On Consciousness

[steenkh]

My test for human might be that the machine starts to wonder about the nature of its consciousness even though not specifically programmed to wonder about such things.

Good definition, though I am worried about whether some people I have met would satisfy that criterion.

 

[rocketdodger]

So tell me RD where was the prediction of the damage "Sandy" would inflict?

I have no idea where you are going with this.

On the one hand, anyone who isn't an utter idiot predicted that Sandy might do tremendous damage -- after all, it was a hurricane, and after all, it was headed towards the most heavily populated area on the eastern seaboard.

On the other hand, how is this a rational response to what I said? You might as well have just said "potatoes and strawberries" and made as much sense.

 

[dlorde]

How many is "a reasonable amount of observations"?
How much "more detail" of their recent experiences?

I'd consider close friends and family are generally far more predictable than unpredictable. A large part of the pleasure and security of knowing someone well comes from being able to predict how they will behave, sometimes in a specific way and sometimes in a general way.

Which model/s will help you make these accurate predictions of human behavior keeping in mind the models used in social and economic interactions have proven close to useless?

It depends on what you're predicting; you can predict that there will be stock market bubbles and crashes in a free market, but not specifically when they will occur. The models used in social and economic interactions have typically assumed people act rationally in their own interests. Now we know they generally don't. Game theory has developed considerably based on data from the real world. I didn't say the predictions would always be specific or accurate, but they often are - sales and marketing techniques depend on a degree of predictability in responses and are often very successful. Stage magicians and con-men use our predictability to fool us.

In some situations you can model crowd behaviour in terms of fluid dynamics, treating individuals as random movers. Models for pedestrian traffic flow, emergency evacuation, etc., have improved hugely as a result of such ideas.

You may be able to predict an individual will take a particular action given certain choices, or you may be able to predict that they will oscillate between options, or you may be able to predict their emotional response to certain situations.

Unpredictability is generally counter-productive to successful group living, so there are good reasons why we are more predictable than not.

 

[dlorde]

REM sleep when we are dreaming is indistinguishable by any testable means from an awake state of consciousness.

You mean apart from the Rapid Eye Movement, the accompanying change in brain wave rhythms, and muscle atonia?

 

[Roboramma]

So tell me RD where was the prediction of the damage "Sandy" would inflict?

Hint: The name "Sandy" may confuse you, but "she's" not a person, so what relevance do you think this has to question of predicting human behavior, which is what the post you were responding to was referring to?

 

[Zeuzzz]

You mean apart from the Rapid Eye Movement, the accompanying change in brain wave rhythms, and muscle atonia?

The rapid eye movement mirrors the dream, just it happens faster.

What are the changes in brain wave rhythms?

And the muscle atonia I explained ages ago in a post here somewhere about sleep paralysis. Forgotten the details.

 

[Roboramma]

The rapid eye movement mirrors the dream, just it happens faster.

What are the changes in brain wave rhythms?

And the muscle atonia I explained ages ago in a post here somewhere about sleep paralysis. Forgotten the details.

So, you accept that this statement made by you:

REM sleep when we are dreaming is indistinguishable by any testable means from an awake state of consciousness.

Was false?

 

[Zeuzzz]

Not false, just maybe slightly misleading.

There is no real concrete reason why such a tiny difference in brain chemistry (still not 100% sure of what the difference is I will need to find my post) can create such a drastically different change in conscious experience.

To expand on this idea, there is a titanic difference between lucid dreaming and dreaming, for example. There are no ways to determine a lucid dream by physically testable means; yet the difference in conscious experience of a dream where someone is totally in control of what they do and aware they are dreaming or merely a normal dream where they are not conscious of the fact that they are dreaming.

