Has consciousness been fully explained?

[Philosaur]

Nor have I seen any argument that there is even a possibility in principle that would allow that computer 'subjective' experience.

The only way out is to deny that you, or I, have 'subjective' experience either.

[Bolding mine.]

...Or to allow that non-human computers have subjective experience.

In a situation where we don't (and possibly can't) have knowledge one way or the other, it's curious that people are so quick to claim a confident position. Is it so that they don't appear wishy-washy?

 

[Piggy]

I hope that helps.

Unfortunately, it does not.

Now I wish I hadn't attempted to present the examples, since your reply to that bit (which shouldn't have been necessary) just muddied the waters.

Let's boil it down to this bit and see if we can move forward from here....

The brain is an information processing engine. A computer. As I said earlier, it's a packet-switched pulse-coded chemical-biased network processor.

That's simply what it does. You can trace the activity from sensory nerves firing in the retina through the visual cortex and all over the brain as the response to what you are looking at is processed in various ways. At every step, what is happening is computation.

The brain IS a computer.

There are 2 points I would raise.

As I've mentioned before, "information processing" is an abstraction. It doesn't happen at an objective physical level.

So to say that the brain and a computer "process information" isn't very helpful here.

Now, you have objected to this, saying that IP does happen in the objective, physical "real world". (Yet, even more strangely, you deny the reality of Sofia -- a Sense Of Felt Individual Experience -- despite the fact that we all have direct evidence of the phenomenon.)

But to demonstrate this point, let's consider a teacher in a classroom who writes on a chalkboard:

2 + 2 =

Then he has a student come up and write to the left of this: 4.

He then draws this beneath the 4:

-3 and puts a line under it.

He calls another student up, who writes below that: 1.

Now, on an abstract level, we can say that some type of "information processing" has gone on here.

But on an objective physical level? No.

All that has happened on the physical plane is that neurons have fired, muscles have moved, some chalk has come off onto the blackboard and into the air, that sort of thing.

The IP is entirely abstract and dependent on our perception of it.

This bears repeating: The IP is entirely abstract and dependent on our perception of it.

To deny this is to talk nonsense.

Similarly, consider a woman adding on an abacus. After an extended process of flipping beads, she gets her results.

But once again, The IP is entirely abstract and dependent on her perception. Objectively, all that's happened is that neurons have fired, muscles have moved, beads have changed position.

To make the example even more clear, let's consider a computer crunching numbers. Say the process takes half an hour.

Meanwhile, it turns out that all life on earth happens to have been infected with a strange, fatal virus that will -- for some reason -- be triggered to unleash itself simultaneously, killing everthing within the space of a minute, and that this virus is triggered 15 minutes into the computer's number-crunching.

All life is dead. But for the next 14 minutes, the computer happily hums along, then a pattern of pixels appears on the screen.

In this case, has there been any information processing?

No. All that's happened is that the state of the computer's components has fluctuated. No one to interpret it, no IP.

IP is an abstraction we overlay onto objective reality, not an objective physical reality itself.

So it's an error to label the brain an "information processing engine". It's a chunk of matter that does what matter can do. Chain reactions and such, like you said. We can think of it abstractly as an info-processor, but if we make the error of thinking that IP is what it is literally doing physically, we're going to come to wrong conclusions.

But there's an even bigger problem lurking here....

It's this bit:

You can trace the activity from sensory nerves firing in the retina through the visual cortex and all over the brain as the response to what you are looking at is processed in various ways. At every step, what is happening is computation.

That is certainly one type of thing the brain does, no doubt.

(But are all chain reactions "computations"? When I hit a combination shot on the billiard table, have I made a computation? According to this definition, then it is. So are supernovas, highway pile-ups, and the knocking over of domino arrays. If you don't consider any of that "computation", then we need a better definition. If they are computation, then computation becomes a trivial term for "things that happen".)

And since we don't know how the brain does consciousness (if you disagree, then you must cite someone who studies the brain who has published an accepted explanation of the process -- which has not yet happened) then we cannot be certain that only this classic chain-reaction neural signaling is involved.

The study I cited upthread, which gives us unprecedented insight into what the brain is doing during Sofia events, suggests that these may not be the only processes involved.

So no, you have not sufficiently explained, in any sensible way, what you mean by "the brain is a computer".

Care to try again?

 

[AlBell]

Nor have I seen any argument that there is even a possibility in principle that would allow that computer 'subjective' experience.

The only way out is to deny that you, or I, have 'subjective' experience either.

[Bolding mine.]

...Or to allow that non-human computers have subjective experience.

In a situation where we don't (and possibly can't) have knowledge one way or the other, it's curious that people are so quick to claim a confident position. Is it so that they don't appear wishy-washy?

Clinging to current reality is "wishy-washy"?

