Explain consciousness to the layman.

[Piggy]

You are aware, of course, that you're still conscious while sleeping, right ? What are dreams if not experiences, for instance, and how do you wake up to a loud noise if you don't experience ?

Good questions.

Dreams are conscious states.

But experience is not necessary for attention, memory, learning, and perception. The non-conscious parts of the brain are fully capable of handling the task of starting up the experience generator when a loud noise hits your ear.

Interestingly, you are likely to wake up with the memory of the noise, although it may be dim or distorted.

The cocktail party effect is another similar case. It's the workings of your non-conscious brain which cause your name to "jump out at you" from the drone of background conversation.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

If one claims to know and then his hypothesis leads to WRONG RESULTS then his claim to knowing does not become more valid than a person who claims to not know or a person who postulates a hypothesis that is not yet verified or negated.

Wrong by whose definition? Yours? The guy who claims to not know? You do a lot of talking, but it all presumes that consciousness is well-enough defined that you can say definitively which explanations are incorrect. I don't believe it is.

Or, at least, it would be if you didn't conflate intelligence and consciousness, so with that error added in, I'm really at a loss.

Continuing the theme of subjective definitions of consciousness, I'm not certain how you'd separate the two.

 

[Piggy]

Correct in general, but it still seems to me that explaining how all that works would have to separate (A) different kinds of experiencing and (B) the systemic mechanism (the generator) as conceptually different; they might belong to different explanatory categories, where the mechanism is explained in terms of more general principles. Hence we probably have to explain them in different ways, using different levels of abstraction.

We do have a general framework for different kinds of experiencing, which can be described in terms of the experiences themselves and the correlating brain activity.

As far as "explanatory categories" we certainly do expect that the physical processes generating experience will be somehow distinct from those which do not -- although they will interact -- simply because they generate different sorts of phenomena. But it will all fall under the same laws of physics which, as far as we know, underlie all phenomena in our universe.

 

[Piggy]

Ok lets just end this nonsense once and for all.

What is the significant fundamental difference between a generalized computer and the human brain that causes you think generalized computers can't be conscious?

Neurons function by integrating signals transferred by waves of ion flux across membranes. Transistors function by integrating signals transferred by waves of electron flux through a circuit. Both entities integrate signals based on changes in the flux of charged particles.

Brains don't change shape, or even connectivity, during transient thought. All the neurons stay the same, and synaptic plasticity doesn't occur on a timescale short enough for us to be able to list it as a core requirement for consciousness. The only thing that changes is the pattern of signals travelling around the network. Computers are exactly the same -- they don't change shape, and the connectivity between transistors remains static. The only thing that changes is the pattern of signals travelling around the network.

So what is so special about a brain that a computer can't do? You still haven't answered that question piggy, and it seems like the most important question of all. Fundamentally both systems operate in a very similar manner and are capable of very similar signal flow.

Furthermore if the flow of information is what is important, then why do you assert that the physical connectivity must be similar? If the information flow is equivalent between two different network layouts, who is to say which one is correct? This is tantamount to saying that a neural network built with transistors might be conscious, but one built with vacuum tubes, relays, or any other kind of switch, can't be. Why not? I don't understand what criteria you are using to judge whether a given physical device is suitable when the only metric that should matter is whether they can integrate signals based on changes in the flux of charged particles.

Why do you believe that "information flow" does, or even can, make a thing conscious?

 

[rocketdodger]

You preserved the interactions of the particles, but as the icy branch example demonstrates, this does not mean your system will behave the same as the original.

I don't understand how a materialist can suggest there is more to the universe than particle interactions.

Yet you are a self-proclaimed materialist and you are clearly suggesting there is more to the universe than particle interactions.

???

 

[rocketdodger]

Why do you believe that "information flow" does, or even can, make a thing conscious?

Because people aren't conscious unless there is information flowing in their brain.

Look I would love to remain conscious after my body has turned to dirt in the grave, but I don't think it works that way.

Do you disagree?

 

[Piggy]

Yes, pain is experiencing, no illusion there. The experience is always real, what it feels like it corresponds to might however not be. Or the actual underlying nature it corresponds to might be vastly different than what we intuitively think it is.

We experience so we say that we must have consciousness. But can we honestly say that we are perceiving consciousness? And if not, then what are we actually referring to when we’re referring to consciousness rather than to experiencing. Are they simply synonyms? Or is there something other than experiencing implied with consciousness?

You don't "perceive consciousness".

Your body -- your brain, specifically -- performs experience.

While that's happening, "you" exist. When that's not happening, "you" don't exist.

There is no independent self to "perceive" anything.

Our experience is entirely the performance of our brain. Nothing you experience -- color, pain, emotion, sound, heat, cold, texture, etc. -- has any objective existence at all. Out there, it's all just interacting "wavicles of probability".

It's all a performance of your brain.

Granted, it's a performance that allows your body to move around in the world so that it doesn't easily get killed or starve to death... but it's still 100% peformance.

 

[rocketdodger]

To my knowledge, only PixyMisa makes claims that the issue is solved (by SRIP).

Correct.

However many more of us make the claim that if you simulated a whole person accurately, that sucker would be conscious. In fact many of us are 100% certain of it.

 

[Piggy]

But the operational definition pixy uses happens to be useful

No, it's not.

And if you didn't have the hubris which makes you believe that studying non-conscious machines grants you the expertise to contradict the people who study conscious brains, then you might see that.

Pixy's definition of consciousness would leave you with nowhere to begin if you tried to use it to study actual conscious objects.

It is not useful at all. That's why no one who actually studies consciousness uses it.

 

[Piggy]

I don't understand how a materialist can suggest there is more to the universe than particle interactions.

