Explain consciousness to the layman.

[yy2bggggs]

I hate to have to tell you this, but you're incorrect on this point, so everything after it is off.

Believe it or not, I really do mean "brain state", I really do mean what I type.

I know that doesn't fit with your view of the world.

It's not my view of the world that is at issue. It is the mismatch between your use of your own term and your definition. You are including systems that involve brain states as physical addition.

All information processors used by human beings involve, minimally, two components -- a machine, and at least one brain to assign the symbolic values and rules, and to interpret the symbolic values of the machine's states according to those values and rules.

Of course. This is a tautology.

 

[Piggy]

Well, of course it is, because your "challenge" had no teeth. The explanation happens to simply be a tautology. I don't even understand why you thought it was supposed to be a problem.

Yeah, I know.

That's what I was saying.

 

[PixyMisa]

Without a brain state to determine the "meanings" of the patterns of paint on the machine, they might as well not be there. You need a brain to assign those meanings and to interpret them.

The brain is just a marble machine, and meaning - which you think is a magic bean - is just the movement of marbles.

Without that, all you're left with is an object you can drop marbles through.

Yes, all we're left with is the marble machine, because that's all there is.

By itself, alone in the circle, as an independent unobserved system, it cannot perform that function. To do so, at least one brain has to be involved in the system.

The brain is not magic, Piggy. It just processes information.

In every post, you simply reiterate your assertion that the brain does something magical. You provide no evidence of how this can happen, no evidence that it does happen, no explanation of what this magical thing is, nor any reason why you think that it is there.

You just keep insisting, over and over.

Try this instead: If the brain were just a marble machine, what exactly is it that would be missing? What specific, well-defined, observable function would be missing? Why do you think so? What evidence do you have that this is the case?

 

[PixyMisa]

The brain is just a marble machine, and meaning - which you think is a magic bean - is just the movement of marbles.

That's what I meant, earlier, when I said that semantics is syntax. Semantics arises from syntactic operations. Because there's nothing else.

 

[Piggy]

It's not my view of the world that is at issue. It is the mismatch between your use of your own term and your definition. You are including systems that involve brain states as physical addition.

Lord, grant me strength....

I include red trucks and blue trucks and white vans and green vans and red vans and white trucks in my system of hauling brush to the composter.

The color of the vehicle doesn't matter, and neither does the type of vehicle as long as it can haul a brush pile and get into a transfer station.

So I don't include those specifics in my list of what's necessary for the system.

And to get into discussions about unnecessary elements of what you're talking about is just a waste of time.

Instances of physical addition can involve brain states or not.

This means that brain states are not a necessary part of the system.

Yet it's been demonstrated that brain states are a part of any system used as an information processor.

I mean, come on, this is basic logic.

 

[PixyMisa]

The marbles react to their inputs in specific ways. Figuring out the meaning of this machine is simply a matter of studying what the states of the machine implies about the inputs. As soon as you build a full theory of this, you have discovered the meaning of the machine.

It's all there, in the machine.

Yes, exactly. That's why I posted it as an example.

With no added information at all, with all markings removed, it is incontrovertibly designed to perform a very specific function.

Without any requirement for outside knowledge, we can inspect its architecture and determine its meaning.

 

[PixyMisa]

Yet it's been demonstrated that brain states are a part of any system used as an information processor.

The brain is an information processor.

 

[Piggy]

That's what I meant, earlier, when I said that semantics is syntax. Semantics arises from syntactic operations. Because there's nothing else.

Step one: Decide that only syntax exists.

Step two: Realize that semantics isn't syntax.

Step three: Insist semantics must therefore be the same as syntax.

Step four: Just keep reading PixyMisa's posts for the conclusions.

 

[Piggy]

With no added information at all, with all markings removed, it is incontrovertibly designed to perform a very specific function.

You cannot be serious.

 

[Piggy]

The brain is an information processor.

Thank you, I will file that under "A" with the other assertions.

 

[yy2bggggs]

I explained how you can derive the meaning of the machine. I don't know what else to do.

 

[PixyMisa]

Step one: Decide that only syntax exists.

Step two: Realize that semantics isn't syntax.

Step three: Insist semantics must therefore be the same as syntax.

Step four: Just keep reading PixyMisa's posts for the conclusions.

