Explain consciousness to the layman.

[westprog]

You have some explaining to do then. In post #1266, you speculated on the nature of the full theory of our plotting machine.

I'm not at all against speculation - it's just a matter of what leads me to a conclusion.

I disagree, which is why I'm posting in the first place. But more to the point, you are insulting me and establishing a dual standard. You're telling me that I don't get to speculate because the things I'm speculating about do not help us, since we're speculating about things that don't exist. However, you get to speculate about things that don't exist, and your speculations are helpful.

The reason I think that speculation about what a hypothetical objective robot would do if he could achieve a full theory of consciousness is not helpful is that it combines two seperate speculations, and doesn't seem to produce any conclusions. I'm certainly not trying to restrain you from any speculation that you think is fruitful. This is very low level insulting, by the standard of this thread.

I have no idea what you're talking about. What knowledge are you giving this objective robot outside of the range of the basic principles on how the brain works?

How would the objective robot here even know there's a word for subjective experience? You're not outlining the hypothetical clear enough for me to make sense out of it.

He would have exactly the knowledge that we have. He could talk to people, carry out neurological studies, etc. He would necessarily be objective about it.

There's really no difference between the objective robot and people claiming to be entirely objective, but I suspect that people who claim to have an entirely objective view of consciousness actually don't.

You're calling this robot "him" and "he"--is it an android? Does the android have a visual detection apparatus--something we can call eyes? If I pull a penny out behind a curtain, will it be able to tell it's a penny? If I show the android a photograph of a penny, will it be able to tell that the photograph is not a penny, and doesn't have a penny inside of it?

It would have the same tools that we have. The only difference would be a lack of subjective experience.

Who are you talking to here?

Whoever's listening.

 

[yy2bggggs]

I'm not at all against speculation - it's just a matter of what leads me to a conclusion.

Okay, but in #1266, your speculation was that whatever theory does not explain why that arm draws something that seems to be random but avoids the star shape is obviously wrong.

The reason I think that speculation about what a hypothetical objective robot would do if he could achieve a full theory of consciousness is not helpful is that it combines two seperate speculations, and doesn't seem to produce any conclusions.

You reached a conclusion in #1266.

This is very low level insulting, by the standard of this thread.

Don't care... I don't use this thread to set standards, nor am I a thread.

He would have exactly the knowledge that we have. He could talk to people, carry out neurological studies, etc. He would necessarily be objective about it.

Okay, let's back up then and start over here. Give me an example claim about subjective experience that this objective robot would disagree with.

It would have the same tools that we have. The only difference would be a lack of subjective experience.

This is not an answer. The reason I'm asking these questions is because it lends a particular and relevant line of thought; all you're doing is hand waving. Something about your robot has to be a different tool, else you wouldn't call it an "objective robot". And if this objective robot does have the same tools we have, it would be contradictory to suppose that it would reject subjective experiences. After all, subjective experiences are not only tools we have for analyzing reality--they are the only tools.

The questions I asked aren't meant to be general examples--they're specific and relevant questions. I have to ask them because, well, see the last paragraph.

Since you're not answering these questions, though, let me run this by you. Just object to anything you think is wrong:

• The objective robot would claim that the penny behind the curtain is a real penny.
• The objective robot would claim that the picture of a penny is not a real penny.
• The objective robot would claim that the picture does not have a penny in it.
• The objective robot would nevertheless recognize that the picture is a picture of a penny.

If this is acceptable to you, then we can derive something interesting about the objective robot. It can categorize particular images as something that is at least analogous to "looks like a penny". It can distinguish between things that look like a penny and actually are pennies from things that look like a penny and are not pennies. From this we can imagine that the robot can determine whether or not an image looks like a penny independently from its determination of whether or not an image actually is a penny.

Whether or not this objective robot has "subjective experiences" by your definition, whatever it is actually able to do by the above (if that's acceptable to you) sure sounds like the kinds of things we would describe as subjective experiences. So what exactly would it have good reason to doubt?

 

[punshhh]

It would have the same tools that we have. The only difference would be a lack of subjective experience.



Whoever's listening.

I'm listening and I agree with your position. This objective robot is a good description of Commander Data from Star Treck.

