Has consciousness been fully explained?

[Piggy]

That one is interesting I would assume you are thinking of an internal state like a memory?

Not necessarily, no.

Our brains take partial (and highly processed) information from our sensory apparatus and combine it with memories and schema and other types of associations, plus its own systems designed to fill in the blanks, and produce a seemingly complete picture of the world, even though our senses never gave us all the information (because they can't) that we are "aware" of.

A simple example is the absence of a blind spot in your visual field, or the impression of full detail outside your center of visual focus, or the sense that you hear a series of discreet words when other people speak rather than a continuous stream of sound.

It can work the other way, too, when there's something right in front of you which your senses pick up but don't bother forwarding to the apparatus that generates conscious experience, with the result that you see a complete picture of the world without that thing in it.

We are always, to some extent, seeing things that aren't there, hearing things that aren't there, and ignoring things that are.

 

[Raleigh Marsden]

Consciousness is awareness, being conscious of yourself and what's around you.

 

[PixyMisa]

Anyway, based on experimentation on the brain, we can be sure at this point that consciousness is something the brain does.

Yes.

A great big chunk of what the brain does can be done by a Turing machine.

Fweep! Stop there!

Everything that the brain does can be done by a Turing machine. No exceptions. Established by the Church-Turing thesis.

And if we look at how neurons work, we can model what they do with a Turing machine. (Which doesn't mean that the Turing machine can produce a simulation of it, but rather that it can actually do the same thing.)

It means both of those, because they are equivalent.

Since the brain is made of neurons, everything the brain does can be done by a Turing machine, which means -- for all intents and purposes -- that the brain is a kind of Turing machine.

No, that doesn't follow, sorry.

The Turing machine is a universal computer. You can represent any other computer on a Turing machine. You can't necessarily represent a Turing machine on any other computer.

Let's take a look at the first point: Conscious awareness is no different from other types of brain processes.

On the surface, we can see that this is highly likely to be false, because conscious awareness is so strikingly different from everything else the brain is doing. Qualitatively different.

Different how? Please be precise.

In fact, being conscious is a physical phenomenon. It's something happening in the real world. It does not really bear any resemblance at all to information processing.

Sorry, no. Information processing is a physical phenomenon. It happens in the real world. Consciousness is informational.

If you wish to claim that there is some aspect to consciousness that is not informational, you have to tell us what this is and show that it exists.

Last year, a study was published which I cited upthread that offers us unprecedented insight into what the brain's doing when it does consciousness.

Now, is that something which Turing machines can do?

Yes. Mathematically established. Church-Turing thesis.

If I understand TMs correctly I believe the answer is "No".

Sorry, you're wrong. This is unequivocally within the capacity of a Turing machine. This is just mathematics.

 

[Piggy]

Consciousness is awareness, being conscious of yourself and what's around you.

Well, hate to point this out, but "consciousness = being conscious" is a tautology.

"Consciousness = awareness" is either a tautology or it is false, depending on how you define "awareness".

If you define "awareness" as "consciousness", then it's a tautology.

If you define "awareness" as "perceiving aspects of your environment and being able to respond to them", then awareness != consciousness, because we know that the brain is able to perceive and respond to things without consciousness being involved.

 

[Dancing David]

Not necessarily, no.

Our brains take partial (and highly processed) information from our sensory apparatus and combine it with memories and schema and other types of associations, plus its own systems designed to fill in the blanks, and produce a seemingly complete picture of the world, even though our senses never gave us all the information (because they can't) that we are "aware" of.

i thought you said that was trivial when i mentioned that!



I am aware of the nature of the perceptions, memory is even worse.

A simple example is the absence of a blind spot in your visual field,

that was exactly the example I used that you said was trivial when I said that the brain manufactured perceptions, sometimes with no sensory input

or the impression of full detail outside your center of visual focus,

especially the colors!

or the sense that you hear a series of discreet words when other people speak rather than a continuous stream of sound.

persistence of vision and the flicker effects at movies, I know.

It can work the other way, too, when there's something right in front of you which your senses pick up but don't bother forwarding to the apparatus that generates conscious experience, with the result that you see a complete picture of the world without that thing in it.

We are always, to some extent, seeing things that aren't there, hearing things that aren't there, and ignoring things that are.

I know.

 

[Piggy]

PixyMisa, thank you for the extended reply.

Now let me say up front that I fully admit I may be wrong.

In fact, if I am wrong, it makes for a much more fascinating universe than if I am right!

But instead of us debating various points as they come up in discussion, haphazardly, let me propose this....