So, Piggy, what's the distinction and how does it arise? We certainly know how semantics arises from syntactic operations - that's the entire field of computer science.

So far you have offered us nothing.

We don't know what that work is yet.

What work?

If we did, we'd have an explanation for the phenomenon, which we don't.

What phenomenon?

That real phenomena involve work of some kind, though, is not in question.

You miss the fact that information processing is a real phenomenon. How you can miss this when it has been pointed out several hundred times, I don't know.

They're pretty much the only game in town now.

And I just can't convince myself that they're noise, because if so, then noise from what?

You're measuring the waves and somehow missing the ocean.

 

[Piggy]

I explained how you can derive the meaning of the machine. I don't know what else to do.

No, you merely asserted that it was possible.

Would you care to give me an example?

For instance, let's take the marble machine.

To clear our palettes, let's replace the numbers with colors, consistently so that, for instance, if the pattern "2" is replaced with a green square in one place, it's replaced with a green square elsewhere.

That preserves the internal information content without regard to any outside brain system which "knows the symbols".

Now write down each set of physical movements that the machine performs as marbles are dropped through it.

Then try to come back and convince me that the series of events you've written down can only make sense as an attempt to add specific numbers.

Good luck.

 

[PixyMisa]

Then try to come back and convince me that the series of events you've written down can only make sense as an attempt to add specific numbers.

All or nothing fallacy.

Oh, and: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_table#Applications_of_truth_tables_in_digital_electronics

 

[Piggy]

So, Piggy, what's the distinction and how does it arise? We certainly know how semantics arises from syntactic operations - that's the entire field of computer science.

So far you have offered us nothing.

Major Tom ends up back at the space station in the same condition, whether he really fights and kills the squid or not.

That's because we've preserved the syntax for his trip back.

But the squid is still outside the porthole.

That's because we failed to preserve the semantics.

 

[Leumas]

Brother, do you seek to remove the bean from mine eye?

The funny thing is, the bean is in your hand.

I'm trying to get you to let it go.

For me, consciousness is computation, period, end of story.

But I'm talking about physical computation -- the physical activity of the brain. And nothing else.

You, however, overlay a set of symbolic (informational) computations on top of the physical ones.

Then you say we can dispense with the physical ones!

Now who's left with the magic bean, huh?

Exactly....

 

[yy2bggggs]

No, you merely asserted that it was possible.

Would you care to give me an example?

For instance, let's take the marble machine.

To clear our palettes, let's replace the numbers with colors, consistently so that, for instance, if the pattern "2" is replaced with a green square in one place, it's replaced with a green square elsewhere.

So, you're referring to "the pattern 2" as a thing that occurs in multiple places. And I'm supposed to replace "the pattern 2" in the marble machine with a green square--everywhere it occurs.

I honestly have no idea what you are describing. Can you refer to marbles, rockers, and so on, and tell me what it is you're replacing with your squares?

I also have no idea what you're trying to build. But I'm not sure why you think I should give you an example of the example.

 

[Piggy]

You miss the fact that information processing is a real phenomenon. How you can miss this when it has been pointed out several hundred times, I don't know.

How could I have "missed" something I've been discussing at length?

I don't dispute that it's real.

Do you dispute that a machine and an encoding/decoding brain state must be involved for symbolic information processing?

Do you dispute that the symbolic overlay makes no change to the physical system?

Do you dispute that changes to the "world of the simulation" must therefore depend on changes in brain states?

You seem to "miss the fact" that brain states are physical phenomena just like any other, so to include them in a system is no more problematic than including wind or temperature or galaxy clusters in a system.

 

[Piggy]

So, you're referring to "the pattern 2" as a thing that occurs in multiple places. And I'm supposed to replace "the pattern 2" in the marble machine with a green square--everywhere it occurs.

I honestly have no idea what you are describing. Can you refer to marbles, rockers, and so on, and tell me what it is you're replacing with your squares?

I also have no idea what you're trying to build. But I'm not sure why you think I should give you an example of the example.

Wow.

This is astounding.

And I mean that honestly, I'm actually surprised.

You seem literally incapable of viewing the marble machine, even temporarily, as a physical object devoid of symbology.

Well, if you can't do that, then I'm sorry, we quite literally can't discuss the topic any further than we have, I believe.

 

[ufology]

We're up to 57 pages now. Has anyone explained consciousness to a layman here yet?