Bump for Jodie. She's complaining
here and elsewhere that she's not being properly addressed. Specifically that people are simply telling her she's wrong without explaining
how she is wrong. And since she's clearly referring back to this thread, it seems we should resurrect it.
Previously in this thread, thoughtful (and often lengthy) explanations were provided to expound Jodie's various misconceptions and simplifications. (
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12.) Jodie
dismissed much of what her critics said as a "posting tantrum." As she did in this thread, so in the above-referenced thread she has continued to dismiss criticism as somehow compromised by the alleged emotional immaturity of the critics.
Clearly Jodie disagrees with her critics regarding what constitutes a meaningful response. This raises a legitimate question. When proposals are simply ignorant of the relevant sciences, to what extent and to what depth is a detailed, expostulatory rebuttal merited? If someone walks into a concert hall who has never played a note of music and tells the conductor he's doing it wrong for various naive reasons, is that person entitled to a full expounding of musicology from the conductor? If someone walks into a fourth-year medical school classroom bragging about how all diseases can be cured by dietary supplements, is the only viable rebuttal a replay of the entire medical education the audience has obtained?
Fringe claimants often seem to have this inflated sense of entitlement. Despite often admitted shortcomings in their own knowledge and experience, they seem to presume their claims "somehow" still have enough merit to warrant careful consideration and (if necessary) a detailed rebuttal. And when they don't get it, they complain that they're being "ignored." Well, in a certain sense they have been -- and rightly so. There are gatekeeper criteria to serious consideration, and in meeting them a claimant must demonstrate to a sufficient degree that he understands the fundamentals on which the claim is predicated. In short, a claimant doesn't get to presume that his uninformed, speculative claim is
not patently dismissable.
But amid the harshness of the real world, Jodie
has had the luxury of serious consideration and thoughtful rebuttal, even though her claims don't meet the gatekeeper criteria. All except her latest proposal, which has been correctly dismissed as caricature.
So let's look at your latest offering, Jodie. I've highlighted and labeled each of the instances of vague handwaving.
I've been pondering how to do this. The only thing I could come up with as far as an application for consciousness1 is concerned would be to develop algorithms similar2 to what we use in obstetrics when delineating all possible emergencies3.
If you could apply something like that4 to consciousness5 that could take into account the processes for how the brain works6 as it perceives something7 that would include different levels of consciousness8 that might be a start.
From there, you would need to convert it into some kind of algebraic equation or set of equations9. Take the mathematics that indicates dimensions higher than ours,10 develop a simulation,11 run the equations for consciousness12 in that simulation13 and then see what happens.......that's all I got. Could it be done?
By the numbers, then:
1.
Application vs. model.
Applications are commercial products, generally trivial ones to solve well-phrased problems and having a certain degree of reliability. You may think this doesn't matter for your proposal. But instead of an "application," what you should be looking for is a model. You're purporting to do science, not bake cookies or plan treatment for obstetrics patients. That's not to say the latter is easy. But it's a deterministic problem with well-studied procedures and decision points. Hence it can have an "application."
2.
Suitability is not a given.
Here you just assume that similarity is appropriate. Expert systems for medical diagnosis and treatment are elementary implementations of the rete algorithm or some other production-rule system. Now these can be arbitrarily large and arbitrarily complex. But one thing they must be is deterministic. One thing they cannot be is probabilistic in the sense required by the only formal model of consciousness you cite: Tegmark.
You've been told numerous times how you misunderstand and misinterpret Tegmark. Even assuming Tegmark's definition of consciousness is suitable, he doesn't formulate consciousness; he formulates matter. That is, he creates the limiting case, not a predictive or descriptive model. Alongside this, he doesn't model conscious matter; he just models matter. He does so in the most general way, using Hilbert spaces defined over the complex abstractions used to define quantum fields. His finding is that his formulation of the phenomenology of consciousness is not precluded by investigable properties of matter. That doesn't mean all matter is conscious. It doesn't mean he knows what consciousness is. It doesn't mean he knows how to make conscious matter. It means there is no behavior inferred from his definition of consciousness that cannot be produced by some ordinary manifestation of matter.
