Are You Conscious?

[Ichneumonwasp]

Agreed.


I see your point here, but do not agree that captures the essence of what has gone on in this and in similar threads.


If PixyMisa and RD agree that this is what they have been saying, I'll stand corrected.

Pixy did mention his thermostat (which doesn't have SRIP) isn't conscious, but his toaster I believe still is. As are programs he and many others have coded.


As I asked RD, what meaning does abstracted consciousness have?

ps. I'm sorry nothing approaching closure was reached in your Awareness thread. I still like 'awareness of awareness'.

You'll have to ask them, but I can't imagine Pixy or RD saying that a non-existent abstraction is conscious. I would bet they are using it as evidence that consciousness is computable in the abstract, so it can be realized in other physical systems theoretically.

As to thermostats and toasters, that is now and has always been an exercise in definitions. Why does everyone not see that? Pixy proposed a definition and applied it. He asked others to say what else was needed for consciousness and, according to him, received no useful replies (he knows darn well that that definition does not constitute a sufficient definition for human consciousness). I don't follow these threads closely enough to know if that assessment is accurate, but I would bet based on my own attempts to get people to arrive at a definition of several of the words involved that it is.

I don't pretend that any of this is easy, but answers that amount to "you can't get there from here" based on specious reasoning are simply unhelpful.

So, what has been helpful as criticism in the past? The Chinese Room argument, for one. That argument showed that simple syntactical computations cannot in and of themselves produce understanding. Granted, the argument cheated a bit in its conception, but the point is well made. Semantics are a necessary part of understanding any complex system. The question then moves to semantics and how do we get there from here.

What arguments have been misguided and hurt progress? One is the argument that computation is a purely abstract process. It isn't. It may be abstracted, as evidenced with Turing machines and the mathematics involved, but computation is a real-world process that we can see, and which occurs independent of observers. Neurons just happen to compute whatever anyone thinks of them.

Another of the distracting arguments is that Turing machines, acting independent of time, cannot be conscious since consciousness as a real world issue (as far as we know since we only have the one example) necessarily involves time dependence. I don't think anyone argues that non-existent abstractions are conscious. They simply are capable of modelling the processes that constitute the real world computations that are consciousness and demonstrate that other systems should be capable of producing the same effects.

If we can move past these trivial issues and get to the meat of the matter -- what is 'feeling', 'awareness', 'attention', 'meaning', then we can move forward. Otherwise, we can just keep going round the bend and argue the same points using different words over and over.

 

[rocketdodger]

If it were true that order is sufficient to model processes that deal in time, then why would the theory of general relativity need to concern itself with the concept - either as time or space-time?

I don't understand the question.

 

[rocketdodger]

That might be the case in the simplest of physical instances, but in most contexts it is not a matter of holding out the hand and waiting, but moving the hand so that it passes through the required space within a particular time. Too soon is as bad as too late.

Obviously.

And -- again, obviously -- it is still an ordered sequence of steps, that must be completed in a certain order, or else the ball is not caught.

 

[rocketdodger]

You'll have to ask them, but I can't imagine Pixy or RD saying that a non-existent abstraction is conscious. I would bet they are using it as evidence that consciousness is computable in the abstract, so it can be realized in other physical systems theoretically.

As to thermostats and toasters, that is now and has always been an exercise in definitions. Why does everyone not see that? Pixy proposed a definition and applied it. He asked others to say what else was needed for consciousness and, according to him, received no useful replies (he knows darn well that that definition does not constitute a sufficient definition for human consciousness). I don't follow these threads closely enough to know if that assessment is accurate, but I would bet based on my own attempts to get people to arrive at a definition of several of the words involved that it is.

I don't pretend that any of this is easy, but answers that amount to "you can't get there from here" based on specious reasoning are simply unhelpful.

So, what has been helpful as criticism in the past? The Chinese Room argument, for one. That argument showed that simple syntactical computations cannot in and of themselves produce understanding. Granted, the argument cheated a bit in its conception, but the point is well made. Semantics are a necessary part of understanding any complex system. The question then moves to semantics and how do we get there from here.

