On Consciousness

[Soapy Sam]

It does mean that you don't understand the physics and mathematics behind it though.

Granted. But Pixy, can you be sure you (or anybody) really do?(Does? )


That's what I mean. There is no "more complicated than that", not in any fundamental sense. Once a system is Turing-complete, all you can do is make it bigger.

It does mean that you don't understand the physics and mathematics behind it though.

I already agreed. Don't rub it in!

But that position is baseless unless you can find a way to disprove the Church-Turing Thesis^WP - which has held up for 80 years.[/quote]
*Sam goes Googling again*

 

[PixyMisa]

Another possibility is that the question (or some question) is not meaningless, but that we are at the moment unable to see what the meaning is.

Nope. The question relies on a concept that is either (a) logically inconsistent in itself or (b) requires a logically inconsistent Universe. Either way, meaning is toast.

 

[PixyMisa]

Or do you mean there is only one / more than two sides?

Yep, I think Jeff means that there's more than two sides to the debate.

 

[PixyMisa]

So if I am aware that fireworks are going off, for example, that is not SRIP? Does it only become SRIP if I am aware of my awareness that the fireworks are going off?

Yep. Awareness is reference; self-awareness is (quite logically) self-reference.

Additionally, how do you define self? That seems to be as tricky as defining consciousness.

Self is the thing that is doing the thing that is being done. Or to put it a little more concretely, if a given process is aware of something, and then that process also becomes aware of its own processing state, then it is self-referential and self-aware.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflection_(computer_programming)

 

[Soapy Sam]

Nope. The question relies on a concept that is either (a) logically inconsistent in itself or (b) requires a logically inconsistent Universe. Either way, meaning is toast.

Can you expand on this a bit?

 

[PixyMisa]

Can you expand on this a bit?

Yep. Qualia are defined as what is left over after all the purely physical processes involved in a mental experience have been explained. But that assumes that there would be anything left over, in other words, that the Universe is not purely physical, that there is something else.

Dualism requires that there are two distinct kinds of stuff - matter and spirit or whatever. The labels don't matter. What matters is that either the two kinds of stuff interact consistently, in which case they can be generalised into just one kind of stuff, or they don't interact consistently, in which case the Universe is not consistent, and all logic goes out the window. Or, third option, the claim is that they interact consistently but they are still distinct, in which case the Universe makes sense but the claim doesn't.

That's why I say that qualia is not a noun but a codeword meaning "and here I stopped thinking about the question".

It's like looking at a breakfast of coffee and donuts, and wondering what they're made of, and concluding that coffee is made of coffee stuff and donuts are made of donut stuff. And then - in light of the current topic- insisting that anyone who arrives bearing a long list of organic molecules and their proportional representation in each substance is arrogant and can't possibly know what they claim to know.

 

[Soapy Sam]

OK.
I wasn't sure if it was the qualia issue you meant.



I think we are using the same song sheet where qualia are concerned.

If a computer could be made using falling bricks or dominoes instead of electronic switches (or any mechanical and sufficiently insane method you can imagine) - do you think it would also be (in principle) capable of awareness?

 

[PixyMisa]

OK.
I wasn't sure if it was the qualia issue you meant.

I think we are using the same song sheet where qualia are concerned.

If a computer could be made using falling bricks or dominoes instead of electronic switches (or any mechanical and sufficiently insane method you can imagine) - do you think it would also be (in principle) capable of awareness?

Yep. I posted a few pages back a bunch of links and videos of various computers - one using marbles and wooden toggles, one made of tinkertoys, a working instance of Babbage's Difference Engine, a Turing Machine made of Lego, a fluidic computer (based on nothing but interacting streams of water!), and one actually made of neurons extracted from leeches and wired together. They're all equivalent in computational power (Church-Turing Thesis) and are all (in principle) capable of consciousness.

Oh, and Conway's Game of Life^WP, which is a computer, and there's a video of it implemented in Conway's Game of Life. That is, the computer is built out of another instance of itself.



That video is interesting because, as it zooms out, you can see the incredible amount of activity going on behind the scenes to produce what is, from a distance, just a dot blinking on and off. And yet, the simple rules of the game can compute anything that can be computed by any computer.

 

[quarky]

Yep, I think Jeff means that there's more than two sides to the debate.

A debate is reasonable. I'm glad for Sam here. He has a cool handed approach. There's so many ways to be wrong. The mirror test, for instance...it could be meaningless. Some animals simply aren't as heavily involved in visuals. An alien might have an equivalent test of self-awareness that we would fail. It wouldn't involve a mirror. We're very adept with mirrors.

There are deeper layers of consciousness computation will not address. That is my experience. My hunch is that this is not unique to humans. That we can't imagine this, or cannot detect it with science (yet) doesn't mean that discoveries will not be made.

Hence, its nearly blasphemic to hear of such certainty of understanding from computation. I'm not defending religion. I don't have one to defend.

I want a more expansive definition of consciousness, one that fits better with my perceptions.

 

[PixyMisa]

A debate is reasonable. I'm glad for Sam here. He has a cool handed approach. There's so many ways to be wrong.

Yes. And we've seen so many of them!

The mirror test, for instance...it could be meaningless.

Nope.

Some animals simply aren't as heavily involved in visuals.

That doesn't make it meaningless; that means it gives false negatives.

There are deeper layers of consciousness computation will not address. That is my experience.

No it's not. It's just an unfounded assertion.

Hence, its nearly blasphemic to hear of such certainty of understanding from computation. I'm not defending religion. I don't have one to defend.

