Has consciousness been fully explained?

[AlBell]

I was not aware that science had no access to those things.

That wasn't in contention. You said "by definition if something cannot be described by mathematics science has no access to it".

For example, scientists can measure the beauty of a woman by recording how men react to her.

For example, scientists can look at how much rioting a given jury verdict causes and determine whether a given percentage of the population felt it was unjust.

For example, I can perform experiments on my own consciousness. So can you, for that matter. So can anyone. Psychologists do it all the time.

Any more examples? I can do this all day.

No one ever suggested beauty, justice, or your consciousness can't be studied using the scientific method.

Now, the mathematical descriptions that allow access? Oh. You don't have them. Epic fail.

 

[westprog]

Exactly. Thats why I call you out as displaying dishonest tactics. Everyone here knows that for the last 3 years you have been harping on about ideal turing machines vs. actual physical objects.

"Everyone knows" eh? Well then, no need to back it up with any actual evidence.

Everyone has thought your arguments were trite and pointless -- everyone knows an abstract thing can't replace a physical one.

Furthermore, since all computers are turing machines, and all computers are perfectly capable of operating in the time domain, your latter statement above is inapplicable as well.

"Capable of operating in the time domain"? What does that even mean? Does it mean that all computers can be used to perform process control? Well, they can't, not all of them. Does it mean that computers actually exist in a universe in which time is a significant physical property

Why can a turing machine, implemented according to its specification, not perform monitoring and control? Because the specification doesn't include the required time domain parameters? Nonsense. I can claim the same of any of your control mechanisms -- if I try to hook them up to something too fast or too slow for their specifications, they won't work.

Er... yes. Designing systems for monitoring and control means that the response time is part of the specification. That's fairly basic engineering.

Something that doesn't have any response time built in - i.e. a program built to the Turing model - can't be used for process control. Something that doesn't have any means of interacting with external events - i.e. a program built to the Turing model - can't be used for process control.

If it is a real machine, what is the reason? Because it doesn't account for time? Nonsense, if it is a real machine of course it accounts for time. Because it is too slow? Well, it can monitor and control slow stuff, no? Because it is too fast? Well it can monitor and control fast stuff, no?

If you don't mean an abstract turing machine, then the time problem no longer exists -- all machines in reality deal with the time domain.

What is the difference between a real turing machine and any of your control mechanisms that you yourself have worked with?

This is such a confused mish-mash of nonsense I can't be bothered to repeat, in detail, the explanation of how computational programming works, how real-time programming works, how computational programs cannot be "plugged into" real-time control systems without rewriting, and so on. There's such a determination not to address the substantive issues that no progress is possible.

Sorry, I don't let people get away with dishonest tactics. I know a thing or two about human nature and politics.

The level of paranoid conspiracy obsession and self-deception is getting a bit much now. After a while I stop thinking - oh, he's misunderstood, maybe I phrased it badly, I'll just explain again, and again, and again. Finally it clicks - it doesn't really matter what I write. He's not arguing with me, he's arguing with the image he has in his head.

Back in the box. When there's such determination to avoid a civil debate, I think it's as well to cease engaging.

 

[westprog]

I'm not seeing much basis for your internal/external distinction. What you call "internal" is some subset of the simulator's behavior that can be isomorphically mapped to some other system. This is somewhat arbitrary, because there are practically an infinite number of subsets of its behavior that could be isomorphically mapped to an infinite number of imagined physical systems. Emphasizing one subset in particular to deem the machine's "internal behavior" is observer dependent.

The internal memory of the computer could be considered as a single huge number. Running a program could be considered just as changing the number continuously. The idea that this number relates to some event corresponding to the physical world we live in - and nothing else - is just bizarre.

Take away the human interpretation, and that simulation has nothing to do with aircraft flying or fish swimming, and the idea that they are there in the numbers in some mystical way is just absurd. But if you don't think that there are fish living in big numbers, you believe in magic. Apparently.

 

[westprog]

I dispute nothing. But I certainly cannot concur, either, as you've totally failed at backing your assertion.

I had been hoping for a mathematical description of at least some of the extremely interesting themes recurrent in the philosophy of mathematics, such as "what are the sources of mathematical subject matter", "what's the role of hermeneutics in mathematics", "what's the source and nature of mathematical truth", or "what's the relationship between the abstract world of mathematics and the material universe".