This is your first fatal flaw -- i.e., that the math you've alluded to previously in this thread is testable in the way you've proposed. We could stop here, as your theory cannot recover from this.
3.
Quantum mechanics is not discrete.
This is your fatal flaw. The paradox of quantum mechanics is that while it deals with discrete quanta, the values in the model are not -- and cannot be -- discretes. Because of uncertainty, they can only be expressed as probability distributions. Wrapping one's head around this dichotomy is the difficulty of understanding quantum mechanics at any useful level. Any model that purports to compute a quantum state of matter as a set of enumerable, delineated values is simply wrong from the start.
This is your second fatal flaw. Regardless of previous deficiency, we could stop here without loss of rigor.
4.
Suitability is not a given, redux.
"Something like that" incorporates things that cannot be part of any workable quantum-state model, and explicitly excludes the essence of such a model. It is handwaving at its most evident. This is common in fringe thinking. You know about X, so you assume that if a problem Y bears some superficial resemblance to X, you can transfer all your knowledge of X to Y and this will be palatable to experts in Y. There is no kind way to say this: the world is not obligated to dumb itself down to fit your understanding.
5.
Define consciousness.
Because of the problems I outline above, you can't apply a deterministic methodology (i.e., pattern-matching, product-rule) if you plan to invoke the "multidimensional" aspects of quantum field theory. Not only is there no agreement what consciousness consists of, there is absolutely no justification for limiting any eventual definition to discrete, deterministic systems. You're trying to have your cake and eat it too.
This is your third fatal flaw -- a fundamental, qualitative inconsistency in your approach.
6.
Neurological process is not algorithmic.
One of the most important distinctions between neuroscience and artificial intelligence is that they are not nearly as congruent as one might think. Because computers can be made to mimic some kinds of behavior that we associate with intelligence, it is tempting to believe that all aspects of intelligence (including perhaps consciousness) can be attained simply be scaling up existing algorithmic methods. I discussed this already at length. There is no such belief in computer science, although it is a common lay belief and an equally common science-fiction meme.
Conversely because we often discuss cognition using the language of computation, it is tempting to believe that cognition is simply biological computation. Again, neither computer scientists nor neuroscience believes this. "Taking ... into account" neurological processes sidesteps a number of open questions in both fields.
7.
Perception can be meaninglessly algorithmic.
Artificial automata perceive. That is, they take in sensory input, apply transformative processes (even paramaterized from stored memories), and evaluate them according to a set of rules. The outcomes of those rules affect behavior. That's classically defined perception, and the algorithms are well-defined after 30 years or so of practical research.
But of course it doesn't constitute all of what we mean by human perception. That's because humans have an uncanny ability to normalize sensory input, and because human perception embodies a non-deterministic inferential component affected by motivation, emotion, and other unknowables. So you're rather stuck. If you want deterministic perception, then it can be had for the price of a smartphone. But of course that no more captures the underlying mechanisms of consciousness than the elevator door when it decides not to close on you. Sensory neuroscience has no models for you to use here, and they wouldn't fit your bill anyway.
8.
What is the model for 'levels' of consciousness?
The neurological model of levels of consciousness consider only phenomenology. They don't consider either mechanism or causation. Below you require just such a constitutive model (not a descriptive one), but not only does science not yet have one, the descriptive one ends at our known reality and doesn't consider whatever you might imagine by "higher" levels of consciousness such as those that would let you commune with the dead, permeate the threshold of death, travel through time, or any other fringe claim you're trying to support with this model.
9.
Modeling revisited.
