed. And a good first step is to focus on the unique aspects to the physical systems that we know are conscious, which are the neural networks of our brains and their associated sensorimotor systems. We have no reason to believe that there is anything particularly special about the neurons themselves or the signaling mechanisms that that they use -- variations on the same systems are used in far more non conscious systems than ones we recognize as conscious ones, so we should probably focus our attention more on how the neurons are wired. Neurons that are wired together form what we know as neural networks.

Some of us hold the wacky belief that because we can emulate the behaviour of neural networks using universal turing machines there is a level of substrate independence involved, and we can focus on the computational engine the neural networks in our skulls implement instead of having to take into account everything right down to the atoms that make up us -- at worst, we just have to simulate the entire neural network, not the field equations that define it.

Hook that derived computational engine or simulated neural network up to the appropriate I/O channels (yes, simulated neural network wired to real sensory apparatuses and robotic manipulators, scary level of abstraction violating stuff, I know), and there you have it.

The problem with that reckoning is that neurons themselves are just part of a larger network of cells we call the body. They are all "wired" together, they all network and process information collectively, and they do so to a degree that dwarfs even the most advanced technological systems we have available today. Yet, for some reason, it is only the activity of a certain neural cells that seems produce consciousness, and even then only for limited time periods.

Neuroscience has not yet established what it is about these particular cells that gives them the capacity to produce consciousness while the rest of our body's cellular network doesn't. We simply do not know what the necessary physical conditions are for consciousness so what in the world makes you believe that it's justified to assume that we can produce consciousness in any substrate just by employing network computation? What makes you think that the current efforts of the field of AI to produce consciousness are anything more than a cargo cult enterprise?

 

[PixyMisa]

The problem with that reckoning is that neurons themselves are just part of a larger network of cells we call the body. They are all "wired" together

Neurons are. Other cells aren't.

they all network and process information collectively

Neurons do. Other cells don't.

and they do so to a degree that dwarfs even the most advanced technological systems we have available today.

Also untrue. The global telephone system surpassed the complexity of the human brain years ago. And the internet as a whole is orders of magnitude more complex.

Yet, for some reason, it is only the activity of a certain neural cells that seems produce consciousness, and even then only for limited time periods.

Why is that a problem? Once we reject your false assertions, why is that a problem?

Neuroscience has not yet established what it is about these particular cells that gives them the capacity to produce consciousness while the rest of our body's cellular network doesn't.

The rest of the body - other than the nervous system - is not a cellular network. That's just equivocation.

Nor is there anything different about those particular cells, any more than there is a difference between a Core i7 920 running Windows and a Core i7 920 running MacOS X.

What's different is what processing the cells are engaged in at the time.

We simply do not know what the necessary physical conditions are for consciousness so what in the world makes you believe that it's justified to assume that we can produce consciousness in any substrate just by employing network computation?

Because we know that the brain is a computer. We know that because we can observe it computing.
Because we know that the brain produces consciousness. We know that because we can observe it doing so.
Because we know that what one computer does, any other Turing-complete computer can do. We know that because it's mathetmatically proven.

What makes you think that the current efforts of the field of AI to produce consciousness are anything more than a cargo cult enterprise?

Well, for one thing, part of those current efforts consist of studying how the brain produces consciousness.

 

[AkuManiMani]

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.

What a flatter you are.

Huh?

First, you didn't say anything of the kind before.

Then what the hell have you been arguing against? I've been elaborating on this same line of reasoning since before this exchange began.

You spoke first about objections to computational operations being consciousness to which I responded and then in general terms about needing to understand the physics and nothing more - so I asked what you meant by that. Westprog responded to that latter issue but you did not.

I originally said that approaching consciousness from the biological/neurological perspective was the way to go, and that computationalism is flawed because it ignores the significance of the physics that underpins consciousness. Everything I've said since then has been in defense of this statement since you seem to've taken umbrage at my suggestion that computation is not adequate to explain consciousness.

Now that I recall what your actual arguments have been in the past I realize that you are probably talking about this earlier idea about the electrical field around the brain being responsible for consciousness. If you mean something else, then please tell me.

I already told you that my current point is not in reference to that hypothesis [though I don't rule it out], but to the fact that we need a solid understanding of what physical capacity allows our brains to produce consciousness.

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.

Who said anything about superficially mimicking computational functions of the brain in an effort to produce consciousness? I don't recall making that argument. I don't recall even thinking such a thing.

Thats the central premise of computationalism and the position taken by all of the Strong AI proponents in this discussion. In their view, simulating a brain on any computer system is sufficient to produce consciousness. If this is not your position then why are you arguing against my objections to it?

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?

Can you provide a definition?

I clearly can since I've already done so, quite literally, hundreds of times now -- and rather recently in your own thread on this very same issue.

Pixy asked you for one and you said that you couldn't define it further.

I said an operational definition is not possible until we have a scieintfic understanding of what consciousness is.

When I asked "what is awareness?" you replied that it couldn't be defined further, that it couldn't be broken down in to individual parts. Yet, that is what we have done.

