I challenge you: your best alternate to materialism

[Myriad]

I don't think you can brush aside Koch's comments so easily. Koch is an expert that has spent decades studying consciousness. For someone like Koch to speculate there might a conscious field in the universe, similar to a Higgs field, has to be taken seriously. It's like one of the top climatologists in the world claiming the Earth's warming is due to dark energy fluctuations.

Meh. He's an expert speculating. The case he makes is relevant; his expertise isn't.

But putting Koch aside, yeah, whatever is being moved around (rocks, electrons, water molecules) has to be part of a sufficiently complex system that is arranged in the right way. But that begs an obvious question: why does one arrangement of neurons (and their corresponding activity) correspond to the pain of stubbing your toe, while another arrangement corresponds to the pleasure of eating a a nice tuna salad.

In the comic I linked about moving rocks around and simulating a universe of conscious beings, the rocks are moved a certain way, but why should one particular pattern of rock movement be more significant than another? Why does rock movement pattern 1100101010010101010101010101 produce a moment of consciousness while pattern 0010100101001010010100010101 doesn't produce anything?

Neither pattern of rocks would mean anything to you and me, not without a translation that revealed the meanings in the generated universe. (A pattern that short wouldn't produce anything identifiable in any case, let alone something like a moment of consciousness. The representation of the state of a grain of sand would require something like a quadrillion bits in that system.)

This is in no way surprising. You getting hit by a bus would mean nothing to the nitrogen atoms that make up the proteins in the cell wall of an islet cell in your pancreas, or to an alien peering in from outside the universe who could only perceive quantum wave functions. The state of the rocks would have meaning to any conscious beings that happened to be generated by the evolution of the state of the rocks, for the same reasons that some strings of alphabetic characters have meaning to us and others dklo erojfa dtjiejqqqqqq cboddop zeifkw do not.

Also, it's worth noting that in the comic, it's a person moving the rocks around with some pattern in mind, but of course a person isn't required, because whatever pattern a person comes up with can be duplicated by a random rock placing machine, given an infinite amount of time (or rock movers). What that means is that there is the possibility that a shifting sand dune (for example), just by random chance, could reproduce a pattern of sand movement that corresponds exactly to a specific pattern of rock movement that is supposed to produce some instant of consciousness.

Not true. Random rock placement is not computation. The arrangements of the rocks shown in the comic correspond to a specific set of automaton rules that had been recently (at the time of the comic) been proven to be computationally universal, and thus capable (if certain premises of computing theory are accepted) of computing anything computable, including the evolution of a universe.

It's the computational process carried out by arranging rocks, not the arrangement of rocks, that generates change (motion, thinking, consciousness, etc.) in the simulated universe. The arrangement of rocks might represent the state of the simulated universe, but not in any direct way (that is, one rock does not represent one particle, but perhaps one small part of the data structure that encapsulates one bit of the value of one variable in the state of some particle).

Now, what are the odds that a specific sand dune (or rock slide or cloudburst or bunch of dust specks) could be conscious? Unknown, but the real possibility that flashes of consciousness are occurring all around us is a startling one, and one you wouldn't expect on materialist model. The materialistic account of consciousness is that it is something brains do, and you can't get much further away from a brain than a bunch of moving sand particles.

I don't think such a flash of consciousness, if it could be coherently defined at all, would mean much of anything without memory. Show me that the sand pile integrates external stimuli into a constructed narrative memory in which itself features as an agent in the narrative, and it might seem more plausible. But from what I know about sand pile dynamics, it does not appear that changes in the pile can leave any record of previous states or any other persistent patterns of information, unlike in brains, computers, living ecosystems, and rows of rocks positioned via a proven-universal automaton rule.

Consciousness is something brains do, and moving rocks around isn't remotely similar to what brains do, so why should we entertain the notion that consciousness can be produced by moving a bunch of rocks around "in the right way"? Where's the evidence for that claim? What's the causal mechanism whereby a bunch of rocks being moved around produces a simulation of a universe with conscious beings?