How about we walk through it step by step, in a logical fashion?

Furthermore, let's try to use everyday language as much as possible. That will help you to communicate effectively with me, and will also help anyone who might be following along.

I'd like to propose that we begin with 2 points in particular which, it seems to me, form the basis of the argument. (If you have a different preference, however, I'm open to that.)

One of these is the claim that it has been proven that the brain is a computer -- in everything it does, without exception, including consciousness. (For the sake of argument, we'll classify a monitor, a printer, and a CD tray as non-computers.)

I'm not sure if this is precisely equivalent to the claim that everything the brain does can be done by a Turing machine. I suspect it is, but I'll leave that to you to clarify.

The other is a statement of yours which I can't quote because you seem to have deleted in on edit, but it went something like this:

All physical processes can be simulated on a Turing machine..

I propose we start with the latter. If you'd rather begin somewhere else, we'll table the point. But here goes....

First, it's extremely important that we distinguish between simulation (in the common sense of the word) and production (what I would call instantiation and what, iirc, you might call identity).

In other words, you can simulate all sorts of stuff on a computer without actually producing those things.

You can simulate a rocket flying to Mars, or a car driving down a road.

But in doing so, no actual rocket flies to Mars, no actual car drives down any actual road.

So the fact that computer X can simulate a rocket flying to Mars does not mean that the computer can fly to Mars.

Similarly, the fact that we can simulate -- that is, model -- on a computer what the brain does during conscious events does not necessarily imply that the computer can produce conscious events (iow, actually be conscious).

Of course, at the moment, we can't actually run any such simulation because we don't know how the brain does consciousness, but that's beside the point. We both accept that, once we know what's going on in there, we'll be able to simulate it on some sort of computer.

So that's where I'd like to begin.

Are you saying that it has been proven that computers can produce -- not simply model -- consciousness?

If so, what is that proof?

 

[Piggy]

i thought you said that was trivial when i mentioned that!

Trivial with reference to what particular question?

Points are never inherently trivial or non-trivial, but only in relation to specific questions.

 

[Raleigh Marsden]

Well, hate to point this out, but "consciousness = being conscious" is a tautology.

"Consciousness = awareness" is either a tautology or it is false, depending on how you define "awareness".

If you define "awareness" as "consciousness", then it's a tautology.

If you define "awareness" as "perceiving aspects of your environment and being able to respond to them", then awareness != consciousness, because we know that the brain is able to perceive and respond to things without consciousness being involved.

But the brain is like a computer. It is a computer, just like my computer can do thigs even if I, the user, walk away. Computers have users. And if the brain can perceive and respond without consciousness, then consciousness is something other than the brain. Consciousness is the user of the brain. The brain, by itself, can't feel emotions or have opinions, it's not sentient. But we, the user, are. We've never seen the user of our brain, but when we take the user away, the brain can still do things. But the brain itself doesn't have, and isn't, consciousness, any more than a pen and a piece of paper can write anything.

 

[Piggy]

But the brain is like a computer. It is a computer, just like my computer can do thigs even if I, the user, walk away. Computers have users. And if the brain can perceive and respond without consciousness, then consciousness is something other than the brain. Consciousness is the user of the brain. The brain, by itself, can't feel emotions or have opinions, it's not sentient. But we, the user, are. We've never seen the user of our brain, but when we take the user away, the brain can still do things. But the brain itself doesn't have, and isn't, consciousness, any more than a pen and a piece of paper can write anything.

What user?

Dude, you are your brain.

It has long been established that the brain produces consciousness. We can see that the brain has predictable patterns of activity in various conscious states, and that damage to various areas of the brain has predictable effects on consciousness.

 

[Raleigh Marsden]

Piggy, if I remove a component of Windows from my computer, or if I damage my motherboard slightly, it's the computer that becomes hindered, not my ability to use it. I'm still here. The damage done to the computer has a predictable effect on my ability to use it. And if I become mute, my ability to think words and mouth them is still there, but the sound won't come out. So if you damage your brain, it effects your consciousness's ability to express itself via your brain, or more accurately, it affects your brain's abliity to "host" your consciousness.

 

[Piggy]

Piggy, if I remove a component of Windows from my computer, or if I damage my motherboard slightly, it's the computer that becomes hindered, not my ability to use it. I'm still here. The damage done to the computer has a predictable effect on my ability to use it. And if I become mute, my ability to think words and mouth them is still there, but the sound won't come out. So if you damage your brain, it effects your consciousness's ability to express itself via your brain, or more accurately, it affects your brain's abliity to "host" your consciousness.

