On Consciousness

[Mr. Scott]

These threads cause many of us to "see red".

I love it that you said "see red" because it's a reminder that red is a special color hard wired in the brain with instinctive associations. Anger causes the face to flush red and we instinctively know this and associate it with anger.

Pseudocode:

if(see red)
if(on face)
then expect anger and hostility. Secrete the fight or flight hormones.
else if(on skin)
then panick from assumption of injury, secrete fight or flight hormones, or faint.
else if(surrounded by green)
then expect delicious fruit. Grab it before anyone else does.
else
activate curiosity module. What's this red thing?

All that is done with inborn hardwiring of neurons, I bet.

Red is special, and that's programmed in our genes, and these associations are, I'm pretty sure, responsible for its quale.

 

[steenkh]

The machine that passes a Turing Test might very well be conscious, once that level of complexity has been reached that allows it to pass.

I take it that you then do not think that dogs or chimps are conscious. None of them passes the Turing Test.

 

[PixyMisa]

And we have the mirror test^WP as a widely accepted test for consciousness, and most of the species who pass it would not even begin to pass the Turing test. (Also, human infants fail both tests.)

 

[Belz...]

All processes are physical. But that doesn't mean they're all the same. They just have that in common.
Photosynthesis and consciousness are both physical processes, but you don't think they're the same, do you?

Actually, that doesn't help your argument. Remember ? Photosynthesis means consciousness can't be replicated in a computer, somehow ?

 

[Belz...]

It's not just semantics. you said "If consciousness is computational..."

What do you mean by that? Do you think every instance of computation results in consciousness?

No, and we've been through this before. The broadest possible definition of computation is useless, just like the broadest possible definition of consciousness doesn't help us much.

 

[Belz...]

Again, Oxygen "within the simulation" isn't Oxygen. And what does "within the simulation" mean? Sounds very dualistic.

Dualistic ? What ? Do you even know what the word means ?

 

[steenkh]

And we have the mirror test^WP as a widely accepted test for consciousness, and most of the species who pass it would not even begin to pass the Turing test. (Also, human infants fail both tests.)

I do not think that the mirror test is a good test for consciousness, even if it is an important test for the ability to place one self in the frame of reference. It is obviously useless for anybody who is blind or for whom sight is not important. This includes computer programs, some of whom who you regard as conscious, and I agree with you.

Awareness of one's own thoughts is not the same as awareness of one's own looks, or what one is. I believe that a computer program could be conscious even without being able to recognise its own code.

The mirror test is also a measure of intelligence, because in order to pass the test, it is necessary to infer what is seen by noticing one's own movements and comparing them with the movements of the mirror image, and surely animals that fail the mirror test would pass the test of not attacking their own tail which similarly shows an ability to put one in a spatial framework (I know dogs that would fail this test miserably)!

 

[PixyMisa]

I do not think that the mirror test is a good test for consciousness, even if it is an important test for the ability to place one self in the frame of reference. It is obviously useless for anybody who is blind or for whom sight is not important. This includes computer programs, some of whom who you regard as conscious, and I agree with you.

It's not ideal, certainly, but it's interesting.

The mirror test is also a measure of intelligence, because in order to pass the test, it is necessary to infer what is seen by noticing one's own movements and comparing them with the movements of the mirror image, and surely animals that fail the mirror test would pass the test of not attacking their own tail which similarly shows an ability to put one in a spatial framework (I know dogs that would fail this test miserably)!

Heh. Yes, both the mirror test and the tail test place higher bars on recognising consciousness than I do in my definition.

http://cuteoverload.com/2010/08/09/is-is-that-all-there-is/

 

[dlorde]

Those are otherwise reasonable people.

so the issue boils down to whether use of these drugs can be considered reasonable or rational. Having experimented at a less reasonable/ rational stage of my life, I think, in certain circumstances, it can be.

Seeking insights in psychoactive drugs is like seeking to improve your time in the hundred metres by dipping your stopwatch in treacle: It doesn't help, potentially hurts, and it totally misses the point.

I don't know about explicitly 'seeking insights' - more like seeking novel experiences, and novel experiences may lead to insights. I and others I know have had educational and insightful experiences about our perception of ourselves and the the outside world in that way; but that's really a discussion for a different thread.

 

[dlorde]

And we have the mirror test^WP as a widely accepted test for consciousness...

Not so much consciousness in general as self-awareness, i.e. self-aware consciousness.

 

[dlorde]

I'm wondering if using 'simulation' to describe an artificial instantiation of brain-like function, or consciousness, is causing more confusion than it's worth.

It seems to me that if you created a machine to do the major functions of a traditional internal combustion car, but instead of steel panels, used a plastic monocoque, instead of a single petrol engine, used electric motors in the wheel hubs, instead of liquid fossil fuel, used a battery, instead of a steering wheel, used a joystick, and so-on, you would have devised a novel car; you wouldn't say you'd simulated or emulated a car.

The key point being that, in both cases, whatever the specific means used, the new machine is actually performing the same key functions as the original. The confusion with a computer instantiated brain arises because computers are also commonly used to simulate or model physical processes as abstractions; not the same thing at all.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Still the question remains: why does a certain level of complexity, a certain arrangement of transistors, neurons, or whatever lead to consciousness? What is the mechanism? Anyone got a good layman's book they'd like to recommend?

Simply put, we don't know yet. As you implied before, if we did, we wouldn't need to have this discussion. However, the bits we do know of are all computational, so it stands to reason there's just a trick to it we haven't found so far.

[ETA] just a note from your language, complexity != intelligence. That was the discovery that broke the first gen of AI researchers: making something big and messy is no guarantee it'll wake up. Intelligence isn't a level of complexity, it's a particular algorithm. More likely a very large set of algorithms with some common feature we haven't thought of yet.

