On Consciousness

[tensordyne]

Quick Poll on what consciousness is:

Consciousness is a

1. Thing
2. Process
3. Property
4. (Fill in)

 

[tensordyne]

True. There's lots we don't know.

Its hard to keep up with this thread.
One thing that slightly disturbs me in it, is the willingness or desire of various posters to define themselves as various ".....ists".
Pragmatist; dualist; materialist, communist; etc.

(I forget which one was the commie.)

My own bizarre hunches about consciousness come from a combo of scientific study, and the ingestion of remarkable molecules...which is also sort-of sciency. I never did it in a church or a court-house, and I did take notes and measure doses and such.

Can I be excused?

No, tell us of your experiences, if you feel comfortable doing so, as well as any general trends you noted.

 

[quarky]

But I really need to pee.

 

[Belz...]

Huh?

Pixy claims that it is widely accepted that SRIP is the known mechanism for consciousness. I cite leaders in the field saying that the mechanism is unkown.

What the hell else do you expect?

I just told you. Neither you or Pixy are giving anything besides quotes and opinions, but both of you speak of actual science. Yet we don't see actual science beign shown.

I have to lead by pointing out that the claim must be substantiated by the people making it! You know this, so don't play dumb.

What ??? Where did I play dumb ?

Brains and computers are not the same thing, so if you or anyone else wants to claim "the brain is a computer" then that claim has to be substantiated...

Oh, I see. "The brain is not like a computer" is not an actual claim, then ?

Let's see. What does a computer do ? What does a brain do ? See the resemblance ? I'm not asking you how brains and computers are different. But considering the definition of "computation" and "computer", I'm asking you how you can claim that this is not what a brain does.

Not too far upthread Pixy posted a link to an article listing 10 ways that a brain isn't a computer.

Yes, and it was hogwash. It's like saying the heart is a pump, and then someone says "no ! here's ten differences between actual pumps and a heart." Who cares ? What do pumps do ? What does the heart do ? That's the thing. The analogy or association hangs on what the two things have in common, it's not undone by the differences between them. If there were no differences, it wouldn't be an analogy or association because the two things would only be one thing. Anyway. I see from the rest of your post that you already agree with that, so I'll stop ranting.

But neither PixyMisa nor any of the other comp.lit apologists on this forum have ever been able to do the same for computers and brains.

Cultists, apologists, nazis. Can we stop labeling the 'opposing' camp and make arguments without constantly trying to discern each other's agenda ?

 

[Belz...]

But yeah, consciousness does not have to be introspective at all.

Just out of curiosity, why would you think that it would have to be?

I would say it would have something to do with the definition of the word:

Consciousness is the quality or state of being aware of an external object or something within oneself.

Of course, by such a simple definition, any computer is conscious, but the "self-aware" part of the definition pretty much screams "introspective", no ?

 

[Belz...]

Yeah, it would.

I would love to get past all these phony problems and move on to the real ones.

But as long as threads on consciousness are clogged up by irrelevant discussions of AI (intelligence is not the same thing as consciousness) and non-existent conscious machines, then we're left with what we've got.

Actually, the question of whether or not we can make conscious machines or whether our idea of consciousness applies to more things than we initially thought is crucial in understanding consciousness in general, and in people in particular.

 

[Belz...]

Quick Poll on what consciousness is:

Consciousness is a

1. Thing
2. Process
3. Property
4. (Fill in)

Process. I don't think there's a valid argument otherwise: consciousness is something that happens. It isn't made of any substance. At most, it's a state, but that's a weak distinction.

 

[PixyMisa]

"A square is a rectangle."

Piggy: " As you can't help but know, this idea is demonstrably false because there are rectangles that are not squares."

*sigh*

Also presupposes that there is only one conscious entity living in your head. Split-brain studies indicate that it ain't necessarily so.

 

[PixyMisa]

I just told you. Neither you or Pixy are giving anything besides quotes and opinions, but both of you speak of actual science. Yet we don't see actual science beign shown.

There is the entire field of computational neuroscience, which Piggy seems to believe can't possibly work.

My broader point is that even if I'm wrong about the underlying model, what Piggy is asserting is demonstrably mathematically and physically impossible.

Let's see. What does a computer do ? What does a brain do ? See the resemblance ? I'm not asking you how brains and computers are different. But considering the definition of "computation" and "computer", I'm asking you how you can claim that this is not what a brain does.

Quite. The brain is a network of computing elements. It is a computer. It computes. We've poked and prodded and sliced and diced, and that is what it is.

It's not even an analogy, it's definitional: It is computer because computation is what it does, just as the heart is a pump because pumping is what it does.

 

[tsig]

Are you claiming that what happens in the brain is not a reflection of reality?

I guess so. We filter the data via the limits of our mechanisms; our senses.
Obviously, our hearing range misses out on all sorts of racket.
We pick through the sum-total, and imply meaning to what's left for us.

