Has consciousness been fully explained?

[westprog]

Really? Through programming my computer can replace my Super Nintendo, a machine made of completely different parts.

Yes, it's true that it's possible for the same program to be run on different hardware and the same result will be achieved. That's a statement about software. It's not a statement about the way that software and the real world interact.

Incidentally, this thread has been bedevilled with the confusion between "computer" and "computation". Not everything done on a computer is a computation. Computations don't perform real-time actions. They don't interact with the real world.

This is not a matter of some abstruse obscure piece of computer science that's inapplicable to the real world. In the early days of computing, most programs were computations - doing calculations on fixed data, and eventually producing output. We've become used to programs which interact with us, and we expect a response when we interrogate them. Such programs aren't describable in the same terms as Turing machines, and the theories of Turing machines don't apply to them.

This wouldn't be so important if this confusion wasn't constantly being created between simulation programs, which run as Turing machines, and control and monitoring programs, which don't.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Yes, it's true that it's possible for the same program to be run on different hardware and the same result will be achieved. That's a statement about software. It's not a statement about the way that software and the real world interact.

I'm sorry, but what? Of course it is a statment about how software and the real world interact. A statement about software concerns looking at the code with your eyes. This is a situation in which the software directs the computer to do something; it is clearly a statement about the 'interaction' between software and the real world.

If you don't see that, then that is one of the very big problems in this discussion.

 

[rocketdodger]

Because when you try to draw on the simulated paper, your monitor gets really dirty.

No. http://www.wacom.com/index2.php

Also, paper when it's not being observed is still paper. A simulation of paper which is not being observed is just a bunch of pixels on a screen. It takes an observer to give the arrangement of pixels some kind of meaning.

It is pixels before it is being observed too.

Now, you can respond that it takes an observer to give meaning to the collection of atoms that makes up the paper, and I would agree with you. The functionality of the paper, though, continues to exist, even with no observers present- if a pencil fell from a tree and landed on the paper, it would still make a mark.

If the stylus for my wacom tablet fell from a tree onto my stylus it would still make a mark on the screen.

 

[rocketdodger]

A model of an aquarium may be wet. On the other hand, it may use other materials. As long as it meets the physical functionality demanded, it suffices.

I didn't ask you about an aquarium.

I asked you about water.

Is model water wet?

Westrprog has already explained to you why your question about a computer running a sim hooked up to I/O devices makes no sense, so I'll leave it at that.

No, he didn't.

If I have a simulated neuron, and I hook it up to real neurons via real I/O devices, is it still a simulated neuron or is it now a model neuron?

The only thing I am changing is where the I/O comes from and goes to. If the I/O goes to more simulation, is it simulation, while if the I/O goes to reality, is it now a model?

Why does where the I/O interfaces matter when categorizing the system itself?

 

[rocketdodger]

Please explain how a roach's nervous system is sufficiently robust to support conscious awareness.

We don't yet know what the brain is doing, but we can be pretty darn sure that a roach ain't Marvin.

Why should I bother to explain when you don't even read my posts?

I said "vague, non-human way."

Meaning, any of the computationalists who think a sufficiently advanced toaster can be "conscious" obviously think a cockroach can be "conscious."

 

[rocketdodger]

You've got to be kidding me.

Not only has there never been any demonstration that a computer can carry out the functions, not only is there no theoretical basis for such a notion, but you talk about mathematics, relationships (see "entification"), and in-sim frames of reference, but never about functionality.

You don't know what you are talking about.

The computational position is that the function of a system required for consciousness is the ability to recognize itself and act accordingly. The computational position is that the function of a system required for human-like consciousness is the ability to recognize itself and act like a human.

The anti-computational position is that the function of a system required for consciousness is some elusive "physical" essence that neurons have and transistors do not, even though isolated neurons are not conscious.

Nowhere in either the anti-computational position, or your bizarre position (whatever it is ), is discussion of the high level function required for consciousness.

I find this laughable, given that traditionally the notion of consciousness stems from the way humans behave and interact with each other. That is the only function that should matter. Only because of religious delusion and/or closed minds are people trying to focus on some obscure "physical" property of neurons, or model-neurons, or anything-else-people-think-it-is-ok-to-make-brains-out-of-without-hurting-their-precious-worldview.

