Explain consciousness to the layman.

[Belz...]

Ok lets try another approach piggy.

Assume you have a simulation, with a simulated tornado and a simulated house. The simulation is always running.

One night a tech looks at the screen and sees that the house is still standing.

The next morning he checks, and somehow the house is now destroyed, and the tornado is gone.

What happened?

The computer calculated odds that an object had to be removed from the simulation.

 

[Belz...]

All physical systems can be described in terms of inputs, rule-based transformations, and outputs.

This includes brains and computers.

But not rocks or beach balls.

 

[Belz...]

The only "real" frame of reference we have -- the world of matter and energy.

Again, it depends on your frame of reference. If there's another universe, it's real for those who exist in it, but not for us. That we know that universe doesn't interact with ours in any way, shape or form, does not make it non-existent.

There are no other frames of reference available besides the physical universe and our imaginations.

The simulation actually exists, though.

 

[Belz...]

Broadening them from what?

Broadening them to include everything. So I ask you:

What does a computer do, specifically, that sets it apart from a rock, ocean, star or diesel engine ?

"Performing algorithms and calculations" is only meaningful if the computer is performing the calculations for someone.

So is "species" but animals and plants exist nonetheless.

 

[westprog]

I was under the impression (apparently mistaken) that impulse -> beat, and that this was all the heart did. I don't remember my heart doing anything but beating at regular intervals.

Look a bit closer. Every cell in your heart is doing something. Every molecule in every cell is doing something. It's changing states all the time.

None of these different states are objectively more significant than any other. In order to make sense of what the heart does, we consider its action as beating at regular intervals. We can actually describe the behaviour of the heart as a single quantity - interval between beats. That doesn't mean that that description is a more accurate description of reality - it means that it's more useful for us.

When I hit a rock with a hammer, the impact translates into smaller internal states as well, but saying a rock computers makes the word a bit useless.

Exactly. An objective description of computing is useless. A usable description of computing is subjective. It involves a person inputting data and receiving results. What a computer does by itself is meaningless.

 

[westprog]

But not rocks or beach balls.

No, rocks and beach balls as well. It's not interesting or helpful to look at them that way*, but it's just as real.

*Unless you're a geologist, perhaps. Or a beach bum. It's subjective.

 

[westprog]

The computer calculated odds that an object had to be removed from the simulation.

The computer ran through a series of numbers, some of which were sampled. Some not. The person interpreted the numbers and provided them with meaning.

 

[Piggy]

What is changing from state to state in our universe?

The computer running the simulation that is our universe is changing from state to state.

The computer that runs the simulation of our universe is physically real.

1. If there were a "computer running the simulation that is our universe" it would not be "in our universe".

2. Our universe, including ourselves, cannot be a simulation because a simulation is a representation and requires an interpreter to match the actual thing (the media in which the representation is rendered) to what is being symbolically represented.

3. Our universe, however, could be in some sort of container on a lab shelf somewhere in a hyperverse.

Pretty simple stuff, really.

 

[Piggy]

How did they change?

Oh, this is going to be fun....

The components of the machine running the sim changed.

Again, no need to appeal to any mysterious other worlds.

The supposed "house" and "tornado" are all in the imagination of the observer, and the machine is in the real world. That's sufficient to account for every feature of the larger system.

 

[Piggy]

If what is happening in the computer does not exhibit any of the qualities of the real systems, then how could it be a simulation?

Better yet, if the behavior of the computer does exhibit qualities of the systems it simulates, then point them out.

That's a much easier and more direct way of dealing with that issue.

In what ways does a computer begin to behave like a river when we run sims of watersheds?

In what ways does a computer begin to behave like a disease when we run sims of epidemics?

 

[Piggy]

Is a paramecium's change of state useless and meaningless without interpretation by a person?


Gotcha

No, you don't got anybody.

The change in state of a paramecium is similar to the change in state of the computer running the sim -- that happens in reality.

Yet for a tornado simulation, there is no "change in the tornado" outside the imagination of the viewer of the simulation.

Contrast this with a weather box in which we can instigate actual tornadoes. Those real tornadoes do what all tornadoes do, with or without observation.

 

[westprog]

No, you don't got anybody.

The change in state of a paramecium is similar to the change in state of the computer running the sim -- that happens in reality.

Yet for a tornado simulation, there is no "change in the tornado" outside the imagination of the viewer of the simulation.

Contrast this with a weather box in which we can instigate actual tornadoes. Those real tornadoes do what all tornadoes do, with or without observation.

The change of state in the computer is meaningful - just that it has nothing to do with tornados. It has to do with electricity, heat, some motion - and a human mind then finds the connections.

