Has consciousness been fully explained?

[Third Eye Open]

Editing my post a bunch cause I suck at formatting :/

 

[porch]

I am going to claim that, yes. At best I have a vague feeling that I might have something like that, but until you define it in a scientifically meaningful way I can't really be sure.

Then we have nothing to talk about.

Idunno, Piggy. I was very impressed with a thread you made before in which you made a good case for strong atheism. In said thread, you were very rigourous in your definitions. Would you have put up with it if someone claimed that "Everyone knows that feeling of a presence of a higher power. That's God!"? Why do you grant to Sofia what you would not grant to god?

 

[Piggy]

I feel like I can almost see the difference you are talking about. It's on the tip of my brain.

Well, let's consider the difference between model and simulation by doing a thought experiment on our unfortunate subject, whose body we have in some tank somewhere.

We disconnect the brain's neural connections with the sensory organs all over the body.

We feed artifical input into the open nerve ends.

Somehow, we've figured out how to produce the right patterns that make our guy... let's call him Guy... feel exactly as if he's in reality, but it's a simulated reality of our choosing.

The simulation is produced entirely by computers which we've programmed to provide a complete immersion experience.

But of course, the computers have peripherals which produce the actual electro-chemical outputs necessary to trigger the nerves.

You can say that the brain is "living in a simulation".

What does this mean?

Well, let's consider the case of someone with a normally wired brain who was in a special chamber in a special suit with goggles and earplugs, who got the right sort of light and sound and vibration and movement of air and land. That person could "live in a simulation", too.

It just means that the brain is being battered with the right patterns of electro-chemical bombardment to make it have the conscious experience of living in a reality that isn't there.

Of course, this doesn't make Guy a simulation, because he's right here in our tank. It doesn't make his consciousness a simulation either, because it doesn't make any of his bodily processes a simulation.

Now, let's do the other thought experiment on Guy while we've got him here. Let's start replacing neurons.

In order to do this, we have to use some tiny physical device that does what a neuron does. Let's say we find one. We can start changing out neurons and everything else in the brain. In the process, we're turning Guy's brain into a model of Guy's brain, but when we're done it'll be perfect and he'll never know what we were up to.

What we can't do, tho, is replace an actual neuron in Guy's brain with a simulation of a neuron that's being run by a computer, for the same reason we can't get power from a simulation of Hoover dam, and a leak in our simulated fish tank doesn't short out our PC.

So we can't turn Guy into a simulation.

But what if we simulate guy?

Let's create a perfect simulation of Guy's body, including his brain of course, on our supercomputer.

Now, let's give sim-Guy's sim-brain the same input we gave Guy's brain.

Notice what we have to do. We can no longer use the peripherals which made things happen in the real world. Or if we do, we have to then take those physical results and have them somehow make the computer do something else, which simply makes them a pointless step -- but we can't reach sim-Guy with our neurochemical jets.

That's because sim-Guy is all in our heads. What's really happening is a computer changing its states and spinning discs and changing pixels and such. We see those pixels and our brains imagine sim-Guy.

But running a simulation of Guy's brain won't make the computer conscious, because it's only doing the same stuff it was doing when it ran a simulation of our race car, and that didn't make it conscious.

A blown hose won't get the computer wet, because no simulation makes water run through a radiator. And sim-Guy won't make the computer conscious, because there's no brain in 4-D spacetime with those brain waves traveling across it.

No simulation run by a computer will ever make the computer conscious.

ETA: Guy's experience in the sim-tank didn't make the world he experienced pysically real. Because he experienced a simulation, that didn't turn it into reality. Ditto for any simulations we experience to lesser degrees of immersion -- our observing them doesn't make them real, and the operations of the machinery that produces them doesn't make them real.

 

[Piggy]

Idunno, Piggy. I was very impressed with a thread you made before in which you made a good case for strong atheism. In said thread, you were very rigourous in your definitions. Would you have put up with it if someone claimed that "Everyone knows that feeling of a presence of a higher power. That's God!"? Why do you grant to Sofia what you would not grant to god?