Data was fully aware of every physical action which occurred in the vicinity of his fellow officers. In fact he was aware of far more than them and had far better powers of computation. He could probably compute the precise activity within the brain of a human to a very high degree. He interacted fully with the other crew members, including a relationship with a human crew member.

However there was always an unbridgeable divide between him and the living crew members. Could he actually experience anything, or was it just a machine mimicking the outward appearance of experience. During a crisis or when he was switched off the mask of consciousness would lift and you could glimpse him as nothing more than a machine again.

The living crew members readily anthropomorphised him and saw him as one of them. Whereas Data himself was constantly aware that he was in some way lacking. To him the living crew members had some X factor which was entirely inaccessible to him.

 

[punshhh]

David Chalmers, the man who created the term "hard problem consciousness" that Westprog likes to use, is exactly that kind of dualist.

There are probably as many ontological positions as there are philosophers.

Chalmers recognises that there is an issue, do you?

So of course was Rene Descartes.

I think you'll find on closer examination of everyone who considers dualism of one form or another that it is used as a speculative tool, as is monism.

Each philosopher who considers dualism, when questioned on their opinions of what actually exists and what the actually existing ontology is, would I'm sure say I don't know, humanity can only speculate from its limited perspective and the actual existing ontology could be any of the ontologies considered by humanity or numerous others which humanity does not have an inkling of.

Perhaps your opposition is to people who believe in dualism. A philosopher would not do that.

No, you've been given another and much stronger reason: Dualism leads inevitably to logical contradictions.

Perhaps so, rather like any other musings on existence inevitably do.

Yes, it is ridiculous. But that's what dualism means in philosophy.

Its ridiculous to insist on an absolute dualism before discussing ontologies.

 

[punshhh]

Any physical activity involves the material. Electrical activity is no exception. Your phrase 'not material on any molecular level' is gibberish - what are these 'molecular levels'?

"Gibberish"

You should at least ask someone to explain what point they are making before labelling it gibberish in ignorance.


In a computer the action is an electrical flow through a conductor, usually metallic. The electrons are herded on mass through great clunking cuircuits like lambs to the slaughter.

In the brain there is a subtle electrical interplay between complex molecules specifically selected and arranged by the living entity. The life and therefore the emergent awareness and consciousness are a subtle synthesis of molecular and electrical activity on the molecular scale. There is a living molecular connection and interplay throughout the whole body.

 

[punshhh]

New thought:

We seem to assume consciousness is one definitive "thing." It's not just one thing, but rather, something quite arbitrary.

Let me explain.

The only consciousness we know of is something the brain does. Our brains. But our brains evolved over millions of years in largely arbitrary ways that just happened to help get the genes responsible for its pieces into the next generation. The remnants of most, if not all, of the earlier brains are in our brains like nested Russian dolls.

There was first a worm brain, and around that grew a fish brain. Added to that was an amphibian, then reptile, then mammal, then primate, then our brain. All those are still alive and whirring in our skulls. The brain is a collection of modules, large and small, that handle all kinds of usually helpful (sometimes not so helpful) functions. Every step of the way it was added to by the chaotic process of evolution by mutation and natural selection. (I may have one or more detail off, but the heart of this is sound)

Reference: Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind (Marcus, 2008)

(Does the cerebral cortex decide that's its version of consciousness is the definitive one? What about its subjective experience of the more ancient inner layers? Is consciousness the same without them? Why would we want to design a "conscious" machine with the subjective experience caused by the inner fish brain?)

Plus, every one of our brains is slightly different. We have different chemistries, we have modules that may not work in some of us, connections that vary in strength and modules that change size due to chemical and social environments (e.g. religion shrinks part of the brain).

My point is that everyone's subjective experience of consciousness is unique. We don't all have the same cartesian theater. Maybe some of us have Radio City Music Hall, and others have an old B&W TV in the garage. LOL We are collections of modules -- hundreds or thousands of them. Each brain's differing recipies flavors our subjective experience of consciousness with infinite variety.

