proto-consciousness field theory

[baron]

See what I mean?

You're the one who brought up properties, and now you deny that they are even there, because suddenly it's no longer convenient to your argument.

Stop with the bluster, you've been hoisted by your own petard.

If you really want to get down to it, elementary particles are only fluctuations in spacetime; they are behaviours of spacetime, and thus they don't exist, according to you.

That's nuttier than squirrel ****.

You know that your consciousness field doesn't exist. You know that it's unnecessary and redundant. You just can't admit it, so you play games instead.

Don't worry about it, I can see how having your argument proven to be not just nonsense, but abject woo, would be vexing.

 

[Belz...]

That's nuttier than squirrel ****.

Once again betraying your ignorance of topics you once claimed to know very well.

What do you think elementary particles are, anyway?

I can see how having your argument proven to be not just nonsense, but abject woo, would be vexing.

If you can see it, why haven't you conceded yet?

 

[baron]

What do you think elementary particles are, anyway?

Which ones? They're not all the same you know. An electron is a state variance in the electron field. A photon is a peak in the electromagnetic field. A quark is maybe made of strings, maybe of other particles, maybe of nothing but itself, nobody knows. They are certainly not bits of space-time and they are certainly not the same as 'running'.

 

[Belz...]

Which ones? They're not all the same you know. An electron is a state variance in the electron field. A photon is a peak in the electromagnetic field. A quark is maybe made of strings, maybe of other particles, maybe of nothing but itself, nobody knows. They are certainly not bits of space-time and they are certainly not the same as 'running'.

Wow, you certainly are just jumbling all those terms together.

I'm asking you what they are, collectively.

 

[baron]

Wow, you certainly are just jumbling all those terms together.

I'm asking you what they are, collectively.

Read what you just wrote. I mean, that's some bunker busting irony.

 

[Robin]

Nope.

So if I say that the workings of a human brain can be explained by the laws of physics and that you wouldn't need to posit anything further to explain it then you would agree with me?

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[Robin]

Step 1. Make up a magical unique state of being that can only be experienced first person.

So tell me, how am I feeling today?


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[Robin]

Here. My Dodge Dart has a special engine that only it has. Sure from the outside it has the exact same characteristics as every other Dodge Dart engine, but mine is special, but that specialness is unique to my Dart and only it is aware of it.

There. I have now argued there's a "Hard Problem of Dodge Dart Engines" to the exact same level as the "Hard Problem of Consciousness."

Sure, when your finger gets caught between the door and the jamb and the door as it closes you are not really feeling anything, you just arbitrarily invented some "magical" thing called pain.

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[W.D.Clinger]

Say you're a person who has no sense at all.

Such persons do exist.

(If evidential support is needed, read this thread.)

I once heard a lecture given by Jerry Fodor, acclaimed as one of the most important philosophers of mind of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, in which he offered this back-handed compliment to behaviorist B F Skinner:

At least he had a theory. It was crackers, but it was a theory.

Without endorsing Fodor's ideas, I'll suggest that anyone who is genuinely interested in the nature of consciousness would learn more from reading Fodor than from reading this thread.

Look, you don't have a theory. I do. And I can prove that's the case. Here is my theory:

What is consciousness?
It is a distortion in the conscious field. The conscious field is a fundamental field or fabric that permeates the universe.

How does consciousness arise?
It arises as a result of material information processing; the more complex and intense the processing, the more distortion and the more conscious awareness.

That's a theory, all right. In science, however, it is appropriate to ask whether proposed theories can support a slice of cheese.

In the following quotation, I have highlighted verbs and phrases that, in English, are generally taken to signify the speaker's assertion that something exists:

You got that the wrong way around. There are plenty of fields in physics and the mechanism I describe has an analogy in the way in which mass distorts space-time to produce a gravitational field. There's nothing remotely unscientific about that.

The connection between baron's theory and R_μν - ½Rg_μν + Λg_μν = 8πT_μν is tenuous at best.

Indeed, one might doubt whether that analogy falls into any category of being.

Actions don't exist.

...actions don't exist. There. My opinion, given for the 100th time.

Actions do not exist.

But actions do have consequences. To take but one example, many people would regard baron's posts as consequences of actions taken by baron and other unconscious agents we might refer to as computers or networks.

If actions do not exist, we'll have to invent some new theory to explain how baron's denials continue to appear. For example:

To invent a field to create consciousness is wholly unnecessary and not at all scientific, period. There is no evidence for said field. I think it can more firmly be established that there is a "bullcrap field" that has permeated this thread, through and through, for the last bunch of pages. And, unlike this consciousness field, I have verifiable evidence of my bullcrap field.

 

[Myriad]

Is complex and intense information processing an action?

When complex and intense information processing causes a distortion in the proto-consciousness field, is that an action?

 

[Belz...]

Read what you just wrote. I mean, that's some bunker busting irony.

Stop playing games and looking for easy outs, and answer the question: what do you think elementary particles are, as a whole?

 

[Belz...]

