Has consciousness been fully explained?

[Robin]

The concept of computation is something that applies purely in the minds of human beings.

Of course. Concepts are an artifact of minds.

The concept of heat only exists in human minds. That does not mean that heat is not real.

A computer might be carrying out a physical action, but it's only the interpretation of a human being that makes it a computation.

If there was no difference between a computation and any other physical process then there would be nothing to interpret.

 

[!Kaggen]

Of course. Concepts are an artifact of minds.

The concept of heat only exists in human minds. That does not mean that heat is not real.

Ahh The problem of induction solved by decree...

 

[Robin]

Ahh The problem of induction solved by decree...

It has nothing whatsoever to do with the problem of induction, not even remotely.

Do you even know what you meant by that comment?

Maybe if I had said "that means heat is real"... But I didn't.

 

[my_wan]

Rolling and running aren't different degrees of something as far as I can tell. They're qualitatively different. What do you mean?

The technical term is "Degrees of Freedom^wiki". Although used slightly different in mechanics, dynamics (used in physics and chemistry), and statistics, these differences really just come down to different perspective of the of how the symmetries are specified. Not only are they quantitatively different, they fundamental define the distinction between all systems. That is why modern physics has a coordinate independent approach, where these symmetries are all that is important in distinguishing physical law.

The running verses rolling can be made analogous with the translational verses rotational degree of freedom F⁰ of mechanics. Even the waveforms through a medium are the result of this, such as through a gas (with rotation F⁰) verses a solid (no rotation F⁰). The F⁰ even defines the energy dispersion in a system as kinetic energy E = 1/2mV². Thus ideal gas law, classical thermodynamics, is a direct result.

As westprog noted, it is a matter of perspective, but a change of perspective does not invalidate the symmetry which provided that perspective with validity. The symmetry defines the perspectival rotations that are valid. It's not like the social relativist position, where position is as true as any other. Only those positions that corresponds to a valid symmetry transform is valid. It's even valid when definitions are reversed with that transform, so long as the symmetry is maintained. Relativity was built off a deeper understanding of this symmetry of degrees of freedom. Social relativism was a simple minded bastardization of those symmetries, falsely claiming validity irrespective of any symmetry.

Degrees of freedom are the fundamental distinction between things.

 

[Robin]

As I've said before - the simulation will report seeing and hearing things that we know are not present. We don't believe it is seeing a real tree. We do believe that we are seeing a real tree.

The simulation is a pretence. We don't regard anything it reports as reliable. So when it claims to have experienced a sensation, we cannot view that as indicating that there is anything there.

And I never said that we can, as I think I pointed out the last time you said this.

What I said was that either possibility leads to an apparent absurdity. If the simulation is conscious then it leads to the idea of the pencil and paper brain being conscious.

If the simulation is not conscious then it leads to the conclusion that the reason we say we have a Sofia has nothing to do with the fact that we do, in fact, have a Sofia.

 

[my_wan]

Even in QM the degrees of freedom remain the fundamental distinction. Thermodynamics applies to QM as well, and the distinction between QM and classical physics can be summed up like this: Whereas classical physics defines the degrees of freedom of a quantity parts, QM defines the degrees of freedom of a quantity of properties.

 

[westprog]

Of course. Concepts are an artifact of minds.

The concept of heat only exists in human minds. That does not mean that heat is not real.

Heat is a concept, but it's a physical concept. There are various ways to establish this, but the easiest is to check the physics books, where heat is explained, discussed, measured and understood. There's nothing in there that says that how hot something is depends on how warm we need to be.

As can be seen from the ever more convoluted efforts to provide an objective physical definition of computation, involving non-linear interactions and stability - all of which are off the cuff inventions by RD, with no basis apart from what he's trying to think up for himself - computation simply doesn't have any objective existence as a physical event. It only makes sense when interpreted by a human being.

There are lots of physical objects like this. A toy is a real physical object. It has no objective physical status beyond being something that human beings play with. That's a sound, useful definition - but it's not a definition which we'll find in a physics book. The same applies to computation.

If there was no difference between a computation and any other physical process then there would be nothing to interpret.

It's been well established that computation is not tied to any particular physical process. It's independent of the physical process via which the computation is taking place.

 

[westprog]

And I never said that we can, as I think I pointed out the last time you said this.

What I said was that either possibility leads to an apparent absurdity. If the simulation is conscious then it leads to the idea of the pencil and paper brain being conscious.

