Explain consciousness to the layman.

[PixyMisa]

That sounds rather elitist.

You mean patronising. And yes, it is. But there's little I can do about that; the response to the explanation has been so poorly thought out that no summary can accurately portray it without appearing patronising.

 

[Leumas]

So you are trying to show the superiority of your arguments by using the same arguments someone else uses and that you imply have no value ?

Actually, "Nah, that ain't it, there's gotta be a magic bean involved somewhere." sounds rather populist.

By the way, Westprog, Leumas, Ufology... when you're done patting yourselves on the back, you may want to contribute something worthwhile, here.

At least piggy is trying.

I guess I was wrong then about my hope below....

but I opted to see if you might be salvageable by responding with this lengthy explanation instead of just ignoring you or answering you back with a No.... we’ll see.

 

[PixyMisa]

Let me see if I can explain to you what it means when I reply with a succinct No to a post from PixyMisa.

It is not my methodology. I am using the methods of PixyMisa against him.

You're not doing it right.

First, you have to be correct. Then, you have to explain yourself clearly. Then, your opponent has to be not only wrong, but to have repeatedly ignored or misconstrued your explanation.

And then, it's a flat No. Exclamation marks only weaken the point.

You haven't fulfilled any of the conditions and you got the response wrong.

It has been explained why you are wrong. You have entirely failed to address your errors, instead choosing to repeat and expand upon them.

No is you.

 

[tsig]

What's that supposed to mean? You're referring to some entity you call "the pattern 2" which exists in multiple places, that I'm supposed to make a green square. That's clear as mud. There is a pattern that is 2 on the machine--there are two things you can be talking about. There's the state of the entire machine with the second column from the right having a marble with it, and there is the second column simply having a marble with it.

In either case, it is in one location. And when you say to replace the "pattern 2" with a green square, what are you replacing? The marble? The rocker?

You need to explain yourself clearly, Piggy.
I agree. If you cannot explain yourself clearly there won't be any progress.

ETA: Is this just me? Does anyone else know what Piggy's talking about?

also.

 

[dlorde]

I actually meant it that way.

If there's no process, there's really no way to say that anything exists.

Imagine if there were only one thing in the universe and it never changed. Well, you can't. Because if there are no processes, there is also no space, no time, and no matter.

I wouldn't argue with that, per se; but not to belabour the point, I was going by:

Event : the fundamental entity of observed physical reality represented by a point designated by three coordinates of place and one of time in the space-time continuum postulated by the theory of relativity (Merriam Webster).

Consciousness is only evidenced by an ongoing process, a prolonged series of causally related events.

But whatever...

 

[AlBell]

The problem with extrapolation is that unless we have extremely good data and a very good curve fitting algorithm and we are LUCKY then the extrapolation is no more than a HOPEFUL GUESS.

But, hey, that is the best we can do for now.....the problem however with this topic, is that we neither have good data, nor do we know how to create the curve fitting algorithm that would best fit the data we do not yet have.

So when we speculate that we might be able to extrapolate it is nothing but WISHFUL THINKING at this juncture of REALITY.....but it makes for good Science Fiction and JREF threads threats (God! Spirit! Magic Bean! SRIP! Church-Turing! sputter-splutter NO! Nonsense!).

Ftfy.

 

[Modified]

You've just substituted "processor" for "artificial neuron". They are totally different things.

We were talking about artificial neurons implemented by a computer or electronics, no? I never got the idea that we were discussing biological artificial neurons.

 

[Piggy]

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

No, but I'm actually working on a post that will attempt to do that. Hopefully sometime this weekend, but I've gotta finish a project for the pay job, too.

 

[Piggy]

What's that supposed to mean? You're referring to some entity you call "the pattern 2" which exists in multiple places, that I'm supposed to make a green square. That's clear as mud. There is a pattern that is 2 on the machine--there are two things you can be talking about. There's the state of the entire machine with the second column from the right having a marble with it, and there is the second column simply having a marble with it.

In either case, it is in one location. And when you say to replace the "pattern 2" with a green square, what are you replacing? The marble? The rocker?

