On Consciousness

[quarky]

They are notoriously hard to train.

They are already trained.
Our challenge would be to impose our needs within their behavior model.
This approach is a bit abstract.
perhaps I'll think of a way to word it better.

 

[blobru]

Oh, you were probably plenty clear. It was long and dense, and I was looking for pictures or adds in the middle, and then I had to wonder if it was a poem. I'm not a good reader. And I enjoy razzing your butt. Its a cute one.

You have been programmed to say the sweetest things sometimes.

 

[Zeuzzz]

Why do you think this? Let me phrase the question in another way:

Why do you think the causal sequences of node activation in an artificial neural network different than the causal sequences of node activation in a biological neural network?

The biological neural network is real. It's a highly complex system that works in mutual symbiosis with all scales, from the quantum, to the microscopic, to the full biological body and to the universe at large.

We have developed abstract mathematical frameworks and neuroscience to model it as best we can.

The artificial neural network is based on our abstract mathematical framework developed within an arbitrary scale of existance, primarily the scale that neurons and synapses exist in.

While the system developed might seem mathematically synonnymous with the real thing at this scale, its not conscious as its based on a spurious reductionalist philosophy that ignores the whole picture. The difference between the artificial and real network is the same as the difference between a contour map and a mountain.

We could continue down the road of reductionalism, forever looking at smaller and smaller details of the system and assigning special "consciousness giving" attributes to them; but this would be ignoring the bigger picture.

Human-type intelligence can not be implemented by any Turing-machine equivalent computer (ordinary, parallel, neural, or otherwise). If we are not more powerful than a computer then in principle one could write a (very complex) computer program that exactly duplicated his or her behavior. Any program that infers mathematical statements can infer no more than can be proved within an equivalent formal system of mathematical axioms and rules of inference, which Godel proved succinctly.

What the robot did was imagine the act of turning in either direction

Nonsense.

Prove that the computer is imagining anything, with testable experimental evidence as the foundation of this.

 

[Zeuzzz]

The idea that AI robots will improve the quality of human life is hilarious.

Don't worry quarky, the idea that computers can attain AI in the form of biological consciousness is even more hilarious than the possible consequences.

 

[Mr. Scott]

The biological neural network is real. It's a highly complex system that works in mutual symbiosis with all scales, from the quantum, to the microscopic, to the full biological body and to the universe at large.

What evidence is there that biological neural networks work at the scale of the universe at large?

 

[PixyMisa]

Never mind evidence, what is that even supposed to mean?

 

[!Kaggen]

It means the definition of the universe is dependent on biological neural networks.

 

[Zeuzzz]

What evidence is there that biological neural networks work at the scale of the universe at large?

I never said that.

Your using reductinalism again! Try to see the big picture for a bit. And possibly the difference between the AI computers functions and how they relate to the wider universe and a humans and how they differ.

(Btw, writing lenghty responce as we speak)

 

[Zeuzzz]

Never mind evidence, what is that even supposed to mean?

If you don't understand it then saying this does not help much, you need to quote excerpts and ask me directly.

 

[Roboramma]

So, what does this mean:

It's a highly complex system that works in mutual symbiosis with all scales, from the quantum, to the microscopic, to the full biological body and to the universe at large.

 

[Mr. Scott]

It means the definition of the universe is dependent on biological neural networks.

Do you believe that? If you do, exactly how do you know that?

 

[Zeuzzz]

It means the definition of the universe is dependent on biological neural networks.

Sort of, but the biggie is if consiousness prucludes the brain in the first place. I think that peoples consiousness is a lot bigger (eww, that sounded weird) and more like a field continuum than an emergent property of the material brain.

Heh, just re-read tha above, that sounds just like an offshot of string theory in a way, but more likely to be able to be tested as it doesn't come in an infinite set of forms so is unfalsifiable from the get go and a non science. And we alreay have the whole of neuroscience, biology, psysiology, psychopharmacology, psychedelics drugs (of which we have barely scratced the surface seriously) and ever more interesting work on the non-algorithmic elements of quantum fuzziness when we get down to the very core consious/essesne/field of reality.