What brains do and moving rocks around following a particular rule that has been proven computationally universal are similar. Both are computation.

The causal mechanism described in the comic is programming. That is, the narrator configures the initial row of rocks to represent the initial state of a universe, in such a manner that the computation taking place in the evolution of the rock-automata correctly represents the progress of time in that universe. We do that all the time with computers, though normally for extremely small and simplified universes, such as weather models or computer game worlds. Note that the narrator mentions that this work took arbitrarily long amounts of time to begin (perhaps several subjective lifetimes, perhaps trillions of subjective lifetimes; he's got infinite time so it doesn't matter).

How so? Let's take an instance of rock movement that corresponds to a moment in the simulated universe (I'll use binary, but it really doesn't matter). According to the comic, if I move the rocks around in a certain way, I can simulate a universe of conscious beings. So let's suppose that rock pattern 1001010010100010101001010011100...1 (put however many rocks you want in the ellipsis) produces a nanosecond of simulated universe time.

No. As I explained above, a pattern of rocks might represent a state, but only evolution of large portions of that pattern—computation—can represent a process such as consciousness.

Why can't that be duplicated by a random process with another substrate? If that pattern of rock movement produces a nanosecond of a simulated universe, why can't we do the same with sand particles? Or water molecules? Is there something special about rocks? To avoid special pleading, any unique movement of particles should produce a moment of a simulated universe, as long as the particles match the movement of the rocks "in the right way" ("the right way" is whatever particular arrangement of rocks produces some instance of a simulated universe) .

There is nothing special about rocks. There is something special about the specific rule by which the narrator places the rocks (it's computation). And there is something special about the specific arrangement of rocks that the narrator starts with (it represents the program for the simulated universe, including its starting state and all the algorithms for change i.e. 'laws of physics' operating within it.

Random rock-placing would be no more likely to produce an instance of a simulated universe as random placement of elementary particles would be likely to produce your life—not just your brain and body as they are right now, but your entire life experience up until now being the result of ongoing random particle arrangements from moment to moment with no causal rules in effect.

And if that's not convincing, then forget the comic. Do you agree that we can make a mechanical brain that is the functional equivalent of a working organic brain? Would't the functionally equivalent mechanical brain be conscious, no matter what it's made out of? Transistors? Valves? Light switches? What is so special about organic substrates?

I think a functional equivalent of a brain would be conscious. I don't believe I've claimed or implied otherwise. I will add, though, that because consciousness is a process, time scales are relevant and the substrate would have a large effect on what time scale would apply

Right, but in the comic, there really are no mechanisms, other than a guy moving rocks around. Are you saying that's not enough to simulate a universe with conscious beings? Because if it is enough, then you don't need trains and switches. You can scale the whole thing down exponentially, so that the quadrillions of drops in a rain shower could randomly move the right way to produce an instant of consciousness.

There is a mechanism. The narrator is following a rule, not placing rocks at a whim, in order to execute the program he created. See above about "instants of consciousness." Here's an instant of a classic novel: w. Doesn't mean much without being part of a greater continuity, does it?

But to take your example of a railroad, the only thing stopping it from being conscious is scale, correct? So if you had a large enough railroad, and arranged it the right way, it should become conscious. Doesn't that seem a little strange?

"Seems a little strange" doesn't carry much weight. It seems strange that a 747 can lift off the ground. It seems strange that people in Australia don't fall off the world. It seems very very strange that a collection of particles interacting electromagnetically can write expository prose, but here I am doing it.

Again, I go back to the only thing we know can produce consciousness: an organic brain. The same objections for railroad-consciousness apply as rock-consciousness: trains moving on railroads aren't anything like what an organic brain does, so why should we even entertain the idea that a railroad (even if sufficiently complex and arranged the right way) can become conscious? And if it become conscious, what would it feel? It has no nerves, so how could it feel pain or pleasure? Would it be murder to dismantle it?