It's our memories of the competitive interplay of these modules that informs us of the nature of consciousness, so we have to stop thinking that everyone's consciousness is the same. When we discuss it, we are really discussing our own, not some universal ideal. We can't assume that everyone on every side of the consciousness debate has the same internal subjective experience (ISE). Someone with a dull ISE may more likely argue for materialism. Someone with intense ISE may more likely argue for dualism. Then the groups ridicule each other, as if we all had the same ISE and the opposing side was a bunch of clueless idiots.

But it's not an either/or one-dimensional scale. The variety of ISEs vary infinitely, from species to species, individual to individual, and from one moment to the next.

When we struggle to define consciousness specifically enough to make a conscious machine, we forget, dammit, that it's not one thing. It's the mess evolution gave us, and the arbitrary variations of its design and nature are daunting.

Yes very interesting, we have a long voyage of discovery before us.

 

[dafydd]

"Gibberish"

You should at least ask someone to explain what point they are making before labelling it gibberish in ignorance.


In a computer the action is an electrical flow through a conductor, usually metallic. The electrons are herded on mass through great clunking cuircuits like lambs to the slaughter.

In the brain there is a subtle electrical interplay between complex molecules specifically selected and arranged by the living entity. The life and therefore the emergent awareness and consciousness are a subtle synthesis of molecular and electrical activity on the molecular scale. There is a living molecular connection and interplay throughout the whole body.

Where did you study molecular biology and what are your qualifications? It's 'en masse', by the way.

 

[PixyMisa]

However there was always an unbridgeable divide between him and the living crew members. Could he actually experience anything

Yes.

 

[PixyMisa]

In a computer the action is an electrical flow through a conductor, usually metallic. The electrons are herded on mass through great clunking cuircuits like lambs to the slaughter.

No.

In the brain there is a subtle electrical interplay between complex molecules specifically selected and arranged by the living entity. The life and therefore the emergent awareness and consciousness are a subtle synthesis of molecular and electrical activity on the molecular scale. There is a living molecular connection and interplay throughout the whole body.

No.

The real question is, is your hapless mischaracterisation of the brain as offensive to neurologists as your fanciful mischaracterisation of computers is to chip designers?

 

[dafydd]

No.


No.

The real question is, is your hapless mischaracterisation of the brain as offensive to neurologists as your fanciful mischaracterisation of computers is to chip designers?

He doesn't know much about how an electrical current moves or indeed what an electrical current is. He seems to think that the electrons flow like water through a hosepipe. Herding the electrons en masse indeed!

 

[punshhh]

He doesn't know much about how an electrical current moves or indeed what an electrical current is. He seems to think that the electrons flow like water through a hosepipe. Herding the electrons en masse indeed!

I suggest you pick up an A level physics book quick, before you find yourself flailing around in a hole of your own making.

 

[dafydd]

I suggest you pick up an A level physics book quick, before you find yourself flailing around in a hole of your own making.

I suggest that you read this. You have obviously never opened an A level physics book

''In conducting materials, some electrons are very loosely bound to the atoms of the material. When large amounts of these atoms come together, there is a sort of electron cloud that "hovers" near the atoms of the material. If you examine a cross-section of the piece of conducting material, the electrons will move very quickly through it. This motion is caused by temperature, and electrons flowing in one direction tend to equal the electrons flowing from the other direction, so this is not what causes current to flow. Electrons flow from one atom to another, a process has been compared to the passing of water buckets from one person to another in a bucket brigade.
When an electric field is put on the wire, the electrons respond almost instantly by drifting slightly in the opposite direction of the field. They gain energy from the field, which is lost very quickly when they bump into other electrons in the material. As long as the field is in place, however, the electrons will gain back that energy that they lost, and the process will continue. This "jolt" that electrons receive from the electric field is the source of current, not the overall flow of electrons themselves. From this discussion, we can see two things that current is not:

It is not an actual "flow" of electrons in the everyday sense of the word: If we examine the speed given to the electrons by the field, it is usually very small, on the order of millimeters per second. It would take half an hour for electrons to cross a 10-foot room at this rate. Since a light bulb flips on almost immediately after hitting the switch, something else must be at work.

It is also not a "domino effect", although this analogy is closer than the flow. Since electrons are so tiny, even when they are moving very quickly they do not have a lot of force behind them.''

The electrons are not 'herded around en mass' (sic).

