Explain consciousness to the layman.

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dlorde said:
Can there be a complete theory of consciousness? hard to say without a complete definition of consciousness. I can't make sense of the rest of your question.
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In my question, the term in-vitro is used to describe isolated things, where the term in-vivo is used to describe non-isolated things.

In that case do you think that any given definition actually isolates the researched subject (in that case any attempt to define consciousness restricts the research into in-vitro).
 
dlorde said:
Not necessarily (NDTM). However, it is not clear that an NDTM implementation is feasible, although you could simulate one. So for practical purposes, lets assume it is deterministic. What now?
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Do you think that practical things must be deterministic?
 
dlorde said:
Can there be a complete theory of consciousness? hard to say without a complete definition of consciousness. I can't make sense of the rest of your question.
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One problem is I don't think there is a single type of consciousness. We can start with rat consciousness, because ours is built on it. I even think different people have different flavors of consciousness, and even the same person goes through different phases of consciousness throughout the day.

Which one do we pick? I don't think they all use the same magic bean.

Chopra says the whole universe is conscious and we all partake in that great universal consciousness. He's so cute.

We need more progress in the biology of how memories are accessed and stored.

But I really think Dennett is closest:

Consciousness Explained
The Magic of Consciousness
 
dlorde said:
So all computers, in practice, are not computational?
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If you think about it, obviously they cannot be.

Phew, well that was easy :boggled:
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I'm using the definition of "computational" - referring to a Turing machine - that has been used by the computationalists to "prove" that consciousness must be computational in nature. I don't mind a different definition of computation being used, but I object to the definition being deliberately switched around to confuse the argument.
 
doronshadmi said:
.. do you think that any given definition actually isolates the researched subject (in that case any attempt to define consciousness restricts the research into in-vitro).
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Sorry, still can't make out what you're asking - perhaps someone else can make it coherent for me?
 
westprog said:
I'm using the definition of "computational" - referring to a Turing machine - that has been used by the computationalists to "prove" that consciousness must be computational in nature. I don't mind a different definition of computation being used, but I object to the definition being deliberately switched around to confuse the argument.
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OK; I don't recall you mentioning this 'computers aren't Turing machines' (or Turing machine equivalent - they obviously can't actually be Turing machines) argument earlier, when we were discussing Turing machines; however, I don't want to go round the Turing machine capability vortex again, so perhaps we should focus on real-world computation, the kind of thing done by the microprocessors we have been talking about for so long.

Are you saying that you believe that a Turing machine equivalent can't support consciousness, but since you also believe that real computers are not Turing machine equivalent, you're open to the possibility that a real computer could support consciousness?
 
Leumas said:
Which is as simplistic an explanation as saying life is carbon based.
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So you agree that consciousness is at least in part computation ?

Saying life is carbon based is as useless an assertion when it comes to explaining the cause for why things are alive as it is to say that consciousness is computation based to explain why things are conscious..
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Can you propose an alternative explanation that fits the facts ?
 
keyfeatures said:
This for starters.
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Page 2, right side a the end:
"This argument shows that no physical state ג of the
system can be compatible with both of the quantum
states |0> and |+>. If the same can be shown for any
pair of quantum states |Ф0> and |Ф1>, then the quantum
state can be inferred uniquely from ג. In this case, the
quantum state is a physical property of the system, and
the statistical view is false."
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The current mathematical tools that are used in this article do not express uncertainty in terms of superposition of identities, which is simply a symmetric view of a given system. By this article a physical property of the system is simply the lack of symmetry, which is resulted by certain identities. It does not mean that the symmetric state of superposition of identities is not a physical property of the system.


Page 2, right side a the top:
FIG. 1. Two systems are prepared independently. The quantum
state of each, determined by the preparation method, is
either |0> or |+>. The two systems are brought together and
measured. The outcome of the measurement can only depend
on the physical properties of the two systems at the time of
measurement.
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There is no clear evidence that two systems of a given realm are completely independent. On the contrary, the ability to know that there are two systems, is possible exactly because they share the same realm, or in other words, they are not completely independent of each other. Once again it is shown how a group of researchers simply exclude themselves as factors of the results.
 
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doronshadmi said:
Page 2, right side a the end:

The current mathematical tools that are used in this article do not express uncertainty in terms of superposition of identities, which is simply a symmetric view of a given system. By this article a physical property of the system is simply the lack of symmetry, which is resulted by certain identities. It does not mean that the symmetric state of superposition of identities is not a physical property of the system.


Page 2, right side a the top:

There is no clear evidence that two systems of a given realm are completely independent. On the contrary, the ability to know that there are two systems, is possible exactly because they share the same realm, or in other words, they are not completely independent of each other. Once again it is shown how a group of researchers simply exclude themselves as factors of the results.
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I don't think they are necessarily excluding themselves as factors of the results. Neither are they ignoring the symmetric state of superposition. Rather it's like a coin toss. The coin has two (likely) states it can land. This is the coin's 'superposition'. Prior to observing the outcome of a toss the coin can be considered to have landed heads/tails with a 50/50 equally smeared probability. However, the action (preparation) of the toss determines which one it's going to be. If the toss was repeated in exactly the same way, the outcome would be exactly the same. Of course there aren't two systems (heads or tails), but there are variations in system that lead to outcome of one of two states. (I'm ignoring the fact that the coin could turn into an elephant or land on its side as either so impossible or improbably as to be insignificant).

