Explain consciousness to the layman.

[Leumas]

I didn't say you had. I asked you a question.



Assuming we build a circuit board made out of cars, I'm not sure whether the cars run on gasoline or not is important so, again, why do you think it matters ?

That is not the case with the neurons.... the chemicals actually affect how they fire and how often they fire.

So unlike a transistor for instance which as used in computers is either on or off, and the switching rate is fixed, the neuron can change the firing rate depending on the presence or not of certain chemicals and the amount of these chemicals. Also different chemicals make different situations.

So the INFORMATION STATES of a neuron are not just binary one bit. Rather it is a combination of binary and analog as well as being MANY BITS of states due to various chemicals.

In other words the information content of a Neuron is orders of magnitude more than a transistor and that is discounting the analog aspect of chemical quantities.

 

[!Kaggen]

Indeed it is.


Where did that premise come from?

Well if consciousness is what the brain does and not how the brain does it then neuron function is not important only brain function.

You see the problem yet?

 

[PixyMisa]

I have seen little mentioned here which addresses the phenomena of consciousness from those claiming a computer can be conscious. You claim that it is due to a kind of computation and yet you do not know what other bodily functions may contribute to it.

How do you reach that conclusion? It's the opposite of the truth, and the opposite of what's been said.

We know one thing that neurons do and that is primarily to do with processing impulses.

Yep.

This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with consciousness, it may be nothing more than the tool used by consciousness to manifest subjective self.

No, that's not possible. Start with Phineas Gage^WP and go from there.

Yes I read that and I can imagine many ways in which such waves in the body may have effects and be an integral manifestation of a being.

Sure, and I can imagine giant flaming dragons eating New York.

The thing is, neither your imaginings nor mine have anything to do with reality.

Don't you mean to say it or something approximating it has not been detected as yet?

Nope. I mean to say it doesn't exist.

Remember the unknown unknowns.

Remember that the unknown is bounded by the known.

 

[PixyMisa]

That is not the case with the neurons.... the chemicals actually affect how they fire and how often they fire.

So unlike a transistor for instance which as used in computers is either on or off, and the switching rate is fixed, the neuron can change the firing rate depending on the presence or not of certain chemicals and the amount of these chemicals. Also different chemicals make different situations.

Sure.

So the INFORMATION STATES of a neuron are not just binary one bit. Rather it is a combination of binary and analog as well as being MANY BITS of states due to various chemicals.

Sure.

In other words the information content of a Neuron is orders of magnitude more than a transistor and that is discounting the analog aspect of chemical quantities.

Information content? The computational complexity of a neuron is certainly two or three orders of magnitude more than a transistor, but where do you arrive at that statement for information content?

Also, I think YOU need to CLEAN OUT your SHIFT KEY.

 

[PixyMisa]

Well if consciousness is what the brain does and not how the brain does it then neuron function is not important only brain function.

You see the problem yet?

Nope. Just as you can replace neurons with artificial neurons that work by different means but produce the same results, you can replace the brain with, for example, a simulated brain, and get the same results.

Still not sure what you're talking about or why you think it's a problem.

 

[Leumas]

Oh for "Bob"'s sake. PixyMisa simply has an operational definition for consciousness. Jumping in and attacking him over this is a pointless exercise, and is also doomed to failure so long as PixyMisa is consistent.

Take his operational definition at its word and get him to actually say something wrong first. And be careful--if all he's doing is speaking a different language than you, then you need "wrong" to be phrased in his language, not yours.

Yes....much like the theists have an "operational definition for" God. And you are right it is a "pointless exercise" to try to get a theist to see reality.

I mean look at someone like William Craig. He certainly is "consistent" too in his "operational definition" of his claptrap.


Certainly William Craig "is speaking a different language" than people who are not DELUSIONAL and to converse with him we have to REDEFINE REALITY in order to have it "be phrased in his language, not ours".


I fully agree..... PixyMisa's stance is the EPITOME of the theistic stance on "reality".


Well done....you summed it up quite well.

 

[!Kaggen]

Nope. Just as you can replace neurons with artificial neurons that work by different means but produce the same results, you can replace the brain with, for example, a simulated brain, and get the same results.

Still not sure what you're talking about or why you think it's a problem.

When you simulate your brain what inputs are you going to use? I hope not the functionality of the neurons since the brain function is not dependent on the functionality of the neurons right?

 

[yy2bggggs]

Pixy Misa's style suggests he has all the answers, its all sown up, there's nothing left to discuss.

Actually, no, it doesn't suggest he has all the answers, or that it's all sown up. However, if you cannot ask the right questions, then it may very well mean there's nothing left to discuss, save what the right question might be.

Unfortunately he goes around telling other folk that they are wrong about stuff, judged against his own assumptions and conclusions. Ignorant of what they know or of their position.

I'm not sure what you mean here.

 

[PixyMisa]

When you simulate your brain what inputs are you going to use?

You mean sensory data? That can be recorded or simulated.

I hope not the functionality of the neurons since the brain function is not dependent on the functionality of the neurons right?

