Has consciousness been fully explained?

[Piggy]

What function of a neuron is nonprogrammable?

The point is, since we don't yet fully understand how all neurons function, it's incorrect to say that we can program all their functions.

Zooming out a bit, if we're talking about behavior exhibited by groups of neurons designed by evolution to behave modularly -- which we are -- then it's an error to assert (or assume) that the only function of the substrate can be to support the programming if we want to reproduce the behavior artifically in real spacetime.

Anything the system does in real spacetime has a necessary physical component, and a functionally equivalent system must take that into account. And not just at the neural level, in this case.

In fact, there's nothing a computer actually does in real spacetime that can be purely programmed. If you want your computer to play music, or print numbers, or display images, or control a robotic arm, it's a hardware/software solution. Consciousness should be no different.

There are those here who claim it is different, but so far not one scrap of evidence has been introduced to back up that claim.

 

[Piggy]

Now, one might say that we can program all the essential behaviour of the neuron. However, since we don't know what part of the behaviour of the neuron creates consciousness, we can't claim that we can program all the behaviour or all the essential behaviour.

Actually, by now we can be sure that no part of the behavior of the neuron creates consciousness, because consciousness is not a function of anything at the neural level. It's too granular. You can't have a conscious neuron.

 

[Malerin]

I think that, on a sliding scale, the consciousness of newborns is much more similar to that of programmable thermostats than to adult humans.

Wrong. Thermostats aren't conscious.

Go ahead and gimme a citation if you can find one. Cmon, do it. Or just a link to some wikipedia article backing up your point. Anything.

I suggest *you* read up on neural development. In particular

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic_pruning

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic_plasticity

That you think the topography of a newborn's neural networks are relatively similar to that of even a 2 year old is indicative of your knowledge on this issue.

Address the claims I make, not the claims you think I'm making.

ETA: This is a pattern with you that others have noted: you routinely misquote people. Or, to put it bluntly, you're a liar.

 

[Piggy]

And when we understand what behaviour of a neural network is significant - that is, when we precisely know - then we can emulate it. As it is, we don't - in particular, we have no idea what part of the behaviour of a neural network is necessary to produce consciousness.

Precisely.

And even when we do know, there's no reason to believe that the actual behavior of consciousness can be reproduced in 4-D spacetime by pure programming, because so far we know of no other such behavior that can be generated that way.

No one would say that we can get a computer to play music or show a film or print numbers without hardware components that are also designed to do these things, but rather only with hardware that's exclusively designed to support the programming and not one iota more.

When we think in terms of any other real spacetime behavior, the proposition is obviously nonsensical.

But somehow, some folks have talked themselves into the idea that conscious awareness is an exception.

I think it's significant that this group tends to be outside the field of actual brain study.

 

[Piggy]

Why not ? Assuming we can program _all_ of the neuron's behaviour, won't we automatically have the ones that generate consciousness even if we don't know which ones those are ?

But the neurons don't generate consciousness. A particular configuration of neurons, operating in real time with the right fuel, generates consciousness.

Similarly, car parts don't make my car run. A proper configuration of the right sorts of car parts, operating in real time with the right fuel, makes my car run.

The behavior of driving down the road cannot be purely programmed. It requires a functionally equivalent set of hardware.

There is no reason to expect that consciousness will be any different.

ETA: A proper configuration of "information" has never been shown to exhibit any real world behavior at all.

 

[Piggy]

First, not sure what you think bringing up human hearts gets you since they are controlled by ... neurons. Bravo.

Second, no, pendulums do not switch. You probably mean the mechanism that is driven by the pendulum, in which case my reply is "yeah --- and?" It seems obvious to me that a mechanism converting the back and forth movement of a pendulum into the forward rotation of a gear could be said to "compute" since, after all, it is smart enough to map two different motions to a single motion.