Anyway, you didn't answer my question. Can X be used to determine what is NOT X?
 
keyfeatures said:
I don't think they are necessarily excluding themselves as factors of the results. Neither are they ignoring the symmetric state of superposition.
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They exclude their abilities to know that the considered systems actually share the same realm (actually without this sharing no measured results are comparable, in the first place).

The current definition of the term Superposition is not what I define as Superposition of identities. At superposition of identities all identities simultaneously have probability 1, where clear identity is simply the case of simultaneity of a single identity with probability 1.

For example, the expression "AB" means that A and B are not clearly known because both identities simultaneously have probability 1 (notated as 2/1).

On the contrary "A,B" are already two distinguished identities ("A" has 1/1 identity and "B" has 1/1 identity), and by using this fact the standard meaning of superposition is used to determine that each already distinguished 1/1 identity has probability 1/2 to become a given 1/1 result.
keyfeatures said:
Anyway, you didn't answer my question. Can X be used to determine what is NOT X?
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I thought it was a rhetoric question. X can't be used in order to determine what is NOT-X in details, because by doing that NOT-X is actually X (NOT-X does not exist, in the first place).
 
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dlorde said:
OK; I don't recall you mentioning this 'computers aren't Turing machines' (or Turing machine equivalent - they obviously can't actually be Turing machines) argument earlier, when we were discussing Turing machines; however, I don't want to go round the Turing machine capability vortex again, so perhaps we should focus on real-world computation, the kind of thing done by the microprocessors we have been talking about for so long.

Are you saying that you believe that a Turing machine equivalent can't support consciousness, but since you also believe that real computers are not Turing machine equivalent, you're open to the possibility that a real computer could support consciousness?
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It's been repeatedly insisted that an actual Turing machine can't be built, and this somehow makes the discussion moot. What we are talking about is a program written according to the Turing model. Plenty of programs are written like this - to perform computations - and they are perfectly useful. Other programs have interactive capabilities - most modern programs, for instance - but their essential function, or at least significant functionality, is in the computation. Other programs, such as those used to control robots, are inherently interactive. What they are doing is different in kind to computation.

If you accept that artificial intelligence/consciousness will necessarily be using programming of the second kind, then it isn't possible to apply reasoning - such as the Church-Turing thesis - that applies only to the second kind.
 
Belz... said:
Your tu quoque does not change the fact that you specifically called the opposing viewpoint a faith.
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No, I called your willingness to accept the verdict of people you consider to be experts acting on faith. What would you call it?
 
doronshadmi said:
I thought it was a rhetoric question. X can't be used in order to determine what is NOT-X in details, because by doing that NOT-X is actually X (NOT-X does not exist, in the first place).
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I'm not disagreeing with you but it seems that distinctions are usually made that assume their own negation. This is the basis of logical reasoning, no? Without a negation you don't have a distinction.

I'm interested as to why you add "in details". What do you mean by 'details'?

Regarding the NDTM - it still seems pretty deterministic. You still have logical operations - just paraconsistent ones. How could you get a single processor to come up with an outcome (choice) from this? What sort of architecture could make this work in practice? Perhaps it would have to be a little like a beehive where each bee acts as an individual processor and the most persistent overall message wins - with another processor filtering a variety of outputs. Do human brains operate along such lines? Too much paraconsistency (half the 'hive' says this, the other half that) and you get excessive procrastination. There are cases of brain damage, for example, where people have become so 'reasoned' they are unable to make snap decisions because they endlessly weigh up the pros and cons of every action.
 
keyfeatures said:
I'm not disagreeing with you but it seems that distinctions are usually made that assume their own negation. This is the basis of logical reasoning, no? Without a negation you don't have a distinction.

I'm interested as to why you add "in details". What do you mean by 'details'?

Regarding the NDTM - it still seems pretty deterministic. You still have logical operations - just paraconsistent ones. How could you get a single processor to come up with an outcome (choice) from this? What sort of architecture could make this work in practice? Perhaps it would have to be a little like a beehive where each bee acts as an individual processor and the most persistent overall message wins - with another processor filtering a variety of outputs. Do human brains operate along such lines? Too much paraconsistency (half the 'hive' says this, the other half that) and you get excessive procrastination. There are cases of brain damage, for example, where people have become so 'reasoned' they are unable to make snap decisions because they endlessly weigh up the pros and cons of every action.
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In my opinion healthy brain is not limited to any particular of case of pros and cons, which enables it still act at any degree of uncertainty and redundancy, as long as it is still "in one piece".

Furthermore, in my opinion, consciousness' development is measured by its ability be an unbroken linkage among simplicity and complexity, under situations (abstract of physical) that are characterized by uncertainty and redundancy.
 
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