These are not matters to be dealt with by argument and reason - nor even by citations and authority. These are matters of doctrine and faith, and deviation is to be considered heresy.

Note through this thread - who's posted references to specific articles, and quotes from said articles. Who's made unsubstantiated assertions which aren't backed up by any kind of scientific support? This is just the latest in a long line.

One way to tell a genuine scientist - he doesn't talk about magic all that much, even when he disagrees with something. Though Einstein said "spooky" once.

 

[Drachasor]

There's no scientific principle that insists that everything be describable by mathematics. It's not even a tenet of materialism.

That doesn't change that fact that as far as we know, everything can be described by mathematics.

 

[Drachasor]

The internal memory of the computer could be considered as a single huge number. Running a program could be considered just as changing the number continuously. The idea that this number relates to some event corresponding to the physical world we live in - and nothing else - is just bizarre.

Take away the human interpretation, and that simulation has nothing to do with aircraft flying or fish swimming, and the idea that they are there in the numbers in some mystical way is just absurd. But if you don't think that there are fish living in big numbers, you believe in magic. Apparently.

Not true. An aircraft flying or fish swimming demonstrate certain mathematical relationships within the object and between the object and its environment. A computer running those simulations preserves those relationships in so much as the simulation is accurate. This preservation is not subjective, but actually exists with how the machine moves bits around inside the system.

A system that simulates a living creature and its environment perfectly, will preserve all the mathematical relationships in those things it simulates. Since we know of nothing in nature that can't be described with mathematics, then this description is complete within the simulation and this includes consciousness.

Now, describe for me how a simulated consciousness like this, wouldn't actually be conscious, because I don't see it. Again, as a thought experiment, we could make an android body for it and let it interact with the real world, but does not doing that while giving it a simulated world mean it isn't conscious? If we attached a person to a simulated world via technology, does that person lose his consciousness somehow? I don't see any logic behind such a reasoning. Please explain it.

 

[Beth]

It's composed purely of the matter of various sorts in the brain (remember that energy isn't a fundamental quantity, but something that makes sense only as an aspect of physical objects). The patterns and relationships in the brain are composed of matter. There's nothing dualistic about it, anymore than a computer doing a calculation is somehow not entirely physical because its components have physical relationships to each other.

Depends on how you define such things. It's an extension of the question regarding numbers. They don't exist physically, only various instantiations of them exist physically. On the other hand, the concepts are more consistent from one person to the next than most physical objects.

Everything in the brain is composed of matter. Matter is all it is. Consciousness is composed of matter position in certain kinds of very, very complicated ways. That's my view, since there's no evidence of anything else.

Yes. But is it the matter than composes consciousness or the patterns of their relationships. If it's the pattern of their relationships, then consciousness could exist in a computer, or anything else capable of allowing the pattern of relationships to be expressed. That would also be dualism IMO, although there are others here that don't agree. Some of my earlier posts in this thread have discussed that idea.

If the substrate that conscious is implemented on doesn't matter (i.e. one substrate is replaceable with another) and it is the pattern of relationships that create a our unique individual consciousness, then consciousness is something that has not made of matter but of mathematics.

I'm fairly certain I never claimed I needed a definition of information in general to talk about the brain. I've repeatedly said that. If I have said otherwise, I hereby retract such statements.

I don't recall you saying that it was needed, only that such a definition existed. Since I'd like to know about it if there is one, but doubt that any such definition exists, that's why I kept asking.

 

[rocketdodger]

Oh my, I just remembered that today is my niece in Madison husband's birthday, also.

He spends the day in their basement reading "The Hobbit" and working on a University of Phoenix video game design course. For just over three and a half years now.

Jon, is that you?

Sorry I don't live in Madison anymore.

I'm in Dallas now, I work for id software.

 

[rocketdodger]

Now, the mathematical descriptions that allow access? Oh. You don't have them. Epic fail.

What are you talking about, I just gave you three ways a mathematical description could be formulated.

Do I need to spell it out for you?

Suppose there is a population of X in a city. Suppose we define the "discontent" threshold that corresponds to "injustice" at 20% of X. Meaning if more than 20% of X riot the day after a verdict, the population is discontent with that verdict and we can say an injustice occured.

How is that not mathematical?