Where did you study molecular biology?

 

[punshhh]

I suggest that you read this. You have obviously never opened an A level physics book

''In conducting materials, some electrons are very loosely bound to the atoms of the material. When large amounts of these atoms come together, there is a sort of electron cloud that "hovers" near the atoms of the material. If you examine a cross-section of the piece of conducting material, the electrons will move very quickly through it. This motion is caused by temperature, and electrons flowing in one direction tend to equal the electrons flowing from the other direction, so this is not what causes current to flow. Electrons flow from one atom to another, a process has been compared to the passing of water buckets from one person to another in a bucket brigade.
When an electric field is put on the wire, the electrons respond almost instantly by drifting slightly in the opposite direction of the field. They gain energy from the field, which is lost very quickly when they bump into other electrons in the material. As long as the field is in place, however, the electrons will gain back that energy that they lost, and the process will continue. This "jolt" that electrons receive from the electric field is the source of current, not the overall flow of electrons themselves. From this discussion, we can see two things that current is not:

It is not an actual "flow" of electrons in the everyday sense of the word: If we examine the speed given to the electrons by the field, it is usually very small, on the order of millimeters per second. It would take half an hour for electrons to cross a 10-foot room at this rate. Since a light bulb flips on almost immediately after hitting the switch, something else must be at work.

It is also not a "domino effect", although this analogy is closer than the flow. Since electrons are so tiny, even when they are moving very quickly they do not have a lot of force behind them.''

The electrons are not 'herded around en mass' (sic).

Where did you study molecular biology?

Since when has herding meant flowing?

 

[dafydd]

Since when has herding meant flowing?

Nice try at wriggling out of it. ''The electrons are herded on mass (sic) through''. That is what you said. Where did you study molecular biology and what are your qualifications?

 

[dlorde]

...I chose the example of symbols on a screen specifically to indicate how little information is needed to transfer emotional state from one person to another. It can be as little as a few hundred bits.

Less than that if it's deliberate: e.g. "I'm sad", or

Not sure that was the point though.

 

[punshhh]

Nice try at wriggling out of it. ''The electrons are herded on mass (sic) through''. That is what you said. Where did you study molecular biology and what are your qualifications?

I don't have the inclination to teach you about electricity and biology right now, as it would result in a derail.

 

[punshhh]

Yes.

But why was he portrayed as though there was an unbridgeable gap?

Perhaps the authors were aware of the issue regarding synthetic consciousness.

You assert that there is no hard problem, however the difference between brain matter and chips is well known.

 

[dafydd]

I don't have the inclination to teach you about electricity and biology right now, as it would result in a derail.

Would that be in the same manner that you taught us about infinity?

 

[punshhh]

No.
No.

The real question is, is your hapless mischaracterisation of the brain as offensive to neurologists as your fanciful mischaracterisation of computers is to chip designers?

Ok I was presenting a caricature of computers.

My point is that the difference we are discussing may well be in the physical mechanisms being compared.

You appear to be claiming that a computer can perform the same computation which a brain can perform. This I can agree on.

You appear to be asserting that this performance being the same would result in the same experience of consciousness. This I cannot agree on and appears to be a non-sequitur. As I consider that the consciousness is generated by some other aspect of the mechanism of the brain than the product of the computation itself.

An aspect of the performance of the brain that is not performed by the computer.

 

[tsig]

I'm listening and I agree with your position. This objective robot is a good description of Commander Data from Star Treck.

Data was fully aware of every physical action which occurred in the vicinity of his fellow officers. In fact he was aware of far more than them and had far better powers of computation. He could probably compute the precise activity within the brain of a human to a very high degree. He interacted fully with the other crew members, including a relationship with a human crew member.

However there was always an unbridgeable divide between him and the living crew members. Could he actually experience anything, or was it just a machine mimicking the outward appearance of experience. During a crisis or when he was switched off the mask of consciousness would lift and you could glimpse him as nothing more than a machine again.

The living crew members readily anthropomorphised him and saw him as one of them. Whereas Data himself was constantly aware that he was in some way lacking. To him the living crew members had some X factor which was entirely inaccessible to him.

You are aware that Star Trek is fiction?