On Consciousness

[tensordyne]

Actually, I need to correct you slightly on that.

A feedback loop is the requirement for awareness.

For consciousness, we need an internal feedback loop in a system that is already aware.

So a thermostat is aware, but not conscious.

How do you define aware?

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Nope, attention precedes emotion.

Comparative neuroanatomy begs to differ. Emotion is a limbic thing, while attention is a thalamocortical process. Which came first?

In the pixymisa sense of a self-aware thermostat, yes. In the commonly understood sense of a self-aware animal, no.

Also in the sense of the neurobiological basis of self-awareness.

I don't really care about the scale, but I assume it has to do with the complexity of the system required to support that level.

The salient feature is the descriptions of the levels, in my opinion.

I assume it's an ass-pull. The "scale" couldn't be more anthropocentric if opposable thumbs and bipedalism were necessary steps to full consciousness.

 

[tensordyne]

Behavior != Consciousness

Um, no, it isn't. Every single thing it mentions -- every single thing -- you can just google and find a ton of research about. Actual. Scientific. Research.

If you consider having to actually do research and learn something to be "handwavy" then I don't know how you expect to ... well, learn anything.

Let's assume you are right, there is tons of research associated with ConsScale and or its levels, the website would still be handwavy. The website does not give links when listing each of its levels to outside research to give a good reason why the level is what it is. Eight papers by the same two people with, as far as I can tell, not much interest by many others. This does not bode well.

On the plus side, as a mental framework to describe various types of systems having various levels of dynamism, it seems fine (or, at least, can be debated about in a coherent and sensible manner in that regard).

Behavior != Consciousness

Yeah, I did. I even provided a link?

I agree with everything on that link.

Fair enough, but I do not want to put words in your mouth. I was looking for something definitive when stating things about consciousness.

"I define consciousness to be XXXX". Fill in XXXX. Hopefully that is not too restrictive.

 

[tensordyne]

Comparative neuroanatomy begs to differ. Emotion is a limbic thing, while attention is a thalamocortical process. Which came first?

Also in the sense of the neurobiological basis of self-awareness.


I assume it's an ass-pull. The "scale" couldn't be more anthropocentric if opposable thumbs and bipedalism were necessary steps to full consciousness.

Beelzebuddy++;

 

[Pulvinar]

The analogy above would be true, except, how do we test that said machine has this purported property of consciousness? You create your machine, and unless I am mistaken, quite a few people will not believe it has consciousness.

We can all agree when something is flying (to a large extent, I hope) but what shows, beyond a reasonable doubt, that one has replicated consciousness of some kind? You can tell me about all sorts of behaviors some machine might have to which I can just say that is nothing but behavior.

Behavior != Consciousness

The logic in the quote above is seductive and false. It presumes agreement on a number of topics that is non-existent currently.

The analogy demonstrates why you have to define consciousness as something other than "what biology does", otherwise no matter how much biology you duplicate you'll never know if or when you've duplicated it.

I wasn't implying behavior equals consciousness, just that whichever aspects of brain activity we agree to put under the "consciousness" umbrella term, I have yet to see a reason those aspects couldn't be (or haven't already been) duplicated by a computer.

 

[tensordyne]

The analogy demonstrates why you have to define consciousness as something other than "what biology does", otherwise no matter how much biology you duplicate you'll never know if or when you've duplicated it.

I disagree. Say we were Nazi's or something and we did not have to care about ethics. If such is the case, we could mess with people's brains (people only because they can talk about what their consciousness is like) until we figure out what the physical correlates of consciousness are. It would still be hard to accomplish this goal, but if at some point I can make a machine that causes you to see, hear, taste etc. what I want in some way, then I am sure many of the conversations about consciousness would change dramatically (and in a positive way as well).

This is the Scientific Method. At some point, I am sure we would then get down to how consciousness works. I know the last sentence has some faith in it. Oh well, I admit it, I have faith in the Scientific Method (until some better method comes along, not a likely event though is my guess!).

I wasn't implying behavior equals consciousness, just that whichever aspects of brain activity we agree to put under the "consciousness" umbrella term, I have yet to see a reason those aspects couldn't be (or haven't already been) duplicated by a computer.

You should also not have a good reason to think the purported aspects have been replicated either. Perhaps consciousness is a physical aspect of the universe? If such is the case, it does not matter if computers can replicate one or many of consciousnesses aspects (behaviors).