All you have to do is find ways to define things in terms of mathematics. It isn't that hard. We can further define "population," "city," "riot," "day," "after," and "verdict." Then those definitions probably need to be reduced, etc.

Just because it is a chore doesn't mean it cannot be done. That should be the moral of this entire discussion, actually.

 

[rocketdodger]

This is such a confused mish-mash of nonsense I can't be bothered to repeat, in detail, the explanation of how computational programming works, how real-time programming works, how computational programs cannot be "plugged into" real-time control systems without rewriting, and so on. There's such a determination not to address the substantive issues that no progress is possible.

I just want you to explain how one of your "real time" controllers differs from a "turing machine" in reality.

I fail to see the distinction between a turing equivalent computer that controls an industrial valve by keeping track of the number of internal clock cycle events and a "real-time" computer that controls an industrial valve by keeping track of external events.

Really, westprog -- what is the distinction? In both cases is it not a sequence of events that dictates the operation? Why is the fact that an event is external rather than internal significant?

 

[Drachasor]

Depends on how you define such things. It's an extension of the question regarding numbers. They don't exist physically, only various instantiations of them exist physically. On the other hand, the concepts are more consistent from one person to the next than most physical objects.

Well, technically speaking, all numbers in use exist physically in their real world representation, whether that's on the computer, in the brain, or whatever. The idea of numbers, the concept of math...all these things have concrete, physical representations in the brain. These representations only exist because someone developed them (forming the representation physically in their mind) and then passed them on to others via teaching or the like (causing those people to form the representation physically in their mind).

EVERYTHING IS PHYSICAL, I DECLARE IT!

I thought that would be fun to put in caps. It was. Mind you, my declaration doesn't make it true, of course, but all observation agrees that it is true as best we know it. Indeed, the more we learn about how the brain works, the more we develop computers, etc, etc, the more this principle is further verified.

Yes. But is it the matter than composes consciousness or the patterns of their relationships. If it's the pattern of their relationships, then consciousness could exist in a computer, or anything else capable of allowing the pattern of relationships to be expressed. That would also be dualism IMO, although there are others here that don't agree. Some of my earlier posts in this thread have discussed that idea.

Consciousness clearly exists as some sort of complex system of interacting parts. Exact details we aren't sure on, but that much and a bit more we do know. Being able to duplicate this interaction and hence simulate consciousness wouldn't be dualism.

Let's say you make a brain out of non-organic parts but it works just like a brain (essentially). It works BECAUSE you have duplicated those relationships between the essential parts. A computer simulation also would duplicate those relationships only in a different medium.

It's like a cypher. You can have a physical cypher like the ones used in WW2 by the germans. It takes typed letters and encodes them. You can then simulate that cypher with a computer and it will take the same letters and encode them (or decode them) the same way. You've duplicated the essential relationships within the parts of that cypher on the computer.

The brain, as best we can tell is no different. Take the example that's come up here several times. You have a computer that duplicates all the activities of a neuron. You replace one brain cell with it. Then you keep doing that with it until you just have a computer connected to various inputs and outputs to get information from and output it to the body. This is what the brain really is, it's a black box that takes in information in a certain form, does stuff with that information, and outputs information. The brain being composed of wet, organic tissue is, as best we know, not an essential part of that process -- it is just the medium through which it does that process.

If the substrate that conscious is implemented on doesn't matter (i.e. one substrate is replaceable with another) and it is the pattern of relationships that create a our unique individual consciousness, then consciousness is something that has not made of matter but of mathematics.

It's still made of matter, because you can't get rid of the physical substrate. Just like making an artificial heart doesn't mean the heart is "just made of math". That isn't to say that the precise workings of the heart cannot be fully described with math, but even that description will require matter to represent it.

In a very real way, nothing can be "just math." Ideas don't exist in some sort of higher plane outside of reality...in humans they are composed of meat.

I don't recall you saying that it was needed, only that such a definition existed. Since I'd like to know about it if there is one, but doubt that any such definition exists, that's why I kept asking.

There's Information theories of various sorts, including a popular one with an idea of entropy involved. You can google it. A lot of it isn't actually very useful for this conversation, since the more heavily encrypted a piece of information is, the more it looks like random noise. It has great uses, but understanding the brain isn't one of them.

