Explain consciousness to the layman.

[PixyMisa]

Beautiful. Thank you!

One article uses "subjective experience" for what the Q word is intended for. For the rest of this post I'll avoid it since using the Q-word seems to cause a third rail subjective experience to some materialists here.

The article mentions the subjective experience of a musical C-sharp. I'm a musician and went, "huh?" because I have no subjective experience of specific notes like a C#.

Um. Really? Tastes blue to me.

Mostly kidding (I'm not a full synaesthete, though there are such). But really? How does that work?

 

[Mr. Scott]

On what grounds [am I skeptical a turing machine could produce consciousness]?

Maybe I just feel it's impractical. The brain is just so massively parallel, and a turning machine is so tediously sequential, that it feels like a TM would have to be the size of the universe and run for the lifetime of the universe to produce one subjective experience.

From what I know about computers and the brain, thinking about a conscious turing machine gives me the subjective experience of impossibility

 

[Mr. Scott]

Um. Really? Tastes blue to me.

Mostly kidding (I'm not a full synaesthete, though there are such). But really? How does that work?

Synesthesia is very cool

I suspect that my perfect pitch has atrophied to the point where I've lost all the subjective experience of the pitch while retaining a remnant that's at a blindsight level. To play or sing any tune in any key, perfect pitch is an enemy. Some people have an unpleasant subjective experience when they hear a familiar tune in the wrong key. I guess it hampered my own musical journey to be conscious of absolute pitch. Relative pitch is more useful. Apparently, the neural connections that enabled relative pitch got really strong while the ones for absolute pitch became very weak -- so weak their subjective experience vanished.

Speaking of synesthesia, I've worked on a music attribute I call a "purple chord" because it's a chord change that creates a subjective experience much like an intense purple color. There's also something writers distainfully call "purple prose."

 

[PixyMisa]

Maybe I just feel it's impractical. The brain is just so massively parallel, and a turning machine is so tediously sequential, that it feels like a TM would have to be the size of the universe and run for the lifetime of the universe to produce one subjective experience.

We know the computational requirements for a molecular-level simulation of the brain - something that is being actively pursued - and it's technically feasible, if rather expensive right now.

There's no reason to think that such a detailed level of simulation should be necessary, but if it is, it can be done.

From what I know about computers and the brain, thinking about a conscious turing machine gives me the subjective experience of impossibility

Church-Turing thesis. What one computer can do, another computer can do. There is no magic in the brain.

 

[tsig]

Again: READ my post, and respond to IT, not something you dreamed up.

Good luck with that. I didn't know how creative a writer I was til I read a few of his responses to my posts.

 

[!Kaggen]

Church-Turing thesis. What one computer can do, another computer can do. There is no magic in the brain.

Please give us your definition of computer, thanks.

 

[tsig]

Maybe I just feel it's impractical. The brain is just so massively parallel, and a turning machine is so tediously sequential, that it feels like a TM would have to be the size of the universe and run for the lifetime of the universe to produce one subjective experience.

From what I know about computers and the brain, thinking about a conscious turing machine gives me the subjective experience of impossibility

Then let's run millions of turing machines in parallel.

 

[tsig]

Synesthesia is very cool

I suspect that my perfect pitch has atrophied to the point where I've lost all the subjective experience of the pitch while retaining a remnant that's at a blindsight level. To play or sing any tune in any key, perfect pitch is an enemy. Some people have an unpleasant subjective experience when they hear a familiar tune in the wrong key. I guess it hampered my own musical journey to be conscious of absolute pitch. Relative pitch is more useful. Apparently, the neural connections that enabled relative pitch got really strong while the ones for absolute pitch became very weak -- so weak their subjective experience vanished.

Speaking of synesthesia, I've worked on a music attribute I call a "purple chord" because it's a chord change that creates a subjective experience much like an intense purple color. There's also something writers distainfully call "purple prose."

You going to tell us about the brown note next?

 

[yy2bggggs]

Mr. Scott:

I took your thought experiment seriously. I first surmised, based on my knowledge, that you cannot switch the "red cone" with the "green cone" because there really is no such thing as either. So I took the time to explain this. I then swapped L with M anyway, in a thought experiment, and reached the opposite conclusion based on what I know--that there would not, in fact, be an inverted spectrum.

You should find this interesting. However, you're wasting time rationalizing and projecting.

1) (the first possibility I guessed) An attempt to undermine the thought experiment with a red herring to preempt the point it was designed to illustrate.

What you are calling "undermine the thought experiment with a red herring" is a euphamism for a failed thought experiment.

2) Ego intervened, where someone wanted to show they had better knowledge of color vision, to simply downgrade the status of their opponent, and/or upgrade their own. IOW a manifestation of the instinctive impulse to manipulate the pecking order, which can momentarily override objective discussion of the real issue.

You're reflecting a bit of disappointment that I, in taking the thought experiment seriously, reach a different outcome than you. You choose to express this disappointment in terms of my personal character flaws.

