Explain consciousness to the layman.

[Belz...]

Yet another theistic trait.....

If you think you're going to provoke a positive reaction which will benefit this discussion by continuously comparing your opposition to something they probably despise I think you'll find your strategy will not work.

I think you should change your strategy.

 

[Belz...]

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.

I'll tell you how it works: consciousness feels special, so it must be !

This forum pertains mainly to things that feel or seem a certain way, but aren't. Ghosts, UFOs, conspiracies, gods, fairies. And most of us here are quite content to admit that the brain can be fooled into seeing these things and being biased towards its own perceptions. But consciousness ? No. That's much too personal. It MUST be special.

Emotional involvement, that's how it works.

 

[yy2bggggs]

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

But relevant doesn't simply mean you can draw an analogy. Relevant means that the analogous things you're talking about apply.

William Lane Craig is not wrong because he is a theist (and thus, it would be erroneous to react because an analogy could be made to one), nor is William Lane Craig wrong because he makes operational definitions (and thus, simply because one can work with operational definitions does not mean he's wrong, even if WLC does it).

If you can spot why William Lane Craig is wrong, and find an analogous error with PixyMisa, then you have a point. Of course, if you can do this, one would have to wonder why you're bothering to compare it to William Lane Craig anyway. Why not just point out what's wrong?

ETA: I'd be happy to discuss this in more detail if need be, but it sounds like it should be a different thread.

 

[Leumas]

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.

If someone asks a meaningless question then he deserves a meaningless reply.

But in this case I did try to give him as meaningful a reply as his pointless question deserved.

If you read the rest of the post you deliberately and fallaciously contextomized you will notice that there was an answer in there that tries to explain to him why his question is meaningless.

Notice the part you managed to conveniently contextomize.

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


If you in anyway understand what science is and how many scientists are currently working on this subject you would have your answer. The fact that you have to ask is quite telling.

If you too do not understand that this is as good an answer as the question deserves then YOU answer him.

I await your answer to the question

Why do you think computer consciousness is in any way remarkable?

 

[westprog]

Again I'm not sure that's relevant, because then you'd have to count the number of connexions between computers and between transistors.

And you can decide what bits you need to count and what you can ignore until it becomes apparent that the exercise is meaningless.

 

[westprog]

I'll tell you how it works: consciousness feels special, so it must be !

It certainly does. Objectively, consciousness is unlike anything else - but that can't be - it's against our belief system. So we pretend that it exists in other things, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, and a total absence of evidence in its favour.

This forum pertains mainly to things that feel or seem a certain way, but aren't. Ghosts, UFOs, conspiracies, gods, fairies. And most of us here are quite content to admit that the brain can be fooled into seeing these things and being biased towards its own perceptions. But consciousness ? No. That's much too personal. It MUST be special.

This is another example of the fallacy of "the illusion of consciousness". Consciousness is the means by which people come to believe in ghosts and UFO's. Without consciousness, there is no belief, no being fooled, no being biased. These things rest on consciousness, they can't explain consciousness.

Emotional involvement, that's how it works.

It certainly does. Fundamentally, the only reason to think that consciousness isn't special and unique is an emotional loathing of the idea that humans might be something different from everything else.

We all live in a world where we regard other human beings as being conscious like ourselves - as mattering in some way. We also regard everything else* as not having any intrinsic value or importance. We know that it doesn't matter to the car what happens to it. We know that the TV doesn't care if it's on or off. This is how the sane people on the planet live their lives. Inanimate objects only matter because people care about them.

The sensible approach would be to wonder "why are human beings* so unusual - so exceptional and unique". The faith-based approach is to say "human beings must not be exceptional and unique. So I will think of a way that they can be relegated to the same status as their household utensils".

This is not a necessary approach from a materialist standpoint. A number of people on this thread disputing the computationalist view are atheists. They consider that consciousness has a physical cause, but don't insist that the first theory someone comes up with is necessarily true, or that human existence - the one thing that we actually know about - doesn't really exist.



*I'm leaving aside animals. Either they are unique together with humanity, or they aren't. Either way, they don't effect the discussion.

 

[westprog]

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.