Well, I hope I've been accurate in my memory of the tread so far.

The definition which I believe had been provided throughout the thread was this: Sofia is a "sense of felt individual awareness" -- what makes you feel like you -- which stops when you fall asleep, starts again when you dream, stops when the dream ends, starts again when you wake up, stops when you faint or go under total anesthesia, and begins again when you come to.

I'm sure all of those points had been brought out.

It's like pointing at the cat when someone says "Who's Elanor?" How can you then say "I don't know what you're talking about" or "I'm not sure I experience that"?

I honestly meant that there really is nothing to talk about if someone can't say whether that's something they experience. How can a discussion go forward from there?

I'd love to give a more scientific definition, but since we don't know how the brain does this thing, that's the best way we have to describe it, and it certainly can't be confused with anything else.

I'm sorry if I was short, but I really don't see a way forward from that stance. That's why I eventually gave up talking with Mercutio about it.

 

[Piggy]

Yeah I expected that kind of answer.

Oh well.

I remember why I never bother to discuss anything with you.

What do you think about my thought experiment on Guy?

 

[Piggy]

Ok, I think I got it. You are saying it's not WHAT the brain does that makes it conscious, but HOW it does it?

You are saying that if we build a mechanical version of the brain, with mechanical neurons that are all in the correct locations etc, then it will be conscious. But if we instead build a computer that can do all the calculations and process all the information that a brain does BUT it is build in a different way, such as the way a supercomputer might be built, then it wouldn't be conscious.

Is this correct?

Yes, that's it.

 

[Piggy]

Well, an abacus is a good example for you to use here because it can't operate without someone sitting there moving the beads around. A modern computer can. And the calculations that a computer does aren't just abstractions, they have real physical effects in the real world, electricity moves through the parts of the computer in different ways, different particles go in different places depending on what calculations are done.

Who cares what 1,234 MEANS if we aren't around. Even when we aren't around, when the computer comes up with that answer, physical things happen to it that would be different if it had come up with 1,233.

The physical actions of the computer aren't abstractions, but the calculations are, of course.

The abacus example was just a means of comparing abstractions and physical reality.

The computer does change its physical state when it's running simulations, but it does so in the same way, regardless of what the simulation "is of", which exists in our imaginations.

 

[Third Eye Open]

But running a simulation of Guy's brain won't make the computer conscious, because it's only doing the same stuff it was doing when it ran a simulation of our race car, and that didn't make it conscious.

The physical actions of the computer aren't abstractions, but the calculations are, of course.

The abacus example was just a means of comparing abstractions and physical reality.

The computer does change its physical state when it's running simulations, but it does so in the same way, regardless of what the simulation "is of", which exists in our imaginations.

I agree with what you have been saying except for the bolded parts.

Simulating a human brain and simulating a race car are not the same AT ALL. MUCH MORE is required to simulate a human brain accurately than to simulate a race car accurately, much more detail, much more calculations, much more is going on. Any computer that could accurately simulate a human brain would have to be very very complex, probably more complex than a brain is already.

 

[Piggy]

How is a computer that is simulating the human brain different than a computer that is 'wired to do what a brain does'. Either way it's all bits and bytes moving around, groups of particles behaving one way and causing other groups to behave in other ways, etc.

Well, a computer can be part of an apparatus that paints cars. Together with an arm and a spraygun, it can actually paint the cars.

Or, we can have a computer run a simulation of such a machine, and vary it to see how it would work under different conditions.

The simulation can't do what the robot can do. It can't actually paint cars.

So if it's possible to build a model human brain out of computer parts, then however they're put together, that machine will actually do all the things a human brain does, by some means or another.

Of course, since consciousness is a bodily function, it can't be accomplished merely by running calculations, so you're going to have some sort of hardware in there to actually make consciousness happen, but we don't know what all that would be, although the deep implant experiments indicate that we're going to have a synching up of those 4 signature waves, and we know we'll have neural activity, or some other devices which accomplish these same things.