A wet computer is wet even if a dry computer can do all of the same calculations. The wet computer has something a dry computer does not have: water. This is a physical "aspect". Perhaps, in some other way than just water, consciousness has a physical basis as well. I think this is an idea many people have not taken seriously enough.

It is all low hanging fruit of logic and behaviorism over and over again from what I see on this forum. Oh well, let the scientists do their job. At some point neurologists will figure this out. I doubt it will be what anyone expects.

 

[PixyMisa]

How do you define aware?

A system is aware if it can detect events, model them, and respond in some way. A thermostat is aware. It is the exact minimal model of awareness.

Consciousness is self-awareness; thus, to be conscious, a system must be able to determine its own internal state, model it, and respond in some way. A thermostat (a basic thermostat) cannot do this, and therefore is not conscious.

 

[PixyMisa]

The analogy above would be true, except, how do we test that said machine has this purported property of consciousness? You create your machine, and unless I am mistaken, quite a few people will not believe it has consciousness.

Quite a few people do not believe the Earth is an oblate spheroid. Their opinions are not relevant.

We can all agree when something is flying (to a large extent, I hope) but what shows, beyond a reasonable doubt, that one has replicated consciousness of some kind? You can tell me about all sorts of behaviors some machine might have to which I can just say that is nothing but behavior.

Behavior != Consciousness

Consciousness is a behaviour. Of course, everything is a behaviour, so that doesn't tell us much, except to remind us that what matters is what consciousness does rather than some ineffable "is".

So there is a very simple way to determine if a system is conscious, and that is to ask it. Certain behaviours cannot be replicated by non-conscious systems.

The logic in the quote above is seductive and false. It presumes agreement on a number of topics that is non-existent currently.

The agreement of those who know nothing of the subject matters nothing to the subject. The quote is entirely apt.

 

[PixyMisa]

Perhaps consciousness is a physical aspect of the universe?

It is a physical aspect of the Universe - an emergent property of suitably organised computer systems.

 

[PixyMisa]

So we expand a bit to internalize the feedback. The thermostat may only be aware, but the building (thermostat, interior air, a/c) is conscious.

No, just expanding the scope doesn't help; you need to close the loop. The system has to monitor itself.

It's the difference (in Hofstadter's terms) between reference and self-reference.

 

[PixyMisa]

You can theoretically have, for example, self-awareness without either attention or emotion.

I was just thinking about that, and as I see it, you can't have self-awareness without attention.

Since self-awareness is necessarily a subset of the function of the system, it can only examine a subset of the data flowing through the system. The process of selecting the subset to be examined is precisely what attention is.

So attention is something we would find in any conscious system.

Emotion is a fuzzier term; I expect that could be argued either way.

 

[Pulvinar]

I disagree. Say we were Nazi's or something and we did not have to care about ethics. If such is the case, we could mess with people's brains (people only because they can talk about what their consciousness is like) until we figure out what the physical correlates of consciousness are. It would still be hard to accomplish this goal, but if at some point I can make a machine that causes you to see, hear, taste etc. what I want in some way, then I am sure many of the conversations about consciousness would change dramatically (and in a positive way as well).

This is the Scientific Method. At some point, I am sure we would then get down to how consciousness works. I know the last sentence has some faith in it. Oh well, I admit it, I have faith in the Scientific Method (until some better method comes along, not a likely event though is my guess!).

We don't quite have to become Nazis to mess with people's brains-- a neurosurgeon will do.

You should also not have a good reason to think the purported aspects have been replicated either. Perhaps consciousness is a physical aspect of the universe? If such is the case, it does not matter if computers can replicate one or many of consciousnesses aspects (behaviors).

I'm fairly certain consciousness is a physical aspect of the universe, since brains are. Obviously computers are too.

A wet computer is wet even if a dry computer can do all of the same calculations. The wet computer has something a dry computer does not have: water. This is a physical "aspect". Perhaps, in some other way than just water, consciousness has a physical basis as well. I think this is an idea many people have not taken seriously enough.

It is all low hanging fruit of logic and behaviorism over and over again from what I see on this forum. Oh well, let the scientists do their job. At some point neurologists will figure this out. I doubt it will be what anyone expects.

Let's work on the foundations of your assumption before investigating potential causes: what knowledge do you have about consciousness that isn't itself a piece of information? I'm sure you weren't born with the knowledge that the word for it is "consciousness". That information had to be learned from somewhere or someone else.