That's not correct. The brain is dependent on the functionality of the neurons, because that's what it's made of. You're free to substitute parts, as I said, as long as they're compatible.

 

[!Kaggen]

You mean sensory data? That can be recorded or simulated.

No, I mean what is going to do the work of the brain?

That's not correct. The brain is dependent on the functionality of the neurons, because that's what it's made of. You're free to substitute parts, as I said, as long as they're compatible.

You sure?

No, I said the chemical compounds behavior.
You ever done chemistry or biochemistry?
There are innumerable reactions taking place in a cell, many we do not even know yet. This is the complexity I am talking about. These are all essential for the functionality of the cell and contribute to its overall function.

The question is, what is the relevant level of behaviour: What the neuron does, or how it does it?

Since it's perfectly possible to replicate the function of a neuron brain with none of those chemical processesthe neurons functionality , we say it's what the neuron brain does that matters.

 

[PixyMisa]

No, I mean what is going to do the work of the brain?

The brain is being simulated.

You sure?

Yes, I am sure. I was very precise in what I said. There is no contradiction.

The brain is made up of neurons. That's how it works. That's not the only way for it to work, but that is how it works.

 

[!Kaggen]

The brain is being simulated.

And the brain is what exactly?
Oh forget it you answered below.

The brain is made up of neurons.

Now lets try this again

Yes, I am sure. I was very precise in what I said. There is no contradiction.

The brain neuron is made up of neurons chemical compounds. That's how it works. That's not the only way for it to work, but that is how it works.

 

[PixyMisa]

And the brain is what exactly?

On what level of abstraction?

Oh forget it you answered below.

Yes, I did.

Now lets try this again

Why? Do you actually have a point you want to make, or do you just want to keep repeating your error?

 

[PixyMisa]

You've been doing this for quite a while on the thread. I'm pretty sure that a reasonably intelligent theist might say that this is an Association Fallacy.

One of the more remarkable features of my definition of consciousness is its apparent power to drive people insane.

Not sure how that works, but the evidence is hard to dispute.

 

[jhunter1163]

And a great cry arose among the posters in R&P, such that none could abide the bickering. And the MOD came and stood in their midst, and he said unto them, "Verily, I say unto thee, this thread is an abomination in MY sight; thy bickeryness and incivility an offense unto the MOD. MY mercy I will show unto thee, this time, and thy posts will not be cast into the lake of fire. Repent thee of thy bickery ways, and go forth and breach no more, lest thou be infracted and cast into the suspendatorium, where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: jhunter1163

 

[rocketdodger]

You might not have as much problem with people's replies if you didn't turn around and accuse them of saying something they never said.

I've been on the receiving end of this treatment from you before, in fact.

Yeah, I think probably at least all birds and mammals are conscious.

That doesn't mean that they have experiences similar to ours. So far, we reckon only gorillas and cimpanzees are highly likely (or very certain) to have something like our experience with its illusions of self, future, and past.



You know, you might notice that none of this makes the current functional definition of consciousness "vague" or difficult to work with.

All you're doing is listing some of the questions that brain research is currently exploring by using a workable definition of consciousness that apparently does not seem as vague to neurobiologists as it does to you.

In any case, self-awareness appears around 18-22 months in humans, and although it's difficult to measure what's going on in the depths of a newborn's brain, there's every reason to believe that a human infant would require core consciousness in order to behave normally.



You claim that this is somehow vague, and yet you are able to formulate the same crisp questions that neurobiologists are also asking by using this definition.

The issue of the limits of non-conscious activity in humans is the subject of a broad array of research.

It's a good thing you're not the czar of new and interesting research on this planet... hard to see how anything would ever get looked into.

lol

You don't seem to understand.

When someone asks "how does consciousness arise," and I respond with questions like the ones above, the typical answer is "cmon dude you know what I mean by 'consciousness,' don't you have it yourself?"

Certainly that is the kind of useless reply !kaggen gives in threads, and my original post was a response to his assertions about the quality of pixy's information.

 

[rocketdodger]

No, I don't agree that the resulting set of particles is conscious.

What if we had a magic machine that did that to your entire body?

What could your body do that it did before?

Sawing a woman in half is one thing, if you invoke magic to keep each half from dying. She can still kick and wave and smile.

Blowing her to smithereens and spreading her across the galaxy is another kettle of fish entirely, magic or no.

So far, your thought experiment is simply asking, "Can the brain be conscious if the head it's in isn't attached to a body?" (yes, as long as the head stays alive somehow) and "Can the brain be conscious if we blow it to bits?" (no, even if those bits are somehow still performing the same dance moves they were before they got spread out across the galaxy).

Even with the magic to make the particles bounce separately the way they would be bouncing if they were in a brain, dude, you can't atomize a brain and expect it to work.

I'm sorry I thought you understood the point of the machine -- you don't.

When you agreed to the first part, I assumed it meant you understood that the machine was capable of magically "patching up" the fact that some particles were farther from each other than they should be, so that the new interactions between all the particles were effectively the same as the old ones even though the distances are completely different.

