Has consciousness been fully explained?

[Ichneumonwasp]

If you took the time to read through my replies to PM in this thread and other threads you will se that it is not the hypothesis with which I have quibbles. I have already stated that the mathematics behind the hypothesis is exemplary and cannot be faulted. It is the idea that we must accept the hypothesis as a fact because the mathematics is correct that I have an issue with as I believe this will influence the outcome of the Turing Test.

If humans are persuaded the maths says it will work they may be biased as a judge in the Turing Test.

Then I have no argument with you. Please accept my apology for misunderstanding your position.

I don't accept is as fact -- that a simulation like that will actually exist. I think the mathematics makes sense (from my very limited perspective) and that there is no other substance involved, so it should be theoretically possible. I do not, in any way, understand how the engineering could be carried out to create it, though.

My understanding of Pixy's position is that the simulation is theoretically possible because the math works and there is no other substance involved.

 

[!Kaggen]

Then I have no argument with you. Please accept my apology for misunderstanding your position.

No problem

I don't accept is as fact -- that a simulation like that will actually exist. I think the mathematics makes sense (from my very limited perspective) and that there is no other substance involved, so it should be theoretically possible. I do not, in any way, understand how the engineering could be carried out to create it, though.

That should be the default position.

My understanding of Pixy's position is that the simulation is theoretically possible because the math works and there is no other substance involved.

I think we should let Pixy explain his position more clearly. Unfortunately all we get is, you all believe in magic if you don't worship GEB.

 

[Dancing David]

I'll have the Penne a la Arrabiata...

We only had three bits and we didn't expect such a rush.

 

[westprog]

The simulation includes people - they exist in the simulation, and as the simulation progresses so simulation time passes. If it's a simulation using rocks as its substrate, the quantum of time would be the movement of a rock.

Is a picture of a person standing under a waterfall a simulation of a person standing under a waterfall, or just a picture?

Pictures are a simulation. For some reason, it is taken for granted that a person in a picture is clearly not a real person, and seem to think that a person in a computer program possibly is.

Let's assume, for the purpose of argument, that the simulation is an accurate reproduction of our reality, and that the arrow of time emerges according to the laws of thermodynamics in the same way.

 

[Malerin]

If you accept the term wimp as applying to you, then you have decided to worm out of the question. I said you can act like a wimp (not that you are one) if you so choose and worm out of the question, which is what you have apparently decided to do. Or you could man up and answer the question instead of trying to apply a technicality that exists in your mind alone.

It is entirely up to you. You decide your own actions.

So I will ask again, does the simulated organism evolve?

We can't say, for instance, that a simulated ball 'rolls'? I mean rolling is defined in terms of balls made of matter isn't it?

A simulated organism will evolve as much as a splash of simulated water gets you wet. Which is to say, not at all.

 

[Malerin]

No. Simulated water is real within the simulation, and real in the 'real world.'

So you can drink it right? That's what we do with water in the 'real world'.

Simulated water is water within the simulation.

Respectfully,
Myriad

More dualism.

 

[Malerin]

Physical evidence includes the evidence of your eyes. You see the simulated organism change over time. Does the organism evolve or is this just simulation of evolution?

If you want to be a wimp and worm out of this, just say so. This is a very straight forward question and your evasions are silly.

So now you're calling people wimps? What a hypocrite.

 

[dlorde]

Since this is by definition a simulation based on computer operations, what have we done if we recode it to reverse all that occured before, or have we lost information such that that is not possible?

I don't see how that question is relevant to the discussion - unless you can explain what you're trying to get at.

 

[Dancing David]

Pictures are a simulation.

Not at a plank scale with history they aren't. They are a two dimensional representation of visual stimuli.

 

[dlorde]

Pictures are a simulation.

We were discussing a fully detailed computational simulation, not a picture.

 

[westprog]

I think we should let Pixy explain his position more clearly. Unfortunately all we get is, you all believe in magic if you don't worship GEB.

The first step when disputing with Pixy is to accept that he is entirely right about everything, and that everyone who knows anything about it agrees with him. If you fail to accept all his assertions, then it's not even worth talking about it.

 

[AlBell]

I don't see how that question is relevant to the discussion - unless you can explain what you're trying to get at.

Why does times arrow exist in the simulation? What happens if we run it in reverse?

If this isn't relevant, please ignore it.

 

[westprog]

We were discussing a fully detailed computational simulation, not a picture.

But the super-wonderful planck-scale perfect simulation would have exactly the same limitation as the painting - it's not the thing itself. The picture reproduces some of the relationships between objects. Other relationships will not be present.


This is leaving aside the fact that a computational simulation of the current universe as we understand it would not be possible at any scale. Or that we have no knowledge of how nature works at the planck scale.

 

[Beth]

But the super-wonderful planck-scale perfect simulation would have exactly the same limitation as the painting - it's not the thing itself. The picture reproduces some of the relationships between objects. Other relationships will not be present.


This is leaving aside the fact that a computational simulation of the current universe as we understand it would not be possible at any scale. Or that we have no knowledge of how nature works at the planck scale.

This is starting to seem like a p-zombie kind of proposal to me. I don't think p-zombies can exist. For a being to be able to react in real time in the way we call 'conscious' it would be conscious.

I don't know of any reason that a simulated consciousness existing in a simulated universe would not be completely isomorphic to what we term consciousness in our universe. I am just not sure that qualifies as conscious in our reality any more than simulated water is wet in our universe. There are reasonable arguments in both directions.

Blobru seems to have stated the differing viewpoints most clearly IMO.

 

[westprog]

This is starting to seem like a p-zombie kind of proposal to me. I don't think p-zombies can exist. For a being to be able to react in real time in the way we call 'conscious' it would be conscious.

