Explain consciousness to the layman.

[Leumas]

Ok…. I am really interested to find out how many on this forum believe that

at least some of the applications typically found on a modern computer are conscious

is a peer reviewed scientifically proven fact and that

I've written such programs myself

Also

do you think computer consciousness is in any way remarkable?

Do you think that the above 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?

 

[PixyMisa]

It certainly does. Objectively, consciousness is unlike anything else

That's untrue. It's computation. That means - obviously - that it's like computation.

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.

That doesn't actually respond to the point in any way.

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.

Completely untrue, and a logical fallacy in multiple ways (appeal to motive, poisoning the well).

I have explained my position precisely and in detail. You choose to attack me personally rather than address the point. This does not strengthen your position.

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".

No.

The sensible approach would be to wonder "are human beings so unusual - so exceptional and unique". Establish your premise before building a castle upon it.

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".

Same logical fallacies as before.

This is not a necessary approach from a materialist standpoint.

Yes, ultimately it is. We're all made of the same stuff. You're ultimately just a pile of inexpensive chemicals. The interesting part is how those chemicals interact while you are alive.

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.

You either haven't made any attempt to understand the computational model, or you are just making stuff up. Don't know which. Don't care much, either.

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

All or nothing fallacy.

 

[Jeff Corey]

Hi, Mr. Layman here. Where's my definition?

 

[psionl0]

Hi, Mr. Layman here. Where's my definition?

According to some people it is apparently nothing at all.

I don't get the anger. Pixy's definition of "consciousness" might be inadequate but it is consistent with all of his posts.

All you have to do is provide a better definition of consciousness.

 

[PixyMisa]

Hi, Mr. Layman here. Where's my definition?

Hi Mr Layman!

Consciousness is self-referential information processing.

By this I mean that consciousness is the processing of information - thinking, remembering, making decisions - that refers back to its own state and activity.

When refer to someone or something as conscious, we're talking about the ability of the system to reflect on its own mental state. A living creature that acts directly upon stimuli is not conscious. A system that has a model of the external world is not automatically conscious, no matter how detailed and extensive that model may be.

A system that also includes a model of its own processing, and includes that model in its decision path, is conscious.

 

[annnnoid]

Why not ask me a question?

I did….

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

 

[yy2bggggs]

Last things first.

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?

Nope. I only see that you drew an analogy. I disagree that it is relevant; and by that definition, that it is strong. Repeating yourself won't make the point. There are specific reasons why I think this is not an apt analogy.

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?

WLC's KCA is wrong because all three premises are false, and because the conclusion does not follow from them. But if WLC gave an operational definition of "God" as "an entity which did not come into being", and legitimately proved that an entity that did not come into being exists, then that would be valid--by definition of legitimate. Once WLC says, "Aha! And that can only be a personal god that is the God of the bible", that's where he goes wrong, because only when he proves that X that is his operational definition of "God", then claims that the X he proved was really Y, did he commit an equivocation.

Ironically, that is exactly the problem I think you are having. Only here, PixyMisa is giving the X as the operational definition of consciousness. And as it turns out, you are the one saying, "Aha! And that can only be ...". So in this case, you would be committing the equivocation.

Words are simply not what is most important. Clear thinking of the concepts are. Words are just tools; as the saying goes, "Words are our servants, not our masters."

Now, if you simply said for example that the leading experts say that consciousness is Y, and that PixyMisa's issue is that his X isn't what people mean by consciousness, then you would have a valid ground for objection. Specifically, this would be the objection--that what PixyMisa is calling consciousness isn't what the leading experts are. And in this case, not only would it be a valid ground for objection--but it would be a decent discussion.

 

[westprog]

I don't get the anger. Pixy's definition of "consciousness" might be inadequate but it is consistent with all of his posts.

All you have to do is provide a better definition of consciousness.

Piggy's definition - the process that goes on in an awake or dreaming human being that doesn't occur in a deeply sleeping person. It has the advantage of having something to do with consciousness, rather than describing something happening in an unrelated field.

Pixy's definition has the major flaw of conflating the explanation with the definition. If you start with the explanation and look for a phenomenon to attach to if, and then fit the word onto that, you can get a perfect fit, but at the cost of abandoning the thing you were trying to explain in the first place. As with many people in this field, he's avoided the question of subjective experience so that he can have a tidy working little model. Avoiding the difficult questions is never the way to make progress.

 

[PixyMisa]

I did….

Sorry, I was answering that last night, but lost track of all the posts and must have closed that tab.

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

That depends of course on what you mean.

Consciousness is consciousness, and brains are computers. But the consciousness exhibited by individual computer programs so far necessarily has access to less processing power and information capacity.

Human consciousness is like computer consciousness in the same way that human life is like mouse life: The former is bigger and more complicated, but it's isomorphic to the latter: You can map one to the other.

….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.

Simple: No-one is spending billions of dollars studying the fundamental mechanism of consciousness. Indeed, I'm not sure if billions of dollars are being spent on all areas of cognitive science added together.

What is being studied is the details.

Conclusion: A very great many people are convinced that consciousness is, in fact, very special indeed.

Non-sequitur.

Apparently you are not one of them. Westprog outlined some possible reasons for this position quite nicely.

Where? I was looking for that previously when I was typing my first response to this post, but I couldn't find anything of the sort.

 

[PixyMisa]

Piggy's definition - the process that goes on in an awake or dreaming human being that doesn't occur in a deeply sleeping person. It has the advantage of having something to do with consciousness, rather than describing something happening in an unrelated field.

