Explain consciousness to the layman.

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westprog said:
I think that the people proposing that consciousness is computational should present their evidence that this is so. If you wish to enumerate the posts on this thread where this has been done, I'll refer to them.
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What aspect, property, or behaviour do you ascribe to consciousness that is not computational?

Name one. More if you like, but one is fine.
 
westprog said:
I've given precise, very detailed analysis of why the computational model is inappropriate for the kind of control systems that are present in the brain.
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Yeah but you are wrong.

Saying a bunch of incorrect stuff, then sitting back and say "well, I did my part, your turn ..." doesn't seem very genuine to me.
 
westprog said:
The reason why this is an issue is that it's claimed that not only a computer mind controlling a human (or human like body) in real time would be conscious, but also a simulation of that system running as a non-interactive program, and that even if it took hundreds of years to simulate five minutes of human experience, nevertheless, the experience would be precisely the same.
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Time outside the system in question is relative, and therefor completely irrelevant.

If you are on a speedy starship, and someone is stationary relative to your 0.99c, it would take hundreds of years for them to experience the same five minutes of consciousness as you, from your point of view.

Do you dispute this?

If not, do you not see that it invalidates your argument?
 
westprog said:
If I were going to make a claim such as that, I'd be somewhat careful about my facts. Now, if you look at my post above, you will note a "*" next to the "no". Odd, that. What does it mean?

Well, if we go back to the original post, we see a footnote, dealing directly with the claim.



One might have thought that if a claim was so outrageous as to deserve a public accusation of dishonesty, that it would be appropriate to include the claim in full. This was not done. Anyone reading the clip from my post, and the response to it, might have formed the impression that the above assertion was all I had to say on it. Though if RD really wanted to hide the truth, he should have deleted the "*", which kinda gave it away. He'll know better next time.
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Wait -- you have to include small font footnotes in your post, and you are defending your "honesty"?

An "honest" post, in my opinion, would have just said everything in one sentence. Sorry, I was like Charlie in the chocolate factory and didn't bother to read the fine print. I didn't think I needed to pay attention to fine print in this forum. You proved me wrong. This is why I brought up the term snake oil ... "fine print."

As for the lie -- yes, it is a lie. The requirement that the system be complex enough to reflect the computation isn't "simple." It is non-trivial and is stringent enough to discount most of the universe. Saying otherwise is a lie.
 
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rocketdodger said:
Your contention is that it is impossible. This is simply false.
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Clearly it is, theoretically and practically, impossible to have a model that includes the entire universe. There has to be a cutoff point at some stage. It is not possible for a model to incorporate everything in existence.
 
rocketdodger said:
Time outside the system in question is relative, and therefor completely irrelevant.

If you are on a speedy starship, and someone is stationary relative to your 0.99c, it would take hundreds of years for them to experience the same five minutes of consciousness as you, from your point of view.

Do you dispute this?

If not, do you not see that it invalidates your argument?
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The fact that you've raised this again doesn't really help your case. I'm not prepared to go into detail as to why relativistic physics is irrelevant to consciousness.
 
rocketdodger said:
Wait -- you have to include small font footnotes in your post, and you are defending your "honesty"?

An "honest" post, in my opinion, would have just said everything in one sentence. Sorry, I was like Charlie in the chocolate factory and didn't bother to read the fine print. I didn't think I needed to pay attention to fine print in this forum. You proved me wrong. This is why I brought up the term snake oil ... "fine print."

As for the lie -- yes, it is a lie. The requirement that the system be complex enough to reflect the computation isn't "simple." It is non-trivial and is stringent enough to discount most of the universe. Saying otherwise is a lie.
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That's it, I'm done with you. I actually thought that an example like this would be enough to shame you into some kind of honourable behaviour, but to complain that the font was too small to read... forget it. This kind of thing and the idiocy of bringing up relativity - I'm done with it.

"I didn't think I needed to read the actual post before accusing someone of lying." Have some self-respect.
 
Pure Argent said:
If you couldn't, even A.I. as simple as that implemented in Pong wouldn't function.

EDIT: Or, rather, it would, but you could implement it with a time variable in order to calculate how fast the paddle needs to move to be where the ball will be. It would just be more complex than the game needs it to be. It would function pretty much indistinguishably, though. It'd just require a lot of unnecessary lines of code.
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Time is not just a coordinate, and it is not possible to implement Pong as a computation. Try to consider Pong as conceptually running on a Turing machine, and it doesn't work. A different model is required, that allows asynchronous events.

