Explain consciousness to the layman.

[Modified]

Well, that's over my head on the tech side.

Can you drill down for me?

Adding processors does not add functionality. Computable is computable.

Anything that a 100 billion processor brain can do, a single processor brain can also do (given enough memory and time). Emulating the behavior of a 100 billion processor brain where all the processors are running on the same clock and where communication happens in a known and determinable number of clock cycles is straightforward on a single processor system.

If the processors all have different clocks that are not synchronized, then it becomes more complicated, since to accurately reproduce the multi-processor brain you would need to compute the state at a small fraction of one cycle of the fastest clock, and that fraction may never be small enough to duplicate the behavior exactly (or it may be, depending on the true nature of time). But that only matters if you want an exact clone. As the size of the time slice used decreases, you will soon get to "close enough".

 

[PixyMisa]

Certain instances of changes in the number of a group can be described as addition. That's real addition.

Certain instances?

 

[PixyMisa]

Uh huh.

And what about replacing my whole truck with something else that does exactly what my truck does?

False analogy, begging the question.

 

[yy2bggggs]

This is the bit that you have not been getting, which is keeping you from understanding that a simulated person cannot become really conscious.

So, Piggy, just to be clear. You're claiming that a simulated person cannot become really conscious, because a simulation is lacking an interpreter? (Apparently that's the thing you're claiming I don't understand, right? That everything is just a "physical computation" until it's assigned meaning by an interpreter?)

How, pray tell, does an interpreter work?

ETA: I don't need a full explanation of how an interpreter does work--just some sort of idea. You seemed to have ruled out how it could possibly work given the above description.

 

[westprog]

OK, I see what you're saying, but calling every event in the universe a calculation is a hopeless obfuscation in this context. I'm not going to play that game.

I can't see any way that it makes sense to consider two dogs and three dogs as addition, and not consider any other quantities in the same way. As usual, it's a matter of finding a definition that works.

 

[westprog]

Sorry, I don't know why I didn't see it....



I'm not claiming that an informational overlay contributes to causality.

I'm observing that it doesn't.

If it did, it would muck things up. It's possible to do that, you know. If the parts (for instance, research subjects) do incorporate the informational overlay (for example, come to find out exactly what's being measured) then you've introduced such a causality, and it can complicate things to the point of having to scrap it all.

I agree with you that O(A)->O(B) in both systems, or else it's not a simulation.

But it's important to keep in mind that we're talking about discreet systems, one of which might be purely imaginary to begin with (if you're simulating a fantasy world, for instance) or in other words a state of someone's brain.

We can think of these two systems as a pair of identical twins, Pete and Repeat, and Repeat has been trained to behave exactly like Pete, even when they're apart.

As long as Pete doesn't go through anything that changes the way he acts, we'll be able to look at Repeat and know what Pete is doing.

But let's take a look at that claim.

On the surface, it seems like we're claiming a real connection between Pete and Repeat. But this doesn't exist. Pete and Repeat are each behaving according to their own physics, they've just been set off into similar patterns.

The real connection is in my brain, which knows that Repeat and Pete are behaving in sync in one of many possible ways, and that therefore I can look at Repeat and know something about Pete.

And I do mean real. It exists as a physical shape in my brain.

In fact, this is what enables me to look at Pete and Repeat and conclude that something's gone wrong with Repeat's behavior.

But without that bit of knowledge that can only exist in the brain of the programmer and user -- which is to say, the knowledge that Repeat is supposed to act like Pete, and not the other way around, or that it's all just a freakish coincidence, or that they're both acting like someone else -- then the similarities between certain aspects of these 2 systems isn't anything but that.

This is why Repeat (or anything else) can only be an information processor if used as one, not by virtue of physical design. "Info processor" is an imaginary rather than real class of object, which means it's one if people intend it to be one or use it as one.

So we're right back to the brain of the programmer and user. That's the only location of the connection between the two systems which makes one a simulation of the other.

Just wanted to say - I agree with the above, almost word for word. Even if nobody* else does.


*FSVO nobody

 

[rocketdodger]

So you agree with me that the correspondence must exist in the mind of an observer.

Thank you.

That was never in question.

You claimed that an observer would NOT be able to look at the physical hardware of the computer and determine that addition was taking place.

That claim is simply wrong, and you made it because you know nothing about digital logic.

 

[rocketdodger]

Yeah, the voltage changes are as real as the neural firings.

But the similarity between these changes is only significant if you know that one is supposed to symbolize the other.

That's so important, it bears repeating:

The similarity between these changes is only significant if you know that one is supposed to symbolize the other.