Dude, there ain't no user.

You're not hearing what I'm saying.

When people's brains are damaged in ways that mess with their conscious experience, they don't report having trouble interfacing with their brains. The actual conscious experience changes. Who they are changes.

You are your brain.

 

[Raleigh Marsden]

Dude, there ain't no user.

You're not hearing what I'm saying.

When people's brains are damaged in ways that mess with their conscious experience, they don't report having trouble interfacing with their brains. The actual conscious experience changes. Who they are changes.

You are your brain.

Of course their conscious experience changes. Their brain is damaged. But there is still an experience. Take away consciousness and you have no experience, just a brain on its own. What changes is the brain, since it is the brain that is damaged. You're assuming that the brain is consciousness simply because if you alter the brain, you alter the conscious experience. But if you damage your tv, the programme that you were watching continues to be broadcast, but this time, through a faulty tv which is now incapable of hosting that programme properly. How is what you're saying any different to that?

 

[Piggy]

Of course their conscious experience changes. Their brain is damaged. But there is still an experience. Take away consciousness and you have no experience, just a brain on its own. What changes is the brain, since it is the brain that is damaged. You're assuming that the brain is consciousness simply because if you alter the brain, you alter the conscious experience. But if you damage your tv, the programme that you were watching continues to be broadcast, but this time, through a faulty tv which is now incapable of hosting that programme properly. How is what you're saying any different to that?

The difference is that there is a broadcast out there, and there are people at the station facilities managing the broadcast for whom nothing changes.

Not so with consciousness.

When you're asleep and not dreaming, there is no you mooning about waiting for your brain to start receiving again so you can interact with it.

When the areas of the brain regulating conscious experience are damaged, those aspects of conscious experience simply vanish for you. It's not as if there's some still-complete you trapped inside wishing they would get online again so you could express those parts of yourself through your body again -- they vanish from you.

You = brain.

 

[Plat]

So Piggy, you are basically stating that consciousness is a product of brain activity but how it does is it, has yet to be explained? Is it possible that consciousness is not reducible to the brain?

How much of consciousness do you think has been explained?

 

[Dancing David]

Piggy, if I remove a component of Windows from my computer, or if I damage my motherboard slightly, it's the computer that becomes hindered, not my ability to use it. I'm still here. The damage done to the computer has a predictable effect on my ability to use it. And if I become mute, my ability to think words and mouth them is still there, but the sound won't come out. So if you damage your brain, it effects your consciousness's ability to express itself via your brain, or more accurately, it affects your brain's abliity to "host" your consciousness.

Eeeeeeer, what?

If I dissect certain parts of your brain I can destroy your ability to concentrate or be aware. There is no consciousness yet demonstrated outside of organic structures.

I hope you are not suggest the brain as TV receiver sort of thing.

 

[Dancing David]

So Piggy, you are basically stating that consciousness is a product of brain activity but how it does is it, has yet to be explained? Is it possible that consciousness is not reducible to the brain?

Sure it is possible!

just like Russell's teapot^WP is possible.

But so far I have seen no evidence to suggest consciousness in the absence of a brain.

How much of consciousness do you think has been explained?

Some areas about 35%, others much less.

 

[Plat]

Sure it is possible!

just like Russell's teapot^WP is possible.

But so far I have seen no evidence to suggest consciousness in the absence of a brain.


Some areas about 35%, others much less.

I didn't mean my question to imply that there are any kind of non-physical "thing" that makes consciousness happen/appear, but not reducible to the brain as in consciousness being a function of the whole person and not just the brain.

I don't know, I am just throwing stuff out there to keep the discussion going...hoping I don't sound too wacko lol.

 

[PixyMisa]

But the brain is like a computer.

The brain is a computer.

It is a computer, just like my computer can do thigs even if I, the user, walk away. Computers have users.

No. This is an obvious failure of an extended analogy. It's also not true. The vast majority of computers only talk to other computers.

And if the brain can perceive and respond without consciousness, then consciousness is something other than the brain. Consciousness is the user of the brain. The brain, by itself, can't feel emotions or have opinions, it's not sentient. But we, the user, are. We've never seen the user of our brain, but when we take the user away, the brain can still do things. But the brain itself doesn't have, and isn't, consciousness, any more than a pen and a piece of paper can write anything.

Fallacy of composition.

