Consciousness is thermodynamically acausal

[Complexity]

I'll admit:

I was pulled in by the thread title, and obligated to make an appearance.

In quarky's single quark hypothesis, (not "even wrong; now go away" Complexity), this can be explained by the singularity's exemption from the laws that were developed after it had its little "hissy fit".

Hopefully, no further explanation will be desired or required.
Going "on and on" is not one of my most endearing features.

You rang?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Again, I find this incoherent, because if C = pleasure, then one of the next clusters of neurons to fire should equate to a desire to prolong C, and that desire will influence our behavior; because we aren't indifferent to C, it must be causal.

But presumably the C' that corresponds to C = pleasure is what causes me to prolong the activity, because there is some evolved reason to prolong the activity other than its pleasure-producing quality. The activity must be "pleasureful" in a purely zombie-like manner.

What we have to try to picture are zombie-reasons why we do everything we do, with the phenomenal experience merely an added quality. Of course, if what Edelman means by "informational" is that a memory of the phenomenal experience can be formed, then that changes the whole thing.

I wish I could find his email address.

~~ Paul

 

[soylent]

Yes; it's going to come back to the hard problem of consciousness: why is there consciousness at all?

The hard problem of consciousness is getting a useful definition of the word out of people. It's like pulling teeth. From the wishy-washy sorts of definitions dualists tend to give I don't believe that I have it. Using more trivial definitions of consciousness such as processing that deals with the self there's no controversy that people are conscious; but then the hard problem of consciousness degenerates into "why is it necessary to have processing that concerns the self in order to have processing that concerns the self?".

what's the point of experience? The ability to discriminate between colors, especially where a color implies danger, as in "red --> hot", should be selected for. But as a survival algorithm, if we were to code for color-discrimination, we'd simply measure the wavelength and process the measurement straightaway as data; no need for an experience of that color.

I don't see why processing of inputs "straightaway as data" would be different than "experiencing data".

You're supposing that the equivalent processing could more easily be done without "experience"(whatever this word means). I don't believe so; I believe people are p-zombies.

A less clumsy way of saying this is perhaps this: If a p-zombie version of me sees the colour red it will not only insist up and down that it saw the colour red, it will believe that it experienced the colour red(because otherwise if it really behaved exactly like me it would report that it did not experience redness). In other words, a p-zombie can't tell that it is a p-zombie and not a "real person"; why then do you believe you are a "real person" and not just a p-zombie who thinks and acts like it experiences when all it is doing is merely processing data?

 

[si_fzz]

The hard problem of consciousness is getting a useful definition of the word out of people. It's like pulling teeth. From the wishy-washy sorts of definitions dualists tend to give I don't believe that I have it. Using more trivial definitions of consciousness such as processing that deals with the self there's no controversy that people are conscious; but then the hard problem of consciousness degenerates into "why is it necessary to have processing that concerns the self in order to have processing that concerns the self?".



I don't see why processing of inputs "straightaway as data" would be different than "experiencing data".

You're supposing that the equivalent processing could more easily be done without "experience"(whatever this word means). I don't believe so; I believe people are p-zombies.

A less clumsy way of saying this is perhaps this: If a p-zombie version of me sees the colour red it will not only insist up and down that it saw the colour red, it will believe that it experienced the colour red(because otherwise if it really behaved exactly like me it would report that it did not experience redness). In other words, a p-zombie can't tell that it is a p-zombie and not a "real person"; why then do you believe you are a "real person" and not just a p-zombie who thinks and acts like it experiences when all it is doing is merely processing data?

In other words, eliminativists are depressive pan-experientialists.

 

[blobru]

But presumably the C' that corresponds to C = pleasure is what causes me to prolong the activity, because there is some evolved reason to prolong the activity other than its pleasure-producing quality. The activity must be "pleasureful" in a purely zombie-like manner.

What we have to try to picture are zombie-reasons why we do everything we do, with the phenomenal experience merely an added quality. Of course, if what Edelman means by "informational" is that a memory of the phenomenal experience can be formed, then that changes the whole thing.

I wish I could find his email address.

~~ Paul

Yes. Sorry; I shouldn't be derailing this into a debate on the plausibility of epiphenomenalism, when your OP was only asking about what Edelman, who sounds like some version of epiphenomenalist, meant by a certain phrase. (I am baffled how information, the painful or pleasant qualia that inform us of our mood, could be acausal; unless by "thermodynamically acausal" he means it all reduces to the physics of neurons, that's where causation occurs, with consciousness just another way of modelling it, that needn't reference thermodynamics [albeit the underlying physical changes it maps to must be consistent with thermodynamics]).

