Has consciousness been fully explained?

[laca]

And when people claim that the brain is a different kind of thing - that it operates on pure information, in an abstract way - then they are misinterpreting what is going on. The brain is an organ of the body, and it manipulates matter and energy to make things happen to the body, like the heart or the pituitary gland. A program will not do what the brain does, any more than it will do what the lungs do.

It doesn't have to. Robots don't have lungs, hearts or pituitary glands. They have arms, wheels, cameras, microphones, speakers, etc. A program can manage those just fine. Can your brain manage the SCSI160 protocol? How about the precise movements a hard disk required 20 years ago? No? What does that say about your brain? Nothing. Just as a program not being able to "drive" your internal organs doesn't say anything about its ability to achieve consciousness.

I've got to say this is just ridiculous. It all feels like a veiled argument from incredulity, and a big one at that.

 

[laca]

Indeed.

I still don't quite see how folks can manage to forget the simple fact that our brains are built, not programmed.

They're built by biological processes, but built nonetheless, not programmed. And brains are the only sources of consciousness we know of.

So as far as we know, if you want to create a real object that is conscious in real spacetime, you'll have to build it in such a way that it engages in that behavior.

If anyone wants to say, no, you can program consciousness and make it happen by building only what is necessary to support the programming, they're going to have to explain in concrete terms how this can happen.

Which will be difficult in the absence of an explanatory framework for consciousness, which is our current situation.

Yeah, like I said, it's all about incredulity. We know the brain "produces" consciousness. We know how the brain is built up. We can program its building blocks¹. What's to stop us from programming consciousness? Of course, it's all in theory. It might very well turn out that programming consciousness by trying to emulate the brain is not feasible. That doesn't change the fact that it's possible.

¹ While there have been objections to this, no one has been able to show why this would be false.

 

[Piggy]

We can program its building blocks

You can program physical matter?

Forgive me if I fail to believe that.

 

[westprog]

It doesn't have to. Robots don't have lungs, hearts or pituitary glands. They have arms, wheels, cameras, microphones, speakers, etc. A program can manage those just fine. Can your brain manage the SCSI160 protocol? How about the precise movements a hard disk required 20 years ago? No? What does that say about your brain? Nothing. Just as a program not being able to "drive" your internal organs doesn't say anything about its ability to achieve consciousness.

I've got to say this is just ridiculous. It all feels like a veiled argument from incredulity, and a big one at that.

An argument from incredulity is the proper response to an argument from credulity. There has to be more to the hypothesis than "prove me wrong".

 

[Piggy]

It doesn't have to. Robots don't have lungs, hearts or pituitary glands. They have arms, wheels, cameras, microphones, speakers, etc. A program can manage those just fine.

You're missing the point.

Consciousness is not a thing, it's a behavior.

Robots can engage in behavior such as rolling, speaking, and grasping thru a combination of hardware and programming.

They cannot engage in these behaviors by virtue of programming alone, with only enough hardware to make the program run. You have to have enough hardware to make the program run and to do the actual behavior (e.g., "arms, wheels, cameras, microphones, speakers, etc.").

We have no reason to believe that consciousness will turn out to be an exception. If we make it happen in a machine, it will not be by virtue of programming alone.

If anyone thinks that it will be an exception, they'll need to explain exactly why, and precisely how it will happen.

 

[Piggy]

Which neurons do you mean? What is it we don't understand about them?

I'm not a specialist on neurons, but when folks like Michael Gazzaniga tell me that the field of neurobiology does not yet understand how all neurons behave, I'll take their word for it.

 

[laca]

You can program physical matter?

Forgive me if I fail to believe that.

I was talking about neurons, and you know it. You're just being deliberately obtuse. Color me unimpressed.

 

[laca]

An argument from incredulity is the proper response to an argument from credulity. There has to be more to the hypothesis than "prove me wrong".

Thanks for admitting to the argument from incredulity. Now please show where I was being incredulous in my post. Thanks.

 

[laca]

You're missing the point.

Consciousness is not a thing, it's a behavior.

Robots can engage in behavior such as rolling, speaking, and grasping thru a combination of hardware and programming.

They cannot engage in these behaviors by virtue of programming alone, with only enough hardware to make the program run. You have to have enough hardware to make the program run and to do the actual behavior (e.g., "arms, wheels, cameras, microphones, speakers, etc.").

So what? Those play the same role in its consciousness as your eyes, arms, legs, mouth, etc. They are not essential. Sure, without any senses and any means to produce some effect on the outside world, consciousness cannot exist. But those parts are just the means. The only essential part is the brain.