I don't know of any reason that a simulated consciousness existing in a simulated universe would not be completely isomorphic to what we term consciousness in our universe. I am just not sure that qualifies as conscious in our reality any more than simulated water is wet in our universe. There are reasonable arguments in both directions.

Blobru seems to have stated the differing viewpoints most clearly IMO.

But the argument is that the simulated consciousness would be conscious in our universe. Mind, I don't accept for a moment the idea that we can create universes with a bit of code. What happens on a computer happens in this universe. Nowhere else. There is no Narnia, either in the wardrobe or on the laptop.

 

[Beth]

Ah, OK, I think I understand the misunderstanding a bit better.

The answer to the dualism issue is that if there is a simulation that is based in action, then the people in the simulation are simply wrong about what they think the nature of reality is.

Why are they wrong? From their frame of reference, it fits the definition of dualistic.

They think that their world is made of atoms because that is their experience, but the 'higher reality' is that their world is actually just actions of electrons passing through gates. Actual reality is based (in this scenario) in what we call matter and what they think is matter actually isn't matter (as we label it) but a simulation of what we call matter.

This is why I said that the situation is like idealism. Idealism as a monism is generally felt to consist of God. God is the ultimate reality. Everything that we think is matter is not actually matter -- it is thought from the mind of God.

I prefer 'mathematics' rather than 'god', but that basically that fits my understanding of idealism.

Where some folks go wrong with idealism is that they think that human consciousness is something other than thoughts in the mind of God and that realizing that everything is just thoughts in the mind of God is some sort of great realization, when actually it would only be God thinking that everything is God and God thinking (which is no great realization).

Um, I'm not sure where you get this idea that idealists think human consciousness is something other than thoughts in the mind of God. It's pretty clear to me that they realize exactly what you just said.

The way it works from a monistic perspective is: God --> God's thought *is* 'matter' --> matter interacts to create other beings -- > some of the matter acts to create human thinking which is created through the actions of human brains.

The actual reality is God and everything else is a function of God thinking.

Considering idealism, we are wrong to think that matter is some independent 'thing'.

I'm confused here. Do you think that idealists think that matter is some independent 'thing'? Because that's not my impression at all.

The denizens of the simulated world would think that what they see as matter is some 'thing' that is independent, that it is the originary substance. But they would simply be wrong, since what they consider matter is actually something created through the simulation by whizzing electrons, which (again, only in this scenario) is the only real stuff.

From their frame of reference, why are they wrong? Isn't what they term "ordinary matter" the only stuff they can perceive? Isn't there other stuff, completely different - i.e. not composed of the electrical impulses within the simulation machine that we built? Stuff that they cannot actually perceive in any way, but that underlies and gives rise to their reality? Why wouldn't a dualist approach be a completely accurate description of both their internal reality and the greater reality of our universe and minds which build and programmed theirs?

 

[Beth]

But the argument is that the simulated consciousness would be conscious in our universe.

I know. That's the part I can't concur with. It really hinges on the definition of conscious, which is hard to define in a way that accurately separates what most people consider conscious from what most people do not consider conscious.

 

[Myriad]

So you can drink it right? That's what we do with water in the 'real world'.

More dualism.

Please look again at what I did and did not claim.

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[Myriad]

A simulated chess player will really beat you in a real game of chess, even though it never moves an actual solid playing piece on an actual wooden board. You, the real world person, will have been really beaten in a real game of chess. (Unless you're really good, or the program sucks).

To say that an instance of the game of chess exists independently from the physical chess set with which it's played is not an extraordinary claim (for one thing, chess games can be printed in books, but wooden chess sets cannot) and it is not dualism; it's simply recognizing the existence of categories of processes (chess games, evolution, rolling, aerodynamic flight) that are distinguishable from the objects (chess sets, populations of creatures, round rocks, birds) undergoing them, and can be replicated in systems that are analogs of the functionality of those objects (chess programs, populations of genomes in a genetic algorithm, wheels, airplanes).

Of course, an argument could be made that any flying machine would only be a simulation of a bird, and as such, could not possibly be expected to really fly in the real world.

That argument hasn't been heard so much recently.

The only difference between that argument about flying machines, and the current one regarding whether a consciousness machine could actually be conscious in the real world, is that at present there is a better understanding, in the flying machines case, of the underlying processes e.g. acceleration of air to generate thrust forces.

But, there are only two possibilities: consciousness actually does result entirely from underlying processes describable by physical laws, or it does not. If it does, then a machine sufficiently replicating all those processes would also be conscious. (Whether it would be feasible to build such a machine is beside the point. Birds flew by the same means before, and after, the technology to make a working airplane existed.) If it does not, then by definition it is magic. The latter is the actual dualistic view.

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[Meed]

There is no "in the simulation", even if we can see it occurring on a screen? What does that mean?

We see pixels on the screen. Pixels are not "in the simulation", they are in the "real world". If we were able to look at the inner workings of the machine we would see electrons moving through gates. They are not "in the simulation", they are in the "real world". Nothing is going on that is not in the real world. Hence, there is no "in the simulation". There is a simulation and that simulation is part of the real world. If we think of it as another world, that is simply a mental exercise.

That the simulation is created by the rules governing electrons moving through gates is correct. That does not mean that we imagine it as a simulated world.

Why?

The simulation is a world that, by definition, matches this world in terms of particles and physical rules and the unfolding of the universe to a T. In this world everything that happens here, happens there. That means that any people who are here are recreated there. The people who are recreated there experience water just as we experience water here. If they did not, then we are talking about something other than the simulation that has been proposed.

I obviously disagree with the bolded portion (bolding mine).

I wasn't talking specifically about a simulation of the entire universe. I'm not sure if that's important to your point.