So tell me, how am I feeling today?

Are you saying that there is no way, even in theory, to look into your brain and to tell how you're feeling?

 

[Belz...]

Is complex and intense information processing an action?

When complex and intense information processing causes a distortion in the proto-consciousness field, is that an action?

Information processing is an action, so it doesn't exist, right? One wonders how baron thinks it can give rise to consciousness.

In fact, baron is effectively just pushing the question back. Instead of accepting that consciousness could merely be a process of the brain, he thinks it's a disruption of a field brought about by information processing in the brain; that is, a process brought about by another process.

So why is it problematic that consciousness could be a process since it's the thing he's postulating anyway?

 

[Myriad]

Information processing is an action, so it doesn't exist, right? One wonders how baron thinks it can give rise to consciousness.

Well yes, that's what I was getting at. But I hope baron answers, because I'm honestly trying to figure out what he's really getting at.

Six and a half years ago there was an interesting thread on mereological nihilism and identity. (Not consciousness per se, but I tried out some lines of thought there that might be applicable.)

 

[Minoosh]

Oh bugger, who invoked deepak chopra?

It's true that invoking Chopra will make many people take these ideas less seriously, but Roger Penrose does not have that baggage, and they do apparently turn up at some of the same conferences. Penrose has done the math which is more than one could say about the millions of New Age dabblers who want to believe that reality can be anything we want it to be.

I'm hesitant to put words in Penrose's mouth, because I don't have the background in math and physics to paraphrase anything he says. But as far as I can tell, he breaks with artificial intelligence theory by saying that something about how the brain works might be non-computational. There could be room for "insight" or something similar.

The example he gives is a tiling problem. This is from 2000, and I don't know if it's still accurate:

I can give examples of non-computational things, but it’s not obvious why they are non-computational. The one I like the best is the tiling problem. You have these shapes made out of squares glued together, things called polyominoes. You’re given a collection of these, a finite number of different sorts but an unlimited number of each sort, and you are asked: can you use these shapes to cover the entire plane without gaps or overlaps?

That is an example of a non-computational problem. That is to say, there is no computer programme which will answer yes or no for any given set of tiles: no programme where you can feed in the information of the tiles into the computer and ask it, will they tile the plane or not. Although the answer "no" can be computational, the answer "yes" is not computational. That is to say there is no way of being sure, for an arbitrary set of polyomino shapes, that they will tile the plane. It’s quite a subtle piece of mathematics to show that this is a non-computational problem. There is no computer programme whatsoever that can make this decision for any possible given set of tiles.

Another example is a chess position that looks (to a computer) like an obvious win for black, but it's a position where white can draw or even win. (It's also a very odd position, premised on someone promoting 2 pawns to bishop status.) Somehow the human brain could override the computers on this, but I don't understand why. He feels or at least felt that human consciousness is not algorithmic - when a person thinks, there's something else going on besides classical computing.

Penrose cited these a while ago, especially the one from 2000, obviously. But he also said something strange, which was that "mind" could be non-computational yet still be deterministic. I thought those 2 would basically be synonyms in that if the outcome is deterministic it should be computional.

 

[Minoosh]

[qimg]https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/trapped.png[/qimg]

That's funny. Could a machine ever find something humorous? I agree with you about the futility of threads like these, but that's a genuine question. Is humor algorithmic, or does it have some non-computational mystery ingredient?

 

[baron]

Stop playing games and looking for easy outs, and answer the question: what do you think elementary particles are, as a whole?

That's nutty talk. You asked me about elementary particles. I explained that they are all different and gave three examples. You then told me to stop 'jumbling the terms together' and tell you what they are collectively!

When I bring you up on this you say I'm playing word games!

Now, are you seriously asking me to address this? I haven't the first clue what you're talking about.

 

[baron]

Is complex and intense information processing an action?

You can call it what you want. If you want to define an action based on a physical observation then that's fine, but understand that it changes nothing. You are simply describing states of matter, exchanges of energy, whatever. You are not adding entities to the world. This is evidenced by the question I recently brought up, only to be insulted as usual, asking how, if actions have no inherent, measurable properties, they can be said to exist.

Information processing measurable, it is a physical process that occurs in all matter. You don't need to invent actions to make it real.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

The same as you would.

I wouldn't. If you truly mean to say that your opinion on this is the same as mine, then what you're telling me is that you don't actually have any idea what factors affect consciousness in your hypothesis.

 

[baron]

I wouldn't. If you truly mean to say that your opinion on this is the same as mine, then what you're telling me is that you don't actually have any idea what factors affect consciousness in your hypothesis.

No, I'm answering your question.

You asked, "How are you defining "complexity" and "intensity"?" I said the same as you are. After a couple more posts you asked how I would quantify them. I said, the same as you.

In other words, I am speaking English, you are speaking English, therefore unless there is evidence to the contrary we can assume our understanding of everyday English words is the same. I really have no interest in the pseudo intellectual practice of demanding definitions for common words in lieu of have a debating position.