I hold that if commander Data is able to speak with me like a conscious human, and pass a genuine Turing test, he is conscious. Who are you to say otherwise? That is such a stupid position, and obviously a double standard. An entity comes up to you and claims to be conscious, and you say "naw, your brain doesn't have all the functions of a human brain ... sorry. you aren't conscious." Huh? Since when has "all the functions of a human brain" been a requirement for consciousness? Why not just define consciousness to be "all the functions of a human brain" or something like that?

Why are you even in this discussion if you think consciousness is tantamount to "all the functions of a human brain?" You have your answer already. Why stick around?

 

[rocketdodger]

No, as far as we know, lots of human experience cannot be described by mathematics. Some events we know to be inherently unpredictable, and describable only in probabilistic terms. A belief that mathematics will be able to describe everything is just pure faith.

Ah, so now statistics is not part of mathematics, and probability is not a mathematical notion.

Brilliant.

So the things that we can describe by mathematics can be described by mathematics? How does that prove that the things that cannot be described by mathematics are able to be so described in principle?

There is not a single thing that we have encountered that cannot be described by mathematics.

There are many things that no human, nor any human creation, has described by mathematics. Probably because ... nobody has bothered to do so.

I challenge you to find a single thing -- just one -- that someone intelligent has exhaustively attempted to describe in mathematical terms alone and simply failed because it "cannot" be done.

 

[rocketdodger]

Who ever said there was going to be a conscious program?

The idea is that if you have a conscious robot, by definition it's computers are dealing with discretized data from the environment, including itself. All it's sensors are digital, right? Or even if they aren't, there needs to be some D/A conversion before the computers can do anything with the information.

So what happens if you replace the input coming from those sensors -- which is all digital data eventually -- with input from a simulation?

The data is exactly the same as far as the robot can tell. And now you have both the robot's brain being software AND the robot's percepts coming from software. In essence, everything is on computers now.

Is this a conscious program? Or would piggy find some semantic loophole so it wasn't exactly a "program?" I dunno. But clearly this case needs to be accounted for.

 

[rocketdodger]

If you don't see that, then that is one of the very big problems in this discussion.

Yep.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

The idea is that if you have a conscious robot, by definition it's computers are dealing with discretized data from the environment, including itself. All it's sensors are digital, right? Or even if they aren't, there needs to be some D/A conversion before the computers can do anything with the information.

So what happens if you replace the input coming from those sensors -- which is all digital data eventually -- with input from a simulation?

The data is exactly the same as far as the robot can tell. And now you have both the robot's brain being software AND the robot's percepts coming from software. In essence, everything is on computers now.

Is this a conscious program? Or would piggy find some semantic loophole so it wasn't exactly a "program?" I dunno. But clearly this case needs to be accounted for.

Agreed, but, no it is not a conscious program. Consciousness can arise from the implementation of a program, not the program itself. I see a bunch of folks concentrating on 'the program' and saying "that's just an abstraction, it can't do anything by itself"; and that is true if a program is on a piece of paper sitting in a box by the trashcan.

This may be an issue over how we define program, but we agree that is the implementation of a series of steps that *is* consciousness.

 

[westprog]

I'm sorry, but what? Of course it is a statment about how software and the real world interact. A statement about software concerns looking at the code with your eyes. This is a situation in which the software directs the computer to do something; it is clearly a statement about the 'interaction' between software and the real world.

If you don't see that, then that is one of the very big problems in this discussion.

The question we are disputing is whether the operation of the brain is equivalent to a piece of software - in particular, a computation. If it is, then clearly it can be "run" on different platforms. So simply showing that the "same" software can be run on different platforms doesn't prove anything. We already accept that software is portable.

However, some comments on the nature of this software might be appropriate. Since it is interactive, it wouldn't be possible to port this particular game to any machine. It needs to be able to run at the appropriate speed, to respond in the right fashion, and to have a means to display its output. Otherwise, it simply wouldn't work. So this is an example of a program which could not, in principle, be executed on any computer. This example casts doubt, therefore, on the computationalist claim that the human brain is infinitely portable. I think we can agree that the brain is more complex and has more functionality than all but the most sophisticated computer games.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

The question we are disputing is whether the operation of the brain is equivalent to a piece of software - in particular, a computation. If it is, then clearly it can be "run" on different platforms. So simply showing that the "same" software can be run on different platforms doesn't prove anything. We already accept that software is portable.