What arguments have been misguided and hurt progress? One is the argument that computation is a purely abstract process. It isn't. It may be abstracted, as evidenced with Turing machines and the mathematics involved, but computation is a real-world process that we can see, and which occurs independent of observers. Neurons just happen to compute whatever anyone thinks of them.

Another of the distracting arguments is that Turing machines, acting independent of time, cannot be conscious since consciousness as a real world issue (as far as we know since we only have the one example) necessarily involves time dependence. I don't think anyone argues that non-existent abstractions are conscious. They simply are capable of modelling the processes that constitute the real world computations that are consciousness and demonstrate that other systems should be capable of producing the same effects.

Yep.

There is no such thing as an "abstract" world that exists in the magical void independent of reality.

To the extent we speak about "abstract" things, like computation and ideal Turing machines, we are actually only speaking about a class of physical systems that behave in a similar fashion.

It is not surprising to me, though, that the very individuals who argue from a position of dualism are the ones to project this nonsense into the discussion to begin with. After all, who better than a dualist to start a strawman about something existing on a non-existent?

If we can move past these trivial issues and get to the meat of the matter -- what is 'feeling', 'awareness', 'attention', 'meaning', then we can move forward. Otherwise, we can just keep going round the bend and argue the same points using different words over and over.

We both know that ain't gonna happen, to an extent. Many posters here -- who have no education and no capability to understand and no desire to learn -- start to get uncomfortable when real science is discussed. So they dodge questions and go back to blindly asserting the same tired fallacies they have been spewing for years.

 

[rocketdodger]

If PixyMisa and RD agree that this is what they have been saying, I'll stand corrected.

Since there is no such thing in reality as a "Turing machine" as you are thinking of it -- in an abstract sense -- it should be obvious that neither of us are arguing that a "Turing machine" can be conscious.

Any time we speak of a "Turing machine" we mean an actual physical system that is Turing equivalent. Those can certainly be conscious -- because the human brain, according to all the evidence thus far, is one example.

And as drkitten pointed out earlier in the thread, anyone qualified to be speaking about computation (in particular, the notion of Turing equivalence) knows that "Turing machine" really means "Turing equivalent physical system."

 

[Belz...]

That might well be what RD says that I say, but it's not what I'm actually saying. I'm saying that because the human mind needs to interact with the world in a time dependent way, human consciousness must be time dependent - unlike a Turing Machine. RD is saying - well, I'm not sure what he's saying, but general relativity and particles apparently disprove this contention.

I'm not nearer to understanding what your point is about time dependency, however.

 

[Belz...]

So does the possibility of delusion render empirical investigation in general unreliable?

No. I meant "no, it isn't a simple yes or no question."

I mean "delusional" in the same sense that you used it earlier. You cited the fallibility of human cognition and judgment to conclude that introspection is "unreliable".

It's an obvious fact. That's why we have science, in fact.

What the hell, Belz?!?! You should be able to figure that out for yourself.

If you start asking me to answer my questions to you myself then there's no point in discussing with you.

If someone shot you in the foot with a nail gun your resulting experience of pain would not be mistakable for any other.

And yet it's possible to experience pain without any stimuli from those nerves.

Assuming somehow that instead of the sensation of pain you experienced the taste of sweet in response being shot with a nail gun, your experience of sweetness would not be mistakable with any other.

That doesn't even make sense. What the hell are you saying ? If I experienced the tase of sweet in response to being shot, then obviously I'm mistaking one thing for the other.

"I'd say that consciousness is something like 'legs' [LOL! ] and experiences are akin to 'running'"

AGAIN: HOW DO YOU KNOW that consciouness doesn't EQUAL experiences and that CONSICOUSNESS isn't a VERB, too ? You keep stating this but you refuse to explain why you think it is so.

[hint: the answer is in the post you just responded to]

Actually, repeating it would've been just as quick as what you just typed.

If everything that exists is simply the contents of the solipsists mind then those things must be knowable to the solipsist.

No. Because what happens in your mind isn't reliable data then you can't know anything for sure.