Piggy, if I remove a component of Windows from my computer, or if I damage my motherboard slightly, it's the computer that becomes hindered, not my ability to use it. I'm still here. The damage done to the computer has a predictable effect on my ability to use it. And if I become mute, my ability to think words and mouth them is still there, but the sound won't come out. So if you damage your brain, it effects your consciousness's ability to express itself via your brain, or more accurately, it affects your brain's abliity to "host" your consciousness.

Nope, sorry, that's completely wrong. It doesn't match what we actually see at all.

If you cut the corpus callosum, the major connection between the two hemispheres of the brain (a procedure sometimes done to mitigate severe epilepsy) you end up with two distinct consciousnesses.

On a far more prosaic level, alcohol affects the way your consciousness works, even to the point of making it stop working.

Piggy and I may disagree on the details, but this much is incontrovertible: Consciousness is produced by the brain. We have five thousand years of documented experiments on billions of subjects, and every single one points in the same direction.

 

[PixyMisa]

But that still doesn't solve the problem of how IP, by itself, can create a real-world event.

Information processing is a "real-world event".

Because, after all, consciousness -- despite our consistently nouny terms for it -- is an event.

A process.

It's something that happens in the world.

So is information processing. You don't have a coherent objection here.

But in fact, consciousness/awareness is something the body (specifically, the brain) does. We would be much better off if we had a verb for it.

This I agree with. Consciousing.

IP, no matter how fuzzy, cannot by itself focus and refocus light onto a retina

Nor can consciousing.

or run toward an object

Nor can consciousing.

or shiver.

Nor can consciousing.

For these events to happen, the IP has to be working together with something which is not pure IP, nor simply the minimal hardware necessary for the IP to operate.

We live in a naturalistic Universe, Piggy. Beyond that your statement is semantically null.

Similarly, no amount of programming, by itself, can display images on a screen

Nor can consciousing.

produce a paper printout

Nor can consciousing.

or play a CD of the Brandenburg Concertos.

Nor can consciousing.

It has to be programming, and the hardware necessary to run it, working together with other types of hardware that make these events happen in the real world -- e.g., that make the disc spin around at the right speed.

You still have no coherent objection. Everything you say about information processing applies precisely to consciousing, because consciousing is pure information processing.

But with all other behaviors, we can see what those other bits are -- irises and muscles and such.

Yes. So?

The bizarre thing about consciousness is that we don't have anything outside the brain involved.

How is that strange at all?

So we seem to have to make a choice between two options:

1. Information processing is, in fact, somehow capable of producing the overt event which is conscious awareness.

In what way is consciousing an "overt event" distinguishable from information processing?

2. There is some other kind of electrophysical thing going on in the brain in addition to the Turing-machine-like stuff which causes these events.

That's physically and mathematically impossible.

I'm betting on the latter because (a) no one so far has proposed any specific method, much less created an instance of it, by which IP alone can produce anything other than IP

Completely irrelevant, because you have completely failed to distinguish consciousing from information processing.

and (b) accepting option 1 leads to absurdities, such as the notion that working out the operations of the brain on pen and paper could somehow produce an instance of conscious awareness

Yes, it would. This, again, is established fact.

and (c) we know relatively little about the brain

Baloney.

and it has surprised us before.

True, but it has never, ever done anything physically and mathematically impossible.

ETA: I should add, (d) if we do attempt to view the brain through an IP-only lens, the phenomenon of conscious awareness becomes invisible

What is that even supposed to mean, Piggy?

When, where, and how is conscious awareness visible?

When, where, and how does adopting a particular model for this process make it invisible?

Be precise.

which is why you run into bizarre claims such as "consciousness is a data set"

No-one ever said that.

or even the denial that conscious awareness is distinct from any other type of thing the brain does

No-one ever said that either.

which is a strong indication that the phenomenon of consciousness demands IP plus something else.

Nope. You've just failed to understand what information processing is.

 

[PixyMisa]

The difference is that there is a broadcast out there, and there are people at the station facilities managing the broadcast for whom nothing changes.

Not so with consciousness.

When you're asleep and not dreaming, there is no you mooning about waiting for your brain to start receiving again so you can interact with it.

When the areas of the brain regulating conscious experience are damaged, those aspects of conscious experience simply vanish for you. It's not as if there's some still-complete you trapped inside wishing they would get online again so you could express those parts of yourself through your body again -- they vanish from you.

Completely correct, Piggy.

There is no external signal, there is no possible external signal, there is no mechanism for receiving an external signal, there is no possible mechanism for receiving an external signal, and the mind simply does not behave like that.

When you go under a general anaesthetic, your consciousness stops.

You = brain.

You = brain function.