But the logic alone can't make consciousness happen.

But to run a simulation, the computer doesn't have to do any of the things the brain does at all. That's why it can simulate brains and racecars and lunar landers. If the racecar crashes it won't catch the computer on fire, and if the brain wakes up it won't make the computer self-aware.

 

[porch]

Well, I hope I've been accurate in my memory of the tread so far.

The definition which I believe had been provided throughout the thread was this: Sofia is a "sense of felt individual awareness" -- what makes you feel like you -- which stops when you fall asleep, starts again when you dream, stops when the dream ends, starts again when you wake up, stops when you faint or go under total anesthesia, and begins again when you come to.

I'm sure all of those points had been brought out.

It's like pointing at the cat when someone says "Who's Elanor?" How can you then say "I don't know what you're talking about" or "I'm not sure I experience that"?

I honestly meant that there really is nothing to talk about if someone can't say whether that's something they experience. How can a discussion go forward from there?

I'd love to give a more scientific definition, but since we don't know how the brain does this thing, that's the best way we have to describe it, and it certainly can't be confused with anything else.

Sorry, but I fail to see a difference between your stance on consciousness and my hypothetical theist's stance on God. A "felt experience" that's allegedly universal? Who cares?

I'm sorry if I was short, but I really don't see a way forward from that stance. That's why I eventually gave up talking with Mercutio about it.

A way forward? I'm personally curious about what will next be found out about the brain. I'm not holding out my stoke-ed-ness for a breakthrough in philosophy.

 

[Piggy]

I agree with what you have been saying except for the bolded parts.

Simulating a human brain and simulating a race car are not the same AT ALL. MUCH MORE is required to simulate a human brain accurately than to simulate a race car accurately, much more detail, much more calculations, much more is going on. Any computer that could accurately simulate a human brain would have to be very very complex, probably more complex than a brain is already.

But that doesn't matter, because the actions of the computer when it's running a simulation, any simulation, are no more like the actual operations of a racecar than they are a brain or lunar lander or power plant.

What the computer does stays the same. The kinds of things it does stay the same. It doesn't do the kinds of things that can cause an oil leak, or fly to the moon, or generate consciousness.

And running sims of racecars, lunar landers, and human brains doesn't change the fact that the computer, doing what it does, is not doing the kinds of things that can cause an oil leak, or fly to the moon, or generate consciousness.

Doing what it does, but more complexly, won't make the computer perform any of those actions either by virtue of running a simulation.

 

[Third Eye Open]

Well, a computer can be part of an apparatus that paints cars. Together with an arm and a spraygun, it can actually paint the cars.

Or, we can have a computer run a simulation of such a machine, and vary it to see how it would work under different conditions.

The simulation can't do what the robot can do. It can't actually paint cars.

So if it's possible to build a model human brain out of computer parts, then however they're put together, that machine will actually do all the things a human brain does, by some means or another.

Of course, since consciousness is a bodily function, it can't be accomplished merely by running calculations, so you're going to have some sort of hardware in there to actually make consciousness happen, but we don't know what all that would be, although the deep implant experiments indicate that we're going to have a synching up of those 4 signature waves, and we know we'll have neural activity, or some other devices which accomplish these same things.

But the logic alone can't make consciousness happen.

But to run a simulation, the computer doesn't have to do any of the things the brain does at all. That's why it can simulate brains and racecars and lunar landers. If the racecar crashes it won't catch the computer on fire, and if the brain wakes up it won't make the computer self-aware.

And how can we run calculations WITHOUT hardware? How can we have logic WITHOUT hardware? Of course its hardware that causes consciousness, is anyone even debating this? What else could it be? I am saying that the hardware doesn't have to be in the shape of a human brain to create consciousness, it just has to do what the brain does.

