Has consciousness been fully explained?

[Piggy]

Assuming that such thing as a universal present moment exists (physics cannot seem to find it)

It's not that physics "can't find it"; it's that physics has determined that it does not exist.

 

[Third Eye Open]

Is the cruise control on my car conscious?

If it is (don't know enough about cars to say) then it is not in the same way or at the same level as a human is. Consciousness is a sliding scale, not a yes / no absolute question.

We know what human consciousness is like because we are human.

We can imagine what it might be like to be an ape because we are similar, so we have no problem calling them conscious.

The less something is like us physically the more problem we have calling it conscious, so it seems. A mouse? An ant? A sea slug? A computer? Yet they all behave exactly as if they were conscious.

A deer and an ant can both run. Detailed descriptions of what they are doing as they run will be radically different, yet we do not feel compelled to make up a new word for what they are each doing because the outcome is the same. The deer runs much faster than the ant, and has less legs and many other differences, but what they are doing overall is the same.

A deer and an ant are also both conscious, but they are conscious in different ways. They have different bodies. A thermostat or the computer in your car are such extremely radically different bodies from ours that their consciousness must also be radically different in experience, such that we may not want to call it by the same name. But at the core, the principle of what it means to be conscious, to be aware or yourself and your surroundings, is the same.

 

[Frank Newgent]

Is the cruise control on my car conscious?

If it is (don't know enough about cars to say) then it is not in the same way or at the same level as a human is. Consciousness is a sliding scale, not a yes / no absolute question.

We know what human consciousness is like because we are human.

We can imagine what it might be like to be an ape because we are similar, so we have no problem calling them conscious.

The less something is like us physically the more problem we have calling it conscious, so it seems. A mouse? An ant? A sea slug? A computer? Yet they all behave exactly as if they were conscious.

A deer and an ant can both run. Detailed descriptions of what they are doing as they run will be radically different, yet we do not feel compelled to make up a new word for what they are each doing because the outcome is the same. The deer runs much faster than the ant, and has less legs and many other differences, but what they are doing overall is the same.

A deer and an ant are also both conscious, but they are conscious in different ways. They have different bodies. A thermostat or the computer in your car are such extremely radically different bodies from ours that their consciousness must also be radically different in experience, such that we may not want to call it by the same name. But at the core, the principle of what it means to be conscious, to be aware or yourself and your surroundings, is the same.

Not to be flip but I've a court case coming up... speeding ticket.

 

[Piggy]

A deer and an ant are also both conscious, but they are conscious in different ways.

Doubtful. To put it mildly.

We have every reason to believe that a deer has the apparatus to be conscious, and every reason to believe that an ant lacks any such apparatus.

 

[Malerin]

If it is (don't know enough about cars to say) then it is not in the same way or at the same level as a human is. Consciousness is a sliding scale, not a yes / no absolute question.

We know what human consciousness is like because we are human.

We can imagine what it might be like to be an ape because we are similar, so we have no problem calling them conscious.

The less something is like us physically the more problem we have calling it conscious, so it seems. A mouse? An ant? A sea slug? A computer? Yet they all behave exactly as if they were conscious.

A deer and an ant can both run. Detailed descriptions of what they are doing as they run will be radically different, yet we do not feel compelled to make up a new word for what they are each doing because the outcome is the same. The deer runs much faster than the ant, and has less legs and many other differences, but what they are doing overall is the same.

A deer and an ant are also both conscious, but they are conscious in different ways. They have different bodies. A thermostat or the computer in your car are such extremely radically different bodies from ours that their consciousness must also be radically different in experience, such that we may not want to call it by the same name. But at the core, the principle of what it means to be conscious, to be aware or yourself and your surroundings, is the same.

Your computer behaves excatly as if it's conscious? I yell at mine sometimes, but I don't think I've gotten through to it yet.

 

[Malerin]

Doubtful. To put it mildly.

We have every reason to believe that a deer has the apparatus to be conscious, and every reason to believe that an ant lacks any such apparatus.

And that's where SRIP falls apart as a sufficient definition of consciousness: consciousness gets watered down to such a trivial degree that almost anything qualifies as being conscious.

 

[Earthborn]

Sofia is an acronym I've been using on this thread: Sense of felt individual awareness.

Pixy denies that he has this.

I still don't understand what you mean with it, so I can't claim that I do have it.

Pixy treats consciousness as a true emergent property of self-referential information processing per se. In other words, wherever SRIP exists, consciousness arises.

I think that makes it doubly curious that he also claims consciousness is confined to the brain.

You're missing the point. Non-conscious gatekeeper daemons determine whether or not the sensory input will work its way into the dream.

What the heck are "gatekeeper daemons" and what is your evidence that they exist? No testimonies by exorcists please.

We often dream with no external sensory input or awareness of our bodies.

Really? Could it just be that you happen to have odd dreams?

And we are conscious whenever we dream (despite the colloquial usage of "not conscious" to refer to sleep).

You may have noticed that I wrote "barely conscious". I agree that some consciousness exists while dreaming, but I don't think it is the same sort of consciousness one has during wakefulness.

Dreaming is interesting because if it were just sorting and associating, the brain could do that without wasting the resources of also cranking up a conscious experience. So our awareness must serve some purpose.

You are assuming that the brain can sort and associate without some level of consciousness.