You need to explain yourself clearly, Piggy.

No, there are 3 things I could be talking about.

I'm talking about the patterns painted on the machine (I believe I specified this in my post, if not, then my apologies). When I said "the pattern '2'" I literally meant that shape.

If you look at the video you will see this pattern painted on the machine along with other patterns like "4" and "12" (I believe these are the correct patterns, but if they're different, then whatever.)

If you imagine those patterns as some other set of patterns... say, imagine you'd covered each of the "2" patterns with a green square, each of the "4" patterns with a yellow square, each of the "12" patterns with a pink square... and you don't listen to the audio, then you'll be viewing the system simply as a physical system.

Once you do that, then -- and only then -- can you discuss what the machine is actually doing without a brain state involved (e.g. the knowledge that the pattern "2" is associated with pairs of things).

(You keep complaining about my always including brain states in the discussion, and then you refuse to get them out of the picture. When you drop them, then I can, and I'm trying to.)

Look at the marble machine again and forget that you have any clue what the paint is supposed to symbolize.

Then you'll see it for what it is as a physical system.

And it will then become obvious to you that it is impossible for you to determine the function of the machine. (In other words, once you forget that you know what the pattern "2" is supposed to represent, suddenly those other conditions you associated with the value of a pair... they stop having that value.)

Except to say you can run marbles through channels, everything else is a guess, because lots of things are possible.

Which means that the two-ness of the physical states of the machine which you described exists in your mind, and there alone.

 

[Piggy]

We were talking about artificial neurons implemented by a computer or electronics, no? I never got the idea that we were discussing biological artificial neurons.

Yeah, artificial neurons.

We'll take the input from neuron A and instead of routing it to N-B and then to N-C, we'll remove N-B and replace it with something that can get hit with neurotransmitters from N-A, respond by changing its own state somehow, and respond to that change by triggering some kind of hardware to spit out neurotransmitters at N-C.

That's what we have to do.

This works because we have one of those cases rocketdodger mentioned where the thing is a replica and a representation at the same time.

In other words, it represents the thing in a way that does all the necessary physical work.

You could get as elaborate as you wanted. You could route the signal out to the equivalent of a Pong game (or something much simpler, of course) or to a minutely detailed 4-D sim of a neuron, doesn't matter, as long as the physical work gets done and those neurotransmitters get sprayed on to N-C.

You've removed no necessary physical work from the system, so all the real behaviors will be exhibited by the system.

On the other hand, if you try to take a machine that's built to run simulations of things and try to swap it out for the brain a conscious person or robot, that's not going to work out, because you will be removing real work from the system which is not performed by the material object you're replacing it with.

 

[Piggy]

Does anyone else know what Piggy's talking about?

That's why we're trying to wrestle this thing out.

What I'm saying is not going to make sense until and unless you clearly separate the imaginary (logical, symbolic, informational) from the physically real when looking at these systems.

There are several reasons for this.

Just one example, from the robot consciousness thread... could the machine be conscious at any operating speed?

Lots of folks concluded that it could b/c the logical computations describing the operation of the machine could be performed at any speed, and you'd always come out with the same answer.

Which is true, but irrelevant, because physical systems like brains work differently.

If you could describe all the processes involved in an airplane flight, for example, your computations would run the same if whizzed through them or took billions of years. Nevertheless, the plane itself cannot travel at arbitrarily slow speeds.

So the "conscious at any speed" theory only works if you assert that consciousness itself is the result of a logical computation, which we know it cannot be because it's the result of physical activity in the brain, and in any case logical computations require brain states of encoders and decoders, as we've seen.

Another example is time.

According to the math that describes our world, as I'm sure you know, events can run backward in time as well as forward.

And yet we remember only the past and not the future.

In reality, there seems to be a clear arrow of time favoring one direction, but you can't tell it from the math that describes our universe.

If you assume that the logical computations in a simulation program are real in the way that the physical computations of the simulator machine are, then what I'm saying will make no sense to you at all.

