Has consciousness been fully explained?

[westprog]

I see your HPC and raise you one Problem of Vague Defintion.

ETA:
What evidence is there of subjective experience sans a physical process?

If consciousness is not well defined, it can't very well be dismissed until it's defined what is being dismissed. If it's an illusion, then there needs to be an explanation of what causes the illusion of consciousness (which to the layman looks very like the exact same problem).

 

[Piggy]

When the physicists have an explanation, then it will have been explained.

Change that to "biologists" or "neuroscientists" and I think you're on the money. IINM, the focus of a physicist is somewhat too narrow to explain this particular phenomenon.

 

[westprog]

So show me qualia in a neurology lab that studies visual perception? Then you can tell me it is glossed over, show me its physical correlates, rather than abstracted verbal cognition labeling.

Qualia makes about as much sense as élan vital, or 'group unconsciousness'..

You want a demonstration of qualia? Think about a fish. There you go. No laboratory equipment needed. Now explain that experience in terms of physics. No?

 

[Piggy]

If consciousness is not well defined, it can't very well be dismissed until it's defined what is being dismissed. If it's an illusion, then there needs to be an explanation of what causes the illusion of consciousness (which to the layman looks very like the exact same problem).

Although consciousness may involve illusions, it cannot itself be an illusion, because an illusion requires a conscious perceiver. (Take the apparatus for a visual illusion, for example, and stick it in a dark empty room, and it is not producing any illusion.)

In other words, we can't somehow have fooled ourselves into thinking we're conscious when we're not, because only beings who really are conscious can have such thoughts.

 

[westprog]

That's total baloney.

Simply amplifying a phenomenon doesn't necessarily produce an entirely different phenomenon.

And if such amplification does produce a new phenomenon, then we need to understand why.

This is no kind of explanation at all.

All physical macro-phenomena can be explained in terms of what happens at a micro-level. If consciousness is not constructed in terms of a combination of the physical processes in the brain, then it's not a physical process.

 

[westprog]

Piggy,
Do you agree with my, admittedly basic, understanding of how a sensory neuron might make a synaptic connection that establishes the basis of my argument? How many times do you feel this happens between millions of neurons before something happens which is not predicted by the initial biochemistry?
I say it is only a couple of times, at most, before the tens-of-millions of synapses, each capable of electro-chemically strengthening or weakening their hundreds of millions of connections due to stimulus response, before I'm not able to precisely predict what comes out.
I can, however, at least in the example of huge mammilian brains, predict that things like memories, emotional and viscreral reactions, and some basic need to self-identify those things with one's physical being (the thing that is, after all, only the meat that the nervous system is supported by,) result in something like conciousness.
I honestly, and I know that I am in a minority in this, simply fail to see where a quantitative problem, "we can't model this exactly because the numbers get too huge", becomes a qualitative problem, "we can't model this because something extraordinary happens."
But I do understand that most people don't see it this way.
I just don't know why.

Saying "consciousness is something that happens when the physical processes in the brain do something" is not an explanation - it's certainly not any kind of physical theory. We don't know what physical processes result in consciousness - beyond saying that something that happens in the neurons probably causes it in some way.

 

[westprog]

Change that to "biologists" or "neuroscientists" and I think you're on the money. IINM, the focus of a physicist is somewhat too narrow to explain this particular phenomenon.

If the physicists can't explain it, then it's not understood.

 

[Piggy]

What I find disturbing is that if enough Pixy Misa's, Rocket Dodger's and DD's persuade us that we need to lower our standards by appealing to The Wisdom of Crowds^WP then eventually thermostats will be our equals and the next step is mass suicide by transporter.

First, I wouldn't put Dancing David into the same group as PixyMisa and Rocket Dodger. I don't believe they're making similar arguments.

Also, I don't believe Pixy and Dodger are arguing for a WoC approach, or that the problems with their argument have anything to do with philosophy or social consequences.