Of course, mine has that advantage as well, and it's far more specific.

Pixy's definition has the major flaw of conflating the explanation with the definition.

Not at all. There's no flaw and no conflation. A definition can be an explanation, and the best definitions are explanations.

If you start with the explanation and look for a phenomenon to attach to if, and then fit the word onto that, you can get a perfect fit, but at the cost of abandoning the thing you were trying to explain in the first place.

So don't do that then.

As with many people in this field, he's avoided the question of subjective experience so that he can have a tidy working little model.

Completely untrue, and a logical fallacy as well (appeal to motive). My definition directly addresses the nature of subjective experience.

Avoiding the difficult questions is never the way to make progress.

Nor is imagining problems where none exist.

 

[punshhh]

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?

Yes I agree on the assumption that relativity does not play a pivotal role in the state of the particles. Or are you suggesting a simulated relativistic manifold of any kind?

I say this because I do consider in my view on existence that matter and spacetime are fundamentally contingent on each other and relativistic locality of a particle of matter is in a way what the particle is.

 

[punshhh]

Hi Mr Layman!

Consciousness is self-referential information processing.

By this I mean that consciousness is the processing of information - thinking, remembering, making decisions - that refers back to its own state and activity.

When refer to someone or something as conscious, we're talking about the ability of the system to reflect on its own mental state. A living creature that acts directly upon stimuli is not conscious. A system that has a model of the external world is not automatically conscious, no matter how detailed and extensive that model may be.

A system that also includes a model of its own processing, and includes that model in its decision path, is conscious.

I rather think you have thrown the baby out with the bath water here. Which probably explains why we are not in agreement over the issue.

Specifically that I see no reason to assume that consciousness is the processing itself, but is rather an overlay.

 

[PixyMisa]

I rather think you have thrown the baby out with the bath water here. Which probably explains why we are not in agreement over the issue.

That's why I've been posting my definition over and over for years.

Specifically that I see no reason to assume that consciousness is the processing itself, but is rather an overlay.

Could you expand on that? What sort of overlay? What does it do? I won't ask you to propose how it works, but if you have an idea, I'm interested in that too.

But if you think there's something to consciousness beyond my definition, please tell me what that is, as specifically as possible.

 

[psionl0]

Piggy's definition - the process that goes on in an awake or dreaming human being that doesn't occur in a deeply sleeping person. It has the advantage of having something to do with consciousness, rather than describing something happening in an unrelated field.

That is a more appealing definition for sure. It resonates with what most of us intuitively feel about consciousness. However, it is not a workable definition because it doesn't describe the "process".

Pixy's definition has the major flaw of conflating the explanation with the definition. If you start with the explanation and look for a phenomenon to attach to if, and then fit the word onto that, you can get a perfect fit, but at the cost of abandoning the thing you were trying to explain in the first place. As with many people in this field, he's avoided the question of subjective experience so that he can have a tidy working little model. Avoiding the difficult questions is never the way to make progress.

ie "inadequate".

I must admit that I have to keep pulling my eyebrows back down when I read what PixyMisa is posting on this thread. Of course I can't really criticize him until I have a better definition of "consciousness" (not that there is any shortage of critics anyway).

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

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

Sure you could say that, although it would be somewhat redundant, and, more importantly, an inference. Don’t get me wrong here: there’s no doubt we’re feeling, experiencing (or that there is consciousness).

But when you’re postulating that consciousness actually is all that, then you’re simply adding an umbrella-definition, an abstraction, for a systemic condition for where experiencing can take place … in contrast to another systemic condition which does not allow for such experiencing to take place (unconsciousness). Hence, explaining that systemic difference between the conditions requires a 3rd person perspective rather than a 1st person perspective (because we cannot per definition have a 1st person perspective of unconsciousness). Any useful explanation of the difference must have them being compared from the same perspective.

I think Pixy is simply saying that the difference we find between the two systemic conditions, when using the same perspective on the same system, is in principle generalizable, by way of mechanism, to many other systems. That’s the minimal definition; consciousness as a general mechanism rather than a vague umbrella-definition of everything it allows for in a particular system when “online”. Obviously, explaining the variety of experiencing in the human system, or how the 1st person perspective in that system is produced in the first place, is still ahead. I’m pretty sure that requires a more detailed and specialized explanatory level. Hence why I think the actual substrate must be taken into account here. I.e., we are not off the hook when it comes to explaining the details of the human system.

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

The content of anything describes the thing best.

Okay. But I don’t think it explains it in the best way. For instance, I can hear the content of my mp3 file, but it doesn’t seem to explain to me how it works. (Although there might be such an mp3 file as well.)

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

This is true of course. But it’s not saying much in terms of explanations for how they function. When it comes to your last line here, about consciousness being thoughts and emotions, I consider that definition to be operationalized into many specific components in order to be useful in our endeavor to try to eventually understand the whole system again.

If we’re really successful in understanding it, it means we’re able to generalize certain aspects of its functioning and draw parallels to other systems; i.e. “finding” general principles. (The general principles would of course be models (abstractions), not the thing itself, but that's the nature of knowledge anyhow.)

 

[Belz...]

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

And now, for 100 points, which of these four examples is actually an action, not an object ?

 

[Belz...]

….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.

Because it's fascinating and and mysterious, why else ?

Or are you saying you had no idea what I meant by "special" ?

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.

Argument from popularity is a fallcy.

 

[Belz...]

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

Relevance ?

 

[Belz...]

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.

To be fair: how most people define consciousness may not stand up to scientific standards, or indeed correspond to reality.