Eh..?

When did I ever speak of "breaking down" awareness into "individual parts"? If you're going to continue basing your counter arguments on confabulated recollections we really have nothing to discuss.

I have no idea what your impression of our interactions have been but I don't recall that many. I'm sorry that I don't follow your posting history.

Alright. I see no reason to continue wasting my time trying to engage in a depth discussion with you when you're barely making a casual attempt to keep up with whats being argued. You've hardly even been following that I've said in the posts you're responding to. Your heart is clearly not in this.

 

[AkuManiMani]

The problem with that reckoning is that neurons themselves are just part of a larger network of cells we call the body. They are all "wired" together

Neurons are. Other cells aren't.

they all network and process information collectively

Neurons do. Other cells don't.

Wrong on both counts. Every multicellular organism is a dense network of up to trillions of intercommunicating cells; its a basic biological fact. How you can make the absurd statement that they aren't is beyond me. Then again, robotically making absurd statements is your established MO so it doesn't really surprize me at this point.

and they do so to a degree that dwarfs even the most advanced technological systems we have available today.

Also untrue. The global telephone system surpassed the complexity of the human brain years ago. And the internet as a whole is orders of magnitude more complex.

Yet it's human intelligence that's designing and eingineering these systems rather than the other way around. Go figure.

What makes you think that the current efforts of the field of AI to produce consciousness are anything more than a cargo cult enterprise?

Well, for one thing, part of those current efforts consist of studying how the brain produces consciousness.

And neuroscientists are still trying to understand how the brain produces consciousness. Until they do, attempts at artificially producing consciousness really are cargo cult projects.

 

[rocketdodger]

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?

Nothing is wrong with the above.

But you enter into whacko territory when you claim that there might be an as-yet undiscovered type of field, distinct from the already known EM field, or gravitational field, or any of the other fields of known physics, because there is just no evidence to suggest that there is an as-yet undiscovered field responsible for anything.

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.

ORLY? Just for reference, would you mind enumerating those profound errors again? Because I must have missed your refutation the first time.

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.

My "pet" ideology has nothing to do with your ignorance of the relevant science and mathematics underlying this issue.

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.

I still don't see why you think a lack of total understanding justifies the jump to woo.

I don't understand php web programming that well, since I have never studied it. Mind you, I am a programmer, but still -- I haven't gotten the exact details. Maybe I should invoke an undiscovered "forum field" to explain what goes on here, eh? Because it just couldn't be based on the known fundamentals of physics, now could it.

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

How is the hope that my consciousness might exist on a computer after my physical body dies in any way "pseudo-religious?" Please, inform me, because I really want to know.

I mean, if you are going to make fun of me, I am sure you actually thought of how to follow it up. Right? So go for it.

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.

How is the subject being changed?

The issue right here right now is whether a lack of total understanding of a complex system validates the invocation of an entirely unsupported hypothesis.

I say it doesn't. The rest of science says it doesn't. Logic itself says it doesn't. Why do you say it does?

The fact that we don't know exactly why our subjective experience seems like it does does not mean that we can throw all the already discovered evidence out the window. Why are you trying to do it?

 

[rocketdodger]

Wrong on both counts. Every multicellular organism is a dense network of up to trillions of intercommunicating cells; its a basic biological fact. How you can make the absurd statement that they aren't is beyond me. Then again, robotically making absurd statements is your established MO so it doesn't really surprize me at this point.

Ah, I see.

The fact that thoughts fly through your head an order of magnitude more rapidly than the diffusion of chemicals that any cells other than neurons use to propagate communication signals is entirely irrelevant, right?

I mean, when your hand is burned you feel it within 60ms or so despite the fact that it takes at least a second for any chemicals secreted into your blood by the cells at the site of the burn to reach the rest of your body, but who cares, right?

What good are numbers and actual measurements when they get in the way of our hypotheses, right? If reality disagrees with a hypothesis, we should force reality to change!

 

[PixyMisa]

Wrong on both counts. Every multicellular organism is a dense network of up to trillions of intercommunicating cells; its a basic biological fact.

No, it's equivocation.

How you can make the absurd statement that they aren't is beyond me.

Neurons behave differently to other cells. Do you dispute this?

Then again, robotically making absurd statements is your established MO so it doesn't really surprize me at this point.

As has been pointed out many times, if you don't like being constantly told you are wrong, don't constantly be wrong.

Your statements are untrue. Repeating them doesn't make them true. Abusing me doesn't make them true.

Yet it's human intelligence that's designing and eingineering these systems rather than the other way around. Go figure.

And?

And neuroscientists are still trying to understand how the brain produces consciousness.

They are working on the details, certainly.

However, the following facts remain:

We know that the brain is a computer. We know that because we can observe it computing.
We know that the brain produces consciousness. We know that because we can observe it doing so.
We know that what one computer does, any other Turing-complete computer can do. We know that because it's mathetmatically proven.

Until they do, attempts at artificially producing consciousness really are cargo cult projects.

Bare assertion posing as a non-sequitur.