 

[Piggy]

Unless all actual instances can be fully reduced to nothing but rules.



Well, actually, it can. If physics is unable to determine that there is any actual material in the universe -- and it can't -- and instead all evidence points to the universe being nothing more than rules -- and it does -- then you are wrong and I am right.

No, you are quite wrong about that.

Not long ago, someone tried to play the "particles are strictly informational" card in a science thread and was quickly shot down.

The interactions indicate that there is indeed something there to be interacting... and we can describe various attributes of different kinds of particles which give us reason to call them different names... your philosophy is based on a misunderstanding of the implications of QM.

In short, the subatomic world does not need to be made of any kind of "material". And that fact, startling as it is to many folks, changes nothing about questions in our macro world, like "What causes consciousness?"

 

[Piggy]

Typically there isn't, I agree.

However, you are the only monist on the entire forum that seems to dispute the notion that an arbitrary granularity simulation of a society of people, down to the particle level, would contain actual conscious entities.

You. Are. The. Only. One.

I am not trying to argue from authority here. I am just hoping that the fact that so many smart people disagree with you when they agree with each other, and furthermore that they are all fairly level headed monists, will at least convince you to open your mind a little and think about it.

No, I'm not.

And even if the only others left on this thread were dead-ender "other worlders", that wouldn't be any support for the position.

If you want to claim that representations become real when sufficiently rich in detail, then please, explain the mechanism by which that happens.

Failing that, it's merely an assertion, and one contradictory to contemporary physics.

 

[Piggy]

But not rocks or beach balls.

Yes, rocks and beach balls.

Anything made up of atoms, in fact.

 

[Piggy]

Again, it depends on your frame of reference. If there's another universe, it's real for those who exist in it, but not for us. That we know that universe doesn't interact with ours in any way, shape or form, does not make it non-existent.

True. There might be such worlds "inside" black holes, for instance.

But drawing a picture of a baby doesn't create a new "world" in which there is a baby. Ditto for any representation of a baby, no matter how detailed or dynamic.

The simulation actually exists, though.

The machine exists. The simulation exists in the way a football game does... because we agree that this set of activities constitutes a simulation. The system being represented by the simulation, however, "exists" in the mind of the person reading the output of the machine, in the same way (and for the same reason) that the guy in the owl suit on the sidelines only represents an owl, and his representation causes no new worlds to exist which are inhabited by owls.

 

[Piggy]

The computer ran through a series of numbers, some of which were sampled. Some not. The person interpreted the numbers and provided them with meaning.

Technically, it didn't even do that, since "numbers" are a human abstraction based on what we agree the actual states "mean", based on some sort of display, the significance of which is also determined by human agreement.

 

[Piggy]

The change of state in the computer is meaningful - just that it has nothing to do with tornados. It has to do with electricity, heat, some motion - and a human mind then finds the connections.

Right. The computer is like the paramecium. Its changes are real-world changes. The connection with a tornado requires a perceiver with an imagination who knows what the symbols are supposed to mean (unless they're sufficiently human-friendly as to be universally intuitive).

You know, you and I could place a bet on the future behavior of a paramecium, and when we observe what actually happens, one of us will give bank notes to the other.

In that case, we have turned the behavior of the paramecium into an event which has symbolic meaning for us, but which has no effect on the qualities of the critter.

Similarly, we can understand simulations without needing to attribute the symbolic meaning of the output to the machine.

 

[westprog]

No, I'm not.

And even if the only others left on this thread were dead-ender "other worlders", that wouldn't be any support for the position.

If you want to claim that representations become real when sufficiently rich in detail, then please, explain the mechanism by which that happens.

Failing that, it's merely an assertion, and one contradictory to contemporary physics.

But look at all the clever people who agree!

I did feel for a while that I was proposing a position that nobody else shared. It's now clear that I'm not alone. I've also found that there are serious commentators on the matter who share my misgivings about the supposed orthodoxy - which is only an orthodoxy among a small group of philosophers and programmers.

 

[westprog]

Technically, it didn't even do that, since "numbers" are a human abstraction based on what we agree the actual states "mean", based on some sort of display, the significance of which is also determined by human agreement.

Exactly. Numbers, bits, registers, memory - these are just abstractions that we use to make sense of the physical object.

There's no harm in general conversation in using the word "number" to describe the physical state of part of the computer, provided that we understand that the mapping between the numbers on the computer and the abstract idea of number in our minds is an arbitrary one which we choose. The fact that it is possible to interpret the same "data" on the computer as having many different values shows how the idea of inherent number is clearly not applicable.

Much of the confusion on this topic is caused by language, where words like "number" are used with entirely different meanings, which if treated the same lead to mistaken conclusions.