All that's needed is someone to make the argument that computers could in principle have 'subjective' experience. I haven't seen any such argument; nor do I foresee one forthcoming.

The computational approaches start with denying one's own subjective experience as irrelevant, and stating that observable behavior and some self-reported private behavior are all that determines consciousness.

 

[Piggy]

PixyMisa, it occurs to me that my long-winded (and again tangential) post above can actually be boiled down to this:

You say that my brain and my PC are both "computers" because they both are "information processors" that perform "computations".

Ok. To clarify that, then, what do you mean when you say "information processing" and "computation".

If you tell me that, then I'll have a much clearer idea (or I should) of what you are claiming.

Then we can move on to the evidence for that proposal.

 

[Piggy]

All that's needed is someone to make the argument that computers could in principle have 'subjective' experience. I haven't seen any such argument; nor do I foresee one forthcoming.

Oh, it's been made before on this forum. However, it's a hopeless mess: Computers could have subjective experience because they use self-referential information processing; and consciousness is self-referential information processing; which we know because people who study computers (but not the brain) say that it is; and although the brain is the only thing we know for sure can produce consciousness (and no one studying the brain claims to know how it does that) it's sufficient to study computers and neural networks as a substitute because they, too, can potentially be conscious; because they use self-referential information processing....

 

[AlBell]

All that's needed is someone to make the argument that computers could in principle have 'subjective' experience. I haven't seen any such argument; nor do I foresee one forthcoming.

Oh, it's been made before on this forum. However, it's a hopeless mess: Computers could have subjective experience because they use self-referential information processing; and consciousness is self-referential information processing; which we know because people who study computers (but not the brain) say that it is; and although the brain is the only thing we know for sure can produce consciousness (and no one studying the brain claims to know how it does that) it's sufficient to study computers and neural networks as a substitute because they, too, can potentially be conscious; because they use self-referential information processing....

We agree then.

Good luck with your much more detailed Vision Quest with the pixies.

 

[PixyMisa]

Can you explain? I don't think that self-referential and self-aware are equivalent.

A sentence can be self-referential, but it's not self-aware, because it's not aware in the first place.

A self-referential information processing system, howerver, is self-aware.

How do we know that? It's not intuitively obvious that a system needs to experience a sensation in order to process it. Heck, it seems to me that we even process some sensory information without experiencing it.

Sure. We do this all the time. Autonomic processes and attention. But a self-referential system allows for experience. Experience is, after all, just a combination of processing sensory input and examining the processing of that sensory input. The latter is simply self-reference.

This is why Dennett refers to people like Searle as a "mind creationist."

That's a good term.

 

[PixyMisa]

BTW, I think this is a really interesting self-awareness hypothesis.

Yes. And it's the same thing I'm talking about, albeit with specific neurological data - the brain examining its own processes, i.e. self-reference.

After all, I didn't come up with my ideas, they come from the leading researchers and philosophers in the field, including Ramachandran himself. I'm just trying to explain them.

 

[PixyMisa]

PixyMisa, it occurs to me that my long-winded (and again tangential) post above can actually be boiled down to this:

You say that my brain and my PC are both "computers" because they both are "information processors" that perform "computations".

Ok. To clarify that, then, what do you mean when you say "information processing" and "computation".

I've already explained that, but let's try again:

I can add 2 and 2. So can a computer.

I can compare the result of 2 + 2 with the number 5 and, seeing that it is less, take some particular course of action. So can a computer.

Symbolic representation of objects, events, and concepts; performing operations on those symbols; and switching based on the results of those operations.

That computation. That's what your PC does, just lots of it at once, very very fast. That's what your brain does, just even more of it at once, but much slower.

Both are computers.

If you tell me that, then I'll have a much clearer idea (or I should) of what you are claiming.

Then we can move on to the evidence for that proposal.

The evidence is that this is what the brain does. It's a network of neurons, and the neurons are switches. That means it's a computer.

 

[Dancing David]

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.

I, for one, welcome our new robot kitten overlords.

 

[Dancing David]

Thanks Piggy, the strange thing about the neural net ( or at least the strangest in my mind) is at times it is almost like parliment/diet/thing/chamber , where ther are all these actors who are trying to get something done, and so you have to have a consensus betwen players for something to happen. Different commitee have members that are seperated and they have to agree to get it out of comittee and to teh floor.

(I know it is a not helpful metaphor, but it possibly means that reverberations require different areas/actors to agree with each other to do things like reconstruct memories)

 

[PixyMisa]

Unfortunately, it does not.

Now I wish I hadn't attempted to present the examples, since your reply to that bit (which shouldn't have been necessary) just muddied the waters.

Let's boil it down to this bit and see if we can move forward from here....



There are 2 points I would raise.