I covered this at length previously. We can certainly model the observable behavior of systems as we observe them. The motion of the planets as seen from Earth, for example, can be modeled to a very high degree of accuracy using systems of harmonic equations, up to 300 terms each. But that's not the math that governs their motion. That's qualitatively Kepler and quantitatively Newton. And that's still not the mathematics that describes the mechanism for what makes planets move. We're still working on that, some hundreds of years after Kepler and Newton.
Modeling is not a mechanical translation of behavior into "some kind of algebra." You can't even decide on even the most basic features of any such model, much less tell us whether it's possible to create a model so faithful that it expresses not only behavior but mechanism.
This is your fourth fatal flaw. You cannot sweep model fidelity under the carpet. You propose to establish or falsify, with this method, the extradimensional properties of consciousness. You cannot reason about findings if you can't rule out that the model is unfaithful.
10.
'Higher' dimensions are not a thing.
This just restates your biggest misconception, one which I covered at length
here for your benefit. In the vector formulations for quantum mechanics, one dimension is not "higher" than another in any way. Values in quantum behavior are simply represented as vector quantities, expressing magnitudes along each of the conceptual dimensions. No one coordinate or dimension is "higher" than another. They don't describe separate realms of time and space that we can't see. In the context of four spatial dimensions and one temporal dimensions that we perceive, the remaining 7 dimensions (Einstein) or 19 dimensions (some multiverse formulations) are not "higher" in any way -- they're just the rest of the data for that particular space-time expression. They're no more conceptually "higher" or "lower" than each other than the numbers in your locker combination. They're just sets of values meant to be taken collectively.
You cannot escape the error of this equivocation no matter how vigorously you state it, how inaccurately you word it, or how often you repeat it. There is simply no concept in physics for "higher" dimensions as the fringe theory defines them.
This is your fifth and most egregious fatal flaw.
11.
Define the simulation model.
"Develop a simulation" is simply an appeal to magic. There's no kind way to say it. The mathematics from which you infer your multiple dimensions is not translatable to discrete simulation, if the goal is to predict the next state from some instant state. Many have tried, including some of the best people in the business (e.g., U.S. Dept. of Energy). Guess whose company built and programmed the computers they used to try? There's a klunky approximation. I think it's up to partially modeling some two dozen particles -- say, a handful of fluorine atoms. But it's not promising.
12.
Formulation.
You haven't the faintest idea what "equations for consciousness" are, or even what they could be. In your attempt to fog up the lens of science that's examining your vague attempts at formulation, you've proposed a hodge-podge of incompatible alternatives. You are entitled to no more elaborate explanation of your error than to note where it contradicts itself.
13.
Constitutive relationships.
For any linear system to convolve with any other linear system, there must be a set of constitutive relationships between them. There must also be constitutive relationships among elements in the simulation domain. A simulation won't work at all unless the model and the inputs share some elemental constitution. Since you don't have a formulation for either the model or the environment, you have no clue whether such constitutive relationships are possible. It's never a given that they are.
Constitutive relationships among model elements dictate behavior at element boundaries, through whatever dimensionality you want to consider. But you can't provide us a model, so you don't know whether any domain-specific constitutive relationships are possible. It's never a given that they are.
In fact, sometimes it's a given that they're not. Enter entanglement. This wonderful feature of quantum field theory ensures that you can't bound the relationships, which is an important part of the formulation. In theory, any element can affect any other element in a discrete simulation. But in practice the effect diminishes according to well-defined rules, and this decay is the only thing that makes systems with, say, 1012 unknowns tractable in polynomial time. That well-defined behavior doesn't apply to systems with nonlinear entanglement. Thus the constitutive relationship problem isn't governed by the number of dimensions in the model, but rather by the square of the number of elements in the model. I don't know of anyone in the field who even knows a method for approaching such intractable formulations.
The number of fatal flaws in your proposal is staggering. Any one of them dooms it, no matter how strong the remainder. Four or five of them, explained here at length, should satisfy your desire for a complete refutation.
Well, it's more of a poltergeist story, but still fun.