If the simulation is not conscious then it leads to the conclusion that the reason we say we have a Sofia has nothing to do with the fact that we do, in fact, have a Sofia.

No, it does not. When the simulation "sees" a tree, then we know that it is not, in fact, seeing a tree - it's being presented with false information that tricks it into thinking that a tree is there. It's also being presented with the information that it is conscious. That information could be false as well.

The reason that we surmise that other people have consciousness is that they respond to the same stimuli as we do - and hence are plausibly having the same experience of it. If we see something not experiencing the same things that we do, then we don't necessarily assume that it has the same experience, or indeed any experience.

This might seem like hair-splitting, but since we will be able to track exactly how this simulation does, or does not claim consciousness, it would possibly explain the whole thing.

It's a clever thought experiment, though, and with your permission I'd like to refer to it elsewhere.

 

[Robin]

Heat is a concept, but it's a physical concept.

No, you are missing the point A concept is an idea about something, it is our understanding of something - but the concept is not the thing itself.

My concept of heat is not heat. My concept of the Sun is not the Sun. My concept of computation is not computation.

It's been well established that computation is not tied to any particular physical process.

Yes, so what? That does not mean it exists only in the mind of the observer.

Again - if a calculator, a computer, a human. a difference engine - do the same operation on the same numbers and get the same result then that is an empirically verifiable fact.

This message getting to you is the result of a good number of different devices making calculations and sending the result on to the next device. That could not happen if calculation were simply a figment of our imagination.

Calculation is not even a human invention.

 

[westprog]

In another observer's mind. And another observer's mind. And in as many observer's minds as read the figures. And in another computer to which the data is sent.

Do you think that the same answer to a particular calculation is just a figment of a single observer's imagination?

We also agree that today is Tuesday. That doesn't mean that the days of the week are a physical phenomenon, independent of humanity, with their own objective existence - even though they might derive from some physical reality.

The computations are real physical actions. However, if we look for a common physical description of what is going on, aside from the interpretation of human beings, then it's almost impossible to provide a precise definition. We can define computation in mathematical terms, but mathematical objects don't have physical existence.

 

[Myriad]

In what sense do they come up with the same answer, outside of the observer's mind?

If only a finite state machine is required to translate any initial state of one computing machine into an initial state of another, and if only a finite state machine is required to translate the final state of the other (the result) into a corresponding final state of the first, and if having been so translated, the results will always be the same between the two machines, then the computing machines are performing equivalent computations.

An observer's mind has nothing to do with it -- except in the same trivial solipsistic sense that we might ask, for example, in what sense do the angles of a triangle sum to 180 degrees, except in an observer's mind?

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[Robin]

No, it does not.

If not then you should demonstrate that it does not, rather than repeating your previous point as though I had not commented on it.

When the simulation "sees" a tree, then we know that it is not, in fact, seeing a tree - it's being presented with false information that tricks it into thinking that a tree is there. It's also being presented with the information that it is conscious. That information could be false as well.

The reason that we surmise that other people have consciousness is that they respond to the same stimuli as we do - and hence are plausibly having the same experience of it. If we see something not experiencing the same things that we do, then we don't necessarily assume that it has the same experience, or indeed any experience.

And for the third or fourth time, I never said we could assume that it had the same experience or any experience. So this point does not address my argument, which does not depend in any way upon that assumption.

This might seem like hair-splitting, but since we will be able to track exactly how this simulation does, or does not claim consciousness, it would possibly explain the whole thing.

But if it does claim consciousness then it can only be through the neural processing since that is what is being modelled.

So if it does claim consciousness then we know that neurons are enough to explain why we claim consciousness.

So if neurons are not enough to explain consciousness itself then we would know that the reason we claim to be conscious is not because we are conscious.

And that, to me, is an absurdity on par with the conscious pencil and paper brain.

On the other hand if it does not claim consciousness then they may have gotten the model wrong.

But if the brain could not, even in principle, be modelled by a computer - no matter how powerful - then the brain would not be acting according to known physical laws.

It's a clever thought experiment, though, and with your permission I'd like to refer to it elsewhere.

You are welcome to use it.

 

[Robin]

We also agree that today is Tuesday.

But that is a poor analogy since we invented Tuesday, we did not invent computation

The computations are real physical actions. However, if we look for a common physical description of what is going on, aside from the interpretation of human beings, then it's almost impossible to provide a precise definition.