As I've mentioned before, "information processing" is an abstraction. It doesn't happen at an objective physical level.

Yes it does. Everything that happens, happens at an objective physical level.

So to say that the brain and a computer "process information" isn't very helpful here.

But Piggy, that is what they do. What else do you use your brain or your PC for?

Now, you have objected to this, saying that IP does happen in the objective, physical "real world".

Of course it does. Where else could it happen?

(Yet, even more strangely, you deny the reality of Sofia -- a Sense Of Felt Individual Experience -- despite the fact that we all have direct evidence of the phenomenon.)

What evidence?

But to demonstrate this point, let's consider a teacher in a classroom who writes on a chalkboard:

2 + 2 =

Then he has a student come up and write to the left of this: 4.

He then draws this beneath the 4:

-3 and puts a line under it.

He calls another student up, who writes below that: 1.

Now, on an abstract level, we can say that some type of "information processing" has gone on here.

Yes.

But on an objective physical level?

Yes. Obviously. Where is that chalkboard, Piggy? Where are the teachers and the students? They are in the objective physical world, processing information.

All that has happened on the physical plane is that neurons have fired

Processing information.

The IP is entirely abstract and dependent on our perception of it.

No. It's the physical manipulation of symbolic representations. Any interpretation is also the physical manipulation of symbolic representations.

This bears repeating: The IP is entirely abstract and dependent on our perception of it.

No.

To deny this is to talk nonsense.

No, your statement is nonsense. Sorry, but it is.

Similarly, consider a woman adding on an abacus. After an extended process of flipping beads, she gets her results.

Processing information.

But once again, The IP is entirely abstract and dependent on her perception. Objectively, all that's happened is that neurons have fired, muscles have moved, beads have changed position.

Processing information.

To make the example even more clear, let's consider a computer crunching numbers. Say the process takes half an hour.

Meanwhile, it turns out that all life on earth happens to have been infected with a strange, fatal virus that will -- for some reason -- be triggered to unleash itself simultaneously, killing everthing within the space of a minute, and that this virus is triggered 15 minutes into the computer's number-crunching.

All life is dead. But for the next 14 minutes, the computer happily hums along, then a pattern of pixels appears on the screen.

In this case, has there been any information processing?

Yes, obviously.

No.

Wrong.

All that's happened is that the state of the computer's components has fluctuated.

Wrong.

No one to interpret it, no IP.

Wrong.

IP is an abstraction we overlay onto objective reality, not an objective physical reality itself.

Wrong.

So it's an error to label the brain an "information processing engine". It's a chunk of matter that does what matter can do. Chain reactions and such, like you said. We can think of it abstractly as an info-processor, but if we make the error of thinking that IP is what it is literally doing physically, we're going to come to wrong conclusions.

Wrong.

But there's an even bigger problem lurking here....

It's this bit:

You can trace the activity from sensory nerves firing in the retina through the visual cortex and all over the brain as the response to what you are looking at is processed in various ways. At every step, what is happening is computation.

That is certainly one type of thing the brain does, no doubt.

It's what the brain does. Not "one type of thing". It's what the brain does.

(But are all chain reactions "computations"? When I hit a combination shot on the billiard table, have I made a computation?

No, and I've already explained why. Neurons are switches. Billiard balls are not.

According to this definition, then it is.

Wrong again.

So are supernovas, highway pile-ups, and the knocking over of domino arrays.

All wrong.

If you don't consider any of that "computation", then we need a better definition.

I gave you the definition, in layman's terms.

The real theory behind it will likely make your head hurt:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computability
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computability_theory_(computation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effectively_calculable
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church–Turing_thesis

If they are computation, then computation becomes a trivial term for "things that happen".)

They're not, so no. There is a critical difference, i.e. switching, as already explained.

And since we don't know how the brain does consciousness

Yes we do.

(if you disagree, then you must cite someone who studies the brain who has published an accepted explanation of the process -- which has not yet happened)

No I don't; but see Ramachandran for example, or the MIT Introduction to Psychology lecture series (listen to the whole thing - it's fascinating stuff), or Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach.

Better yet, read/listen to all of them.

then we cannot be certain that only this classic chain-reaction neural signaling is involved.

Yes we can, because that is all that happens.

The study I cited upthread, which gives us unprecedented insight into what the brain is doing during Sofia events, suggests that these may not be the only processes involved.

It suggests nothing of the sort. Sorry, your interpretation of it is simply wrong.

So no, you have not sufficiently explained, in any sensible way, what you mean by "the brain is a computer".

I have explained in an eminently sensible way; you have failed to understand because you keep insisting on false preconceptions.

Care to try again?

Yes, within limits. I highly recommend Godel, Escher, Bach though; Hofstadter takes 800 pages to break down common misconceptions and build up an explanation of computation and self-reference, something I'm not going to do here.