If it's executing a functional consciousness, then the railroad-consciousness does have nerves and feelings and thoughts, or something like them, made of increasingly complex configurations of switch states. I didn't describe equipping it with any sensory organs so it has no way to be aware of anything external to itself (nothing outside it has any influence on its progression of states), which would mean it's unable to learn about its environment, and any awareness of its own structure or of the external universe would have to be pre-programmed into it the way the internal laws of physics of the rock universe would have to be programmed into the starting pattern. But we could alter that, such as by including an array of switches that respond to directional light.

It may or may not have the capability to experience pain (since it didn't have to evolve in a competitive environment, and we're hypothetically designing it instead, that would be an optional feature). If you had an otherwise fully aware person who had a neurological disorder preventing him from feeling pain, would that be sufficient rationale to make it not murder if you killed him?

It's not the scale that's the issue. It's the assertion that a railroad, no matter how big and complex, could become conscious. At what point would it become conscious? How many miles of track would be required? How many trains? These are the same questions we can ask about brains (e.g., how many neurons are required to produce a conscious experience), but at least we know collections of neurons can produce consciousness. Where is the evidence that collections of trains and tracks can do the same?

Yeah, it wouldn't be a quick-thinker, but it's the possibility of a railroad system being a thinker at all that's a problem for materialism.

As you yourself point out, it's no more a problem than atoms or neurons comprising a thinking or conscious system, which is what all the available evidence points to. (I don't need to point out that an individual neuron doesn't think and is not conscious, right? Any more than an individual railroad switch is.)

Scale is an issue because it results in intuitive misimpressions when you visualize the scale wrong. You can't study hurricanes in a teacup, and you can't understand the vast computational power underlying human cognition by imagining a model railroad layout in a basement, or a few miles of rock-pattern shown in a comic out of what would actually have to be at least trillions of light-years across (very much wider than we believe the actual universe to be) to work anywhere near as described.

 

[Fudbucker]

Meh. He's an expert speculating. The case he makes is relevant; his expertise isn't.




Neither pattern of rocks would mean anything to you and me, not without a translation that revealed the meanings in the generated universe.

Wait, what? Who's the translator, the guy moving the rocks? Someone in the simulated universe? What's being translated, and what is it being translated in to? Is the simulation of the universe taking place in his brain? Why is a translator required? Is there a translator that makes sense of your neural activity (if you say you are the translator of your own neural activity, you have a major boot-strapping problem)? What of a conscious simulation running in a forest with no one to observe it? Is is unconscious unless there's someone to translate it?

(A pattern that short wouldn't produce anything identifiable in any case, let alone something like a moment of consciousness. The representation of the state of a grain of sand would require something like a quadrillion bits in that system.)

Which is why I later threw in an ellipsis and said you can add as many rocks as you like. Obviously, the pattern is being massively simplified. Did you really expect me to post a quadrillion zeroes and ones?

This is in no way surprising. You getting hit by a bus would mean nothing to the nitrogen atoms that make up the proteins in the cell wall of an islet cell in your pancreas, or to an alien peering in from outside the universe who could only perceive quantum wave functions. The state of the rocks would have meaning to any conscious beings that happened to be generated by the evolution of the state of the rocks, for the same reasons that some strings of alphabetic characters have meaning to us and others dklo erojfa dtjiejqqqqqq cboddop zeifkw do not.




Not true. Random rock placement is not computation. The arrangements of the rocks shown in the comic correspond to a specific set of automaton rules that had been recently (at the time of the comic) been proven to be computationally universal, and thus capable (if certain premises of computing theory are accepted) of computing anything computable, including the evolution of a universe.

Let's stop here, because this is an important point:

You seem to be claiming a person is able to arrange rocks in a way that a random rock placing machine can't duplicate, given enough time. I'm not seeing how that's possible. I don't see how you can postulate some special pattern that can't be duplicated by a random process without invoking specialness. It's like claiming there's a book you can write that an infinite number of monkeys couldn't randomly duplicate. If there's no book you can write that can't be reproduced by a random process, there's no arrangement (or set of arrangements) of rocks that can't be reproduced by a random rock mover.

