Has consciousness been fully explained?

[Earthborn]

My definition is every bit as clear as "That cat right there".

More like "that golliboggelotz right there" while not being in same room with you to see what you are pointing at.

 

[Meed]

yours seems to be 'Yeah, but no, but everyone knows what I mean!' which is unsatisfactory for a discussion.

It is satisfactory for a discussion between people who know what he means. Can you define happiness without resorting to synonyms? I'd wager not. Can you discuss it? I'm sure you can. If you were discussing it and someone said you have to precisely define happiness, because they didn't understand what it was what would you do?

Can someone link me to the posts where PixyMisa's interpretation of the Church-Turing thesis was destroyed? All I've seen so far is it being denied. The closest to an argument for this was someone knew a bloke who met Church in the pub 50 years ago and he said it was wrong. I'm not sure I'm qualified to understand the refutation, but I'd like to read it.

Your memory is certainly not kind to those you have philosophical differences with. Be careful you aren't falling too far under the influence of confirmation bias. I commented that I ran PM's claim past my adviser, who was a student of Church's and holds Phds in mathematics and cognitive science and he said that Church would laugh at such a claim if he were still around. I didn't expect that to sway anyone. Actually there had already been sources supporting PM being wrong and nothing supporting him being right.

 

[Meed]

How about string? I am big on string.

My symbol manipulator and tape can do everything string can do. Save your money and I'll simulate some for you. Or, better yet, how about some beers?

 

[PixyMisa]

As I understand it, even the physicists who favour the idea of a Turing machine Universe admit that it is still an open question whether hypercomputation is physically impossible or not. However for it to be possible, some pretty bizarre and inelegant physics would need to be true and because of that theoretical physicists tend to prefer to think that is most likely physically impossible.

Yes, to be more precise, there are two kinds of hypercomputer: Those that work by magic - i.e. they have some component that is simply asserted to allow hypercomputation; and those that work by containing actual infinities - not just potential infinities, as in a Turing machine allowed to run as long as it needs to finish a program, but infinities of space, that allow the hypercomputer to complete infinite work in finite time.

The first category we can simply dismiss. The second category we can simply dismiss until someone comes up with evidence to overturn most of modern physics. So anyone making an argument on the nature of consciousness based on hypercomputation really has their work cut out.

And there's also the fact that the brain does not act like a hypercomputer, and that there is nothing to consciousness that needs hypercomputation.

 

[PixyMisa]

I'm not sure a definition can be false. It can be wrong, it can also be unproductive.

A definition could be imprecise, overly broad, or contrary to popular use.

My definition in this case could be criticised as overly broad. It's certainly not false; it is precise, concrete, and fits well with popular use.

It doesn't sit well with dualists, but if you're a dualist, my definition is the least of your worries anyway.

 

[Dancing David]

My symbol manipulator and tape can do everything string can do. Save your money and I'll simulate some for you. Or, better yet, how about some beers?

Sigh, simulated string is just not the same, sorry I only drink simulated beer as well.

 

[AlBell]

I wonder if the consciousness resulting from moving peebles in the sand in the proper way likes beer?

 

[Dymanic]

I wonder if the consciousness resulting from moving peebles in the sand in the proper way likes beer?

I think you're on the right track here. It's all about goals (needs, wants, etc). Water can move pebbles around, and even sort them by size, but what is most of interest is not the mere fact that the pebbles are being moved, it's why.

 

[Meed]

Sigh, simulated string is just not the same, sorry I only drink simulated beer as well.

Not the same? What is this dualist sorcery you speak of?

 

[AlBell]

I wonder if the consciousness resulting from moving peebles in the sand in the proper way likes beer?

I think you're on the right track here. It's all about goals (needs, wants, etc). Water can move pebbles around, and even sort them by size, but what is most of interest is not the mere fact that the pebbles are being moved, it's why.

Referencing of course http://xkcd.com/505/

 

[Guybrush Threepwood]

Pixy's definition is not a definition - it's an assertion and an explanation. Saying that consciousness is SRIP says nothing about the nature of consciousness.

It might be unsatisfactory that nobody has managed to define consciousness, but that's the state of play at the moment. And yes, everyone does know what we mean.

I don't, seriously, I really don't understand exactly what it is that you and Piggy are talking about, unless it's the little guy that seems to be inside my head, but I don't think he's real.

The erroneous interpretations of Church-Turing.

This article is a fairly thorough-going examination of what CT says, and the specific part of the article I've linked to demolishes all the extravagant claims that misinterpret what it actually means.