 

[Mr. Scott]

I never said that.

Your using reductinalism again! Try to see the big picture for a bit. And possibly the difference between the AI computers functions and how they relate to the wider universe and a humans and how they differ.

(Btw, writing lenghty responce as we speak)

I think you did say that, and if you didn't, you were not being clear.

I'm don't think I'm being reductionalistic. I'm focusing on what it seems you are actually claiming, and challenging you to back it up with factual evidence. I'm not going to let you get away with Chopra-esque vagaries and evasions. I'm going to cross-examine your statements, and if I have to focus on unsupportable claims, I'll risk the accusation of reductionalism.

It's a far better path to truth than something that sounds like "consciousness is the whole universe, man."

 

[Zeuzzz]

So, what does this mean:

"It's a highly complex system that works in mutual symbiosis with all scales, from the quantum, to the microscopic, to the full biological body and to the universe at large. "

By "mutual symbiosis" I should explain I mean that consiousness is not just something someone has, its a continuum thats effected by things that you simply can not predict by mathematical models (no matter how elegant and successful they are)

An effect from the universe would be, say stormy weather gives the brain neumonia, or they accidenattally eat some (a) alpha radiation.

Its a highly complex system, in that we can not predict it. Its a living entity, it reacts with other living entities; at this scale this is who we are, the scale that gives us our sense of agency. We may be able to model the neurons and synapse firings that fit very well with high accuracy for a good amount of the time, but within a relatively short time the brain activity will stay away from any sort of prediction made. This is where our free will comes into play. There will be unexpected occurances, too many variables, and ambiguities will start to contradict the predictions made of how their neurons should be firing. The only way predictions can be made is if the person is asked to stay in very very specific states of mind, even then its still a pretty unexact science at times.

Say someone tried to predict what someone MRI scan will show over the peroid of a day. Then for example, say their biological mum comes and visits in the MRI scanner while the brain is being studied, unexpectedly. Or the person poos them selves by accident in the machine. Or a gamma ray from a millsecond pulsar comes through and destroys the machine and effects the brain waves. Or an earth quake distorts the reading. Or a virus floats onto his leg. All these effects did not come from them choosing to do so, these far away phenomena are inextreicably linked to their consious brain from the distant universe.

Even if we get really really really close by using great science. The weather is another system in mutualistic symbiosis with us, we rely on it, it relies on us (debate able atm, I expect that trees are on good terms with the earth more than us at the moment).

 

[Zeuzzz]

It means the definition of the universe is dependent on biological neural networks.

Not quite, you have the cause and effect backwards.

The one thing that we all experience, but cant measure, test, explain, the sense of self, consciousness, agency, etc. Would seem the far more likely to be the building blocks of the universe.

I can see how people have lead with this assumption in the past.

Brain = There, testable
Mind = ? feels like its in the brain, so brain must cause it.
Thus brain was assumed to create mind.

But to me thats logically backwards.

Why not mind presumed to create the brain?

Would this crude and totally opposite starting assumption really have made any difference to the amazing myriad of biologicial sciences that's progressed since?

 

[Roboramma]

"It's a highly complex system that works in mutual symbiosis with all scales, from the quantum, to the microscopic, to the full biological body and to the universe at large. "

By "mutual symbiosis" I should explain I mean that consiousness is not just something someone has, its a continuum thats effected by things that you simply can not predict by mathematical models (no matter how elegant and successful they are)

That's not what you mean my "mutual symbiosis", that's a particular aspect of what you mean by it. But it's still not clear what you mean by mutual symbiosis. If what you're saying is basically that people are affected by the rest of the universe and because of chaos we can't make exact predictions about the future behavior of the brain, well, that's true but I think we're all aware of it, it equally true of the behavior of the atmosphere, for instance.