I long ago gave up reading PM because he does claim to have all the answers, and he does say that it's all sewn up. His posts consist of simple assertions and when looked at closely, his claims amount to simply defining consciousness into something entirely different. The segments of his posts that I've seen quoted indicate that this hasn't changed at all.

 

[dlorde]

.. saying Lions and Bison are similar because they both have four legs is a fallacy...

Er, no, it isn't - because lions and bison are similar to the extent that they both have four legs.

If you'd said lions are hunters and have four legs, so bison are hunters because they also have four legs, you'd have an association fallacy.

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

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

I'll tell you how it works: consciousness feels special, so it must be !

The thing is … consciousness in and of itself doesn’t necessarily feel like anything. It’s the content of conscious awareness that feels quite rich, at least human consciousness seems to allow for a variety of experiences. Maybe most people just conflate the mechanism for consciousness with the whole diversity of experiences they have. That might be why a simple mechanism isn’t accepted as a proper explanation for the whole shebang.

Of course, even if we accept the minimal definition (consciousness as a self referential process), there’s still a lot left unexplained. Not so much in regards to consciousness in principle, but in how exactly it’s done in the brain, and certainly in regards to human experiencing – or human consciousness, if you like.

And yes, we would eventually have to deal with “qualia” as well (or whatever you like to call it). When it comes to “how it feels like…”, we might have to seriously consider if a particular substrate is required for the type of possible experiences produced within a human system, at least from a practical perspective, when trying to emulate such a system in another one (with different architecture and functional geometry).


Rodolfo Llinás has some intresting ideas about consciousness and qualia. (The last three short clips here: Llinás on consciousness and qualia.) (Btw ... the clip about free will is funny and informative, even in layman's terms.)

 

[!Kaggen]

The thing is … consciousness in and of itself doesn’t necessarily feel like anything. It’s the content of conscious awareness that feels quite rich, at least human consciousness seems to allow for a variety of experiences. Maybe most people just conflate the mechanism for consciousness with the whole diversity of experiences they have. That might be why a simple mechanism isn’t accepted as a proper explanation for the whole shebang.

Of course, even if we accept the minimal definition (consciousness as a self referential process), there’s still a lot left unexplained. Not so much in regards to consciousness in principle, but in how exactly it’s done in the brain, and certainly in regards to human experiencing – or human consciousness, if you like.

And yes, we would eventually have to deal with “qualia” as well (or whatever you like to call it). When it comes to “how it feels like…”, we might have to seriously consider if a particular substrate is required for the type of possible experiences produced within a human system, at least from a practical perspective, when trying to emulate such a system in another one (with different architecture and functional geometry).


Rodolfo Llinás has some intresting ideas about consciousness and qualia. (The last three short clips here: Llinás on consciousness and qualia.)

The content of anything describes the thing best.

The human neuron is a neuron because of what it's made of- cell organelles and cell membranes

The human brain is a human brain because of what it's made of - neurons, blood vessels and connective tissue.

Consciousness is consciousness because of what it's made of - thoughts and emotions

 

[westprog]

The thing is … consciousness in and of itself doesn’t necessarily feel like anything.

I think that you could rather say that feeling like anything is consciousness.

 

[tsig]

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.

What's your stance on reality?

 

[punshhh]

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.

Yes I use conceptual modeling like this.

Perhaps you can simulate A sufficiently*, however it is the assumption that consciousness is a result of the right combination of A's that I doubt.

Also as I said before the particles are ineffable to us, it cannot reasonably be assumed that the particles we perceive are what exists or in what way they are related to what actually exists.

* can we decide on what A is?

 

[rocketdodger]

Perhaps you can simulate A sufficiently*, however it is the assumption that consciousness is a result of the right combination of A's that I doubt.

I am not talking about simulating A anymore.

The question is whether the local version of 2(A) is different from the local version of 2(A')

I say it isn't, by definition, because 2(A') is simply 2(A) with a spatial transformation applied to it, and "local" means removing that spatial transformation, meaning brings it back to 2(A).

No?

 

[Leumas]

But relevant doesn't simply mean you can draw an analogy. Relevant means that the analogous things you're talking about apply.