The impact is ulatimately felt in the brain, as that is the organ capable of feeling things. I don't think a specific cell feels anything anymore than a mercury thermometer feels anything.

I've been avoiding qualia because it can be a loaded term, but I don't see any dualism. Maybe special pleading, if I want concsiousness and feeling to apply to only my class of organisms. But I don't want that. I want a definition that will account for the subjective feelings everyone gets. A definition that allows for thermometers to feel is trivialized to such an extent, it doesn't apply to anything in the real world. Cell Nuclei control all the operations of the cell. Do a cell feel? If it feels, what exactly does it feel? fear when a virus invades? Pain when the cell wall ruptures?

The dualism comes in when the definition exists and people reject it because it's not subjective enough. See the earlier posts on the color red for this - although we can say exactly how the color is perceived in the early visual system, people still argue that doesn't describe "what it's like" to see red. Same for your emotion-based use of "feel." My advice would be to just call it emotion and divorce the subjectivity from the argument.

This is the response from me asking what simulated energy is. I have no clue what you wrote.

Pseudocode for the ATP synthase enzyme to add a phosphate group to ADP, turning it into ATP. This is the final stage of photosynthesis. It's where the energy you said you wanted to see happens.

I ask for a link and you provided one that goes to the definition of "null hypothesis" in Wiki. I wanted something a little more robust: a quote from an expert who agrees that everything in the brain can be described as a computational process. Who, doing work on the brain, believes that?

I don't see much point in whipping our respective experts out and seeing whose list is longer. We know much of the brain is computational, and I'm not aware of anything that isn't. That means we can start assuming the rest will turn out to be computational as well, instead of wringing our hands uselessly and whining about not having the full solution yet. If you know of a magic bean, I'd love to hear about it (truly), until then there's no reason to think it exists.

 

[trebor]

...The confusion with a computer instantiated brain arises because computers are also commonly used to simulate or model physical processes as abstractions; not the same thing at all.

Could this be exactly what the Brain does;
Simulate or model the world as abstractions through data collected by sensors(senses).

 

[Dancing David]

Could this be exactly what the Brain does;
Simulate or model the world as abstractions through data collected by sensors(senses).

Somewhat

 

[tensordyne]

You would like to talk about red without talking about red?

What is this red that doesn't have a wavelength or activate cells in the eye that sends signals to the brain?

The experience of red itself,

something comp.lit never seem to talk about, the experience of sensation. My definition for a specific consciousness (some call it p-consciousness for phenomenal consciousness) is just the sum total of what is being experienced by the specific consciousness .

If you activate the correct signal to the brain then red will be seen or experienced, even if there is no eye having red light hitting it.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

I'm wondering if using 'simulation' to describe an artificial instantiation of brain-like function, or consciousness, is causing more confusion than it's worth.

It seems to me that if you created a machine to do the major functions of a traditional internal combustion car, but instead of steel panels, used a plastic monocoque, instead of a single petrol engine, used electric motors in the wheel hubs, instead of liquid fossil fuel, used a battery, instead of a steering wheel, used a joystick, and so-on, you would have devised a novel car; you wouldn't say you'd simulated or emulated a car.

The key point being that, in both cases, whatever the specific means used, the new machine is actually performing the same key functions as the original. The confusion with a computer instantiated brain arises because computers are also commonly used to simulate or model physical processes as abstractions; not the same thing at all.

More confusion than it's worth in this conversation, but it's establishing a vital point that will come up in later ones, should anyone actually care to digest it all this time. Searle's Chinese Room argument is a good one, but the conclusions he draws from it, by equivocating the most abstract level of simulation with the most accurate of emulations, are emphatically not. If both parties understand that the different levels of simulation fidelity may have different impacts, it's easy. If not it's an uphill battle, because you first have to fight them to get them to talk about a seemingly-unrelated matter of simulations and repeatedly demonstrate how it's not just a baffle for special pleading, it really is an important thing.

 

[tensordyne]

Christ sakes just ingest some DMT and open your mind to the holistic reality of existence.

It doesn't work that way. It just makes your brain malfunction.

I am pretty sure I do not like the words 'holistic' being thrown around, but the above does remind me of some possibly apocryphal story of Galileo. The idea was Galileo wanted to show a priest of some kind (Bishop, Cardinal, Pope?) his telescope and how it showed the moon was not perfect. The priest would not look through it because, as he said, "It doesn't work that way. It just makes your eyes malfunction."

There is definitely something anti-science in the way PixyMisa responded to above. It has an anti-sensation bias.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

I am pretty sure I do not like the words 'holistic' being thrown around, but the above does remind me of some possibly apocryphal story of Galileo. The idea was Galileo wanted to show a priest of some kind (Bishop, Cardinal, Pope?) his telescope and how it showed the moon was not perfect. The priest would not look through it because, as he said, "It doesn't work that way. It just makes your eyes malfunction."

There is definitely something anti-science in the way PixyMisa responded to above. It has an anti-sensation bias.

They laughed at Galileo. They laughed at Darwin. They laughed at Einstein.

But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

 

[tensordyne]

They laughed at Galileo. They laughed at Darwin. They laughed at Einstein.

But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

Yes, a very well put and erudite point.

 

[Belz...]

something comp.lit never seem to talk about, the experience of sensation.

I don't think it's due to an unwillingness to address the issue, Tensor, but rather a different understanding of what it means. To me, for instance, there is no real distinction between what you call the sensation of red, and the purely mechanical reaction of my nervous system to a bunch of photons at that wavelength. In other words, they simply do away with the loaded language and include the sensation in the physical process, rather than assume it's something distinct.