This is an ad hominem.

3) Simply being distracted by a red herring detail you knew was inaccurate.

The detail in question being the outcome of the experiment (adjusted for what you would probably in effect do if you performed it).

I'm disappointed no one is willing to work with me on the thought experiment, because I've always felt and still feel it exposes a real problem for materialists (I am a materialist BTW).

Your disappointment that "no one" is willing to work with you is unwarranted because I explained exactly why I reached the conclusion I came to.

To me, the existence of qualia if so obvious that the response of qualia-phobes to deny use of the word amazes me.

You have the wrong person.

Please stop seeing me as the enemy!

How ironic.

Let's work on how the brain does it instead of pretending it ain't and it don't.

But you're not willing to do that. People who work on how the brain does it are, how do you say,

Ego intervened, where someone wanted to show they had better knowledge

Honestly. You should be ashamed of your behavior. Man up and rework your experiment. But this time, take it a bit more seriously.

 

[Mr. Scott]

Church-Turing thesis. What one computer can do, another computer can do. There is no magic in the brain.

The Church–Turing thesis is a statement that characterizes the nature of computation and cannot be formally proven

the notion of what it means for a function to be "effectively calculable" (computable)—is "a somewhat vague intuitive one".[3] Thus, the "thesis" remains an hypothesis.[3]

Despite the fact that it cannot be formally proven, the Church–Turing thesis now has near-universal acceptance.

Thus, it is widely taken on faith.

 

[Mr. Scott]

You going to tell us about the brown note next?

Yuck!

 

[tsig]

We know the computational requirements for a molecular-level simulation of the brain - something that is being actively pursued - and it's technically feasible, if rather expensive right now.

There's no reason to think that such a detailed level of simulation should be necessary, but if it is, it can be done.


Church-Turing thesis. What one computer can do, another computer can do. There is no magic in the brain.

But Pixy if we give up magic in the brain that means we're just matter.

This is what seems to disturb most of the 'qualia' folk.

The mind is the last bastion of the true believers who have been pressed relentlessly backward from their thunder gods to man's creation til now all they can do is point to the mind and say "it's beyond science".

 

[Mr. Scott]

Honestly. You should be ashamed of your behavior. Man up and rework your experiment. But this time, take it a bit more seriously.

I am so ashamed. I did rework the experiment twice and will now reread your serious take on it.

The first time I proposed it, the response was "if you were really to do this BARBARIC experiment..." I just said nevermind. Who needs that kind of abuse?

Apparently I misread your motivation for what seemed to me your knocking down the experiment with a red herring.

I will get back to you.

 

[PixyMisa]

Thus, it is widely taken on faith.

Nope. It's been proven for every well-defined method of computation.

 

[PixyMisa]

Please give us your definition of computer, thanks.

Any system that can perform calculations and select what calculations to perform.

 

[yy2bggggs]

Apparently I misread your motivation for what seemed to me your knocking down the experiment with a red herring.

But that's another thing. Why should my motivation change how you approach the issue? What exactly are you doing by debating your opposition if you cannot take what they say seriously?

 

[Mr. Scott]

Your statements reveal the utter irrelevance of your thought experiment.

Arguing about what red 'is' without using physics is like discussing what ice 'is' but ignoring water.

Have you studied color vision? Color is in the mind, not in the physical world.

Tell me where the red wavelength of light is when we are looking at an afterimage of a green, black, and yellow American flag.

Then watch Dennett's video about consciousness where he discusses this illusion.

 

[PixyMisa]

Have you studied color vision? Color is in the mind, not in the physical world.

Equivocation.

Colour is in the mind, and colour is in the physical world, and they are related, but the relationship is complex.

 

[punshhh]

But Pixy if we give up magic in the brain that means we're just matter.

This is what seems to disturb most of the 'qualia' folk.

The mind is the last bastion of the true believers who have been pressed relentlessly backward from their thunder gods to man's creation til now all they can do is point to the mind and say "it's beyond science".

Yes, the god of the gaps in the mind.

Either side of this debate should realise that the existence or not of gods or the spiritual world does not hinge on how things in the world work, or the ideas that humans come up with.

Might I remind the materialists that everything is in a rather large gap to begin with.

 

[Mr. Scott]

But that's another thing. Why should my motivation change how you approach the issue? What exactly are you doing by debating your opposition if you cannot take what they say seriously?

I re-read your response to my thought experiment and I see only red herring dismissals. Sorry.

You didn't respond to my final reworking of the experiment:

We raise a child in a concocted environment in which cool grass is dyed red, ripe strawberries are dyed green, red lights mean go, green lights mean stop, and we recoil in fear when green liquid comes out of holes in our skin, etc.

What qualia does this child, after fully adjusting to this environment, see when looking at a ripe green strawberry? The same greenishness we see, but with different meaning attached? Or redishness?

I think it gets close to the nub of the issue. If you are so sure it doesn't, convince me. I'm listening.