I still don't see what is wrong with mine. Your only meaniingful objection was that under the definition there could be no perfect computation. No argument there.

We can define computation in mathematical terms, but mathematical objects don't have physical existence.

That is another thread in itself.

But since a mathematical description of a computation exists we can also define a computation physically as any physical implementation of a computation.

Note that since a computation maps a natural number to just one natural number, not every physical process qualifies as a computation.

Which would make this definition equal to mine.

 

[westprog]

No, you are missing the point A concept is an idea about something, it is our understanding of something - but the concept is not the thing itself.

My concept of heat is not heat. My concept of the Sun is not the Sun. My concept of computation is not computation.

Yes, so what? That does not mean it exists only in the mind of the observer.

Again - if a calculator, a computer, a human. a difference engine - do the same operation on the same numbers and get the same result then that is an empirically verifiable fact.

This message getting to you is the result of a good number of different devices making calculations and sending the result on to the next device. That could not happen if calculation were simply a figment of our imagination.

I am not claiming that calculation is a figment of our imagination, or that it does not take place. I'm claiming that it is not a definable physical phenomenon as calculation. The effects of the physical acts performing the calculation can be physically described and quantified. The calculation itself cannot.

If you attempt to describe what happens during a calculation without referring to the human being involved, then you will quickly find that you include almost everything, or leave things out. That is because, unlike heat, or the Sun, there's no physical effect that calculation produces except on the human mind.

This shouldn't matter a jot, unless there's a claim that calculation is a physical action in itself, producing specific physical effects.

Calculation is not even a human invention.

It might be that a bird brain can count to three - but that it still calculation being carried out by a mind.

 

[Robin]

The effects of the physical acts performing the calculation can be physically described and quantified. The calculation itself cannot.

Actually, by definition, the effects of the calculation can be quantified. We can quantify the effect of the calculation that will be the same even when run on top of various differing physical processes.

That is because, unlike heat, or the Sun, there's no physical effect that calculation produces except on the human mind.

That is rather obviously not true.

There are billions of calculations going on right now that are having physical effects on other machines and not even being thought of by humans.

It might be that a bird brain can count to three - but that it still calculation being carried out by a mind.

I was thinking more of a human being - a naturally occurring machine that is capable of doing all sorts of calculations. We did not invent human beings.

 

[rocketdodger]

The concept of computation is something that applies purely in the minds of human beings. A computer might be carrying out a physical action, but it's only the interpretation of a human being that makes it a computation.

Who cares?

As Robin has pointed out, this is irrelevant.

What is relevant is whether or not such a physical action can also be carried out by a rock.

And that has been your claim from day one -- that a rock can carry out any physical action that a computer can.

Are you backtracking now? Do you want to withdraw that claim?

 

[rocketdodger]

If you attempt to describe what happens during a calculation without referring to the human being involved, then you will quickly find that you include almost everything, or leave things out. That is because, unlike heat, or the Sun, there's no physical effect that calculation produces except on the human mind.

A cellular control mechanism in a bacterium leads it to undergo cell division due to some small environmental change.

What am I leaving out?

Where is the human mind?

Before the calculation there was a single cell, the final effect is that there are two cells.

Where is the human mind?

 

[Meed]

Well at a fundamental level the particles of those systems are just moving in 3-space -- there is no qualitative difference there, it is all just degrees of movement.

No, it's different patterns of movement. Different degrees would be something like different speeds. For example when you say something is more stable than something else you're talking in terms of degree of stability. If something is more hot than something else then you're talking in terms of degrees of heat.

Rolling and running are different types of movement, but they're not degrees along some axis. If they are then how do you define the difference?

 

[my_wan]

I concur with the notion that a calculation is not an imaginary construct, and neither is your imagination. A calculation can represent only some subset of a physical process, but a physical process it is.

 

[Meed]

The technical term is "Degrees of Freedom^wiki". Although used slightly different in mechanics, dynamics (used in physics and chemistry), and statistics, these differences really just come down to different perspective of the of how the symmetries are specified.

I was not talking about degrees of freedom. I was talking about degrees of [insert a quality that can be had by a system]. For example, heat, stability or amount of change demonstrated in response to the environment. This was in response to RD emphasizing that a cell changes more than a rock in response to the environment and that certain things are more stable than others. Rolling vs running really has nothing to do with it and I still fail to see how it's a counter-example to my point.