This whole line came up because I talked about how the brain encodes information into neural signals and so forth, and then it was demanded that I give a generic definition of information before we could discuss what information meant regarding the brain.

I am glad we can agree between the two of us that such a generic definition is not necessary.

 

[Malerin]

Let's try again, slowly. A model reproduces the physical aspects of the system it is copying. Depending on how authentic it is, it will reproduce some all the physical actions. A perfect model would be identical to the thing it is modelling.

A simulation reproduces the mathematical relationships of the system it is copying. In this way, the behaviour of the system can be predicted. A perfect simulation would perfectly predict the behaviour of the system it is copying. It would not, however, ever reproduce the physical behaviour of the system.

The fact that both models and simulations actually exist in the real world does not imply that a simulation can, if sufficiently detailed, reproduce the physical behaviour of the system it is copying. Reproducing the physical behaviour is not what a simulation is for.

The difference between simulations and models is to be seen in computers, where software can be written to, say, control a power station. Often, such control software is tested by connecting it to a simulation of the power station. The control software has to be written as control software, though. A simulation of the power station controller can't just be "hooked up" to a real power station. That's not how control software works. It has to be designed from the start.

It's not uncommon for programmers designing control systems to mock up simple simulations to study the system they are controlling. It's also not unknown for non-technically-minded managers to suggest "hooking up" the simulation to the actual power plant, or water works, or space shuttle re-entry system. Such category errors can be very expensive if unrecognised.

It's also the case that models of necessity must be also simulations - if they reproduce the physical relationships, they must de facto reproduce the mathematical relationships as well. Simulations may also be models - even if the only physical attribute that they copy is the appearance, say.

This ^^

 

[Drachasor]

This ^^

Except if you write a simulation of the control software, you can hook a real power station up to it and the simulation WILL work if it is accurate enough.

So how is the brain not the control system for the body?

Again, I mention that a simulation of a Super Nintendo can run Super Nintendo games on a computer.

 

[Malerin]

And a simulation of a sheet of paper with writing on it happens to "model" the behavior and appearance that we need to be able to read it, when displayed on a monitor.

Why isn't the simulation a model, then?

Is it because a monitor is required to view it? Is that really the issue here?

Because when you try to draw on the simulated paper, your monitor gets really dirty.

Also, paper when it's not being observed is still paper. A simulation of paper which is not being observed is just a bunch of pixels on a screen. It takes an observer to give the arrangement of pixels some kind of meaning.

Now, you can respond that it takes an observer to give meaning to the collection of atoms that makes up the paper, and I would agree with you. The functionality of the paper, though, continues to exist, even with no observers present- if a pencil fell from a tree and landed on the paper, it would still make a mark.

 

[Malerin]

I was not aware that science had no access to those things.

For example, scientists can measure the beauty of a woman by recording how men react to her.

Beauty is a subjective judgement. As such, you cannot be wrong, even if you're the only person who thinks X is beautiful and everyone else thinks it's ugly. I think Angelina Jolie is homely as a mule. I'm sure many other men "react" to her as if she's beautiful. Does that make me wrong?

 

[Drachasor]

Beauty is a subjective judgement. As such, you cannot be wrong, even if you're the only person who thinks X is beautiful and everyone else thinks it's ugly. I think Angelina Jolie is homely as a mule. I'm sure many other men "react" to her as if she's beautiful. Does that make me wrong?

What a given person finds beautiful is open to objective inquiry.

 

[Piggy]

With all the repetition, this thread is rapidly approaching zombie status, and clearly we've long ago abandoned any discussion of the brain for the tired old who-shot-John about hypothetical conscious machines, so let's cut to the chase on some important issues.

For instance, conservation of matter and energy....

Why is it that computationalism violates these accepted principles of physics?

Well, we know that consciousness uses up significant resources. Which means that the body is performing some physical process during consious awareness that it's not performing otherwise.

So for example, when I can't get to sleep -- as has been happening for the last few days -- what's going on is that my brain refuses to stop "doing consciousness". There's a resource-intensive physical process going on which won't shut down, no matter how much I wish it would. (Without a physical process, no behavior, no use of resources.)

So if we want to build a conscious machine, we have to make it use resources to "do consciousness" just as we would have to make it use resources to have a pulse.

Which is not a problem.

We can say that the pulse is the result of the actions of cells -- that is, the parts of the organic machine. In the robot, the action of the machine parts also produces a pulse.