Thanks for that, it's more what I was looking for, and it certainly shows that PixyMisa's opinion is not universal. However even the author of the piece seems to admit that the brain is Turing equivalent provided it doesn't use any non computable functions in it's operation. From my perspective this means that PixyMisa may be overstating the level of proof of his position, but it is far from a 'destruction' of his point.

It is satisfactory for a discussion between people who know what he means. Can you define happiness without resorting to synonyms? I'd wager not. Can you discuss it? I'm sure you can. If you were discussing it and someone said you have to precisely define happiness, because they didn't understand what it was what would you do?

I don't know, if I defined happiness as the feeling produced by a specific group of neurochemicals, I doubt very much I'd get the same amount of opposition that those saying consciousness is the result of self referential information processing get.

Your memory is certainly not kind to those you have philosophical differences with. Be careful you aren't falling too far under the influence of confirmation bias. I commented that I ran PM's claim past my adviser, who was a student of Church's and holds Phds in mathematics and cognitive science and he said that Church would laugh at such a claim if he were still around. I didn't expect that to sway anyone. Actually there had already been sources supporting PM being wrong and nothing supporting him being right.

I know what I wrote was a bit hyperbolic, but as you yourself admit, it was a very lame refutation of the point. Even if Church were alive he wouldn't be the final arbiter of what his theory proves.
The link Westprog gave seems to show that there is some general agreement that the brain is Turing equivalent, unless some specific and fairly unlikely conditions apply.
As I said earlier, I'm not really qualified to judge that, and am prepared to be proved wrong.

 

[Meed]

Thanks for that, it's more what I was looking for, and it certainly shows that PixyMisa's opinion is not universal. However even the author of the piece seems to admit that the brain is Turing equivalent provided it doesn't use any non computable functions in it's operation. From my perspective this means that PixyMisa may be overstating the level of proof of his position, but it is far from a 'destruction' of his point.

I think you're misreading the article. "Computable" essentially means "computable by a Turing machine" here. So, that is tautological. Here is what follows the bit I think you're talking about.

The Church-Turing thesis does not entail that the brain (or the mind, or consciousness) can be modelled by a Turing machine program, not even in conjunction with the belief that the brain (or mind, etc.) is scientifically explicable, or exhibits a systematic pattern of responses to the environment, or is ‘rule-governed’ (etc.). Each of the authors quoted seems to be assuming the truth of a close cousin of thesis M, which I will call

Thesis S: Any process that can be given a mathematical description (or that is scientifically describable or scientifically explicable) can be simulated by a Turing machine.

As with thesis M, neither the Church-Turing thesis properly so-called nor any result proved by Turing or Church entails thesis S. This is so even when the thesis is taken narrowly, as concerning processes that conform to the physics of the real world. (Thesis S taken in the wide sense is known to be false; see the references given earlier re the wide version of thesis M.)

(bolding added)

Recall that PM did not claim this was his "opinion", but that it was a "mathematical fact".

I don't know, if I defined happiness as the feeling produced by a specific group of neurochemicals, I doubt very much I'd get the same amount of opposition that those saying consciousness is the result of self referential information processing get.

I don't understand your response, since it doesn't seem to address what you were replying to. You said (paraphrasing with interpretation) that "you know what I mean" is not an appropriate attitude and consciousness should be precisely defined before proper discussion can take place.

My response was to have you put yourself in the same shoes, only with happiness (something I'm presuming you have a semantic understanding of) instead of consciousness. My questions are:

A. Would you be capable of discussing happiness?
B. Would you be capable of providing a precise definition of happiness (if so, please provide it)?
C. If you were not capable of providing a satisfactory definition, how would you respond to someone who claimed to not understand what the word means and demanded a precise definition, but was not helped out by synonymous or rough correlates (e.g. "we feel it when we accomplish something", "we don't feel it when a loved one dies")?

In answering these hypotheticals you may see my point that you are making a request for a definition that may not be reasonably achievable to meet your standards, yet the absence of such a definition would not prevent a discussion between people who understand what the word means. That said I do wish everyone could participate fully and with no confusion.

I'm not sure how SRIP factors into this. That is something PM has explicitly declined to discuss when invited. If you want to explain why and how SRIP is a good definition of consciousness in his place, then I suppose you could. It appears trivially false to me.

I know what I wrote was a bit hyperbolic, but as you yourself admit, it was a very lame refutation of the point. Even if Church were alive he wouldn't be the final arbiter of what his theory proves.
The link Westprog gave seems to show that there is some general agreement that the brain is Turing equivalent, unless some specific and fairly unlikely conditions apply.
As I said earlier, I'm not really qualified to judge that, and am prepared to be proved wrong.