No, defining the system as including the player and the device doesn't really address the issue. We could produce a simulation of Pong doing that, but it wouldn't be a working game.

(And yes, Mr Scott, this is a qualitative, not a quantitative limitation. The engines cannae take it.)
 
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westprog said:
That's it, I'm done with you. I actually thought that an example like this would be enough to shame you into some kind of honourable behaviour, but to complain that the font was too small to read... forget it. This kind of thing and the idiocy of bringing up relativity - I'm done with it.

"I didn't think I needed to read the actual post before accusing someone of lying." Have some self-respect.
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Lol what example, the fine print you included didn't change the fact that it was an outright lie.

If you dispute my claim that the post was a lie, then you should show why I am wrong. I explained my position -- the constraints an event must satisfy for it to be an instance of "computation" are far from simple. Your post claims that the constraints people ( I.E. myself ) have provided are simple.

What, exactly, is a "lie?" It is a statement known to be incorrect made under the pretense that it is known to be correct. It isn't just that you "think" the constraints are simple and you are incorrect -- oh no. The situation is that you know the constraints are anything but simple -- because I have spent thousands of words, in dozens of posts trying to explain it to you, and you still don't grasp it -- yet you openly state that they are simple.

That satisfies the commonly understood definition of a "lie" in my book.

If you care to dispute that, feel free to explain to me why you think the constraints that must be satisfied for an event to be labeled "computation," after multiple people have explained in complex terms just what those constraints happen to be, are actually "simple."
 
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westprog said:
Clearly it is, theoretically and practically, impossible to have a model that includes the entire universe. There has to be a cutoff point at some stage. It is not possible for a model to incorporate everything in existence.
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So your argument is that because we can't include all the details about the particles light years away from the subject in the "turing model," due to the practical limitations that the universe doesn't contain enough bits to fully describe itself in any way other than trivial identity, it isn't possible to fully describe catching a ball in the "turing model?"
 
westprog said:
I dare say you could come up with stronger claims. The claim that consciousness is computational is undoubtedly stronger than my claim that consciousness is currently unexplained.
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The two are not mutually exclusive.

I've given precise, very detailed analysis of why the computational model is inappropriate for the kind of control systems that are present in the brain.
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Could you please link to that detailed analysis ?

The claim that consciousness is unexplained is the default position. It's also a negative. I don't have to demonstrate it. You have to refute it.
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1) "Relativity is not correct" is also a negative. Hopefully you see why someone who makes that claim would have to do more than jst claim it.

2) You are simply stating that it's the default position but are not giving me a reason to believe you.

3) When evidence IS presented, you ignore it.

It's relatively simple to disprove my contention that consciousness is unexplained. Just explain it.
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Self-referential information processing. ;) I know you love that one.
 
rocketdodger said:
So your argument is that because we can't include all the details about the particles light years away from the subject in the "turing model," due to the practical limitations that the universe doesn't contain enough bits to fully describe itself in any way other than trivial identity, it isn't possible to fully describe catching a ball in the "turing model?"
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I took him to mean that it can't be done using real-to-us 24 hr/day 3600 sec/hr time.

And no, relativity considerations do not alleviate that problem.
 
AlBell said:
I took him to mean that it can't be done using real-to-us 24 hr/day 3600 sec/hr time.

And no, relativity considerations do not alleviate that problem.
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So what he's saying is if anyone actually made a ball-catching robot, his argument would be utterly disgraced?

A ball-catching robot like this one?

Or this one?

Or this one?

Admittedly the second two are merely juggling, but I think that's a pretty dang academic distinction.
 
Not just yet, no. Wanna shift the goalposts a little more while we're waiting? There's plenty of room between here and there.
 
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westprog said:
Time is not just a coordinate, and it is not possible to implement Pong as a computation. Try to consider Pong as conceptually running on a Turing machine, and it doesn't work. A different model is required, that allows asynchronous events.
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Please present us with (a) your mathematical proof that a Turing-equivalent system cannot model asynchronous events and (b) precise mathematical definitions of an alternate model of computation that can.
 
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