Once the locus of the logical computations is moved to its proper location -- as physical patterns in the brains of programmers and users -- then everything I'm saying will make perfect sense.

 

[Piggy]

There are certain things so blatantly obvious that it seems absurd to even be refuting it.

Yeah, like....

Observable phenomena which can be located in spacetime have causes which involve matter and energy. (Else how could they be phenomena, how could they be observable, and how could they have any relationship to spacetime?)

Any system involving symbols requires changes in states to at least one brain, in order to associate the symbols with their meanings.

Any real thing used a symbol is not in any way affected by the properties of the thing it is imagined to represent. (E.g. "Deer Xing" signs are no heavier than "Duck Xing" signs.)

You cannot examine anything and determine from its properties alone whether or not any brain anywhere has decided to use it as a symbol for anything else.

You cannot examine anything and determine from its properties alone whether or not there exists something else in the world which mimics it in some way.

Any real physical system can be used to represent more than one thing, real or imagined.

Any physical system used as a simulator will also be performing physical computations other than those selected to represent logical state-changes.

If you replace a part in a physical system, the replacement part must be able to perform the same physical work in the system as the part it replaces.


And of course, if you accept the above, then reason demands that we accept also that simulating machines can't replace real brains, and that an otherwise non-conscious machine cannot be made conscious by virtue of programming alone.

 

[Piggy]

My mistake. Simulators DO stuff. Brains do stuff. Simulations and consciousness are things they do, respectively.

Oh, yes, that is true.

 

[Piggy]

Along with "Simulator machines don't produce conscious experience." ?

No, because I've written quite a few explanations of that from several different perspectives.

But it's not exactly a radical statement. It's about as eyebrow-raising as "Microwave ovens don't cut down trees".

 

[westprog]

All fair comments. I think there is some data from our ongoing attempts that can be applied to the results of psychological testing for humans and that some people have tried doing this, but so far everything has failed. e.g. Turing Tests. Even then if one did pass a Turing Test, does that intelligence equate to consciousness?

I don't think we'd accept the Turing Test as scientific evidence in any other field. It's entirely subjective. It might give some kind of indication, but I can see no reason why a machine designed to simulate consciousness might easily fool somebody.

 

[westprog]

Actually, "Nah, that ain't it, there's gotta be a magic bean involved somewhere." sounds rather populist.

By the way, Westprog, Leumas, Ufology... when you're done patting yourselves on the back, you may want to contribute something worthwhile, here.

At least piggy is trying.

I haven't counted, but I'd be surprised if I wasn't, by far, the biggest contributor to this thread. I'm fairly sure that no matter what I posted it wouldn't count as "worthwhile". Even if I posted "You're right, I was totally wrong, I withdraw everything" Rocketdodger would probably accuse me of lying and Pixy would just write "No".

 

[westprog]

We were talking about artificial neurons implemented by a computer or electronics, no? I never got the idea that we were discussing biological artificial neurons.

They might well be electronic, but they would be electronic devices that are capable of replacing actual, physical neurons. That means they have to have very specific physical properties. This is sufficiently difficult to do that in spite of trying for many years, surgeons and scientists have been unable to do it. It isn't possible to just plug any arbitrary component into the nervous system. It isn't valid to claim that a network of computers or processors would be equivalent to a network of neurons, artificial or not. And calling something a "neural network" doesn't make it one.

 

[westprog]

No, because I've written quite a few explanations of that from several different perspectives.

But it's not exactly a radical statement. It's about as eyebrow-raising as "Microwave ovens don't cut down trees".

Unless you redefine "microwave oven" and "cut down" and "tree" so that it all fits. Redefine consciousness and you solve the problem.

 

[yy2bggggs]

I'm talking about the patterns painted on the machine (I believe I specified this in my post, if not, then my apologies). When I said "the pattern '2'" I literally meant that shape.

Oh, I see. You mean the labels above the columns.

If you look at the video you will see this pattern painted on the machine along with other patterns like "4" and "12" (I believe these are the correct patterns, but if they're different, then whatever.)

