Has consciousness been fully explained?

[AlBell]

...by you.

On the other hand, most first year biology students understand it fairly well by the end of the semester.

Or maybe learn on your own, you can start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology

Nope, no comments therein on the self-determination aspect that characterizes life. And even you will likely admit your finest computer simulation of a lifeform will never actually be alive, nor will the finest simulacrum based on a non-biologic substrate.



Ichneumonwasp:

Has some breakthrough occured since Ernst Mayr (2002) comments "...The logic of the critique of the vitalists was impeccable. But all their efforts to find a scientific answer to all the so-called vitalistic phenomena were failures ..."?

SFAIK, some key aspects are still lacking.

 

[rocketdodger]

Wrong. The particles of the semiconductors in the computer hardware are the particles of the semiconductors in the computer hardware. The orange is the orange.

Let me see if I understand you correctly -- the computer memory where the data that we label an "orange" in the simulation is actually not the orange in the simulation?

Where, then, is the orange in the simulation? Magic bean land? And I suppose the monitor is a magical window into magic bean land?

And since the orange interacts with other simulation constructs, I suppose that must all be in magic bean land as well?

Or are you saying the whole thing is in our imagination?

Why is that different from a normal orange? If you remove every human in the universe, an orange is no longer an orange. It becomes just a bunch of particles that maybe monkeys (although they are no longer monkeys, since that is a human word as well ) like to eat. But the "orange" is gone, forever.

Doesn't make much sense to me. But then the idea of saying some things are "real" and some are "not" has no logical or mathematical basis to begin with.

 

[Piggy]

What physical component?

Whatever it turns out to be. Right now there's no schematic of what the brain is doing when it's conscious to make it conscious.

But of course that doesn't give us license to assume that there's some real behavior going on without some direct physical cause. So we know there must be one, despite the fact that we can't describe it yet.

The fact that we wake up and have this sensation of awareness floating around somewhere in a fuzzy space behind our eyeballs, that's significant. That's a real observation of the effects of something happening in real spacetime.

It starts and stops at particular points of time, it moves around in physical space. And it's obviously happening in the bodies of the people around us, too.

Whatever this is an effect of, that thing is 100% objectively real and it exists purely within our 4-D tempero-physio-energetic universe. And it's somewhere in the brain.

 

[Piggy]

Let me see if I understand you correctly -- the computer memory where the data that we label an "orange" in the simulation is actually not the orange in the simulation?

We weren't talking about whether we can say that the computer memory "is the orange in the simulation" or not.

We were talking about whether a simulated orange would have "physical vitamin C", and we were talking about what's necessary to make a machine have an experience like I'm having when I type this and you're having when you read it.

 

[rocketdodger]

Nope, no comments therein on the self-determination aspect that characterizes life.

I don't learn anything from speaking to you

And even you will likely admit your finest computer simulation of a lifeform will never actually be alive, nor will the finest simulacrum based on a non-biologic substrate.

I don't learn anything from speaking to you

Please take a biology course and then come back to us.

 

[rocketdodger]

We weren't talking about whether we can say that the computer memory "is the orange in the simulation" or not.

We were talking about whether a simulated orange would have "physical vitamin C", and we were talking about what's necessary to make a machine have an experience like I'm having when I type this and you're having when you read it.

Why would a simulated orange contain vitamin C in our frame?

You know what is necessary, for that experience that you and I have? Something that isn't happening when the neurons in your brain are just sitting there. They have to be firing in a certain way.

What does that imply about what is needed? About what the key ingredient is?

 

[Piggy]

It's not a molecule. Great. What is it? And how do you know? How do you know there's anything there at all?

We have a brain. It's a whole lot of interconnected neurons performing computation. Out of that arises consciousness. There's nothing else there. There is no physical component other than the neural network.

You keep saying there has to be something else. Why? The neural network of our brain is physical. It controls our body; it controls everything we do. What more do you need, and why?

Why are you asking "What is it?" when no one claims to have discovered it yet?