 

[!Kaggen]

Do you believe that? If you do, exactly how do you know that?

Yes, by studying how the meaning of words/concepts have changed through history.
Take the concept of linear perspective or 3D.
Can we say it did not exists before it was demonstrated by Filippo_Brunelleschi^WP in the early 15th century?
Did people not see in 3D before this? Of course they did.
Why were artists not able to paint what they saw? They surely had the physical ability, but their relationship to environment they saw was different before Brunelleschi's demonstration. Clearly the concept of what they saw (the 3D environment such as a building) had a different meaning after Brunelleschi's demonstration. We assume that conceptual representations of things are simply names we give to things we perceive. However these names are not static and they change depending on "how we perceive".
How we perceive is dependent on our biological neural network. Why should the concept universe be any different? As we become aware of more models which demonstrate new "views" of the universe the universe as a concept changes. Assuming now that the concept universe is all the possible views we might develop about it in the future is nonsense. Even science does not work like that. It does not assume that all possibilities exist only those that are demonstrated.

 

[Zeuzzz]

That's not what you mean my "mutual symbiosis", that's a particular aspect of what you mean by it. But it's still not clear what you mean by mutual symbiosis. If what you're saying is basically that people are affected by the rest of the universe and because of chaos we can't make exact predictions about the future behavior of the brain, well, that's true but I think we're all aware of it, it equally true of the behavior of the atmosphere, for instance.

I have answered this, but I'm in an acute stage of mania at the moment (get this for a week or so every year for some reason!) so instead of replying I'm writing a mini thesis about how consiousness can unify the fundamental forces and have a way with the issue of dark matter, free will, and solve the long standing issue of why you get a sore mouth when you eat too much kellogs cornflakes.

That is if my keyboard doesn't catch on fire.

I expect nothing less than a nobel prize, although a move to AAH might suffice.

I gotta go hand in an assignment I aced now though, guess thats why me'sa so manic today.

I'll be back.

 

[tensordyne]

Interesting conversation in the recent posts but I must admit I do not like the polling options as it does not address one possibility. That possibility is that consciousness might be the result of certain types of electromagnetic activity, so that consciousness would not be a "thing", it would be a "property".

I like !Kaggen's last post. Concsciousness may very well turn out to be something for which we need a set of drastically new and different concepts for it to be finally understood. Really, I do not know what consciousness is, but I am relatively certain it is not algorithm or based on computation.

There is no algorithm that helps to explain the feeling of what of what it is like to be something. Dennett, in my estimation, is a philosophical sheister (Look up a paper by Ton Dirksen where Ton destroys Dennett by showing how Dennett does the same kind of word game tricks that Freud used to such pseudo-scientific effect). Plus, Dennett seems scientific, but he is really using Scholasticism as his philosophical modus operandi (my own observation). His source is not ancient texts like the scholastics of old. His source is scientific papers and ideas. That does not change the fact that dialectical thinking is not always the best route to greater scientific understanding, as it can often lead one astray (see Francis Bacon and Galileo for ideas on why this might be the case).

Consciousness should first and foremost be understood to be about sensation and experience. The low hanging fruit is the analytical mind. Chalmers and Searle are right and Dennett is wrong (Dennett is also wrong about Visual Scotomas, read the paper by V. S. Ramachandran et. al if you want to see a good intellectual brow beating).

Dennett is the one I think that has made so many atheists and secular minded people think consciousness is all about computation (perhaps others helped a bit too!). I can not blame him for his efforts to advance secular values (in fact that is very praise worthy) but I think he has played into a philisophical blind-spot many atheists and science minded people have. We talk about the world as if our models are 100% true and observation is dependent on your model. We really should respect the primacy of consciousness (observation) in the scientific endeavor.

Just some thoughts.

 

[quarky]

Consciousness may be nothing more than a consensus of opinion.
Altering it shifts the consensus.