Grandfather clocks can switch between two states. An input such as a sudden jolt, for instance, can trigger the switch between swinging and standing still, in either direction. So the whole thing is a switch. Therefore, by your definition, it's a simple computer.

The heart also can be switched among states by varying the input -- normal beat, tachycardia, fibrilation. This is because there is more than one possible pattern in which the group of muscle cells can contract.

So again, by your definition, the heart is a simple computer.

Therefore, to say that the brain is a computer, from this perspective, makes it no different from a heart or a grandfather clock.

 

[Piggy]

You mean like running, or flying?

Hmmm... I wonder if those things can be done via non-biological mechanisms ...

Indeed they can, which is why I fully expect that consciousness can be done by non-biological mechanisms.

Whether or not it will turn out to be feasible for people to build such mechanisms is another question, of course.

 

[Piggy]

Well I suppose that's how epistemology works, piggy. Sorry, I didn't make the rules.

You look at a bunch of stuff, you determine what that stuff has in common, and you label it. Then, if there is no reason other stuff couldn't have similar attributes, you have no choice but to admit it. You can't just stick your head in the sand. I mean, you can, but it is pretty irrational.

Thats like saying hey, horses and people and ostriches run because of muscle cells, so anything without muscle cells can't run.

No -- those things run because of the way their supporting limbs move them along. So quite obviously anything else that has supporting limbs that move it along in a similar fashion might be said to "run." Hence a general theory of running.

My point was (and is) simply that, at this moment, "animal consciousness" and "general consciousness" mean the same thing.

If we create machines that are conscious, they will be conscious in the same way that animals are, because no one has as yet even imagined any other sort of consciousness.

 

[Piggy]

Oh, so your position is that all the functions of the human brain are necessary for consciousness?

But you just said that many animals are also conscious ...

Your arguments display much inconsistency.

Difficult to know how to respond to a non sequitur like that, but I'll try.

We can be pretty darn sure that it is not true that all the functions of the human brain are necessary for consciousness.

But this has nothing to do with the question of whether you can make a set of tinker toys do what a human brain does.

 

[Piggy]

You didn't understand either my point of view nor the conclusions, back when I stated them, so even if you did remember correctly your memory is of stuff that is incorrect.

I wouldn't worry about judging arguments by the conclusion, I would worry about the actual premises and logic used to reach the conclusion.

You can't just accept an argument and then bail when the conclusion is something you find distasteful. If you accept the argument you have to accept the conclusion. Thats what we call "rational thought."

When a proposition reaches absurd (not distasteful) conclusions, a rational person will re-examine his premises and logic.

 

[Piggy]

If you genuinely think that a newborn infant is conscious, then you better start re-thinking your approach.

Because I can tell you right now that the similarities between a newborn's brain and the brain of even a 2 year old are extremely significant.

Furthermore the set of behaviors that a newborn is capable of is pretty small.

At this point, you are pretty close to agreeing with Pixy about the consciousness of a programmable thermostat.

Just saying ... you should think a little more about the implications of your views.

If you think the brain of a newborn is similar in its structure, functions, or capacities to a thermostat, then you've got a lot to learn about the brains of newborns.

You should also be much more circumspect about using overt bodily behavior as a marker of conscious awareness.

The brains of newborns are doing all kinds of amazing things.

But in any case, no, the current research gives us precisely 0 reasons to suspect that newborns are not conscious.

ETA: We also have no reasons from an evolutionary perspective to believe that they would not be, and every reason to believe that they are.

 

[Piggy]

Suggest you read up on brain physiology of newborns.

Indeed. If newborns were not conscious, then those born with pain blindness would not be at high risk. In fact, however, they are.

 

[Piggy]

I think that, on a sliding scale, the consciousness of newborns is much more similar to that of programmable thermostats than to adult humans.

It's posts like this that I need to make a record of anytime someone enters these threads and says, surely the computationalists aren't making the claims you say they're making... you must have misunderstood them.

This post exhibits a profound lack of understanding of the brain and of consciousness.