The problems with their argument are:
1. It's hopelessly vague and does not actually explain anything (except in the way that "consciousness is an activity of the brain" explains things).
2. There is no evidence for it.
3. It has not produced any actual model of consciousness.
4. Even worse, when their approach is used, consciousness disappears from view (which is why we get claims such as "consciousness is a data set" when in fact it's a physical phenomenon) -- again, it's like trying to explain juicing in terms of oranges.
5. It leads to absurd conclusions.

In my book, when you've got a perspective that is not supported by any evidence, is hopelessly vague, hasn't produced results, leads to absurdities, and is actually incapable of describing the phenomenon it claims to be explaining, you've got a major problem on your hands.

 

[westprog]

Although consciousness may involve illusions, it cannot itself be an illusion, because an illusion requires a conscious perceiver. (Take the apparatus for a visual illusion, for example, and stick it in a dark empty room, and it is not producing any illusion.)

In other words, we can't somehow have fooled ourselves into thinking we're conscious when we're not, because only beings who really are conscious can have such thoughts.

Exactly true. The concept of an illusion involves a conscious observer being fooled. Admitting illusions implies the consciousness that's not supposed to exist.

 

[Piggy]

If the physicists can't explain it, then it's not understood.

So, what is the physicist's explanation of how the stock market works?

What is the physicist's explanation for why people enjoy scary movies?

What is the physicist's explanation for the US-Iraq war?

Certainly, any understanding of consciousness will require some understanding of the underlying physics, but biologists and neuroscientists, IINM, are the ones who will be studying the macro-level processes within the brain that do consciousness.

 

[Piggy]

Admitting illusions implies the consciousness that's not supposed to exist.

Now you've lapsed into nonsense.

Very few people suppose that consciousness does not exist. And the ones who do are wrong.

 

[westprog]

And yet in spite of that, we all know what we're talking about when we talk about qualia. You don't find that interesting?

The definition thing is often advocated as proof that it's something non-existent.

But consider - if everything is to be defined in terms of something else more fundamental, surely we must, eventually, come to something undefinable.

 

[westprog]

The behaviorists?
Well they would say that you need to come up witha defintion, the medical one already exists and is behavioraly based.

This is not the undefined consciousness of the HPC.

Yes, the way to deal with the difference between objective and subjective experience is to ignore subjective experience. That's a quick and easy solution to the wrong problem.

 

[Piggy]

All physical macro-phenomena can be explained in terms of what happens at a micro-level. If consciousness is not constructed in terms of a combination of the physical processes in the brain, then it's not a physical process.

True enough, but not relevant.

The question at hand was whether consciousness simply arises from a critical mass of neurons. In other words, is it a true emergent property, like the whiteness of clouds -- none of the particles in a cloud is white, but you get enough of them together and the group as a whole appears white.

Consciousness certainly does not appear to be anything like this. Rather, it appears to be the result of the specific structure of the brain. Iow, you could wire up a synthetic brain with just as many parts and connections, but if you didn't wire it up right, it wouldn't do consciousness.

Just like you could take all the parts of a car engine and assemble them, but if you don't put them together in the right way, the machine won't drive down the road.

Consciousness is a result of the brain's specific structure, not a consequence of having a certain number of neurons or connections.

And as we saw in the study I cited, neural activity by itself may not be sufficient to produce this phenomenon. Other physical processes may be required, just as a computer requires logic and an appropriately designed physical apparatus to play a CD.

A Turing machine will never play a CD by itself, because it can't. Some other (non-magical, non-mysterious) component is required. And it may well be -- personally, I'd bet money on it -- that a Turing machine cannot be conscious for the same reason.

 

[westprog]

So, what is the physicist's explanation of how the stock market works?

Very, very compicated. But there's nothing there that is physical that can't be explained in physical terms. The parts that are just fiction - ownership and value, for example - have to be explained in terms of consciousness - which we don't understand.

What is the physicist's explanation for why people enjoy scary movies?

What is the physicist's explanation for the US-Iraq war?

These are examples of things which aren't fully understood.

Certainly, any understanding of consciousness will require some understanding of the underlying physics, but biologists and neuroscientists, IINM, are the ones who will be studying the macro-level processes within the brain that do consciousness.