We have no reason to believe that consciousness will turn out to be an exception. If we make it happen in a machine, it will not be by virtue of programming alone.

If anyone thinks that it will be an exception, they'll need to explain exactly why, and precisely how it will happen.

If a robot has real senses and real effectors it can be conscious the same way we are. If a program is running in a simulated environment, with emulated senses and effectors, it can be conscious in that simulated world.

 

[laca]

I'm not a specialist on neurons, but when folks like Michael Gazzaniga tell me that the field of neurobiology does not yet understand how all neurons behave, I'll take their word for it.

Could you provide a link to where he said that so I could have a context?

What I think based on the above is that for most neuron types we do know how they behave. While it might be possible that the remaining few that are not fully understood are critical for consciousness, it is unlikely, and furthermore, it is just a matter of time before neuroscience explains those as well. Either way, the probability of us not being able to explain how all types of neurons behave is so low that we can classify it in the same class as fairies or Santa existing.

 

[westprog]

I was talking about neurons, and you know it. You're just being deliberately obtuse. Color me unimpressed.

AFAIAA neurons are made of physical matter. That's a fairly crucial point.

 

[westprog]

Thanks for admitting to the argument from incredulity. Now please show where I was being incredulous in my post. Thanks.

I didn't say you were being incredulous. I was referring to the theory that consciousness can be produced by dint of running a computer program, and I said that to believe that this is true involves a degree of credulity.

It really, really isn't good enough to come up with a semi-random idea and demand that in the absence of evidence that people who disagree with it provide the rebuttal - but that's the way the programmable consciousness hypothesis seems to be presented. It's not like evolution, for example, where people say "I know there's a lot of evidence for it, but I don't believe it anyway." It's like aliens landing on Earth, where people say "If there's no evidence for it, why should I believe it?" The first is the argument from incredulity, the second is skepticism.

 

[laca]

AFAIAA neurons are made of physical matter. That's a fairly crucial point.

No, it's not. I don't have to be able to program matter to be able to emulate a system built out of matter.

 

[laca]

I didn't say you were being incredulous. I was referring to the theory that consciousness can be produced by dint of running a computer program, and I said that to believe that this is true involves a degree of credulity.

Why? All the evidence we have points to that conclusion. There is no evidence against. Incredulity is not evidence.

It really, really isn't good enough to come up with a semi-random idea and demand that in the absence of evidence that people who disagree with it provide the rebuttal - but that's the way the programmable consciousness hypothesis seems to be presented. It's not like evolution, for example, where people say "I know there's a lot of evidence for it, but I don't believe it anyway." It's like aliens landing on Earth, where people say "If there's no evidence for it, why should I believe it?" The first is the argument from incredulity, the second is skepticism.

Except that there is no evidence against, and all existing evidence points to the fact that consciousness is indeed programmable.

 

[Belz...]

And more to the point, what else might be required?

An immortal soul, obviously.

 

[Belz...]

In what sense is the simulation not a closed system? Because a Turing machine is a closed system, by definition.

Yeah, and turing machines don't exist.

We are talking about reality, right ?

The simulation can easily interact with something outside the simulation.

 

[Belz...]

But the neurons don't generate consciousness. A particular configuration of neurons, operating in real time with the right fuel, generates consciousness.

The right fuel ? A particular configuration ? I don't think those claims are justified.

ETA: A proper configuration of "information" has never been shown to exhibit any real world behavior at all.

Depends what you mean by "information". Humans seem to have lots of behaviours.

 

[Belz...]

What I think we can say with reasonable certainty is that flying will never bedone by a purely software solution.

And yet there are flying simulations. Simulated planes.

And yet there are automated pilots. Some day they'll lift off and land, too, if it's not the case already.

So we can simulate the plane AND the flying.

 

[Belz...]

No, it's not. I don't have to be able to program matter to be able to emulate a system built out of matter.

Indeed. Otherwise NO simulation would be possible. Ever.

 

[westprog]

Yeah, and turing machines don't exist.

We are talking about reality, right ?

The simulation can easily interact with something outside the simulation.

If the simulation is required to interact with something outside itself, then a Turing machine is a bad model. All scientific models are a fiction. We choose them according to the extent to which they describe reality. We know that they aren't "real".

If you want to describe what happens when matter becomes conscious, then choose an appropriate model. Don't choose something that's not applicable and say you'll fix it up when you build it.