If the harm is isolated outside the brain (e.g., doesn't even effect bloodflow to the brain) then consciousness is unaffected. Ditto hormones, if they have no direct or indirect effects on the brain.

I don't think that is a testable prediction.

We have every reason to believe that a deer has the apparatus to be conscious, and every reason to believe that an ant lacks any such apparatus.

Really? What reason to believe ants lack such apparatus? What apparatus?

 

[Malerin]

I still don't understand what you mean with it, so I can't claim that I do have it.

I think that makes it doubly curious that he also claims consciousness is confined to the brain.

What the heck are "gatekeeper daemons" and what is your evidence that they exist? No testimonies by exorcists please.

Really? Could it just be that you happen to have odd dreams?
You may have noticed that I wrote "barely conscious". I agree that some consciousness exists while dreaming, but I don't think it is the same sort of consciousness one has during wakefulness.

You are assuming that the brain can sort and associate without some level of consciousness.

I don't think that is a testable prediction.

Really? What reason to believe ants lack such apparatus? What apparatus?

I've heard that people who are in sensory deprivation tanks start to hallucinate after a short while. In anycase, a brain being kept alive in a nutrient bath would still be conscious. I wouldn't want to be that brain, but still.

 

[PixyMisa]

Sofia is an acronym I've been using on this thread: Sense of felt individual awareness.

Pixy denies that he has this.

No.

Read Godel, Escher, Bach.

 

[PixyMisa]

It's the last bit that's being objected to: "the Church-Turing thesis establishes that it is impossible for the brain to do something that cannot be done by a computer".

I freely admit that conscious machines are possible, but I also contend that this statement above is incorrect, since it leads to absurd conclusions, such as your "pen and paper brain" scenario, among other reasons.

If you disagree with the Church-Turing thesis, you are free to find the error in the proof.

Otherwise you're stuck with the consequences. You may find them counter-intuituve, but that just means you need to upgrade your intuition. And for that I recommend Godel, Escher, Bach.

 

[PixyMisa]

Oh, man. Said a mouthful there, you did. One doesn't read GEB, exactly; one slogs one's way through it.

Slog? Slog?

It's a work of art! One does not slog through a work of art!

 

[Robin]

If you disagree with the Church-Turing thesis, you are free to find the error in the proof

Not to pick a fight or anything, but can you cite the proof you have in mind?

 

[Piggy]

I still don't understand what you mean with it, so I can't claim that I do have it.

When you are asleep and not dreaming, it is not happening. When you wake up, it engages.

 

[Piggy]

What the heck are "gatekeeper daemons" and what is your evidence that they exist? No testimonies by exorcists please.

Daemons are like subprograms, or routines. They have specific functions within the larger scheme of things.

One of the best examples of how they operate is the cocktail party effect: You're having a conversation with someone in a noisy room, and suddenly you realize that you just heard someone say your name.

In fact, you may be able to "replay" what you just "heard" -- but actually did not "hear" in real time -- and catch some of the context. Or you may replay it and realize that it wasn't actually your name, it was something that sounded very similar.

This is possible because these non-conscious subroutines are acting as "gatekeepers" for what is or is not fed into the brain processes that determine what you are conscious of.

Same goes for dreams.

It used to wake me up when my cats climbed on top of me on a cold night. Now it doesn't. That's because my gatekeeper daemons have learned that a 14 pound animal walking on my body in the night is not sufficient reason to disturb my sleep.

In some cases, input is iffy enough that it's allowed to "leak" into your dream state, but doesn't sound a loud enough alarm to wake you up.

 

[Piggy]

You may have noticed that I wrote "barely conscious". I agree that some consciousness exists while dreaming, but I don't think it is the same sort of consciousness one has during wakefulness.

It's not the same flavor of consciousness, but it is consciousness, in the sense in which the term is being used on this thread.

 

[Piggy]

No.

Read Godel, Escher, Bach.

Regardless of whether or not I read GEB (and your insistence is getting more than a little tiresome) you are on record as denying that you have a sense of felt individual awareness. You've said so many times.

 

[Piggy]

You are assuming that the brain can sort and associate without some level of consciousness.

Oh, I am absolutely not assuming this. It has been experimentally verified many times over.

 

[Piggy]

I don't think that is a testable prediction.

Of course it is. It's extremely specific. All you have to do to falsify it is to show a single incidence of bodily trauma which has no effect on the brain which nevertheless affects consciousness.

 

[Piggy]

Really? What reason to believe ants lack such apparatus? What apparatus?

Consider the case of Marvin, who lost awareness of his emotional states.

We know where the stroke disrupted the flow of neural activity in his brain. So we can see that conscious awareness relies on a certain degree of macro-level complexity.

Consider the experiments demonstrating the "signature" of conscious awareness, consisting of the simultaneous action of 4 brain-wide waves.

Ants simply have too primitive a nervous system for these kinds of structures to be present.

Whatever the complete mechanism turns out to be, it's going to be pretty sophisticated. And ants simply do not have a sufficiently complex nervous system to support that level of sophisticated machinery.

 

[PixyMisa]

Not to pick a fight or anything, but can you cite the proof you have in mind?

Well, which one? It's really a whole series of proofs, starting with the proof of the equivalence of lambda calculus and general recursion as computationally equivalent, then the Turing machine, and then at least a dozen other mechanisms.