And this statement:

It's a whole lot of interconnected neurons performing computation. Out of that arises consciousness. There's nothing else there.

Is one of the clearest arguments from ignorance I've ever heard in my life.

It also makes no sense, claiming that this cricital biological function merely "arises" and isn't generated by evolved biological machinery sculpted for that purpose, like everything else our bodies do.

Yes, our brains control our bodies, but to actually do something, to make something happen in the real world, they have to have some sort of physical mechanism to carry it out.

Consciousness is unusual in that there is no hardware outside the brain. But hardware there must be, and it must be designed to accomplish this task with this observable outcome locatable in actual spacetime.

 

[Piggy]

Why would a simulated orange contain vitamin C in our frame?

Ask PixyMisa. He's the one who said it would.

 

[AlBell]

But, but, see the character in that game module scowl? Isn't that passion?

removed response because it is pointless to even speak with you

Of course you choose to ignore that objectively observable behavior (like the scowl) is all you'll ever have to judge the 'consciousness' of a simulation. Why think it works there?

I don't learn anything from speaking to you



I don't learn anything from speaking to you

Quite obviously.

Please take a biology course and then come back to us.

Take your own advice; see if you can figure out what life, and consciousness, actually are prior to writing computer code to "simulate" them.

 

[rocketdodger]

Of course you choose to ignore that objectively observable behavior (like the scowl) is all you'll ever have to judge the 'consciousness' of a simulation. Why think it works there?





Quite obviously.


Take your own advice; see if you can figure out what life, and consciousness, actually are prior to writing computer code to "simulate" them.

Please take a biology course and then come back to us.

 

[Piggy]

You know what is necessary, for that experience that you and I have? Something that isn't happening when the neurons in your brain are just sitting there. They have to be firing in a certain way.

Yeah.

And whatever all the brain's doing, it's doing something physical which is generating this feeling of awareness somewhere in the general area of my brain cavity at this moment.

I am observing the effects of something the brain is doing physically, because I'm observing the effects of an event locatable in 4-D spacetime, somewhere in my brain.

Some physical activity of my brain -- whatever it may turn out to be -- is responsible for this effect that I observe as long as I can observe anything.

And it can't be only sufficient "hardware" to support "information flow" because if you're serious about that, then you're allocating no other physical resources for whatever it is that makes conscious awareness happen over and above any flow of information.

Consciousness is not information, it's a bodily function. It has to be carried out by some sort of "hardware" just like everything else our bodies do.

 

[rocketdodger]

And it can't be only sufficient "hardware" to support "information flow" because if you're serious about that, then you're allocating no other physical resources for whatever it is that makes conscious awareness happen over and above any flow of information.

Like pixy, and I, and david, and paul, and wasp, and drkitten, and probably any other intelligent poster who has come in here who knows what they are talking about has explained a million times, the computational model doesn't posit that consciousness is just vanilla information processing, rather that it is a specific type of information processing.

This is not a controversial statement. An apple is not "just" particles in the sense that not any collection of particles is an apple. Likewise, addition is not "just" computation in the sense that not all computation is addition. Nor is consciousness "just" information processing -- in the same sense.

Consciousness is not information, it's a bodily function. It has to be carried out by some sort of "hardware" just like everything else our bodies do.

All information processing has to be carried out by some sort of hardware.

Saying that consciousness can't exist without a body is an immediately obvious statement to anyone who knows what they are talking about. The argument is that the specific form of the body isn't as strict as you think.

 

[AlBell]

Please take a biology course and then come back to us.

Evasions noted.

If you purported simulated life was alive, you'd be laughed out of the room, yet with a straight face you make that claim about the highest expression of life we know of.

 

[Meed]

As I said, that's a category error. It's a logical fallacy.

My question was not a category error. I'm assuming (although you haven't actually answered) that you are in agreement with those who said the answer is no, since they seem to be supporting the same position. I also agree that the answer is no.