 

[westprog]

Now you've lapsed into nonsense.

Very few people suppose that consciousness does not exist. And the ones who do are wrong.

Very few people in the real world, but on JREF it's quite a common position. Check the poll mentioned above for the people who don't think that they are conscious.

 

[Aepervius]

And if the reply is "We know this because of the X experiment at the Oxford Neurological Labs..." then that's a good response. "So are you really saying that some kind of mystical magical thing..." is a bad response. IMO. YMMV.

Well if you go that way, all we can do say is that any emergent process shown by human thought are directly linked to multiple serial and parallel process in the human brain, and nothing "else" was shown to exist by those neurological labs. Beyond that , there isn't much not much to say.

 

[!Kaggen]

What I find sad about Pixy Misa's approach is how he is prepared to lower his standards so as to fit consciousness into the "data".

What standards, precisely, have I lowered? What, precisely, do you mean by 'the "data"' here?

The ones where human consciousness is narrowly defined so that it can be explained exclusively using information technology.

What I find disturbing is that if enough Pixy Misa's, Rocket Dodger's and DD's persuade us that we need to lower our standards by appealing to The Wisdom of Crowds^WP then eventually thermostats will be our equals and the next step is mass suicide by transporter.

What standards, precisely, would we be lowering and why would we need to do this, and how then would it follow that thermostats "would be our equals"?

Particularly in light of the fact that by my definition, simple mechanical thermostats are not conscious.

Exactly, add a digital control with SRIP to your mechanical thermostat and it satisfies your lowly standards of data processing as defined in IT.


Why you might want to lower your standards? Probably something to do with superstition (the need to explain what we don't yet understand)..

And what I find tragic is that this process is already in motion as teenagers learn to limit their consciousness to what the social networking interweb can project......

What teenagers are doing what that leads you to the conclusion that they are learning anything about limiting their consciousness in any way, and why, even if this were a coherent statement, much less a true one, would it be in any way tragic?

There is more to consciousness than the limits of the binary digital world.

The thing many don't want to admit about the Turing Test is that it cuts both ways....

Who is it that's not admitting this? As usual, I'll ask you to be precise.

By defining human consciousness based on what we know about information technology your assuming how humans will respond to information technology.

 

[Piggy]

These are examples of things which aren't fully understood.

That's a quibble.

The broad reasons for the US-Iraq war are indeed understood.

But I don't know of anyone who would care to offer an explanation in terms of physics.

The underlying physics of the world is the same, regardless of whether the US goes to war with Iraq or not.

Or, if there is a way to aggregate it up, it would be so complicated that no physicist would actually attempt such an explanation in the first place.

So physicists will never offer us an explanation for the war. Historians, investigative journalists, politicians, and political scientists are the ones to do that.

Similarly, biologists and neuroscientists will be the ones who eventually crack consciousness, not physicists.

 

[Aepervius]

But the physical processes don't involve consciousness at all. The reason that Dennet is pronouncing on this is that he is a philosopher. If he were a physicist, he'd have to say that there is nothing in the physical description of what happens with the neuron biochemistry that explains the attendant experience. The best that the physicists can do is just ignore consciousness as an issue. There is no physical theory of consciousness - not even the beginnings of one. There's a bit of vague conjecture, but generally it's left to the philosophers, neurologists, computer scientists and the rest of the stamp collectors. When the physicists have an explanation, then it will have been explained.

Why would a Physicist need one ? A physicist would simply say , the consciousness is one of the emergent process of the brain and leave it to a biologist.

I am not sure why you would involve a physicist here. Show a physicist a PC game in 3D, and ask him how to link a "how a transistor function" to the game, and you have exactly the same analogy as comparing consciousness with what a physicist knows.

The bottom line is that it isn't a good comparison.

I am not even sure there is a self, an "experience attendent" or a consciousness, jsut a self feedback looping process horridly complicated and massively parallel , with separate stream. You would not need a physicist, as on the basic level there isn't much he could say you would not already know.

What you need a massively parallel "programmer" , one which don't yet exists, for which we may not even have enough theory or knowledge today.