Has consciousness been fully explained?

[Piggy]

Their ability to switch, in layperson's terms. Same goes for transistors (although neurons exhibit vastly more complex switching behavior than a single transistor ).

In that case, your heart is capable of computations, as are the pendulums on grandfather clocks. Which makes it trivial.

 

[Piggy]

Because the relevant behavior -- or at least what most people think is the relevant behavior -- of/in the neurons reduces to computation, one way or another.

I agree that "neural" model is a better term for human consciousness, but that would just be a subset of the overall "computational" model for general consciousness. That is to say, we think all consciousness comes from computation, and we specifically think human consciousness comes from computation taking place in and/or supporting a suitable neural network.

I see nothing added here.

And as far as I can tell, the term "general consciousness" is meaningless. It has no referent.

Animal consciousness is the only kind we know. There is no theory or model for any other kind.

Granted, different animals certainly have different flavors of consciousness. For instance, birds navigate (in part) by sensing magnetic fields, and if birds are indeed conscious then it's likely that they consciously experience magnetic fields somehow. But we're in no position to know how.

Dogs are conscious of the directionality of smell, but we are not.

Still, all of these different flavors of consciousness are produced by brains, and we have every reason to believe that the mechanism will be analogous for all conscious animals.

Speculating about some other form of consciousness, or a "general consciousness" that includes such forms, is empty wordplay.

 

[Piggy]

Simple: It is often easier to make sense of things when you look at aggregate behavior.

I could ask you in turn "what does the notion of biology add to our understanding over and above physics?"

Well, we're agreed here.

Speaking in higher level terms makes it possible to talk about things that are impossible to discuss in real time at a more granular level because of their complexity.

The trouble comes when folks mistake the abstractions for physical reality and come to absurd conclusions, such as believing that a "tinker toy brain" could perform all the functions of a human brain.

 

[Piggy]

To be specific, the computational model is a subset of what you are calling the physicalist or biological model. The computational model is concerned with only a few of the behaviors of neurons, in particular the signal integration / propagation behaviors.

Well, it would certainly be nice if it turned out that you and I were talking about the same thing in different terms and with different frames of reference.

I kind of doubt this, tho, b/c of some of the conclusions which your point of view leads you to, if I remember correctly.

But perhaps I do not remember correctly.

 

[Piggy]

It's an explanation by redefinition. It's a simple closed circle. If we want to redefine consciousness as "a stack of pancakes" then we can change the ingredients to flour, milk and butter.

And eggs. Don't forget eggs.

 

[Piggy]

Maybe I was not clear enough. What is it about a single neuron's behavior that cannot be programmed?

The neuron.

 

[Piggy]

About the age of two in humans.

Humans are born conscious, as far as we can tell.

And in any case, that's not an answer to the question of why certain neural activity in the brain is involved in generating conscious experience, but most of it is not.

 

[Piggy]

This seems to me to be what you are doing with consciousness, whatever level of explanation we have isn't enough, you want one more, whereas with Geckos you seem happy with electrostatic forces. I can't really see a difference between the actions of neurons causing consciousness and opposite charges attracting.

Indeed, it's a form of special pleading - applying a double standard to the rules of evidence.

No, it is not a case of special pleading, because all such cases are like this one.

With geckos, if we want to understand the correlation between the construction of their feet and their ability to climb smooth surfaces, atomic theory provides us a sufficient framework to understand the cause of the correlation. But without that framework, we have no explanation for the correlation.

By contrast, we currently have no explanatory framework for NCCs, whether we're speaking of the few that we have discovered or the many which we have yet to discover.

We can be confident that such a framework exists. We simply do not yet know enough to determine (or even imagine) what it is.

Of course, there are always deeper questions to fathom. This is true of atomic theory, and it will no doubt be true of whatever theory provides us an explanation of NCCs.

On a much more mundane level, we could consider the case of the groan in my attic.

I noticed a correlation between high winds in my yard and a groan that can be heard in my bathroom coming from my attic. But I had no idea why that correlation existed.

I could stop there and be satisfied that high winds somehow caused a groaning sound. But being curious, I decided to investigate.

Winds being fickle, and my attic being difficult to navigate, it took some time before I discovered that the correlation was caused by a loose vent cover that vibrated in high winds and transmitted that vibration along the joists above the bathroom.

So now I understand why there is a correlation between high winds and that groaning sound.

Is this a complete explanation of the phenomenon?

No.

There are many more questions to be asked. For instance, what is the windspeed threshold? Is this threshold affected by ambient air temperature and/or the temperature of the joists? Why does the loose vent cover produce the exact sound that it produces?

But those additional questions do not change the fact that I previously was unable to account for the correlation, and now I can.

So no, there is no special pleading going on here at all.

The fact remains that currently we have no explanatory framework which might tell us why a given neural state is correlated with a given conscious experience.