Oops! that would require your unreliable skills of introspection, wouldn't it? You really need to work on that.

Keep your sarcasm for yourself.

Science is the systematic acquisition of knowledge. Data cannot become knowledge until some conscious entity(s) become aware of it

That's patently false, to me. I don't see why you can't reach a conclusion without being actually conscious. Hell, calculators reach conclusions all the time. It's just a matter of degree.

Useful for what purpose? Think, Belz! Show your work!

Useful for determining a course of action, or determining how things work.

I said that solipsism is stupid (because it's wrong) and useless. That should be obviously true.

 

[westprog]

I don't understand the question.

If time is not important in physical processes, why do physicists seem so obsessed with it? Surely they could just describe the order things happen?

 

[westprog]

Obviously.

And -- again, obviously -- it is still an ordered sequence of steps, that must be completed in a certain order, or else the ball is not caught.

It's not enough to complete the steps in order. It's necessary to perform them each at a particular time.

It might be that the steps can be continuously chopped up until we have discrete events - but what happens at that level is not under conscious control. The conscious control of what happens is time dependent, not simply order dependent.

 

[AlBell]

Yep.

There is no such thing as an "abstract" world that exists in the magical void independent of reality.

To the extent we speak about "abstract" things, like computation and ideal Turing machines, we are actually only speaking about a class of physical systems that behave in a similar fashion.

I suspect most of us posting are well aware of that.

It is not surprising to me, though, that the very individuals who argue from a position of dualism are the ones to project this nonsense into the discussion to begin with. After all, who better than a dualist to start a strawman about something existing on a non-existent?

For me it's easy to classify theists, deists, and agnostics as dualists. Panentheists, panpsychists, and neutral monists present a greater logical challenge at that categorization, although a logical defense based on the assumption of materialism/physicalism makes it necessary.

We both know that ain't gonna happen, to an extent. Many posters here -- who have no education and no capability to understand and no desire to learn -- start to get uncomfortable when real science is discussed. So they dodge questions and go back to blindly asserting the same tired fallacies they have been spewing for years.

We all can agree Truth is elusive. Life itself, culminating in human consciousness, continues to defy rigorous mathematical and physical description such that duplication is practical.

 

[westprog]

If we can move past these trivial issues and get to the meat of the matter -- what is 'feeling', 'awareness', 'attention', 'meaning', then we can move forward. Otherwise, we can just keep going round the bend and argue the same points using different words over and over.

I would love to get past some of these issues, but they are not trivial, and it won't be possible to resolve the big questions if the simplest issues aren't dealt with.

That the Turing machine is an abstraction does not mean that it doesn't have to explain what goes on. Gravitational theory is an abstraction too. When Newtonian gravity turned out to be inaccurate, it was replaced with RD's beloved General Theory of Relativity - because it didn't model what was going on.

If Pixy and RD were to accept that a physical implementation of a Turing machine might not have the requisite elements necessary for consciousness - and a "might" is more than they are prepared to give at the moment - then we'd be able to move on.

You don't seem to be so tightly constrained by Turing fundamentalism, so this argument might not be as interminable as it seems to be getting.

 

[westprog]

I'm not nearer to understanding what your point is about time dependency, however.

If we want to understand consciousness, then we should look at what it does, and try to find a model that might do the same things.That seems fairly logical. If consciousness does something, and that something is not part of the model, then we should probably amend the model to encompass the missing element.

A Turing machine deals with things in order, true - and it doesn't know what is going to arrive. But it instigates each step as it occurs. The TM reads the tape. It doesn't react to the tape moving itself.

Human consciousness does react to events. It has to deal with them in real time. If it fails to do so, it doesn't work.

Now if this were an obstacle to the very concept of artificial consciousness, I could see why people might be kicking up about it. But it isn't. There are computers which react to external events in real time - sometimes much more quickly that humans. It's just not possible to model their behaviour with a TM.

 

[rocketdodger]

If Pixy and RD were to accept that a physical implementation of a Turing machine might not have the requisite elements necessary for consciousness - and a "might" is more than they are prepared to give at the moment - then we'd be able to move on.