A classic objection to your line of thought is a Boltzmann brain, which is a working brain which randomly pops into existence, complete with a set of past memories. Your claim that there are some arrangements of matter (e.g., rock patterns) that random processes can't reproduce would make Boltzmann brains impossible.

ETA: Oh, and expertise is always relevant. You don't take your car to a doctor, you don't go to a mechanic about a suspicious mole.

 

[Myriad]

Wait, what? Who's the translator, the guy moving the rocks? Someone in the simulated universe? What's being translated, and what is it being translated in to? Is the simulation of the universe taking place in his brain? Why is a translator required? Is there a translator that makes sense of your neural activity (if you say you are the translator of your own neural activity, you have a major boot-strapping problem)? What of a conscious simulation running in a forest with no one to observe it? Is is unconscious unless there's someone to translate it?

What translators exist that attach meaning to my neural activity, or to anything I do, besides myself and other entities that are also using neural activity to do so? None, of course, unless you're positing alien machine intelligences spying on us, or perhaps gods.

What bootstrapping problem? I was not born with any ability to attach meaning to anything. Neither were you. Bootstrapping happened. Not much point in complaining about it.

You seem to be claiming a person is able to arrange rocks in a way that a random rock placing machine can't duplicate, given enough time. I'm not seeing how that's possible. I don't see how you can postulate some special pattern that can't be duplicated by a random process without invoking specialness. It's like claiming there's a book you can write that an infinite number of monkeys couldn't randomly duplicate. If there's no book you can write that can't be reproduced by a random process, there's no arrangement (or set of arrangements) of rocks that can't be reproduced by a random rock mover.

A classic objection to your line of thought is a Boltzmann brain, which is a working brain which randomly pops into existence, complete with a set of past memories. Your claim that there are some arrangements of matter (e.g., rock patterns) that random processes can't reproduce would make Boltzmann brains impossible.

A working brain complete with memories randomly pops into existence... and then drops to the floor with a big squelch and immediately and permanently ceases being conscious? Again: conscious experience is not momentary; momentary experience is not conscious experience.

Any such possibility, though, is so remote that there is for all practical purposes zero probability of it happening within the duration and extent of the universe. The rock pattern is not merely an arrangement, it is also a process. A random process can be a component of an ongoing computational process but cannot be the process itself.

"Sure it can," you will want to argue. "Suppose instead of following the rule to create each row, you place the rocks at random. Then you test the row to see if it is correct. If it's not, you erase the new row and try again. The end result is the same." Yes it is, but the random row generator is contributing nothing to the result; the computation is now, instead, being done by the tester (at a vastly, as in two to the power of an already unimaginably large number vastly, slower speed).

Let's stop here, because this is an important point:

Let's not, because it really isn't.

 

[punshhh]

It is data.

Then it's virtual then? i.e the content of the data only manifests in the perception of a reader. Otherwise the configuration in the material (in which the data is stored) is a meaningless, or random material state.

Since every person has his/her individual algorithm/concept, obviously an artificial entity could have its own, equally valid, individual algorithm/concept for it.

Ok, so it has a development, rather like a growing, developing child. Our automaton is begining to look more human now.

In this case as I have pointed out the data requires a developed reader to be accessed(manifest).

 

[punshhh]

Hardly. I should hope that your life experience is vastly different from that of an ant.

Think about it though. Myself and an ant are in the terms of chemical composition, virtually identical. It's true that I am larger, a larger colony of cells, but the cells are the same. I have personal experience of being, why not the ant?

Circular argumentation.

It is not circular because it refers to a constant, a fact, the fact of experience happening to living entities. This is irrefutable.

I know that it doesn't specifically, or scientifically explain what experience is, absent a living entity, but this does not prevent us exercising philosophical analysis of it. And unfortunately for science, experience involves our primary knowledge of existing (as I pointed out earlier in the thread), this draws in all the philosophical issues around being and existence.

 

[punshhh]

I'm curious what if any motivations there would be for artificial consciousness, that is, what intentionality would there possibly be for a conscious device w/o curiosity, hunger or thirst, sex drive, etc?