It would be "32". 12 would be represented by a marble in an 8 column and a 4 column. This is a binary arithmetic machine--computer geeks breathe this stuff.

If you imagine those patterns as some other set of patterns... say, imagine you'd covered each of the "2" patterns with a green square, each of the "4" patterns with a yellow square, each of the "12" patterns with a pink square... and you don't listen to the audio, then you'll be viewing the system simply as a physical system.

Once you do that, then -- and only then -- can you discuss what the machine is actually doing without a brain state involved (e.g. the knowledge that the pattern "2" is associated with pairs of things).

So when you say "brain state", do you really mean "the interpretation of conventional symbols in a pre-established language"?

(You keep complaining about my always including brain states in the discussion, and then you refuse to get them out of the picture. When you drop them, then I can, and I'm trying to.)

You're misunderstanding what I'm doing. My complaint isn't about removing brain states from the picture--it is about the way you chose to define "physical addition". I won't get into it in this reply.

Look at the marble machine again and forget that you have any clue what the paint is supposed to symbolize.

Then you'll see it for what it is as a physical system.

My analysis in the long post was based on playing with the machine instead of watching the video. But it was not based on interpreting those symbols at all.

And it will then become obvious to you that it is impossible for you to determine the function of the machine. (In other words, once you forget that you know what the pattern "2" is supposed to represent, suddenly those other conditions you associated with the value of a pair... they stop having that value.)

No, it's not obvious to me at all. In fact, quite the opposite. This is a simple puzzle--the physical machine would be a fairly decent puzzle, just handed to someone, without any rules. The style of analysis that I suggested in my long post has nothing to do with what is painted there. You can put green squares on there if you like, but I would like to one up you and suggest removing all of them. It's still possible to figure out what the machine does.

Except to say you can run marbles through channels, everything else is a guess, because lots of things are possible.

Only the descriptions that match what the machine actually does are possible. And a description of this machine's function is a description of its meaning.

Which means that the two-ness of the physical states of the machine which you described exists in your mind, and there alone.

Well, let me give arbitrary labels to these things just for discussion. Label the columns, from the right to the left, $, #, @, !, and *.

You can get a marble in column # by adding a single marble to column #. You can also get a marble in column # by adding two marbles to column $. So one marble input into column # is the same as two marbles in column $. All of this is simply how the machine behaves.

And that is where the two-ness of the number in column # is.

There is also a corresponding two-ness of the number in column @; that would be the fact that one marble shoved into column @ causes the machine to get into the same state as two marbles shoved into column #. And since column # has a two-ness equivalent to the marbles you can shove into column $ to get it, then column @ has a mega-twoness about it--a twoness of a twoness. That is, if you shove two marbles into column $, and you shove two more marbles into column $, you get the machine in the same state as shoving one marble in column @.

Note that nothing in this explanation appeals to the interpretation of pre-established symbols.

The machine behaves this way regardless of how you guess that it does. The only issue is figuring out how it works. But "how it works" is simply how that machine works--so it's all in the machine.

Your claim that it's impossible to figure out what this machine does is simply wrong.

 

[yy2bggggs]

That's why we're trying to wrestle this thing out.

What I'm saying is not going to make sense until and unless you clearly separate the imaginary (logical, symbolic, informational) from the physically real when looking at these systems.

I'm getting the feeling, from your previous post, that you're referring to the labels above the column when you mean symbolic.

But the physical machine also has symbols in it. A rocker is either leaning towards the right trapping a marble, or leaning towards the left with no marbles in the vicinity. Those are symbols, and they are also what I would imagine you would call physical. And they are part of the machine.

If I put that marble in column #, it represents two marbles being shoved in column $. It does this because there's one machine state that can be achieved by either adding one marble to column # or two marbles to column $. So this state is a symbol.

But it is also physical. I can point to the exact chamber where the marble will be trapped to represent this symbol. If there were no such physical correlate, you could not say that this marble machine simulated addition.

This is what I've been saying. It has nothing to do with the Arabic decimal numerals painted onto the columns.