And the MIT Lecture series I linked above. It's exceptionally well-presented, both enlightening and entertaining.

 

[PixyMisa]

Oh, it's been made before on this forum. However, it's a hopeless mess

No, it's quite clear. You lack the basic understanding to appreciate it - that's fine, we all start out there.

Computers could have subjective experience because they use self-referential information processing; and consciousness is self-referential information processing; which we know because people who study computers (but not the brain) say that it is

Wrong; neuroscientsts say the same thing.

and although the brain is the only thing we know for sure can produce consciousness (and no one studying the brain claims to know how it does that)

Again, false. Neuroscientists point out that we don't know all the details of human consciousness, which is not something anyone here has claimed (well, me, but I was being deliberately provocative). But does the brain produce consciousness through computation carried out by neurons? Yes, everyone knows that.

it's sufficient to study computers and neural networks as a substitute because they, too, can potentially be conscious; because they use self-referential information processing....

Piggy, the brain IS a neural network, and neural networks are a provably (proven!) identical computational model to stored-program computers and to Turing machines.

This is one big argument from ignorance and incredulity, nothing more.

Read Godel, Escher, Bach, and listen to the MIT lecture series I linked above. I can't spend 800 pages or 30 hours on this, particularly when Professors Hofstadter and Wolfe have already done it better.

 

[PixyMisa]

Thanks Piggy, the strange thing about the neural net ( or at least the strangest in my mind) is at times it is almost like parliment/diet/thing/chamber , where ther are all these actors who are trying to get something done, and so you have to have a consensus betwen players for something to happen. Different commitee have members that are seperated and they have to agree to get it out of comittee and to teh floor.

And the fascinating thing is that it's mathematically identical to what you'd more commonly recognise as a computer - the stored-program model in your PC.

 

[Malerin]

PixyMisa, it occurs to me that my long-winded (and again tangential) post above can actually be boiled down to this:

You say that my brain and my PC are both "computers" because they both are "information processors" that perform "computations".

Ok. To clarify that, then, what do you mean when you say "information processing" and "computation".

If you tell me that, then I'll have a much clearer idea (or I should) of what you are claiming.

Then we can move on to the evidence for that proposal.

:
::Watches how Piggy will deal with Pixy's rapier wit::

 

[Piggy]

No, it's quite clear. You lack the basic understanding to appreciate it - that's fine, we all start out there.

Then provide me with that basic understanding.

Wrong; neuroscientsts say the same thing.

Then cite them.

Again, false. Neuroscientists point out that we don't know all the details of human consciousness, which is not something anyone here has claimed (well, me, but I was being deliberately provocative). But does the brain produce consciousness through computation carried out by neurons? Yes, everyone knows that.

Then cite everyone.

Piggy, the brain IS a neural network, and neural networks are a provably (proven!) identical computational model to stored-program computers and to Turing machines.

This is one big argument from ignorance and incredulity, nothing more.

Read Godel, Escher, Bach, and listen to the MIT lecture series I linked above. I can't spend 800 pages or 30 hours on this, particularly when Professors Hofstadter and Wolfe have already done it better.

You can't seriously be citing GEB!

FWIW, Steven Pinker, for one, disagrees with you that neural networks are equivalent to the brain.

All I've asked you to do is to tell me what you mean by "information processing" and "computation". Would you please do that.

 

[Piggy]

Here's how Ramachandran ends his essay:

Have we solved the problem of self? Obviously not — we have barely scratched the surface.

So much for your claim that we know how the brain generates consciousness.

 

[Piggy]

I gave you the definition, in layman's terms.

The real theory behind it will likely make your head hurt:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computability
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computability_theory_(computation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effectively_calculable
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church–Turing_thesis

It's very difficult to make my head hurt.

Searches are easy to do. I'm asking you to explain what you mean by the terms.

And I don't recall you giving an explanation in layman's terms upthread, so perhaps you could repeat it for me.

 

[quixotecoyote]

Here's how Ramachandran ends his essay:



So much for your claim that we know how the brain generates consciousness.

I seem to remember someone saying, "Again, false. Neuroscientists point out that we don't know all the details of human consciousness, which is not something anyone here has claimed (well, me, but I was being deliberately provocative). But does the brain produce consciousness through computation carried out by neurons? Yes, everyone knows that."

But I can't remember who.

 

[Piggy]

Yes it does. Everything that happens, happens at an objective physical level.

Incorrect. Being generally considered the most congenial person in the office, for instance, does not happen on an objective physical level. You cannot tell that from studying atoms.

I really shouldn't get into any more tangents, and of course it's pointless to reply to your string of "wrong" responses, so please, just answer my question about what you mean by computation and information processing, and we'll proceed from there.