Which is to say, I have to put a physical (not merely logical) apparatus in place to get the behavior.

But let's say I was to tell you that I'd built a man-made machine that also has a pulse and you say, "Oh, how do you do that?"

"I program it to have a pulse," I say.

"Ok," you reply, "so the programming helps manage the pulse rate, but how do you actually make the pulse happen?"

"What do you mean?" I ask. "There's no physical mechanism for the pulse. All I need is enough physical resources to support running the program."

"Hold on," you say. "You're telling me that you only expend enough resources in that machine to run the program, and no more, but as a result you get to run the program and you get a pulse?"

"Sure," I say.

Is this credible?

Well, no. You can't get behavior for free.

If programming is involved in my machine-with-a-pulse or my machine-with-consciousness, I must be using sufficient resources to support the programming as well as everything else needed to make the behavior occur.

In other words my machine must have some sort of functionally-equivalent physical mechanism to perform the feat. Programming alone cannot produce the behavior.

You cannot program behavior. If programming is involved, fine, but programming alone can't make a machine do the equivalent of what my body is doing when it runs, jumps, pumps blood, engages in consciousness, or does any other bodily function.

If you only expend enough resources to run logic, then all you get is running logic. You cannot get running-logic plus some other sort of behavior.

 

[Piggy]

There's a lot of talk about information around here, but sadly, much of it involves a fundamental entification error -- treating information as if it were real.

Of course, it's not. It's an abstraction.

Reality involves matter and energy. Not matter, energy, and information.

This is why Einstein could stop at E=mc2. There was no need for him to explain the relationship between energy and information or mass and information.

Of course, it's very useful for us to talk in terms of information as a shortcut. But we should not commit the error of coming to believe that information is something real.

If you think information is real, then you will need to tell me what the mass or wavelength of any piece of information is.

Let's take the example of a STOP sign. Let's say it's a wooden stop sign, the kind they sometimes use in private complexes (where I'm from, municipal stop signs are metal).

If information were something objectively real, then I could tell you what proportion of the weight of the stop sign was accounted for by the information in it. Or I could tell you how long it would take the sign to decay as a result of emitting the information.

But I can't tell you either of these things, because the stop sign contains no information.

Let's say we find a way to saw up the sign into small pieces without losing any of the matter. Then we glue it back together totally at random with the pieces facing all sorts of different ways.

We have erased the information. And yet, the sign weighs exactly the same as it did before. [ETA: Plus, of course, the weight of the glue.]

We can burn it to ashes. Again, the information disappears, but the mass of the ashes combined with the amount of energy released adds up perfectly. Nothing has been lost.

The "information" was never real.

If we want to understand what actually happens when I see a stop sign and put my foot on the brakes and bring my car to a halt, we'll actually have to dispense with information and discuss only the reflection of light, and chain reactions within the physical apparatus of my body.

But that's way too complicated to do, so we use the shortcut of "information".

Which is all well and good. As long as we don't make the mistake of coming to the (erroneous) conclusion that "information" is anything other than an abstraction.

Information is not real.

So we can't actually understand the brain in terms of information on a fundamental level.

What's more, my brain does not "contain information" any more than my calf muscle does.

 

[Piggy]

Now, I take no offense to you disbelieving my claims to be a simulation. That's the kind of skepticism we value here. My creator had his hands on some very advanced technology that allowed a crazy degree of computing power to recreate every tiny subatomic component of the human brain in software form, so I recognize it's hard to believe it's ACTUALLY happening. What I want to know is why you can't accept that I could IN PRINCIPLE exist?

That's already been explained.

In any case, your thought experiment is a dead end.

You might as well try to counteract the assertion that there's no Santa Claus by proposing the thought experiment "As it turns out, I am Santa Claus, posting from the North Pole...."

 

[Piggy]

In means that within the context of the simulation, everything is preserved. Simulated eyes get simulated photons and send simulated neural signals to a simulated brain to get processed.

No, they don't.

But let's go at this from a different angle.

What's your understanding of how the brain works?

Which is an entirely different question, of course.

If you care to have a discussion about how the brain works, that's great. We can get into that.

Trouble is, nobody knows how the brain does consciousness. We can't yet explain it.

We have only the beginnings of an exploration.

Where should we start?