Well, yeah, it "might" not have the requisite elements. But every time anybody who supports the computational theory asks for examples of what might be missing, the response is either crickets or an example of something that actually isn't missing at all.

Your replies of course belonging to the latter category, such as this "time dependency" nonsense.

 

[rocketdodger]

It's not enough to complete the steps in order. It's necessary to perform them each at a particular time.

Nope.

And you already admitted it! You yourself said that "time dependence" doesn't imply that events must happen at a specific time. Remember?

You agreed that events can happen within a range of times -- a "window" -- for the behavior of the system to remain the same.

It might be that this range is very small, but it is nonetheless a range.

It might be that the steps can be continuously chopped up until we have discrete events - but what happens at that level is not under conscious control. The conscious control of what happens is time dependent, not simply order dependent.

Huh? Since when is "conscious control" a constraint? Do you have "conscious control" over the activity of ion gates in your neurons?

 

[rocketdodger]

If time is not important in physical processes, why do physicists seem so obsessed with it? Surely they could just describe the order things happen?

Quite obviously, because it is much easier to label where events occur in the ordered sequence of discernably different states of the universe according to what we call "time" than it is to throw around numbers requiring 10^42095458340958340958 digits.

Honestly, do you think it is easier to say

"that process took 1 second"

or

"that process began at state 20240682403958209380329840238402384028409803940925840958098509420598045804985029850248502850498502845084058205802486246027406720553741823709856201984709321650981327409832109486213095871234703298 of the universe and ended at state 545984329584851757304783281975329740893720489730984701829758723084730847102836408263150987321098709486093821740823710496320984609328740928317409832709486320984602983140983720498712309865863095872310847039281740932816509863210984732819074 of the universe"

?

Hmm? Which is easier?

 

[westprog]

Since there is no such thing in reality as a "Turing machine" as you are thinking of it -- in an abstract sense -- it should be obvious that neither of us are arguing that a "Turing machine" can be conscious.

Any time we speak of a "Turing machine" we mean an actual physical system that is Turing equivalent. Those can certainly be conscious -- because the human brain, according to all the evidence thus far, is one example.

And as drkitten pointed out earlier in the thread, anyone qualified to be speaking about computation (in particular, the notion of Turing equivalence) knows that "Turing machine" really means "Turing equivalent physical system."

That's something that applies to all physical models. They are ways to describe what's essential about a system. If there is something that is part of a physical system, and we wish to describe how it works, then we devise a model which explains it.

 

[westprog]

Nope.

And you already admitted it! You yourself said that "time dependence" doesn't imply that events must happen at a specific time. Remember?

You agreed that events can happen within a range of times -- a "window" -- for the behavior of the system to remain the same.

It might be that this range is very small, but it is nonetheless a range.

Do I have to explain everything in every single sentence? I have said a number of times that time dependence is always within a range. However, it is still time dependence.

 

[westprog]

Quite obviously, because it is much easier to label where events occur in the ordered sequence of discernably different states of the universe according to what we call "time" than it is to throw around numbers requiring 10^42095458340958340958 digits.

Honestly, do you think it is easier to say

or ?

Hmm? Which is easier?

I think that you'll find that one of the implications of the Special and General theories of relativity is that it's not possible to talk about the state of the universe at any given instant. There is no universal "now" when the state can be recorded.

 

[westprog]

Well, yeah, it "might" not have the requisite elements. But every time anybody who supports the computational theory asks for examples of what might be missing, the response is either crickets or an example of something that actually isn't missing at all.

Your replies of course belonging to the latter category, such as this "time dependency" nonsense.

And still you have not come up with an example of how a Turing machine can interact with the environment in the way that a human brain does. There's nothing missing except everything.

 

[AkuManiMani]

So does the possibility of delusion render empirical investigation in general unreliable?

No. I meant "no, it isn't a simple yes or no question."

"Is science conducted by delusional people reliable?"

A yes or no answer will suffice, but do feel free to explain your answer.

