The Hard Problem of Gravity

[westprog]

I'm not sure tossing about the term quale in the meantime does us any good. In particular, it's clear that people have a spectrum of definitions in mind, all the way from some sort of irreducible dualistic notion to an acknowledged placeholder term for things we haven't nailed down yet. So then we have to argue about whether there really is a hard problem and such like.

But hell, it makes for fun threads.

~~ Paul

If we didn't experience qualia, we'd have no need of the discussion. But if we had nailed things down, we'd have finished with the discussion. Qualia represent a name for the problem that we are discussing - they represent something that is real yet undefined.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

If we didn't experience qualia, we'd have no need of the discussion. But if we had nailed things down, we'd have finished with the discussion. Qualia represent a name for the problem that we are discussing - they represent something that is real yet undefined.

You seem to be using the word undefined when you want unexplained. If qualia are undefined, what good does it do to talk about them, except in casual conversation?

I think that part of the reason the term is so poorly defined is because neurophysiologists don't use the term much. A PubMed search returns only 56 hits.

~~ Paul

 

[westprog]

You seem to be using the word undefined when you want unexplained. If qualia are undefined, what good does it do to talk about them, except in casual conversation?

I think that part of the reason the term is so poorly defined is because neurophysiologists don't use the term much. A PubMed search returns only 56 hits.

~~ Paul

The term is, IMO, undefined and unexplained. Does that make it useless? No, not if people understand what is meant.

We can describe qualia as something like "the things we personally experience" but then we have to define "experience". I can't see any way around certain things being irreducible, and impossible to define in terms of something less basic.

 

[yy2bggggs]

I had to look up "colorimetric primary", and no, I am not speaking of that. I am thinking of psychophysics and color identification.

Alright. I can still say I'm not talking about this, but this is an interesting subject and is at least related.

This was all I was asking about--you claimed that we could get a "red" reaction with just one wavelength, and this was news to me. Your laser, though, will typically be an orange-red and not a unique red.

I don't consider psychophysical color theory advanced enough to speak meaningfully of concepts such as "unique red", and colorimetric color theory leads to serious questions as to the physical correlate of such psychophysical color theories--in particular, it's not clear that, even if there is a nice psychophysical color theory, the primaries of that can even be produced by natural light conditions.

Best case, psychophysical color theory is approximated fairly well by "ganglial opponent process color theory" (which seems to be the way that it's generally treated in study), but since the former involves judgments which, at best, occur way up the line, I feel it prudent to keep these two color theories separate until I'm convinced they are indeed equivalent.

The most advanced color theory I'm aware of is colorimetry, and colorimetric study is known to be an approximation to an abstract ideal as it is.

 

[rocketdodger]

You could apply that mathematical description to things going on in the rock at almost any level. The rock itself expands and contracts due to temperature, and will inevitably impinge on something as it does so. Every atom is a switch.

The above mathematical description is perfect for the concept of a thermostat. It describes what we need a thermostat to do. But the physical thermostat will do an uncountable number of different things. If we want to describe them in informational terms, we could. It's just a matter of choice.

That's fine as long as we realise that it's an engineering description. In that case it's a perfectly reasonable way to look at it. It's even an OK description of the physical reality, if we accept that we are deliberately discarding most of what we know about the object.

But it is simply wrong to insist that the only bit of the thermocouple that we are interested in is the only bit that is doing anything - and that the rock isn't doing anything at all. And to insist that the thermocouple is a simple binary device, when if we look closely we'll find that current doesn't instantly stop or start, but increases and decreases depending on how tightly the contacts are touching.

There might be some kind of theory of Hard AI which accepts that the world is full of switches at every level, but that when they are all configured together in a particular way something will happen. I don't believe such theories, but they can't be totally ruled out. However, a theory which decides that only switches that we happen to be interested in have this effect is self-debunking, and serves only to demonstrate the limitations of the computational approach.

No. We are talking about the thermostat, not the thermocouple it uses.