To mimic humanity. A performing monkey (automaton) for our enjoyment.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Then it's virtual then? i.e the content of the data only manifests in the perception of a reader. Otherwise the configuration in the material (in which the data is stored) is a meaningless, or random material state.

No, it is physical and systematic. Systematic because, all else alike, the same input will result in the same data stored.

In this case as I have pointed out the data requires a developed reader to be accessed(manifest).

The data has to be interpreted to have meaning, yes. That what an inteligence uses experience for.

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

Think about it though. Myself and an ant are in the terms of chemical composition, virtually identical. It's true that I am larger, a larger colony of cells, but the cells are the same. I have personal experience of being, why not the ant?

Why not the robot?

It is not circular because it refers to a constant, a fact, the fact of experience happening to living entities. This is irrefutable.

Because you define experience as something peculiar to living entities, your argumentation becomes circular. There is no fundamental difference between experience as happening to a life form or to an automation.

Hans

 

[LarryS]

Why not the robot?



Because you define experience as something peculiar to living entities, your argumentation becomes circular. There is no fundamental difference between experience as happening to a life form or to an automation.
Hans

Since no one has produced artificial consciousness, nor even a theory on how to produce artificial consciousness - it seems way to early to cast such speculations.

Granted, Materialism predicts that consciousness is producible from material, but we don't know if this assertion is true - that consciousness is even create-able . . . and if consciousness is producible, that it can be produced via inert material.

In any case, I'm all behind the attempt and wish them success, as long as their robots don't deem me low in utility and kill me off.

 

[Fudbucker]

Why not the robot?



Because you define experience as something peculiar to living entities, your argumentation becomes circular. There is no fundamental difference between experience as happening to a life form or to an automation.
Hans

Since no one has produced artificial consciousness, nor even a theory on how to produce artificial consciousness - it seems way to early to cast such speculations.

Granted, Materialism predicts that consciousness is producible from material, but we don't know if this assertion is true - that consciousness is even create-able . . . and if consciousness is producible, that it can be produced via inert material.

In any case, I'm all behind the attempt and wish them success, as long as their robots don't deem me low in utility and kill me off.

Assuming materialism is true, MRC is on solid ground with that statement. Why would the subjective experiences of wetware be any different than that of hardware? If two brains are functionally equivalent, their mental states should be comparable- my seeing red should be comparable to your seeing red, which should be comparable to a functionally equivalent mechanical brain seeing red. I'm not saying "seeing red" would be identical in all three cases, but there should be many points of similarity.

I guess it's possible there's something special about organic brains, but under materialism it's highly unlikely that inorganic brains would experience the world any different than their mechanical counterparts. ETA: if they had equivalent sensory apparatus.

 

[punshhh]

Why not the robot?

Why yes the robot? It's not an organism afterall.

I know that an ant has a similar composition to myself, not so with the robot.

Because you define experience as something peculiar to living entities, your argumentation becomes circular.

I am happy to define experience as something which happens to living organisms, because I have primary knowledge of it. This knowledge is peculiar in that it is not understood, only known. The fact of my knowledge of it is sufficient for me to refer to it as a phenomena, as such it does not have to be precisely defined.

There is no fundamental difference between experience as happening to a life form or to an automation.

This is not known, or possible to determine(at this time). Experience as known to,(defined by) me, cannot be specifically programmed into an automaton, because it is not understood. It is only known, through primary knowledge.

 

[punshhh]

No, it is physical and systematic. Systematic because, all else alike, the same input will result in the same data stored.

Yes, though each persons input is unique, perhaps even unique each time accessed in the same person. Whereas the subjective concept "Russell's Teapot", is easily understood socially. While not being stored physically in the same input more than once, per occasion it is thought.

The data has to be interpreted to have meaning, yes. That what an inteligence uses experience for.

Yes, this is referring to intelligent systems, not conscious systems, specifically.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Why yes the robot? It's not an organism afterall.

Because it is your unfounded assertion that it must be an organism. Circular argumentation again.

I know that an ant has a similar composition to myself, not so with the robot.

Your personal assertion.