Eye-witness testimony isn't even worth much.

Physics is.

If what happens in our brains doesn't reflect reality then how can we do physics?

 

[tsig]

I do not like liars.



You cut out "See Piggy refs above." If you guys want to act like Cultists do not get pissed off when someone calls you on it.

Yeez, again.

 

[tsig]

This threads an amazing example of lack of interdisciplinary understanding between disparate fields of science.

The programmers assume synonymity with binary code and programming algorithms based on turing (neural, series, parrallel, or other wise)

The biologists tend to ignore the thread as consciousness is just an emergent property of the brain that means nothing of significance.

The physicists will argue based on energy, watts and quantum ideas, and say we dont really understand the physics of the brain yet.

The religious people come here laugh at how silly we are as we are not sure about this subject now, without realising the irony of their position.

The meta physicists will claim there is a field of consciousness that we tap in to but can not currently detect.

The linguistic may say that the very word "consciousness" is just an arbitrary word we have made up that has no meaning.

The psychonaut will think that consciousness precludes the brain and material reality in some way we currently do not understand and current brain > consciousness models have the cause and effect the wrong way round.

The materialist doesn't even accept that consciousness exists or means anything worthy of discussion.

I love how stupid we all are

Luckily you've found a way to feel superior to everyone.

 

[PixyMisa]

Cultists, apologists, nazis. Can we stop labeling the 'opposing' camp and make arguments without constantly trying to discern each other's agenda ?

I do make reference to some people being dualists, or believing in magic, but only because they make statements that are explicitly dualistic, or believe in things (Orch-OR, CEMI) that grossly contradict established science (and in the case of Orch-OR, arithmetic).

But point taken. I should be more careful to restrict myself to ridiculing ridiculous arguments. The argument may be dualistic or magical, but the person might be merely mistaken.

 

[PixyMisa]

If what happens in our brains doesn't reflect reality then how can we do physics?

Never mind that, how come we're not all dead?

 

[tsig]

Because consciousness creates the brain, it's not the brain that creates consciousness. Everything comes down to that basic fact.

Consciousness exists independent of the brain?

 

[Mr. Scott]

If Piggy slammed him that is exactly what it means in the vernacular sense of that word. Piggy did not just slam PixyMisa, he slammed the whole computationalist metaphysical baggage PixyMisa ascribes to.

I call oxymoron.

That's easy. Because for Pixy etal nothing exists except computations. In this case in a brain.

No one has yet discussed the potential effects of dark matter and/or dark energy, 90% of the composition of the universe, on consciousness.

That's a good one! I hadn't heard it before. So far, the hypotheses of consciousness, based on integrally uncomputable phenomena, include:

1) Quantum mechanics
2) Electro-magnetic columns
3) Immortal soul
4) Dark matter
5) Carbon atoms or some other biological process (Massimo Pigliucci)

Am I missing any?

The anti-computational arguments all look to me like arguments from ignorance. Preface each of those with "We don't know how consciousness works, so it must rely on..." They also tend to follow the pattern, "consciousness is mysterious, X is mysterious, so X must be responsible for consciousness." I hate to point this out, but most supporters of 1...4 are certifiably woo-woo. Massimo is considered a critical thinker, but I think he's in the cognitive dissonance zone when he surmises that carbon atoms might be an essential substrate of subjective experience.

PS Sorry I haven't had the time recently to keep up with this thread.

 

[tsig]

Yep. It shuts off it's mechanism by which it experiences the external reality we live in half our lives.

The other half of our lives we're not even consciously aware of this reality.

Why do we sleep, pixy?

Why does every living animal on earth also sleep? I've started a thread on this before. Maybe you were asleep when I started the thread.

Sleeping seems to have an uber-evolutionary nature. Nothings evolved to not need it.



How so?

I suspect it has something to do with the fact that that big shining thing we call the sun periodically disappears from view.

 

[tsig]

I'm nothing you might want to label me as.

I'm a human.

Trained in science and scepticism.

And kickboxing, so careful

Threatening others with physical harm isn't science or skepticism.

 

[PixyMisa]

5) Carbon atoms or some other biological process (Massimo Pigliucci)

Massimo is considered a critical thinker, but I think he's in the cognitive dissonance zone when he surmises that carbon atoms might be an essential substrate of subjective experience.

Yeah. He wanders into magical thinking, gets called on it, then complains about getting called on it. Not a great showing there.

 

[tsig]

There will not be a next time. I do not have the patience of Piggy. Believe what you will, but to me when a bunch of people say the same thing without reason, it looks like a cult mentality. Repeat your tired ideas as much as you want about Brain Function being 'you' and other such absurdly simplistic conceptions, I do not care. Bye.

Bet you can't stick the flounce.