And the fact that the discovery of such a framework would necessarily lead to deeper questions... that does not in any way imply that the framework, when we discover it, would indeed provide an explanatory link between the two sets of observations.

To call this a case of "special pleading" is to misunderstand both the meaning of the term "special pleading" and some of the basic concepts of science.

 

[tsig]

I see nothing added here.

And as far as I can tell, the term "general consciousness" is meaningless. It has no referent.

Animal consciousness is the only kind we know. There is no theory or model for any other kind.

Granted, different animals certainly have different flavors of consciousness. For instance, birds navigate (in part) by sensing magnetic fields, and if birds are indeed conscious then it's likely that they consciously experience magnetic fields somehow. But we're in no position to know how.

Dogs are conscious of the directionality of smell, but we are not. Still, all of these different flavors of consciousness are produced by brains, and we have every reason to believe that the mechanism will be analogous for all conscious animals.

Speculating about some other form of consciousness, or a "general consciousness" that includes such forms, is empty wordplay.

I can tell if a smell is stronger in one direction than the other, in fact I've found many an electrical problem by smell.

 

[Piggy]

I can tell if a smell is stronger in one direction than the other, in fact I've found many an electrical problem by smell.

But you have to do it by moving around the room and playing a kind of warmer-colder game.

Dogs, on the other hand, sense smell in the kind of way that we sense sound. We know where it's coming from without having to wander around. Sound is 3D for us even when we're standing still. Smell isn't.

And what are you going to say about birds sensing magnetic fields? Surely that's not something you also claim to do.

 

[laca]

The first error is at step 1. We cannot program all neuronal functions.

What function of a neuron is nonprogrammable?

 

[PixyMisa]

And how do you know this?

 

[laca]

The neuron.

Right. Thanks.

 

[westprog]

Maybe I was not clear enough. What is it about a single neuron's behavior that cannot be programmed?

Trivially, the position and momentum of every particle in the neuron, for example.

Now, one might say that we can program all the essential behaviour of the neuron. However, since we don't know what part of the behaviour of the neuron creates consciousness, we can't claim that we can program all the behaviour or all the essential behaviour.

The idea that we have full knowledge of any system is entirely mistaken.

 

[westprog]

The idea is that we can program the neuronal functions that allow us emulate the significant behaviour of a neural network.

And when we understand what behaviour of a neural network is significant - that is, when we precisely know - then we can emulate it. As it is, we don't - in particular, we have no idea what part of the behaviour of a neural network is necessary to produce consciousness.

 

[westprog]

When I say we need "an atomic theory" here, I don't mean we need atomic theory. I mean that we need something equivalent to the way that atomic theory links the physical structure of gecko feet to their ability to scale walls.

As for your first statement, I'm afraid it's extremely sloppy thinking.

Yes, neural activity generates conscious experience. But if you're really interested in understanding the phenomenon, you're not going to be satisfied with this explanation.

There is all kinds of neural activity that is not involved in consciousness, so it's more accurate to say that neural activity sometimes produces conscious experience and sometimes does not.

This leads to the question: Under what circumstances does neural activity generate conscious experience.

And at a greater degree of granularity, why does a given neural state correlate with a particular conscious experience and not some other conscious experience or no conscious experience.

The fundamental flaw in the computationalist reasoning is the assumption that the very limited digital representation of neural activity is the only thing that's important in what's going on in the brain. That's not a justified assumption.

 

[Belz...]

Trivially, the position and momentum of every particle in the neuron, for example.

Now, one might say that we can program all the essential behaviour of the neuron. However, since we don't know what part of the behaviour of the neuron creates consciousness, we can't claim that we can program all the behaviour or all the essential behaviour.

Why not ? Assuming we can program _all_ of the neuron's behaviour, won't we automatically have the ones that generate consciousness even if we don't know which ones those are ?

 

[westprog]

And eggs. Don't forget eggs.

I think I will. I find abstract thought experiment pancakes are nicer without eggs.

 

[westprog]

Why not ? Assuming we can program _all_ of the neuron's behaviour, won't we automatically have the ones that generate consciousness even if we don't know which ones those are ?

I don't even know what is meant by "program the neuron's behaviour" in this context. And we can't program _all_ the neuron's behaviour, obviously. And the brain is not a closed system. And so on.

Now, if we produce a series of copies of the brain, each one more and more like the brain, then probably, when we get close enough, we'll have something that is effectively like a brain. But we really don't know what that point is.

 

[rocketdodger]

In that case, your heart is capable of computations, as are the pendulums on grandfather clocks. Which makes it trivial.

First, not sure what you think bringing up human hearts gets you since they are controlled by ... neurons. Bravo.

Second, no, pendulums do not switch. You probably mean the mechanism that is driven by the pendulum, in which case my reply is "yeah --- and?" It seems obvious to me that a mechanism converting the back and forth movement of a pendulum into the forward rotation of a gear could be said to "compute" since, after all, it is smart enough to map two different motions to a single motion.