I agree that a rock can perform the same function as a thermocouple. It expands and bumps into something. But that is not switching.

If you read the definition I provided, you will see that Switches is a relation between three entities.

Now, I am confident that you could, if you thought about it hard enough, come up with some strange definition of the ON state for a rock and two other things that interact with the rock such that Switches is satisfied for the rock.

But then again, I can come up with some strange definition of "running" such that the Runs() function is true for a rock.

We can play with words all day long. The fact is, according to any commonly agreed upon definitions of ON states, rocks do not switch. Unless they are a semiconductor, which is what humans make many switches out of.

 

[rocketdodger]

I can't see any way around certain things being irreducible, and impossible to define in terms of something less basic.

Thats because you haven't thought about it long enough.

Luckally there is 40 years worth of A.I. research that you could learn from if you actually cared to know.

Not so luckally, you can't just inject it into your brain in a few seconds. Like all other knowledge, you need to invest time and energy into acquiring it.

 

[westprog]

Thats because you haven't thought about it long enough.

Luckally there is 40 years worth of A.I. research that you could learn from if you actually cared to know.

Not so luckally, you can't just inject it into your brain in a few seconds. Like all other knowledge, you need to invest time and energy into acquiring it.

This appears to be an almost entirely content-free post, unless it's saying "I'm right and you're wrong - in fact, I'm so incredibly right I can't be bothered to argue about it any more."

 

[westprog]

No. We are talking about the thermostat, not the thermocouple it uses.

I agree that a rock can perform the same function as a thermocouple. It expands and bumps into something. But that is not switching.

If you read the definition I provided, you will see that Switches is a relation between three entities.

Now, I am confident that you could, if you thought about it hard enough, come up with some strange definition of the ON state for a rock and two other things that interact with the rock such that Switches is satisfied for the rock.

But then again, I can come up with some strange definition of "running" such that the Runs() function is true for a rock.

We can play with words all day long. The fact is, according to any commonly agreed upon definitions of ON states, rocks do not switch. Unless they are a semiconductor, which is what humans make many switches out of.

Rocks obviously switch on a constant basis. That's how the Grand Canyon came to be where it is. One drop of water can be sent one way or another.

The reason that people don't analyse the switching capabilities of rocks is because they are entirely useless to us. There's no point in figuring out the billions of different ways they switch water flow, or air flow, or elecrical current, or other physical events. But obviously they do.

This only matters when trying to assign some kind of mystical significance to The Great Switch, the holy grail of consciousness, the single quantum of thought and awareness.

 

[Nick227]

Sorry, you must have missed it. Here it is: Self-referential information processing. There. Easy, isn't it?

So...for the umpteenth time, just how is the monitor in front of you the result of self-referential information processing?

Sensory phenomena are not self-referential. Only inner dialogue (thinking) is self-referential, though one might argue a case for feelings too.

Read about GWT, Pixy. What makes one data stream conscious and another unconscious is not the presence of a self-referencing loop. Conscious awareness is a neuronal global access state. It means certain information is broadcast to a broad network of modules arrayed in parallel. It's not to do with self-reference.

Nick

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

The term is, IMO, undefined and unexplained. Does that make it useless? No, not if people understand what is meant.

I don't understand what is meant. I have a vague notion, but that does not suffice for careful conversation.

We can describe qualia as something like "the things we personally experience" but then we have to define "experience". I can't see any way around certain things being irreducible, and impossible to define in terms of something less basic.

I'd be careful of concluding that something is irreducible just because we can't define some term that we think has something to do with that thing. It's possible that our terminology is just bollocksed up.

~~ Paul

 

[westprog]

I don't understand what is meant. I have a vague notion, but that does not suffice for careful conversation.

I agree that that can be a problem, but I can see no easy way around it beyond starting with careless conversation and becoming more careful as we proceed.

I'd be careful of concluding that something is irreducible just because we can't define some term that we think has something to do with that thing. It's possible that our terminology is just bollocksed up.