The hard problem of consciousness is getting a useful definition of the word out of people. It's like pulling teeth. From the wishy-washy sorts of definitions dualists tend to give I don't believe that I have it. Using more trivial definitions of consciousness such as processing that deals with the self there's no controversy that people are conscious; but then the hard problem of consciousness degenerates into "why is it necessary to have processing that concerns the self in order to have processing that concerns the self?".

To echo Paul (post #23) -- brain functioning [consciousness]: really complicated.

I don't see why processing of inputs "straightaway as data" would be different than "experiencing data".

I didn't phrase nor think that through very well. I mean processing the data strictly as computation: numerically to logically to mechanically and back up again. For people, it seems data can be processed unconsciously (e.g., searching one's memory, performing habitual tasks, monitoring of vital systems, in dreamless sleep, roughly equivalent to "computational -- mechanical"); or consciously, experienced as integrated sense input ("I feel cold" / bored" / hungry" / ...), as 'negative' pain vs 'positive' pleasure, etc.

There. I think that makes sense, though with consciousness it's hard to be sure.

You're supposing that the equivalent processing could more easily be done without "experience"(whatever this word means).

Some segment or duration of consciousness.

I don't believe so; I believe people are p-zombies.

A less clumsy way of saying this is perhaps this: If a p-zombie version of me sees the colour red it will not only insist up and down that it saw the colour red, it will believe that it experienced the colour red(because otherwise if it really behaved exactly like me it would report that it did not experience redness). In other words, a p-zombie can't tell that it is a p-zombie and not a "real person"; why then do you believe you are a "real person" and not just a p-zombie who thinks and acts like it experiences when all it is doing is merely processing data?

Well, to say we are p-zombies begs the question: is there such a thing as consciousness and experience? If there isn't, then eliminative materialism is true, and we are p-zombies. If there is, then either dualism is true, or "p-zombies" are incoherent.

I believe that "consciousness" makes a meaningful distinction between many states, being asleep and being awake the most obvious, so I believe I am sometimes conscious and have experiences. As consciousness' dependence on the brain and body is adequate evidence against dualism, I conclude p-zombies can't exist and that I am something different: a "real person".

 

[AlBell]

Well, to say we are p-zombies begs the question: is there such a thing as consciousness and experience? If there isn't, then eliminative materialism is true, and we are p-zombies. If there is, then either dualism is true, or "p-zombies" are incoherent.

Why discard idealism?

 

[blobru]

Why discard idealism?

I haven't. Any monism might follow from "'p-zombies' are incoherent".

 

[quarky]

In other words, eliminativists are depressive pan-experientialists.

It should be good news to see new and smart people joining the fray.
Mostly, it reminds me of being old and in the way...charming, when wealth comes with it; less so otherwise.

Complexity: Indeed, I rang.
Odd, too, considering this very subject matter was when you first crushed me.
After awhile, I simply recognize that lots of people are plain smarter than me, by a factor of pi, at minimum.

That said, and with the strange and charmed quarks being allowed in science raps, why not jump the freaking shark?

It happens in the movies, and they still make money.
Economics is almost science, especially for those that actually understand it enough to fake their way into high paying jobs...so why not this:

The original singularity was/is conscious.

Regardless of the innate wrongness of the notion, what if?
What would things look like then, as per this and other reasoned debates?

Yes, it reeks of godiness...yet, too small a unit to make an adequate representation...too small to enable corruption. Too impersonal to care.

 

[Philosaur]

I'm not sure how to interpret the word "identity." Are there special brain states that are phenomenal experience, and others that do all the rest of the work? Or do the states doing the work also produce the experience? Edelman appears to be saying the latter, then goes on to say that the experiences are epiphenomenal. Does he mean entirely epiphenomenal, or only epiphenomenal regarding such things as motor response? At one point in his lecture he says that experience is acausal but informational. What the hell does that mean?

Perhaps we could consider the train whistle analogy. The train produces the power for the whistle, but the whistle noise has no effect on the train itself (assuming the train has no microphone). Does it make sense to call the whistle noise an epiphenomenon?

~~ Paul

I know you've covered a lot of ground since my post, but:

I mean "identity" in that there is no further, separate phenomenal experience over-and-above the physical brain state. The phenomenal experience just *is* the brain state. Some of these brain states we describe as pleasurable (as when certain nerves are stimulated in certain ways), some are painful. This renders the concept of p-zombies incoherent.

My opinion: To posit qualia as epiphenomenal (and acausal) is to multiply entities without reason. What further explanation or understanding does Edelman or any epiphenomenalist gain by making qualia and brain states separate entities? I can't see any.

On another note: I don't understand how something could be informational but acausal. I'll have to read your link.