The only reason I kept the head intact is because I knew it would be less extreme than some other possibilities, case in point you agreed with that scenario but disagree with this one yet they are actually the same from a technical standpoint.

So lets go back to an even simpler example and make sure we agree to it. Instead of you and the space you are in, lets just look at two particles. Not even two atoms, just two particles.

If, by definition, the machine's action is this:

1) Applying some spatial/temporal transformation to one of the particles ( any of the 4 or more dimensions we know of )
2) "Patching up" the interactions between the two particles such that if behavior A of particle 1 would lead to behavior A of particle 2, 1(A) --> 2(A), in the original "un-transformed" setup, behavior A of particle 1 will lead to behavior A' of particle 2, 1(A)-->2(A'), where the ' denotes that A' is identical to A other than the fact that it has the transformation applied to it.

In other words, if particle 1 would move a little and disturb particle 2 such that it moves a little, the machine would keep this interaction consistent *even if* the transformation applied took particle 2 thousands of lightyears from particle 1. Meaning, the particles would have no idea they were that far from each other -- their causal interactions with each other are effectively the same.

Do you accept this magical action of the machine? Do you accept that after the action of the machine the causal interactions between the two particles are effectively identical?

NOTE that one can view this machine as simply a "modified" laws of nature. We don't know "why" particles act the way they do, we just know "how" they act ( to the extent that we can determine that ). So this machine is simply something that insures the "how" of particle behavior is "locked down" to a given set by drastically changing the "why" of their action.

 

[Belz...]

If you don't know then nothing and no one can explain it to you.

That's one of the lamest responses to a straight question ever. I hear that all the time. "Well if you don't know, I won't tell you". Of course, if he DID know, there'd be no need to tell him, would it ? So him not knowing seems a pretty idiotic reason not to tell him.

It actually sounds more like "Well, I can't really because I don't know, so here's a smokescreen."

You still haven't answered my own questions, mind you.

 

[Leumas]

You've been doing this for quite a while on the thread. I'm pretty sure that a reasonably intelligent theist might say that this is an Association Fallacy.

ETA:

Just sayin'!

Here is the definition ….. Notice the highlighted part.

Association Fallacy

An association fallacy is an inductive informal fallacy of the type hasty generalization or red herring which asserts that qualities of one thing are inherently qualities of another, merely by an irrelevant association. The two types are sometimes referred to as guilt by association and honor by association. Association fallacies are a special case of red herring, and can be based on an appeal to emotion.

It does not apply if it IS relevant.... and I have pointed out the relevance every time I made the association.

Saying Donkeys and Mules are similar because they both are from the Equidae family is not a fallacy..... saying Lions and Bison are similar because they both have four legs is a fallacy..... can you see the difference and why the latter is a fallacy while the former is not?

Here is a list that shows the points of similarity and thus the RELEVANCE and thus why it is not a fallacy.

I'm beginning to agree with you on some of the "faith" aspects of computational literalism.

I mean, it doesn't seem to bother the comp.lits that science has moved on and nobody studying the brain is working in that framework.

Or that their claims require violations of the laws of physics.

Or that their claims inevitably lead to a host of absurd conclusions (e.g. a brain made of rope could be conscious, or consciousness could be created by writing out the equations describing the brain's operations).

Or that their claims contradict direct observation.

Or that many of their views are based on philosophy which hasn't been verified against reality... and apparently, in their opinion, need not be.

But do not forget that YOU yourself also drew an excellent analogy and I congratulated you on it…..so you see it is not just me….. you too also noticed the similarity and formulated it quite appropriately and relevantly

Oh for "Bob"'s sake. PixyMisa simply has an operational definition for consciousness. Jumping in and attacking him over this is a pointless exercise, and is also doomed to failure so long as PixyMisa is consistent.

Take his operational definition at its word and get him to actually say something wrong first. And be careful--if all he's doing is speaking a different language than you, then you need "wrong" to be phrased in his language, not yours.

Yes....much like the theists have an "operational definition for" God. And you are right it is a "pointless exercise" to try to get a theist to see reality.

I mean look at someone like William Craig. He certainly is "consistent" too in his "operational definition" of his claptrap.


Certainly William Craig "is speaking a different language" than people who are not DELUSIONAL and to converse with him we have to REDEFINE REALITY in order to have it "be phrased in his language, not ours".


I fully agree..... PixyMisa's stance is the EPITOME of the theistic stance on "reality".


Well done....you summed it up quite well.

 

[Belz...]

That is not the case with the neurons.... the chemicals actually affect how they fire and how often they fire.

So ?

The circuit board made of cars works even if the working of the cars is entirely different from that of electronic components. It's also true for everyhing else we can make, so why would it be different for neurons ?

I still don't see how the composition of the machine changes much about what the machine does, since it's part of the thought experiment that the machine does the exact same _action_ as the brain.

Now, if you say that they don't perform the same action, that's one thing, but how they actually perform the action doesn't seem too relevant.

... unless you can somehow explain why it is.