Science is starting to accept the idea that not every conscious experience is directly testable by physical means. For example out of body experiences such as that stimulated by binural beats and hemi sync technologies have been studied for years by institutions such as the Monroe Institute, but has taken decades for scientific papers to take it seriously, as there is no real model that can explain the phenomena that ensues under non psychedelic induced altered states such as this. You can even replace severely strong painkillers with this altered state of consciousness and do surgery on people it's that strong. Similarly with meditational states and severely powerful biofeedback models demonstrating the power of mind over matter, such as the Iceman Wim Hoff.

 

[Aepervius]

The creative brain is conscious; not logical. It's non computational at core, which is why you can not predict a persons behavior, even if you can model a groups behavior and actions based on averages and statistics.

Nonsense. You cannot predict a person behavior that well (ETA I can pretty much predict what my colleague will say , react , eat, or even where they go for holiday, as said upthread if you know/study a person you can pretty much predict a lot, but that person could still do a random act) because of the huge amount of possible outcome with all small probability each. That has nothing to do with computationability. In fact if I have an engine which can have about 100 chosen behavior at random or semi random, it will be non predictable but still fully computationable. Don't get me started on chaotic behavior, like having 2 separate reaction following a sinusn at different frequency, and both ending in a non predictable but computable behavior.

Furthermore you have a weird idea of computational vs creativity. In fact creativity is better defined as having initial random seed and element assembled following specific rules to make an outcome which appear , depending on what the creativity is upon, new, utilitarian, pleasing and so forth. It is very well computational even if very complicated that we can't reproduce it (well) with computer. I have seen attempt at program , using a random seed, and following certain rule of painting , reproduce modern painting or old painting (think of a phtosohop filter on some object following a certain thematic).

And that's not even point out the fact that true creativity is hadnled only by very few people. Your average person is about as non creative as it can go in their day to day consciousness (or even in life).

 

[Zeuzzz]

nd that's not even point out the fact that true creativity is hadnled only by very few people. Your average person is about as non creative as it can go in their day to day consciousness (or even in life).

I know. Kind of sad isn't it? Explains a lot about modern academia and mental health when confronted with spontaneous social events that need right brain spontaneous type creative thinking in modern western cultures. Too many people use their left brain brain and too few use their creative right brain. Not everything is in a book, and all the great thinkers of the last centuries that helped science progress relied on a sense of perception that was not culturally bound, sometimes known as the Einstein effect. Read any of the literature published by Professor Alan Snyder on the matter, despite the neuroscience community branding him a crackpot he continues to publish his findings in respectable literature, and has found support for his hypothesis from many other fields, even if the main discipline that deals with computational models of the brain based on logical binary ideologies is still scornful of this idea.

 

[dlorde]

... Explains a lot about modern academia and mental health when confronted with spontaneous social events that need right brain spontaneous type creative thinking in modern western cultures. Too many people use their left brain brain and too few use their creative right brain.

I hope you're using this 'left brain', 'right brain' as a trope here. As you've previously been informed, that type and degree of lateralisation is popular folklore, and not well supported by the evidence.

Curious to hear what modern academic woo-meisters are saying these days, I attended a day session at Canterbury Christ Church university, yesterday on 'Exploring Practical Symbolism' (the role of symbolic interpretation & imagination in divinatory practice) where the tutors (Angela Voss and Geoffrey Cornelius) acknowledged this lateralisation overstatement when challenged, yet, like you, persisted in using it in their presentations, knowing it was false. It seems some people just can't let go of myths that appeal to their personal view of the world.

 

[Zeuzzz]

As I said before the hemispheric locality of the creative/intuitive and learned/educated areas of the brain might not be as simple as 'left and right' areas, but it's still an important distinction to make between brain systems.

 

[dlorde]

As I said before the hemispheric locality of the creative/intuitive and learned/educated areas of the brain might not be as simple as 'left and right' areas, but it's still an important distinction to make between brain systems.

Depends what, precisely, you mean by 'brain systems'? If you're suggesting different physical structures or areas, where is the evidence for such physical separation, and which structures or areas are involved?

 

[Zeuzzz]

Well it's not as simple 'left and right' hemispheres, you also have to consider left front, left middle and left rear. When it comes to creativity it's not just left-right, it's also up-down - it's the whole brain.