Yet you claimed that a simulated orange can do anything a real orange can do. You also claimed it would contain physical vitamin C. According to the answers given by those who agree with your position, the simulated orange could not provide me with sustenance. So, clearly it can't do everything a real orange can do. That also means the distinction between a real orange and a simulated one is both useful and meaningful.

 

[Meed]

You have no trouble assuming I am conscious, just because of the way I respond to your communication. If I told you I was a simulated consciousness, what would you say -- oh, sorry, I change my mind because you aren't flesh and bone? I don't get it.

I've had some conversations with chat bots before and they say some pretty odd things, so I'd say it explains a lot.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

No, that would make it a category accuracy.

"In the world of the simulation" means in someone's imagination, but I don't believe this thread is about imaginary consciousness.

It is a category error (or frame) to suggest that it is possible for a simulated orange to be a real orange or to have the property of a real orange. I'm not aware of anyone who suggests that it is possible.

For the same reason a description of an experience is not the experience itself.

The world of a simulation could be quite intricate -- to the extent that no one could keep it in his or her imagination.

The point behind such simulations is to provide models that might explain how things work in the real world. Just as with analogies in argumentation -- the closer the model, the better the explanatory power.

ETA: But I think we are saying the same thing, so it's just a different way of expressing the thought I assume.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Ichneumonwasp:

Has some breakthrough occured since Ernst Mayr (2002) comments "...The logic of the critique of the vitalists was impeccable. But all their efforts to find a scientific answer to all the so-called vitalistic phenomena were failures ..."?

SFAIK, some key aspects are still lacking.

Yes there have been many discoveries since then, but I'm not entirely sure why you bring it up. The fact that the logic of the critique was fine does not mean that the critique was fine -- because it was based on a basic error (that life requires something more than the physical); many logical arguments suffer the same problem. There were no scientific grounds on which they could explain life with vitalism. There is ample evidence to explain life through biology and biochemistry.


ETA:

I'd have to look up a link but a sort-of-engineered-cell was recently created from "spare parts". Take the bits of a cell that are not by themselves alive, put them together properly and we would see life. Disrupt those same "parts" and life ceases.

What more do we need -- using Ockham's razor -- to demonstrate that life is a complex biochemical process?

 

[AlBell]

"Start the chemistry and start life" would be an actual demonstration.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

My question was not a category error. I'm assuming (although you haven't actually answered) that you are in agreement with those who said the answer is no, since they seem to be supporting the same position. I also agree that the answer is no.

Yet you claimed that a simulated orange can do anything a real orange can do. You also claimed it would contain physical vitamin C. According to the answers given by those who agree with your position, the simulated orange could not provide me with sustenance. So, clearly it can't do everything a real orange can do. That also means the distinction between a real orange and a simulated one is both useful and meaningful.

Correct, your question was not a category error. Please excuse the implication that it was on my part -- I've heard the question asked in a seemingly innocent way many times when the implication was that one side was committing that particular category error. The implication of the question sometimes is that one side thinks that a simulation is identical to reality. I realize you were simply asking a question.

Did Pixy claim that a simulated orange would or could contain real vitamin C? That doesn't sound like the kind of mistake he would make. He may have left out a word in his response. A simulated orange could certainly "contain" simulated Vitamin C and if it were close to a model of a real orange and was in a robust simulation act within the simulation the same way that a real orange acts in this world.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

"Start the chemistry and start life" would be an actual demonstration.

Sure, but it's not exactly within my ability to do so. We have plenty of evidence to support the idea that it is theoretically possible to do this, and we have the baby step of the pseudo-new-cell that was recently announced. It is pretty easy to see that life is a biochemical process.

The evidence basically runs:

1. We have never encountered life that was not based in biochemistry
2. We understand many of these biochemical processes and realize which are the most important for maintaining life
3. When we disrupt any of these processes life ceases

We do need to take the next step, as you mention, and start the process from scratch or semi-scratch to nail it down. But I don't see much room for vitalism in there.


ETA:

I mean, if you had to bet on this, wouldn't you bet on a physical solution? I certainly would.