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Has consciousness been fully explained?

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Piggy said:
On the contrary, perception may be entirely separate from consciousness.

And I, for one, have been in conscious states which were entirely separate from perception.
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Do you? There are phenomenons like excitation transfer and change/inattentional blindness in which there's an interaction between perception and consciousness. Not to mention the fact that the developmental process of the brain requires sensory input or all the neurons and synapses will get pruned.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
No evidence of the latter, and perception does occur in blindsight (hence, 'sight'). It simply isn't conscious perception.
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It's not visual perception. And I think it's commonly believed that blindsight occurs due to the LGN sending the information to other parts of the neocortex, but maybe there's no evidence either way.

The reality is that visual processing begins almost from initial photon capture. There is some degree of processing from the bipolar cells on.
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Agreed of course.
 
Piggy said:
My understanding, from westprog and cornsail at least, is that their opinion is that conscious machines are indeed possible in theory, but that we can't be certain that they are possible in practice, because that depends on our ability to actually construct such machines in real time with our limited abilities and the materials at hand, and that nitty-gritty process may be limited by as yet unforeseen factors.

But I have never seen them deny, as Al Bell does, that conscious machines cannot be.
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I think there are three positions in the group opposed to computationalism. There are those who say that since the brain is a physical object it must be possible to duplicate it. There are those who think that it will never be possible to create a conscious robot. My view is that to insist that something must be possible is to place philosophy ahead of experience, which is always dangerous. I think it is probably possible to create a conscious device, but I can't say for absolutely certain.

However, I think it's improbable that a conscious computer program could be created.
 
westprog said:
I think it is probably possible to create a conscious device, but I can't say for absolutely certain.
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It is definitely possible. We are walking conscious device factories. The question is can we create conscious devices without relying on DNA to do the work, without relying on carbon-based material, and so on. I think the former is almost definitely possible theoretically although not necessarily possible practically and the latter is just probably possible theoretically.

However, I think it's improbable that a conscious computer program could be created.
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Same.
 
cornsail said:
It's not visual perception. And I think it's commonly believed that blindsight occurs due to the LGN sending the information to other parts of the neocortex, but maybe there's no evidence either way.
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Perhaps we are using perception in different ways? People with blindsight can change their behavior/answer questions above the level of chance on the basis of visual information. They are not conscious of any of this visual information, but I'm at a loss what to call the fact that they clearly receive some visual information at a subconscious level unless we use the word 'perception'.
 
Piggy said:
My understanding, from westprog and cornsail at least, is that their opinion is that conscious machines are indeed possible in theory, but that we can't be certain that they are possible in practice, because that depends on our ability to actually construct such machines in real time with our limited abilities and the materials at hand, and that nitty-gritty process may be limited by as yet unforeseen factors.
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We are conscious machines.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
Perhaps we are using perception in different ways? People with blindsight can change their behavior/answer questions above the level of chance on the basis of visual information. They are not conscious of any of this visual information, but I'm at a loss what to call the fact that they clearly receive some visual information at a subconscious level unless we use the word 'perception'.
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You could call it perception, I just wouldn't call it visual perception.

I've gotten the impression from this thread that some people think the Berkeley study captured what the cat was actually seeing. So I think it's important to point out that that isn't the case.
 
cornsail said:
You could call it perception, I just wouldn't call it visual perception.

I've gotten the impression from this thread that some people think the Berkeley study captured what the cat was actually seeing. So I think it's important to point out that that isn't the case.
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Yeah, I think the problem is that we use the word perception to refer to two different things -- there is the lower level, downstream, 'thing' that accounts for blindsight and the higher-order, upstream, process of understanding what is seen. Our knowledge of vision is still way, way down-stream.


ETA:

Many folks call the latter 'object recognition' though.
 
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cornsail said:
It is definitely possible. We are walking conscious device factories. The question is can we create conscious devices without relying on DNA to do the work, without relying on carbon-based material, and so on. I think the former is almost definitely possible theoretically although not necessarily possible practically and the latter is just probably possible theoretically.



Same.
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But is it feasibly probably possible theoretically?
 
Frank Newgent said:
What I don't understand is how one goes about formalizing the act of making such a choice.
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I don't see how that kind of a choice is any different than any other kind of choice, including the ones we know can be formalized.

Let's begin the process -- why have you decided it is worthwhile?
 
westprog said:
I think it is probably possible to create a conscious device, but I can't say for absolutely certain.
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I don't understand the last part -- why aren't you certain?

Maybe something to do with a religious/spiritual worldview?
 
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cornsail said:
It is definitely possible. We are walking conscious device factories. The question is can we create conscious devices without relying on DNA to do the work, without relying on carbon-based material, and so on. I think the former is almost definitely possible theoretically although not necessarily possible practically and the latter is just probably possible theoretically.
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DNA and carbon are not magical. Where do you imagine the problem is, and why?
 
westprog said:
But is it feasibly probably possible theoretically?
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I think it's probably theoretically feasibly probably possible theoretically, but at present it is only probably possible theoretically and probably unfeasibly probably possible theoretically.
 
rocketdodger said:
I don't understand the last part -- why aren't you certain?

Maybe something to do with a religious/spiritual worldview?
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I don't know about Westprog, but the reason I would agree with the statement that "it is probably possible to create a conscious device" rather than being certain it is possible is because we haven't accomplished it yet and we do not currently know how consciousness is produced by biological entities such as ourselves. It's also possible that consciousness is more complex than we realize and requires something more than can be built into a robot. I don't believe that is likely, but it is possible. Thus based on our current knowledge and theories, I can only conclude man-made conscious devices are probably possible. Why are you so certain that such things could someday be created?

Hmmm....perhaps that does have something to do with my religious/spiritual worldview which is agnostic. My inherent primary reaction to such questions is that we do not know for certain and thus the most I can conclude is whether or not I think something is probable. What does your certainty regarding such a conclusion say about your religious/spiritual worldview?
 
cornsail said:
What problem?
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The one I just quoted. This one:

cornsail said:
It is definitely possible. We are walking conscious device factories. The question is can we create conscious devices without relying on DNA to do the work, without relying on carbon-based material, and so on. I think the former is almost definitely possible theoretically although not necessarily possible practically and the latter is just probably possible theoretically.
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You're not just claiming that this is difficult, you're suggesting theoretical problems. On what grounds? Do you think that carbon is magical? What?
 
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