William Lane Craig is not wrong because he is a theist (and thus, it would be erroneous to react because an analogy could be made to one), nor is William Lane Craig wrong because he makes operational definitions (and thus, simply because one can work with operational definitions does not mean he's wrong, even if WLC does it).

If you can spot why William Lane Craig is wrong, and find an analogous error with PixyMisa, then you have a point. Of course, if you can do this, one would have to wonder why you're bothering to compare it to William Lane Craig anyway. Why not just point out what's wrong?

ETA: I'd be happy to discuss this in more detail if need be, but it sounds like it should be a different thread.

I have pointed to precisely what you ask for in two posts already. Here and here.



In fact YOU are the one who did the analogy. I just clarified it.



William Craig is wrong because

He has an operational definition for God and the universe that is quite faulty. Trying to argue with him over it is a pointless exercise, and is also doomed to failure so long as Craig is consistent about defining his God and the laws of physics in those faulty terms.

He expects that we should take his operational definition at its word and if we want to argue with him we have to get him to actually say something wrong first but then we have to be careful because he is speaking a different language than reality, and we would of course need to redefine the definition of the word "wrong" so as to have it phrased in his version of reality not actual reality.​

Can you see how the above is in fact quite typical of theistic apologists? This is basically the epitome of CASUISTRY.

Can you recognize how redefining reality and the meaning of words and definitions of God and laws of physics is a mercurial and FAULTY way of thinking?

In fact it is a ubiquitous technique among theistic casuists who redefine reality and wrinkle up the world in order to cram it up their casuistic wishful thinking?


Now have a look at what YOU YOURSELF said about PixyMisa…. Do you now agree that there is a very relevant and strong analogy and that it is not fallacious to point that out?

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.

 

[annnnoid]

Why do you think computer consciousness is in any way remarkable?

Is ‘computer consciousness’ the same thing as ‘human consciousness’?

I'll tell you how it works: consciousness feels special, so it must be !

….no, nothing special about consciousness at all. I wonder why it is, then, that billions of dollars are spent around the world studying it (just about every university on the planet has dedicated cog sci degrees and research programs)…and why it is that explaining consciousness (contrary to Pixy’s conclusion…it hasn’t yet been explained) is still regarded as either the biggest or one of the biggest unanswered questions in science.

Conclusion: A very great many people are convinced that consciousness is, in fact, very special indeed. Apparently you are not one of them. Westprog outlined some possible reasons for this position quite nicely.

 

[AlBell]

You are shifting the goal posts AGAIN.

Not one iota. You're just not paying attention.

You cannot now claim that the internet is conscious as an ecosystem because the human brain is USING the computers in the internet.

First, I didn't say that. Second, my response was to a completely different question that specifically included the users in the system.

You did not say anywhere that the “finely-engineered machine of wire and silicon” had to also be combined with the not so special consciousness of the “two pounds of warm meat” to be considered conscious.

Because it doesn't.

Where did the 'conscious program' originate if not in 2 lbs of warm meat?

 

[westprog]

Conclusion: A very great many people are convinced that consciousness is, in fact, very special indeed. Apparently you are not one of them. Westprog outlined some possible reasons for this position quite nicely.

I don't of course want to claim that any individual is necessarily motivated by philosophical bent to adopt the computationalist view. However, as with creationism, a certain world view in likely to be associated with it.

 

[westprog]

Do you think that such an achievement is so mundane and common place so as to warrant no special considerations or attention whatsoever in history or among academia at least on par with inventing the airplane or the transistor or silicon chip?

Einstein got the Nobel prize in Physics for discovering the photoelectric effect but do you think that no one on the Nobel Prize committee thinks that the person who managed to break the artificial intelligence (AI) sound barrier and achieved consciousness in a computer is worthy of even a newspaper article or say in Times or Newsweek?

To be fair, Pixy has redefined consciousness so thoroughly that it is indeed an unremarkable achievement to write a conscious program. However, to achieve this, consciousness has had to be redefined to be quite different to anything that most people associate with the term.

 

[PixyMisa]

If you too do not understand that this is as good an answer as the question deserves then YOU answer him.

I await your answer to the question

Why should Belz answer a question about a viewpoint he doesn't appear to hold?

Could you please just answer the question?