However, some comments on the nature of this software might be appropriate. Since it is interactive, it wouldn't be possible to port this particular game to any machine. It needs to be able to run at the appropriate speed, to respond in the right fashion, and to have a means to display its output. Otherwise, it simply wouldn't work. So this is an example of a program which could not, in principle, be executed on any computer. This example casts doubt, therefore, on the computationalist claim that the human brain is infinitely portable. I think we can agree that the brain is more complex and has more functionality than all but the most sophisticated computer games.

No one doubts that the right input and output would be necessary. The issue of portability is simply that it can theoretically be run on any machine given the right input and output patterns, not that there wouldn't be practical problems implementing it.


And I would rephrase what you said above -- the question being debated is whether the operation of the brain is equivalent to a piece of software implemented on a computer, not a piece of software. Minor issue, but folks are quibbling over words quite a bit here.

 

[rocketdodger]

However, some comments on the nature of this software might be appropriate. Since it is interactive, it wouldn't be possible to port this particular game to any machine. It needs to be able to run at the appropriate speed, to respond in the right fashion, and to have a means to display its output. Otherwise, it simply wouldn't work. So this is an example of a program which could not, in principle, be executed on any computer. This example casts doubt, therefore, on the computationalist claim that the human brain is infinitely portable. I think we can agree that the brain is more complex and has more functionality than all but the most sophisticated computer games.

All that other stuff isn't part of the game though. You can unplug your nintendo from the television and the game is still running. You can unplug the controller and the game is still running. You can slow down an emulator to 0.000000001 % of the original game speed -- and the game is still running.

Your claim that the game "simply wouldn't work" is "simply" incorrect.

But, for the sake of argument (and humor) lets pretend you are actually correct. Is a person who goes blind no longer conscious, then? Someone who looses their hearing? Someone who is paralyzed?

Are we not conscious during our dreams, even lucid ones, because the "interface" with the rest of the world is disconnected?

 

[Frank Newgent]

There is not a single thing that we have encountered that cannot be described by mathematics.

There are many things that no human, nor any human creation, has described by mathematics. Probably because ... nobody has bothered to do so.

I challenge you to find a single thing -- just one -- that someone intelligent has exhaustively attempted to describe in mathematical terms alone and simply failed because it "cannot" be done.

How about the universe?

On a smaller scale can you mathematically describe how your bolded sentence ought to be true (assuming oughts exist given the existence of goals).

 

[rocketdodger]

How about the universe?

On a smaller scale can you mathematically describe how your bolded sentence ought to be true (assuming oughts exist given the existence of goals).

Frank can you mathematically describe the behavior of the processor in the computer you typed that post on?

I guess if you can't, then it must not be possible to do so.

Brilliant.

 

[Frank Newgent]

Merely responding to your challenge. If you're not up to answering responses why bother to begin with?

 

[rocketdodger]

Merely responding to your challenge. If you're not up to answering responses why bother to begin with?

I asked you for an example of something that people have exhaustively tried to describe with mathematics, and have been unable to.

Your response is to ask me if I can describe something mathematically? I can't describe those things mathematically. I haven't thought about it. I don't want to waste 10 years of my life detailing a mathematical description of something that complex. But so what? Does that mean it is impossible?

Are you Bill O'Reilly? Do you always debate by simply repeating a question that has nothing to do with what the other participants are discussing?

 

[Drachasor]

No, as far as we know, lots of human experience cannot be described by mathematics. Some events we know to be inherently unpredictable, and describable only in probabilistic terms. A belief that mathematics will be able to describe everything is just pure faith.

So the things that we can describe by mathematics can be described by mathematics? How does that prove that the things that cannot be described by mathematics are able to be so described in principle?

Might as well say the same about the Sun, except complex phenomenon doesn't mean it can't be described by math. It just means we don't currently understand it and our computer models are too simplistic to fully detail the system. You're confusing our current limits with absolute limits. Don't do that.