~~ Paul

I don't disagree that any given item might not be irreducible, but surely something has to be - otherwise what are our definitions based on? If nothing is irreducible, then it's all circular references - the dictionary is based on words defined in the dictionary.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I don't disagree that any given item might not be irreducible, but surely something has to be - otherwise what are our definitions based on? If nothing is irreducible, then it's all circular references - the dictionary is based on words defined in the dictionary.

I agree that something has to be irreducible. I've yet to be convinced that it is consciousness.

~~ Paul

 

[AkuManiMani]

You could apply that mathematical description to things going on in the rock at almost any level. The rock itself expands and contracts due to temperature, and will inevitably impinge on something as it does so. Every atom is a switch.

The above mathematical description is perfect for the concept of a thermostat. It describes what we need a thermostat to do. But the physical thermostat will do an uncountable number of different things. If we want to describe them in informational terms, we could. It's just a matter of choice.

That's fine as long as we realise that it's an engineering description. In that case it's a perfectly reasonable way to look at it. It's even an OK description of the physical reality, if we accept that we are deliberately discarding most of what we know about the object.

But it is simply wrong to insist that the only bit of the thermocouple that we are interested in is the only bit that is doing anything - and that the rock isn't doing anything at all. And to insist that the thermocouple is a simple binary device, when if we look closely we'll find that current doesn't instantly stop or start, but increases and decreases depending on how tightly the contacts are touching.

There might be some kind of theory of Hard AI which accepts that the world is full of switches at every level, but that when they are all configured together in a particular way something will happen. I don't believe such theories, but they can't be totally ruled out. However, a theory which decides that only switches that we happen to be interested in have this effect is self-debunking, and serves only to demonstrate the limitations of the computational approach.

Spot on. Just as a recipe is not a meal and a genome is not an organism, so a mathematical model is not the object being modeled.

 

[AkuManiMani]

I agree that something has to be irreducible. I've yet to be convinced that it is consciousness.

~~ Paul

I think the more important question is what exact physical media can give rise to what we collectively call 'consciousness', what are its physical properties, and at what organizational level is it still an applicable term. Stating that atoms are reducible, while true, does not establish what their constituents are. It also misses that fact that, in reducing them to their constituents, they lose their ontological status of being 'atoms'.

 

[PixyMisa]

I agree that something has to be irreducible. I've yet to be convinced that it is consciousness.

In fact, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's not consciousness.

 

[RandFan]

There might be some kind of theory of Hard AI which accepts that the world is full of switches at every level, but that when they are all configured together in a particular way something will happen. I don't believe such theories, but they can't be totally ruled out.

The question then becomes, what is the alternate explanation?

As a former dualist I couldn't imagine how atoms, molecules, cells and electro-chemical reactions could give rise to consciousness but then I came to the realization that I couldn't imagine how an undefined thing was any better at it. It's like saying I don't believe that psychology is the reason it appears that the magician saws the woman in half so it must be magic.

Until you posit a parsimonious alternative you are simply saying that ignorance is in and of itself an answer.

 

[AkuManiMani]

So...for the umpteenth time, just how is the monitor in front of you the result of self-referential information processing?

Sensory phenomena are not self-referential. Only inner dialogue (thinking) is self-referential, though one might argue a case for feelings too.

Read about GWT, Pixy. What makes one data stream conscious and another unconscious is not the presence of a self-referencing loop. Conscious awareness is a neuronal global access state. It means certain information is broadcast to a broad network of modules arrayed in parallel. It's not to do with self-reference.

Nick

Whats the simplest architecture the GW model would allow for in which a modular system could still be said to have conscious capacity?

For instance, lets say that one wants to create the simplest possible conscious system. Such a system would experience perhaps only one or two experiential states and perhaps a 'dimmer' which goes down to zero [representing unconsciousness]. I don't think such a system would exhibit much in the way of cognitive capacity, but it would probably serve as an elementary example of what we mean by 'conscious'.