I didn't consider it a refutation. And I don't know why I should be expected to make a sophisticated refutation of a claim that has not been supported with evidence and whose proponent has explicitly stated a lack of willingness to discuss it.

 

[!Kaggen]

Referencing of course http://xkcd.com/505/

 

[Piggy]

As far as I can understand what you are saying, it's that you feel like there is a little man in your head, who's driving the bus, and that's consciousness.

I won't even ask for the cite. Of course that's not my definition. There's no mention of little men or busses, or anything like a Cartesian theater or a homunculus.

I have no idea if I'm aware of stuff when I'm asleep and not dreaming, because I don't remember it.

Ok, so you have no awareness of ever having been aware of anything while you're asleep but not dreaming. That's a starting point.

I don't know if I dream. I wake up and sometimes have memories of dreams, but I can't say for sure that the dreams occurred, or that if they did occur they used the same part of my brain as conscious awareness. What I think my brain is doing is not really a good guide to what it actually is doing.

That's true, so it would be a good idea to look at the dream research, which demonstrates clearly that the dreams did occur.

Since you can't explain Marvin or the deep brain probe results, I don't see why I have to. I haven't even proposed a theory.

Marvin and the deep brain probes are pieces of the puzzle. But they're entirely consistent with consciousness being a bodily function. There's no conflict there at all.

But if you're going to take a computationalist approach, then there's some explaining to do.

 

[Piggy]

More like "that golliboggelotz right there" while not being in same room with you to see what you are pointing at.

So now you must be telling me that your body has no function which produces a sense of felt individual experience, and which starts up when you wake up, stops when you fall asleep without dreaming, starts again when you dream, and stops again when the dream is over.

You're telling me that this isn't how your body works.

Seriously?

 

[PixyMisa]

Thanks for that, it's more what I was looking for, and it certainly shows that PixyMisa's opinion is not universal. However even the author of the piece seems to admit that the brain is Turing equivalent provided it doesn't use any non computable functions in it's operation. From my perspective this means that PixyMisa may be overstating the level of proof of his position, but it is far from a 'destruction' of his point.

There are a lot of problems with that article, primarily stemming from the fact that it's a philosophical piece rather than a scientific one.

In particular, what they term a "myth", "that the universal Turing machine can simulate the behaviour of any machine", is in fact entirely true. A Turing machine can simulate the behaviour of any possible physical system to arbitrary precision and accuracy. The author(s) conflate simulatable with computable.

Which has already been explained dozens of times, of course.

 

[PixyMisa]

The link Westprog gave seems to show that there is some general agreement that the brain is Turing equivalent, unless some specific and fairly unlikely conditions apply.

Actually, the brain is not Turing equivalent - it's unreliable. It is, however, definitely simulatable. Everything is.

 

[Earthborn]

You're telling me that this isn't how your body works.

I don't know whether my body works like that. I don't always remember my dreams, so I don't know whether I had those "Sofia events" during dreams I don't remember. Maybe they occur only during dreams I can remember?

Sometimes things happen during the day and suddenly I remember that I dreamt about some subject some time before in a dream that I seemingly had forgotten completely. Did I really have those Sofia events during that dream, or could it be that I dreamt without Sofia events while some parts of that dream still managed to make it deep into my long term memory? I don't know.

Are those "Sofia events" anything other than stuff getting stored in long term memory?

 

[Frank Newgent]

Actually, the brain is not Turing equivalent - it's unreliable. It is, however, definitely simulatable. Everything is.

Is there such a thing as a true simulation vs a false simulation. A relevant simulation vs an irrelevant simulation?

Assuming there is I'd imagine you'd be interested in the true/relevant simulation.

Is the true/relevant simulation designed? Is the true/relevant simulation something pre-existing and stumbled upon through, what, serendipity? Is the true/relevant simulation something else entirely?

 

[PixyMisa]

Is there such a thing as a true simulation vs a false simulation.

No; that looks like the dualism fail again.

A relevant simulation vs an irrelevant simulation?

Likewise, no.

Simulations can of course vary in accuracy and precision, which is why I keep pointing out that a Turing machine can simulate any physical system to arbitrary accuracy and precision. Reality is not strictly computable - according to our current understanding of physics; however, this does not and cannot matter, again according to our current understanding of physics.

Is the true/relevant simulation designed? Is the true/relevant simulation something pre-existing and stumbled upon through, what, serendipity? Is the true/relevant simulation something else entirely?

Not sure what any of this means.