Not so fast, turbo.

First, you need to explain why the neural firings themselves are significant. Because if they aren't then any similarity with voltage changes in the hardware won't be significant either.

Why are those neural firings significant, piggy?

 

[yy2bggggs]

You aren't distinguishing between physical and symbolic computations, which at this stage of the conversation is necessary. (Well, it always is, really, but especially now.)

There's no such thing as a symbolic computation that is not a physical computation.

 

[Leumas]

There's no such thing as a symbolic computation that is not a physical computation.

Study digital signal processing (DSP) and you will see that the statement you made is wrong.

When I represent an analog (infinitely varying) signal of +/-50 Volts in 0 to 3.3 V based silicon chips and then proceed to compute a gain of 20x to make it +/-1000V in a system that is STILL 0 to 3.3V based silicon and then I filter the signal on the basis of some Transfer Function where I remove some of its Sine wave components or enhance others and then I end up with a Fourier Series equation of the representation of the combination of harmonics as a mathematical formula representing the +/-1000V wave function in a 0 to 3.3V system.......then I am doing a myriad of SYMBOLIC COMPUTATION.

The reason is that I have just added and subtracted and convoluted frequencies and signals of thousands of volts in a system of 3.3V and there were no actual signals of these frequencies or volts anywhere to be seen except as SYMBOLS in a computer.

When later I convert these SYMBOLIC calculations to real values using a DAC the output is only real because the DAC circuitry ACTUALLY DID output +/-1000V signal with the required frequencies and if it could not do so there would never have been a signal.

Yet the SYMBOLIC representation of the signals was real for me the ENGINEER during my R&D stages of the process when I looked at the SYMBOLIC output on the screen of all the graphs representing the signals on a SIMULATED oscilloscope.

All that computation going on using DISCRETE 3.3V and 0V combinations in registers in a CPU was used to SYMBOLIZE COMPUTATIONS on continuous analog infinitely variable voltage levels of -1000V to 1000V and the symbols could only become real physical signals in a real system that is capable of handling analog +/-1000V signals.

 

[yy2bggggs]

Study digital signal processing (DSP) and you will see that the statement you made is wrong.

For an explanation of how you performed a symbolic computation without performing a physical computation, you sure did include a lot of physical computation.

What was I wrong about exactly? Did you perform a physical computation or no? If so, your example is not a counterexample. If not, I'm missing how you successfully performed your symbolic computation without using a physical computation in your description.

Perhaps you're just misunderstanding what I claimed and why I claimed it. Reread the claim.

 

[Leumas]

For describing something that is not physically happening, you sure are appealing to a lot of physics.

Yes.... just like when I simulate a space station orbiting the Earth.

In the simulation there is a LOT of physics that is not actually happening in the physical world.

A simulated space station is not a space station.....and the symbolic calculation representing the orbital mechanics of the real station are just that ... SYMBOLIC.

 

[Leumas]

Perhaps you're just misunderstanding what I claimed and why I claimed it. Reread the claim.

Well.... if you mean that we cannot add or multiply unless we use some physical medium (e.g. our FINGERS)..... then you are right.

We cannot since we and everything around us including our brains that would eventually decipher the meaning are physical. There is nothing that is not physical.

Even when we do math “in our heads” it is a physical calculation.

But doing operations on actual physical 1000V signals is not the same physical operation as on a 3.3V on/off discrete digitization of the REPRESENTATION of the 1000V signal.

And in regards to the subject at hand..... this symbolic computation would never be the real thing as the actual physical computation of convoluting the signals in physical components that actually have the thousands of volts and frequencies surging through their molecules and electrons.

 

[yy2bggggs]

But doing operations on actual physical 1000V signals is not the same physical operation as on a 3.3V on/off discrete digitization of the REPRESENTATION of the 1000V signal.

Right. But I have no clue why you want someone to study DSP's in order to reach this conclusion--it's already obvious.

However, there are two possibilities with your simulation (as well as more, but I'll just focus on the two). One possibility is that your simulation using 3.3V told you about the 1000V system. The other is that it did not.

Keeping in mind that both the 3.3V system and the 1000V system are physical systems, the issue is not whether the 3.3V system is "real" or not. It is indeed real, in both of the possible cases above.

The issue, instead, is how well the 3.3V physical system's behaviors correlates to the 1000V physical system's behaviors given a particular mapping. In this case, it seemed to correlate perfectly well for your purposes, which means that any of the entities in the physical 3.3V system along with the transformations you performed on them probably mapped correctly to the entities in the 1000V system and the transformations they should have correlated to (it's still possible that the 1000V system worked perfectly, and your simulation didn't map to it, but you just lucked up). In this case, the behavior of the corresponding entities in the 3.3V system would have been the same as the behavior of the entities in the 1000V system.