I mean "delusional" in the same sense that you used it earlier. You cited the fallibility of human cognition and judgment to conclude that introspection is "unreliable".

It's an obvious fact. That's why we have science, in fact.

So I guess we should throw out fields like psychology and cognitive neuroscience since they, to a very large degree, depend upon the human capacity to introspect

What the hell, Belz?!?! You should be able to figure that out for yourself.

If you start asking me to answer my questions to you myself then there's no point in discussing with you.

Or we could render the discussion a lot less tedious if I weren't forced to wrangle over stupid, poorly thought out questions.

If someone shot you in the foot with a nail gun your resulting experience of pain would not be mistakable for any other.

And yet it's possible to experience pain without any stimuli from those nerves.

Thats my whole point. I'm talking about your actual subjective experience of pain. It is unmistakable -as- the sensation of pain and it cannot be confused with another.

Assuming somehow that instead of the sensation of pain you experienced the taste of sweet in response being shot with a nail gun, your experience of sweetness would not be mistakable with any other.

That doesn't even make sense. What the hell are you saying ? If I experienced the tase of sweet in response to being shot, then obviously I'm mistaking one thing for the other.

Once again, you're missing the point entirely. The point I'm making is that sensations themselves are unambiguous objects, distinct from any particular stimulus. If you're shot and, instead of feeling pain, you experience the sensation of sweetness you would immediately know the difference. Likewise, if the sensation were replaced with the sensation of cold, or redness, or what have you -- each of those subjective responses are unambiguous and unmistakable IAOT. Are you following?

"I'd say that consciousness is something like 'legs' [LOL! ] and experiences are akin to 'running'"

AGAIN: HOW DO YOU KNOW that consciouness doesn't EQUAL experiences and that CONSICOUSNESS isn't a VERB, too ? You keep stating this but you refuse to explain why you think it is so.

First of all, as I've already pointed out to you numerous times [in this discussion alone] that even material objects are in some sense verbs. Elementary particles are what background fields are doing, atoms are what their constituent particles are doing, molecules are what their atoms are doing -- etc.

Second of all, experience is what consciousness does -- not vis versa. One could still be conscious without any sensory stimulation producing experiences but, absent consciousness, experiences are not possible. Subjective experience depends upon there being a conscious subject.

[hint: the answer is in the post you just responded to]

Actually, repeating it would've been just as quick as what you just typed.

The statement was reposted in the quote bubble. I'm not going to continually spoon feed you when all you're doing is just spiting it out and saying I've never presented it to you. Read my damn posts and actually attempt to comprehend instead of just reflexively trying to rebut.

If everything that exists is simply the contents of the solipsists mind then those things must be knowable to the solipsist.

No. Because what happens in your mind isn't reliable data then you can't know anything for sure.

Huh? How the hell do you think that follows from solipsism?

Oops! that would require your unreliable skills of introspection, wouldn't it? You really need to work on that.

Keep your sarcasm for yourself.

I'm actually dead serious. You're probably one of the most unreflective people I've ever conversed with. I can see why you reject introspection as unreliable; your own skills of introspection are atrocious.

Science is the systematic acquisition of knowledge. Data cannot become knowledge until some conscious entity(s) become aware of it

That's patently false, to me. I don't see why you can't reach a conclusion without being actually conscious. Hell, calculators reach conclusions all the time. It's just a matter of degree.

That makes about as much sense as claiming an abacus forms a conclusion because you stop sliding its beads. It's the conscious user of the calculator that forms the conclusion. The calculator itself only produces symbolic results as specified by the functional constraints designed into it. The symbols have no meaning outside of a conscious entity with the ability to interpret them as meaningful.

Useful for what purpose? Think, Belz! Show your work!

Useful for determining a course of action, or determining how things work.

If solipsism were true then it wouldn't be wrong to treat other people like crap. After all, they would just be characters in the reality my mind has dreamed up

I said that solipsism is stupid (because it's wrong) and useless. That should be obviously true.

I think your belief that unconscious entities can conduct science and reach conclusions is incredibly wrong, stupid, and useless. I still have to present logical argumentation as to -why- that is the case.