I'm sorry. If you don't have a religion, how can anything anyone says be blasphemy?

I want a more expansive definition of consciousness, one that fits better with my perceptions.

And I want a pony.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Oh, and Conway's Game of Life^WP, which is a computer, and there's a video of it implemented in Conway's Game of Life. That is, the computer is built out of another instance of itself.

That video is interesting because, as it zooms out, you can see the incredible amount of activity going on behind the scenes to produce what is, from a distance, just a dot blinking on and off. And yet, the simple rules of the game can compute anything that can be computed by any computer.

It certainly is interesting, it never entered my head you could make a nested Game of Life. Fantastic.

But clearly you see a clear connection between something like this and awareness which I am failing to see. I see a computer doing what (electronic) computers do, which is moving switches very fast. It's reentrant and self referential and I wonder how much more power would be needed to add another level. It's impressive as hell...but at what point in what's going on there do you see awareness? You reckon it just IS the process of self referencing computation? What about continuity and memory?

 

[Dancing David]

Why "um"?

The known component system clearly is sufficient.
I just think that in a system that complex, there may be complications of which we are as yet unaware.
A horse and cart is sufficient to carry coal, but there's a lot more to horses than meets the eye.

The problem for me is not that the complexity of the human brain can produce complex effects. We know it does. My problem starts when it is suggested that a much less complex device, using quite different architecture, produces the same effects. This I find improbable.

Now I accept there's a question of degree. Nobody (I think) is saying a computer is producing consciousness of the same order as a human brain, but the computational argument is that what it produces is, ignoring the matter of degree, the same phenomenon. I see no reason that would be so. It may be something that produces very similar results in one area. But is it the same thing?
Pardon my flat Earth scepticism, but I have seen absolutely nothing to make me think computers experience anything analogous to awareness.
If there is direct evidence of this, point me at it and I'll be fascinated.
I do not insist that it is impossible, merely that I have seen nothing to make me think it happens.

I'm certainly not saying anything is impossible. I just want some evidence that it's probable.

It wouldn't be like that really. People built the Internet. We basically know how it does what it does. We didn't build brains and (unless it's something I haven't read of) we haven't built conscious computers either.

It seems to be rare, perhaps unique in nature. (see previous post). If it is unique, then it seems to be a hard thing for evolution to develop. That of course doesn't mean it's hard to develop artificially (think of the wheel), but it does suggest it is not simple to reproduce in any old hardware.
Absence of evidence ...
Frankly, I don't see much evidence on either side of the debate, unless we restrict it strictly to Pixy's definition. If we are going to consider any self referential processing as conscious, then yes, it's all around us.

If I define air as free money, then we're all rich. Not sure we're much better off though.

Fair enough.

I am not a hard computationalist, I believe that animals other than human are conscious or have consciousness similar to ours. And just so I believe that a computer could have consciousness or something similar to consciousness.

I think we are in agreement.

I myself however do not feel that consciousness, or the behaviors we define as consciousness is unique to humans.

 

[Dancing David]

There are deeper layers of consciousness computation will not address.

I deplore the way you have been treated in this thread.

But if you could experience it, it is likely to be replicable.

Not by any current systems being explored however.

 

[Belz...]

There are deeper layers of consciousness computation will not address. That is my experience.

As a skeptic, doesn't that ring alarm bells for you ?

 

[Belz...]

I want a more expansive definition of consciousness, one that fits better with my perceptions.

I want to reinterpret my perceptions, in order to fit betteer with observed evidence.

That sounds a lot more reasonable, doesn't it ?

 

[quarky]

I deplore the way you have been treated in this thread.

But if you could experience it, it is likely to be replicable.

Not by any current systems being explored however.

Really?
I assumed it was me being a jerk, because I enjoy a heated drama.
Pixy, for instance, is one of my favorite posters.

In fact, I'm not convinced that an artificial version of the deeper consciousness I allude to could not be had.
I don't see the point, particularly, but I can't rule it out.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Fair enough.

I am not a hard computationalist, I believe that animals other than human are conscious or have consciousness similar to ours. And just so I believe that a computer could have consciousness or something similar to consciousness.

I think we are in agreement.

I myself however do not feel that consciousness, or the behaviors we define as consciousness is unique to humans.

I tend to agree about other animals. I get a lot of fun watching dogs and crows - even bloody squirrels. There's surely something complicated going on inside furry heads. There's surely something complicated going on in computers, too. There are assuredly similarities. Whether they are the same is maybe less important than whether we can use one to understand the other.

 

[quarky]

As a skeptic, doesn't that ring alarm bells for you ?

Sure does.
That's why its so compelling.
I can't discount my observations, mostly because they aren't in violation of anything. If they were, I'd be more than suspicious, and probably seek medical help.

I have a pony for Pixy.

 

[Jeff Corey]

I don't see why not, Jeff.

It's possible for someone to be very knowlegable about one aspect of a matter and arrive at wrong conclusions, while someone wholly ignorant of the matter comes to equally wrong but different conclusions; simply because there was one bit of the puzzle that neither of them happened to know at one point.

Or do you mean there is only one / more than two sides?

Or summat else entirely?

I see at least three sides, if not more. That's why the question in the OP was unanswerable, at least for me. No choice was available that I could agree with.

 

[quarky]

I see at least three sides, if not more. That's why the question in the OP was unanswerable, at least for me. No choice was available that I could agree with.

Sweet.
I didn't vote either, but if I had, I'd go with the under-dogs, just for the conscious fun of it.