We know, as much as we know anything about the real world, that computers can be conscious. And the field of AI research includes studies into how the brain produces consciousness. So your assertion is not just a non-sequitur, not just an unsupported assertion, but categorically false for two entirely separate reasons.

 

[PixyMisa]

Ah, I see.

The fact that thoughts fly through your head an order of magnitude more rapidly than the diffusion of chemicals that any cells other than neurons use to propagate communication signals is entirely irrelevant, right?

What's more, other cells do not form switched networks. It's just equivocation.

 

[PixyMisa]

Nothing is wrong with the above.

But you enter into whacko territory when you claim that there might be an as-yet undiscovered type of field, distinct from the already known EM field, or gravitational field, or any of the other fields of known physics, because there is just no evidence to suggest that there is an as-yet undiscovered field responsible for anything.

Right.

AkuManiMani earlier proposed that it is an EM field. This fails because (1) there is no mechanism for producing such a field, (2) there is no mechanism for receiving such a field, (3) brains do not function as though such a field were present, (4) consciousness does not function as though it were the result of such a field, (5) if such a field were present, given the known sensitivity of neurons to EM fields, it would spontaneously destroy all the computers within a hundred yards of any human, (6) if such a field were present, but weak enough to be indetectible, any working computer would kill all the humans within a hundred yards.

It's not electromagnetism.

It's not gravity. Gravity is a purely attractive force. You can modulate it, by, for example, moving mountains around. I don't think he's proposing that. And if he is, he'd better be able to show us the mountains.

It's not the strong or weak forces. They do not operate at a range that would even allow one neuron to communicate with its immediate neighbours.

This leaves, according to the Standard Model, nothing whatsoever. The field theory of consciousness requires us to ignore all of neuroscience and overturn most of physics. It's doesn't even get far enough to qualify as a non-starter.

Of course, all of this has been pointed out before.

 

[AkuManiMani]

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?

Nothing is wrong with the above.

But you enter into whacko territory when you claim that there might be an as-yet undiscovered type of field, distinct from the already known EM field, or gravitational field, or any of the other fields of known physics, because there is just no evidence to suggest that there is an as-yet undiscovered field responsible for anything.

I've clearly stated on multiple occasions that we do not know if consciousness is simply an unaccounted feature of known physics or a class of physical interaction currently unknown to science. Personally, I think the former possibility is much more likely than the latter but, at this point, its really too early to tell.

In any case, so what if consciousness turns out to be based on hitherto unknown physical principles? It wouldn't invalidate the science we already have; it would simply be an addition to our knowledge. Besides, how is invoking that particular possibility anymore outlandish than suggesting that a cosmic programmer(s) may have written our 'simulated' universe into being?

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.

ORLY? Just for reference, would you mind enumerating those profound errors again? Because I must have missed your refutation the first time.

And the second, and the third, and the fourth, and the fifth...Sometimes I wonder why I bother.

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.

My "pet" ideology has nothing to do with your ignorance of the relevant science and mathematics underlying this issue.

LOL!

Right. The reason why I don't buy into your personal religion is because of my "ignorance"

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.

I still don't see why you think a lack of total understanding justifies the jump to woo.

How is it "woo" to suggest that consciousness must be understood in terms of physics, yet proposing that strong AI ideology is the way to the afterlife isn't?

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

How is the hope that my consciousness might exist on a computer after my physical body dies in any way "pseudo-religious?" Please, inform me, because I really want to know.

My bad. Its strait-up religious faith.

I mean, if you are going to make fun of me, I am sure you actually thought of how to follow it up. Right? So go for it.

How is your hope in a computer afterlife any different than any other afterlife belief? You sit there accusing other people of "woo" and having ulterior ideological motives, yet the rationale behind your own arguments are not much different than that of the theists you like to decry. I don't have a problem with you having your own metaphysical beliefs but your hypocrisy is really off putting.

[And a personal FYI: I like you RD, and I'd really like to get along with you so I recommend that you stop going out of your way to provoke me.]

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.

How is the subject being changed?

It was you who turned this into a discussion about ulterior ideological motives when the original topic was on the role of physics in consciousness.

The fact that we don't know exactly why our subjective experience seems like it does does not mean that we can throw all the already discovered evidence out the window. Why are you trying to do it?

I've never proposed such a thing. All I'm saying -- all I've been saying -- is that our knowledge concerning consciousness is incomplete and that we need to understand it a lot better than we do before we can propose ways to reproduce it artificially. The only point where I really differ from you is that I think consciousness is a substrate dependent phenomenon rather than an abstract computational process.

 

[AkuManiMani]

What's more, other cells do not form switched networks. It's just equivocation.

Of course they do. How else do you think that the body's cells coordinate their growth, development, gene expression, or otherwise behave as a single functional entity?

 

[AkuManiMani]

We know, as much as we know anything about the real world, that computers can be conscious.

Claiming that computers can be conscious and claiming that we already know how to make conscious computers are two very different statements. Your tautological definition of consciousness notwithstanding, there really is no scientific consensus for how we would even begin to go about producing consciousness artificially.