The right hemisphere has more neural connections both within itself and throughout the brain in general, and strong connections to the amygdala and sub-cortical areas throughout the low parts of the brain. The left side has far fewer connections within itself and beyond to the rest of the brain and is more columnar made up of many neatly stacked vertical columns, which allows the compartmentalization of separate mental functions and subjects, but less integration of those functions. The right hemisphere is more of a mix structurally, and the creative brain at large is not just in the right hemisphere: it utilizes the whole-brain, from left to right to top to bottom, as the creative brain state accesses a large web of connections.

 

[dlorde]

Well it's not as simple 'left and right' hemispheres, you also have to consider left front, left middle and left rear. When it comes to creativity it's not just left-right, it's also up-down - it's the whole brain.

What is?

The right hemisphere has more neural connections both within itself and throughout the brain in general, and strong connections to the amygdala and sub-cortical areas throughout the low parts of the brain. The left side has far fewer connections within itself and beyond to the rest of the brain and is more columnar made up of many neatly stacked vertical columns, which allows the compartmentalization of separate mental functions and subjects, but less integration of those functions. The right hemisphere is more of a mix structurally, and the creative brain at large is not just in the right hemisphere: it utilizes the whole-brain, from left to right to top to bottom, as the creative brain state accesses a large web of connections.

No, not really; where are you getting this from? Even Wikipedia does a better job.

 

[Zeuzzz]

What is?

What I said. Creativity and information compartmentalization.

No, not really; where are you getting this from? Even Wikipedia does a better job.

Why did you ask me then?

Explain it better yourself in that case.

 

[Zeuzzz]

How about worm consciousness?

How about it then?

How would something achieve worm consciousness?

Would that include being able to respond to sound waves in soil, being able to still function if half of the robot is cut off (like a worm does if you chop it in half)? I find it hard to see how we know enough about worm consciousness to make a definitive statement about something achieving it or not.

If we achieved worm consciousness, would you accept that we could, in theory, scale it up to human consciousness?

I agree. Might be the difference between a gameboy and a supercomputer, but still it's might be technically possible.

My test for human might be that the machine starts to wonder about the nature of its consciousness even though not specifically programmed to wonder about such things.

And have any computer programs ever shown the slightest signs of this?

What would your test for human consciousness in a machine be? Or, perhaps, dog consciousness? You name the animal.

A 8-12 year old humans consciousness would be the ultimate animal test.

 

[dlorde]

Why did you ask me then?

Frankly, it was a rhetorical question intended to suggest the sort of question an open-minded and curious person would ask themselves and investigate when told the lateralisation trope was incorrect.

Explain it better yourself in that case.

Have a read of the Wiki article, it's a reasonable basic description. The anatomical structure of each hemisphere is very similar, both hemispherical cortices are structured on repeating cortical columns. There is some lateralised specialisation of function, but little anatomical evidence of it.

 

[Roboramma]

Why did you ask me then?

Explain it better yourself in that case.

He asked you to support you assertions. You did so by posting what he says is false information. When he asked you for some sort of references to show that information is actually true, you say reply with the above, which reads to me like "if you know so much, why'd you ask me?". Which misses the point: he asked you to support what you are saying, if you can't do that, admit that it's wrong.

You can do one or the other, but I don't really see any other valid options.

 

[Roboramma]

Not false, just maybe slightly misleading.

There is no real concrete reason why such a tiny difference in brain chemistry (still not 100% sure of what the difference is I will need to find my post) can create such a drastically different change in conscious experience.

But that's not the issue, you said:

REM sleep when we are dreaming is indistinguishable by any testable means from an awake state of consciousness.

And someone posted testable means of distinguishing a dreaming state from an awake state.

Therefore your above statement is false. It's so obvious that your unwillingness to admit it and move on ("you're right, that statement is false, however I'd still like to point out...") is difficult for me to understand.