Beyond that, as someone said, probability is math. Inherently random events have probabilities and so can be modeled more than well enough by random number generation (this will be perfect when we can randomly generate numbers via quantum processes in computers).

Atoms can be described by math, sub-atomic particles can be described by math. Their interactions can be described by math. Nothing there that can't be. Brains are composed of this things, so in principle they can be fully described by math. Unless you are proposing dualism. Are you proposing that?

Yes, it's true that it's possible for the same program to be run on different hardware and the same result will be achieved. That's a statement about software. It's not a statement about the way that software and the real world interact.

Incidentally, this thread has been bedevilled with the confusion between "computer" and "computation". Not everything done on a computer is a computation. Computations don't perform real-time actions. They don't interact with the real world.

This is not a matter of some abstruse obscure piece of computer science that's inapplicable to the real world. In the early days of computing, most programs were computations - doing calculations on fixed data, and eventually producing output. We've become used to programs which interact with us, and we expect a response when we interrogate them. Such programs aren't describable in the same terms as Turing machines, and the theories of Turing machines don't apply to them.

This wouldn't be so important if this confusion wasn't constantly being created between simulation programs, which run as Turing machines, and control and monitoring programs, which don't.

Sure, and the Enigma Cypher is also software run on mechanical hardware. Software that emulates hardware isn't a trivial fact. It simulates how the physical hardware would behave and duplicates that. As long as it has some system to gather the right inputs and a place to put the proper outputs, then any simulation software with that minor bit of interface hardware can replace something that's a different computer or not even a computer. There's no reason to think the brain is special in this regard...it's easier than most things having inputs much like electrical impulses and outputs of the same form.

Now, two things here.

First, you can avoid external timing problems by simulating an entire universe, hence all timing is internal and part of the computation by incrementing a time variable. Timing isn't an issue for modeling a brain or the universe with a Turing Machine.

Secondly, do you then agree that a control and monitoring program could duplicate the brain and consciousness?

 

[Drachasor]

How about the universe?

On a smaller scale can you mathematically describe how your bolded sentence ought to be true (assuming oughts exist given the existence of goals).

The universe is made of Leptons and Bosons. They and their interactions are described by mathematics. Granted we are still working out the details and aren't 100% sure on everything at the moment, but there's no evidence at all that we won't eventually come up with a theory or set of theories that perfectly describe their behavior. It's been incredibly successful so far.

Given that, then everything in the universe is calculable, since it is all composed of those particles interacting. This includes stars, nebula, black holes, and people.

And to be fair, the vast, vast, vast majority of interactions don't require more detail than what we have now. We're actually working on detailing the behavior of particles in very, very extreme situations as well as why some of the constants we have exist. In principle we have everything needed to calculate how the leptons and bosons in a human behave...we just don't have the computing power.

 

[Drachasor]

The question we are disputing is whether the operation of the brain is equivalent to a piece of software - in particular, a computation. If it is, then clearly it can be "run" on different platforms. So simply showing that the "same" software can be run on different platforms doesn't prove anything. We already accept that software is portable.

However, some comments on the nature of this software might be appropriate. Since it is interactive, it wouldn't be possible to port this particular game to any machine. It needs to be able to run at the appropriate speed, to respond in the right fashion, and to have a means to display its output. Otherwise, it simply wouldn't work. So this is an example of a program which could not, in principle, be executed on any computer. This example casts doubt, therefore, on the computationalist claim that the human brain is infinitely portable. I think we can agree that the brain is more complex and has more functionality than all but the most sophisticated computer games.

We don't need the brain infinitely portable. No one is claiming that it is infinitely portable in this thread. Well, unless you mean that by simulating a reality for the brain and hence inputs and outputs that we mean it is infinite portable. In that case, the SNES is infinitely portable since you could simulate a player on a computer without a monitor or keyboard and have it all run.

And ther brain is more complex and has more functionality than all computers on the planet put together. The most sophisticated computer games don't come close and can't with current technology. If they could then computer intelligence would be a rather trivial debate, I'd just point to B0b, the computer intelligence.