Yet you are a self-proclaimed materialist and you are clearly suggesting there is more to the universe than particle interactions.

???

Well, catch up on some complexity and chaos theory, and you'll see how.

The assumption that "it's only particle interaction" has been popular for some time, but never proven, and now it's on extremely shaky ground.

The weight of the ice is what breaks the branch. The particles in the ice behave the same whether they're part of a patch heavy enough to break the branch or not.

When the dolphin leaps, the particles go with it. It's very difficult to see how we could explain the behavior of the dolphin from the perspective of the particles which comprise it.

 

[Piggy]

Because people aren't conscious unless there is information flowing in their brain.

Look I would love to remain conscious after my body has turned to dirt in the grave, but I don't think it works that way.

Do you disagree?

Yes, I disagree. (Except, of course, with the bit about not being conscious after you're dead.)

To me, the metaphorical phrase "information flowing in [the] brain" has no clear meaning at all.

 

[Piggy]

Correct.

However many more of us make the claim that if you simulated a whole person accurately, that sucker would be conscious. In fact many of us are 100% certain of it.

Yeah, well, what can I say? Takes all kinds, I guess.

Keep your eyes peeled for the post on why the sim can't replace a brain. I'll explain more fully there. Maybe tomorrow, but I'm out of state this weekend, so maybe not til next week.

 

[Leumas]

Correct.

However many more of us make the claim that if you simulated a whole person accurately, that sucker would be conscious. In fact many of us are 100% certain of it.

Yeah, well, what can I say? Takes all kinds, I guess.

If I could exctract a dollar out of every person who is 100% certain of things just out of wishful thinking and because of the desire to alleviate cognitive dissonance, I would be as rich as the Pope and Donald Trump....oh wait... Isn't that in fact how they do it?

Keep your eyes peeled for the post on why the sim can't replace a brain. I'll explain more fully there. Maybe tomorrow, but I'm out of state this weekend, so maybe not til next week.

Hurry up and do it.. If I were not interested as are, I am sure, many who are not 100% sure of anything in this world, I would have adviced you to not waste your time. However, there are many around here who know they do not know and welcome input even if it might be contrary to their wishful thinking.

 

[anglolawyer]

It's not that easy.

If it were, an iphone would be conscious for interpreting touch and light.

Consciousness implies internal motivation as well. An iphone doesn't "care" about what touched it. It immediately responds to what touched it in a mechanical way.

You poke me, a dog, and an iphone. The phone just launches whatever protocol based on touch. A dog and me wants to assess the poke. We'd take a rough poke as a form of aggression. But if we had a past experience with the thing poking that's taken in consideration. An owner or loved one joking is accepted. A dog would be more instinct but I could think deeper on the poke. If it's a stranger but not threatening, is it some psychological experiment? Maybe something's wrong with them for inappropriately poking in this social context. And so on.

I could have a reflex based on a poke. Making that reaction similar to the iphone.

But that one input can have various internally motivated results rather than one simple mechanical or electrical result.

If an Iphone just started launching programs and typed in whatever it wanted with no external stimulus or intended internal programming, then we could wonder if it's conscious.

So I'd say a guideline for consciousness is that the object in question is acting without an immediate external stimulus or performing routine operations.

Good post but I wonder whether you are confusing intelligence with consciousness when contrasting you and the dog. I don't wonder btw. because I have some brilliant solution of my own. I certainly do not. Actually, what is the difference anyway?

 

[Piggy]

In spite of its popularity as a theory, I've never seen the "Consciousness as an illusion" idea as making any sense at all. I don't think it's possible to put the theory in a sentence that isn't self-contradictory.

You always end up with a bootstrapping problem with the "consciousness as illusion" proposition.

 

[anglolawyer]

Correct.

However many more of us make the claim that if you simulated a whole person accurately, that sucker would be conscious. In fact many of us are 100% certain of it.

I guess you heard of the Turing test (computers will have achieved intelligence when it becomes impossible to distinguish them from humans in a conversation). Someone asked Turing once how we would know the computer was thinking and Turing's reply was to ask how could he (Turing) ever know his questioner was thinking.

 

[leonAzul]

However many more of us make the claim that if you simulated a whole person accurately, that sucker would be conscious. In fact many of us are 100% certain of it.

Based on what evidence?

Your so-called "information theory" of consciousness is little more than a conjecture based on a mathematical model.

Where are the independently verifiable observations of this machine consciousness that it models?

 

[rocketdodger]

No, it's not.

And if you didn't have the hubris which makes you believe that studying non-conscious machines grants you the expertise to contradict the people who study conscious brains, then you might see that.

Pixy's definition of consciousness would leave you with nowhere to begin if you tried to use it to study actual conscious objects.

It is not useful at all. That's why no one who actually studies consciousness uses it.

You don't think a metric that allows one to reject candidates without fear of false negatives is a useful metric?

 

[westprog]

Wrong by whose definition? Yours? The guy who claims to not know? You do a lot of talking, but it all presumes that consciousness is well-enough defined that you can say definitively which explanations are incorrect. I don't believe it is.

I rather think that the implication of consciousness being not well-enough defined is that all explanations are in doubt.

"Oh no! We're trapped by unbreakable philosophical constraints! Quick, we have to define our way out!"

The trouble with defining consciousness as something that a computer or some other piece of equipment does is that somebody might think that the computational definition of consciousness has something to do with that other form of consciousness that humans have.

 

[westprog]

Why do you believe that "information flow" does, or even can, make a thing conscious?

"Information flow" being something that's never been defined in a satisfactory way. It either presumes conscious interpretation, or else - if we were to use a physicist's definition - there's far too much of it.