The simulation of the car painting robot is still hardware doing calculations. The actual painting robot is hardware doing calculations, they are different calculations yes, but the COMPLEXITY of them is the same.

 

[Piggy]

A way forward? I'm personally curious about what will next be found out about the brain. I'm not holding out my stoke-ed-ness for a breakthrough in philosophy.

Oh, of course not. Consciousness is no longer a philosophical topic. Word's not all the way out yet, tho.

But I wasn't talking about that, btw. I was talking about a way forward in my discussion with Earthborn. I mean, what kind of discussion can we have from that point? That's what I meant when I said we had nothing to talk about then.

 

[Piggy]

And how can we run calculations WITHOUT hardware? How can we have logic WITHOUT hardware? Of course its hardware that causes consciousness, is anyone even debating this? What else could it be? I am saying that the hardware doesn't have to be in the shape of a human brain to create consciousness, it just has to do what the brain does.

I'm not talking about the hardware necessary to run the logic, obviously, because running the logic can't create consciousness.

The simulation of the car painting robot is still hardware doing calculations. The actual painting robot is hardware doing calculations, they are different calculations yes, but the COMPLEXITY of them is the same.

It doesn't matter that the complexity of them is the same.

 

[Third Eye Open]

But that doesn't matter, because the actions of the computer when it's running a simulation, any simulation, are no more like the actual operations of a racecar than they are a brain or lunar lander or power plant.

What the computer does stays the same. The kinds of things it does stay the same. It doesn't do the kinds of things that can cause an oil leak, or fly to the moon, or generate consciousness.

And running sims of racecars, lunar landers, and human brains doesn't change the fact that the computer, doing what it does, is not doing the kinds of things that can cause an oil leak, or fly to the moon, or generate consciousness.

Doing what it does, but more complexly, won't make the computer perform any of those actions either by virtue of running a simulation.

Well, that's the end of the discussion then if you're just going to keep saying 'no it doesn't produce consciousness' even though it appears to. What do we have to go on other than appearances?

The only way we have to judge if something is conscious is if it behaves as if it is. So if something behaves as if it is conscious that is good enough for me to call it conscious. You are seriously telling me you wouldn't consider Data from star trek, or HAL to be conscious? They aren't aware of their surroundings and make decisions based on things they know about themselves? You think that it is really some quirk in the arrangement of the brain and not how it FUNCTIONS that make us conscious?

 

[porch]

Oh, of course not. Consciousness is no longer a philosophical topic. Word's not all the way out yet, tho.

But I wasn't talking about that, btw. I was talking about a way forward in my discussion with Earthborn. I mean, what kind of discussion can we have from that point? That's what I meant when I said we had nothing to talk about then.

Why, no discussion at all, of course. If you can't properly define what you're discussing, there can be no discussion. Whose problem is that, do you suppose?

 

[Third Eye Open]

I'm not talking about the hardware necessary to run the logic, obviously, because running the logic can't create consciousness.

oh good to know thanks hooray

It doesn't matter that the complexity of them is the same.

As far as the computer is concerned, it doesn't matter if it is controlling a robot that is painting a car, or controlling a simulated robot that is painting a car, it is doing the same kinds of calculations.

 

[Third Eye Open]

Huh, I just thought of something. No one is saying that a simulation of a person would be conscious, the computer running the simulation would be. I thought this would be obvious, but maybe not. Anyway, that is what I have been claiming at least. So when you keep saying that abstractions can't be conscious I guess I agree, but the computer is not an abstraction.

 

[Piggy]

Why, no discussion at all, of course. If you can't properly define what you're discussing, there can be no discussion. Whose problem is that, do you suppose?

What's your objection to the definition? You don't see that cat?

 

[rocketdodger]

What do you think about my thought experiment on Guy?

I think ... I don't learn anything from arguing with you, so I am not going to do it anymore. Not on this topic, at least.

I learn when I try to prove westprog wrong. Thats why I like westprog, in a way. You don't even give me that option.