That's not to say that the 3.3V system's entities actually were the 1000V entities. They just behaved in the same way, using a similarity metric limited to the scope of the simulation (namely, the mapping from the 3.3V system to the 1000V system).

There are multiple reasons why I want to use this language. One reason is that we have one "side" of this debate that is fundamentally misunderstanding, and misrepresenting, and even going so far as to refuse to acknowledge when corrected, what the other "side" of the debate is really saying. Another reason is that we have this silly continual artificial yet meaningless division between "real" and "imaginary" things, "subjective" and "objective" things, and so on, which supposedly are supposed to clear something up.

But we're winding up floating further and further away, as if our brains have a special property nothing else has, which is the ability to have "imaginary" things that are not "physical", the ability to "interpret" which "objective" things cannot possibly have since they could be interpreted infinitely number of ways (and physics is only made of "objective" things), and so on. By all rights, then, if I take this to its logical extreme, we shouldn't be able to imagine, we shouldn't have subjective views, and we shouldn't be able to mean anything when we make claims--much less run a simulation that's supposed to be about a system--because, we're physical! Ergo, we're objective. Ergo, we just don't have the stuff to generate these things.

But we do.

So someone's wrong.

 

[punshhh]

OK, I see what you're saying, but calling every event in the universe a calculation is a hopeless obfuscation in this context. I'm not going to play that game.

I chose it for it's complexity


Well that's why it's a thought experiment - we don't have to worry about all the practical difficulties. But just for fun, the box doesn't have sit inside the skull - it can be arbitrarily large - and it can be connected via fine probes. The signals between neurons are very slow compared to electrical currents in wires.

So, assuming the practicalities could be overcome, do you think it would integrate with functional transparency? Would the patient see with the black box installed?

If so, how much brain functionality do you think could be replaced with black boxes in a similar way? What about extending the scope of the original black box to replace more of the brain?

What about replacing the whole brain with a black box that takes sensory input and outputs motor activities just like you or me?

I've rushed ahead here - I'm curious to know where the line should be drawn. If we can replace whole subsystems with black boxes that, for the same inputs, give the same outputs as the biological subsystems, how much can we replace without 'breaking' consciousness?

My bet is that only a limited number of subsystems could be replaced that way.

I'll have a go at this thought experiment.

Lets say we make a computing machine, the details of how its constructed are not important, only that we have a computing machine that when its switched on becomes conscious. In a sense we boot up its consciousness and once its running it is conscious until we switch it off again.

The conscious machine would have no subjective understanding to begin with, it would be a clean slate. It would only be able to carry out computations which are physically acted out or are physically equivalent. Any digital stuff in any black boxes would be illegible. It could not understand them or interpret them without a subjective means to do so.

It would not understand tornado or Santa claus, however if it was able to learn and develop a subjective interpretation and then understanding of its experience and environment. It would be able to learn the significance of tornado and Santa claus over time and begin to have a presence in our physical world, provided it had a full set of sensory apparatus.

 

[Belz...]

What the simulation is supposed to represent, however, is not part of, nor even evident in, the simulation... only the brain of the programmer and reader make that association.

I'm not talking about the interpretation of the programmer but of the entities inside the simulation.

 

[Belz...]

Now I understand why you feature a giant flaming not so friendly looking thing in your avatar.

Explain said understanding as it relates to the post you were responding to.

 

[Belz...]

What I am denying is that the situation is any different for any (conscious) entity. There's the world as perceived, and reality. I'm saying that the situation is no different for the entity in the computer. The distinction between the artificial consciousness and the human being is of degree, not kind.

Ok, I'm confused. Isn't that the opposite of what you're been arguing ?

 

[Belz...]

Stop!

At this point you have already assumed that there is a simulated entity which has perceptions and a point of view on reality.

Yes, that happens to be the point of the hypothetical.

But the entire point of this conversation is to determine if any such thing could exist.

You can't argue that something could exist by assuming it exists and asking what the world looks like from its eyes.

I'm not. You haven't been following very well.

 

[PixyMisa]

Yes, that's what I was trying to say.

A simulation... that is, the action of mimicking one thing with another thing... or in another sense the apparatus as it's operating... is a real thing, just like the rest of the real stuff in the universe.

What the simulation is supposed to represent, however, is not part of, nor even evident in, the simulation... only the brain of the programmer and reader make that association.

That statement is clear, simple, and wrong in every possible way.