Do you see any reason a suitably-programmed computer couldn't learn the same information? Effectively, "I compute therefore I am"?

 

[Belz...]

Consciousness is a behaviour. Of course, everything is a behaviour, so that doesn't tell us much, except to remind us that what matters is what consciousness does rather than some ineffable "is".

Everything is a behaviour, but there are some things that are more objects than others.

Certain behaviours cannot be replicated by non-conscious systems.

Ooh ! List, please !!

 

[Belz...]

Behavior != Consciousness

Behaviour != Running.

Perhaps consciousness is a physical aspect of the universe?

How could it not be ?

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Beelzebuddy++;

You shouldn't agree with me so readily, I'm on the other side of rocketdodger from you. You think there's one thing that's consciousness, rocketdodger thinks it's a scale of different stuff, I think all that stuff is just kind of there and can be present in a greater or lesser extent nearly independently of the other stuff.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

No, just expanding the scope doesn't help; you need to close the loop. The system has to monitor itself.

It's the difference (in Hofstadter's terms) between reference and self-reference.

It is a closed loop. The air triggers the thermostat which runs the A/C which cools the air which triggers the thermostat.

If that's still not enough, what's a good minimally conscious case using electronics? Feedback loops of all types are a common and powerful engineering tool, so surely there must be some household appliance we can point to and say "this thing is very dimly conscious."

 

[quarky]

I have a food processor that I never use. Occasionally, I feel sorry for it. If I even plugged it in once in awhile, it might achieve a dim awareness.

I have a weed-eater. It channels Satan as soon as I pull the cord.

This is a silly debate; one of no consequence.
Pixy evidently isn't even going to argue with my points.
The thread's consciousness is dim. Too dim.

 

[tensordyne]

How could it not be ?

It could be about information processing.

 

[tensordyne]

You shouldn't agree with me so readily, I'm on the other side of rocketdodger from you. You think there's one thing that's consciousness, rocketdodger thinks it's a scale of different stuff, I think all that stuff is just kind of there and can be present in a greater or lesser extent nearly independently of the other stuff.

I ++'d you because I agreed with what you said in the post. I do not think there is one thing that is conscious, I am merely talking about how we go about figuring out consciousness as best we can. Your (Beelzebuddy) position is often much closer to my own view because you talk about biological basis of consciousness more than creating some erstwhile supposedly conscious entity.

For the record, I have no problem with the idea of artificial consciousness or consciousness in other types of entities. I just think, for epistemology reasons, we should figure out consciousness in ourselves first (and as much as is possible both ethically and scientifically in other animals).

It is odd that people do not get this because it is a pretty down to earth proposal. My best guess why some do not get it is a confusion about what science, consciousness, information and mind are about.

 

[tensordyne]

We don't quite have to become Nazis to mess with people's brains-- a neurosurgeon will do.

Absolutely, I only brought up the Nazi neurological scientist to point out directly what would be needed if nothing could get in the way.

I'm fairly certain consciousness is a physical aspect of the universe, since brains are. Obviously computers are too.

Not so, computing is not a physical aspect of the universe, it is a computational aspect of the universe. There are many physical systems that will perform the exact same computations. Computation is not about density, it is not about mass, it is not about spin angular momentum. Computation is about things like The Church-Turing thesis that hard-AI, connectionist, etc schools take much too far.

Let's work on the foundations of your assumption before investigating potential causes: what knowledge do you have about consciousness that isn't itself a piece of information? I'm sure you weren't born with the knowledge that the word for it is "consciousness". That information had to be learned from somewhere or someone else.

Do you see any reason a suitably-programmed computer couldn't learn the same information? Effectively, "I compute therefore I am"?

Again, there are two main possibilities (unless you or anyone else can think of others) as to a scientific-type basis of consciousness: computation, physics. Maybe you can combine them. A suitably programmed computer can to whatever degree you want simulate all sorts of things. SO WHAT!

Physics is physics and computer science is computer science. The two studies can help each other in many ways but there is the real world and there is the world of abstraction; it is not a good idea to confuse the two. If I make a simulated world it will follow the rules of the simulated world.

From this simulation I can test various predictions, but I can not come up with new laws of physics from it since I would have to program them in some how. Even if I did program them in, ultimately I would have to test the resultant predictions against real world. The two domains are different.