I am happy to define experience as something which happens to living organisms, because I have primary knowledge of it. This knowledge is peculiar in that it is not understood, only known. The fact of my knowledge of it is sufficient for me to refer to it as a phenomena, as such it does not have to be precisely defined.
This is not known, or possible to determine(at this time). Experience as known to,(defined by) me, cannot be specifically programmed into an automaton, because it is not understood. It is only known, through primary knowledge.

Can't make head or tail of that.

Hans

 

[Pixel42]

If the first table I encounter is made of wood, I know that tables are composed of wood. So if I then encounter a similar sized object consisting of a flat piece of plastic with four plastic legs, I know it can't be a table. Because it doesn't have the same composition as a table.

 

[Fudbucker]

If the first table I encounter is made of wood, I know that tables are composed of wood. So if I then encounter a similar sized object consisting of a flat piece of plastic with four plastic legs, I know it can't be a table. Because it doesn't have the same composition as a table.

No, you would conclude tables CAN be made of wood. You would need more evidence to conclude tables can ONLY be made out of wood.

The first planes were basically wood and fabric constructions. I don't think anyone at the time thought that's the only thing you can make a plane out of.

 

[LarryS]

No, you would conclude tables CAN be made of wood. You would need more evidence to conclude tables can ONLY be made out of wood.
The first planes were basically wood and fabric constructions. I don't think anyone at the time thought that's the only thing you can make a plane out of.

Don't you mean you would need evidence to prove tables can be made of other materials besides wood? Evidence can not prove tables can only be made of wood.

 

[Fudbucker]

Don't you mean you would need evidence to prove tables can be made of other materials besides wood? Evidence can not prove tables can only be made of wood.

Evidence would be required to claim that tables can only be made out of wood because it is self-evident that tables can be made out of almost anything, even if you were seeing a table for the first time (and it happened to be made out of wood), you could still imagine a stone table, a plastic table, a metal table, etc.

I don't know what point Pixel was making. Maybe something about how brains have only been observed to be made out of neurons, so brains can only be made out of neurons? While it's true we've only observed organic brains, it doesn't follow that non-organic brains are impossible (or even improbable). On the materialist model, if something is functionally identical to a working brain, it should do the same thing an organic brain does. The substrate shouldn't matter the slightest bit.

 

[Pixel42]

I was parodying punshhh's argument that his/her consciousness arose from an organic brain, therefore consciousness can only arise from organic brains. Tables can be made of many different materials, we have no difficulty recognizing a plastic one just because all the ones we have previously seen were made out of wood. There is no reason to assume only one specific material can give rise to consciousness just because that is the only type of consciousness we have so far seen.

 

[Fudbucker]

I was parodying punshhh's argument that his/her consciousness arose from an organic brain, therefore consciousness can only arise from organic brains. Tables can be made of many different materials, we have no difficulty recognizing a plastic one just because all the ones we have previously seen were made out of wood. There is no reason to assume only one specific material can give rise to consciousness just because that is the only type of consciousness we have so far seen.

Ahh, now I feel stupid for not getting it, LOL

 

[punshhh]

Because it is your unfounded assertion that it must be an organism. Circular argumentation again.

It is not an unfounded assertion, it is an observation. Until a working model is produced it is reasonable to consider that it is organisms which produce consciousness. Which is the observation on the ground.

Your personal assertion.

Well in the case of the robots I have observed, yes. I am not asserting that no robot can have a similar composition to myself, or that robots cannot be conscious.

Can't make head or tail of that.

Sorry, that was a bit of a tongue twister. I will try to put it more clearly.

Simply I am saying that consciousness does not need to be defined to discuss it, because it is known through our personal experience of it.

Also I am saying that consciousness is both undefined(in a scientific sense) and not understood. However it is known, so it can be discussed*.

Now I am no expert on philosophy, but I presume that within philosophy there is an area of thought which considers what can or cannot be said about things which are known, but not necessarily understood*.




*This is an important thought process in mysticism, because through the realisation that things not understood can be known and therefore discussed, one can bypass the necessity for the mind in knowledge.