I suppose the real question is, what is the requisite that would cause/allow a system to experience any state as such? It seems the GWT provides a plausible framework for describing how resources could be pooled to contribute to complex experiences but I'm not certain that it explains what the basic elements of such experiences are.

 

[RandFan]

Whats the simplest architecture the GW model allow for in which a modular system could still be said to have conscious capacity?

For instance, lets say that one wants to create the simplest possible conscious system. Such a system would experience perhaps only one or two experiential states and perhaps a 'dimmer' which goes down to zero [representing unconsciousness]. I don't thin such a system would exhibit much in the way of cognitive capacity, but it would probably serve as an elementary example of what we mean by 'conscious'.

I suppose the real question is, what is the requisite that would cause/allow a system to experience any state as such?

I think the problem is simply one of imagination and understanding of what it is we mean by "conscious". I also think we have a difficult time looking backward in time and seeing with hindsight what it was like for those who couldn't answer elementary questions like what is the cause of diseases like the plague or what is the structure of matter. I can imagine those who didn't understand aerodynamics talking about an elementary example of flight and what would be the requisite that would cause/allow a system to experience flight.

I think we make too much of our ignorance. At the risk of a tautology, what we don't know is simply what we don't know. I think it takes a bit of humility to admit that and not try and build answers to mask over our ignorance by creating conclusions out of whole cloth. Nothing personal meant by that as I've been guilty of that as much as anyone.

 

[AkuManiMani]

I think the problem is simply one of imagination and understanding of what it is we mean by "conscious". I also think we have a difficult time looking backward in time and seeing with hindsight what it was like for those who couldn't answer elementary questions like what is the cause of diseases like the plague or what is the structure of matter. I can imagine those who didn't understand aerodynamics talking about an elementary example of flight and what would be the requisite that would cause/allow a system to experience flight.

I think we make too much of our ignorance. At the risk of a tautology, what we don't know is simply what we don't know. I think it takes a bit of humility to admit that and not try and build answers to mask over our ignorance by creating conclusions out of whole cloth. Nothing personal meant by that as I've been guilty of that as much as anyone.

I suppose you're right. There's a lot of wisdom to what you say.

While I agree that there's a bit of frivolity to speculating from ignorance, I personally find it fun to make inferences from the little that we do know. Who knows? Maybe one day it might turn out that there is some accuracy to our idle speculation that will help pave the way to better theories

 

[rocketdodger]

This appears to be an almost entirely content-free post, unless it's saying "I'm right and you're wrong - in fact, I'm so incredibly right I can't be bothered to argue about it any more."

That's because you aren't here to learn. You are here to argue. So you interpret all other posts as originating from the same sentiment.

You are, however, wrong.

The "content" in that post was to mention to you that the reason you

I can't see any way around certain things being irreducible, and impossible to define in terms of something less basic.

is merely that you haven't thought about it long enough and that there is 40 years worth of research in this area that you could utilize if you really cared.

I spent over an hour figuring out how I might represent the concept of a "switch" using first order logic. I had to consult my old A.I. textbooks to brush up on the issue of knowledge representation before I even started, and I program A.I. for a living.

So if it took me that long to come up with a formal representation of something as simple as a single switch, how long do you think it would take you to come up with a formal represenation of something like human consciousness?

I don't know the answer to that. You might very well be more intelligent than me. But ask yourself this -- have you sat down with some tools and even tried to reduce human consciousness to simpler components?

There are a huge number of resources that you can draw on. I mean, the designers of Pixy's beloved SHRDLU had to figure out ways to formally represent a ton of stuff -- way back in the 70's. It probably took them weeks and weeks to figure that out. As of now, 30+ years later, there is a documented way to represent just about everything one would want to know about the universe in a formal manner that a machine can make use of.

My conclusion, based on your posts here over the years, is that you have not even looked into this. My conclusion is that the extent of your thinking on this issue is limited to the responses you make in these threads. Well, if that is true, it is no wonder you

I can't see any way around certain things being irreducible, and impossible to define in terms of something less basic.