 

[Piggy]

Go ahead and gimme a citation if you can find one. Cmon, do it. Or just a link to some wikipedia article backing up your point. Anything.

I suggest *you* read up on neural development. In particular

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic_pruning

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic_plasticity

That you think the topography of a newborn's neural networks are relatively similar to that of even a 2 year old is indicative of your knowledge on this issue.

Suppose you spell out why you think that synaptic pruning and synaptic plasticity support your position on the question of whether or not newborns are conscious.

Because I can assure you that folks who are focused on brain studies, rather than computer science or information theory, will not be able to understand why you believe that those articles in any way support your statements on that topic.

 

[Piggy]

And more to the point, what else might be required? I've yet to see a coherent response to that question.

You've seen them, but apparently you have either ignored them or failed to comprehend them.

 

[westprog]

No need for the rolleyes.

Suppose you asked what part of a power plant can't be programmed.

A: The power plant.

When you're talking about behavior generated by a coordinated set of physical objects operating in real spacetime, there is no pure-programming solution that will generate the same behavior.

And for that matter, what part of an atom can't be programmed?

A: The atom.

And when people claim that the brain is a different kind of thing - that it operates on pure information, in an abstract way - then they are misinterpreting what is going on. The brain is an organ of the body, and it manipulates matter and energy to make things happen to the body, like the heart or the pituitary gland. A program will not do what the brain does, any more than it will do what the lungs do.

 

[westprog]

Indeed they can, which is why I fully expect that consciousness can be done by non-biological mechanisms.

Whether or not it will turn out to be feasible for people to build such mechanisms is another question, of course.

What I think we can say with reasonable certainty is that flying will never bedone by a purely software solution.

 

[westprog]

It's posts like this that I need to make a record of anytime someone enters these threads and says, surely the computationalists aren't making the claims you say they're making... you must have misunderstood them.

This post exhibits a profound lack of understanding of the brain and of consciousness.

The key phrase there isn't actually the nonsense about the brains of newborns - it's the "I think that".

It really doesn't matter what people "think" happens. It's what the evidence suggests. So much of this discussion involves theorising in the absence of data.

 

[Piggy]

And when people claim that the brain is a different kind of thing - that it operates on pure information, in an abstract way - then they are misinterpreting what is going on. The brain is an organ of the body, and it manipulates matter and energy to make things happen to the body, like the heart or the pituitary gland. A program will not do what the brain does, any more than it will do what the lungs do.

Indeed.

I still don't quite see how folks can manage to forget the simple fact that our brains are built, not programmed.

They're built by biological processes, but built nonetheless, not programmed. And brains are the only sources of consciousness we know of.

So as far as we know, if you want to create a real object that is conscious in real spacetime, you'll have to build it in such a way that it engages in that behavior.

If anyone wants to say, no, you can program consciousness and make it happen by building only what is necessary to support the programming, they're going to have to explain in concrete terms how this can happen.

Which will be difficult in the absence of an explanatory framework for consciousness, which is our current situation.

 

[laca]

The point is, since we don't yet fully understand how all neurons function, it's incorrect to say that we can program all their functions.

Which neurons do you mean? What is it we don't understand about them?

Zooming out a bit, if we're talking about behavior exhibited by groups of neurons designed by evolution to behave modularly -- which we are -- then it's an error to assert (or assume) that the only function of the substrate can be to support the programming if we want to reproduce the behavior artifically in real spacetime.

Anything the system does in real spacetime has a necessary physical component, and a functionally equivalent system must take that into account. And not just at the neural level, in this case.

In fact, there's nothing a computer actually does in real spacetime that can be purely programmed. If you want your computer to play music, or print numbers, or display images, or control a robotic arm, it's a hardware/software solution. Consciousness should be no different.

There are those here who claim it is different, but so far not one scrap of evidence has been introduced to back up that claim.

Agreed. However, hardware and I/O can be emulated.