The Hard Problem of Gravity

[Darat]

I don't see why there's anything wrong in AI research. The expectation of producing something like a human mind is probably as unlikely as the alchemists turning lead into gold - but alchemy produced some useful side effects.

Apart from the fact we already have done? http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19926696.100-rise-of-the-ratbrained-robots.html

 

[westprog]

Yet the evidence is against your assertion that it wouldn't since we know that our "sensations" change all the time. As an example away from pain, think about the common phrase "It's an acquired taste."

Each individual sensation is unique. How that relates to an imagined "external world" is another matter.

 

[Mercutio]

I've already presented it. The very fact that ALL the significant operational functions of the biology take place at quantum scales [i.e. cellular and sub-cellular scales] is evidence enough to establish the plausibility of the hypothesis. In fact, given what is already known about the brain, is seems extremely implausible that QM scale processes would not have a cogent effect on the neurological function of the brain and organism as a whole.

As I've already said, feel free to present plausible rationale for why this would not be the case. Once you have done so I we will address it.

QM-scale processes, then, would have every bit as much significance to every other physical, chemical, and biological process as well. Why then consciousness, as opposed to the QM model of, say, running? We have no need to invoke QM to explain the mechanics, chemistry, etc., of running, because (as pixy suggested) the "bulk, statistical properties of matter" are modeled well enough without QM. And yet, the cellular metabolism works the same way; the action potentials propagate the same way; the synapses function the same way--we simply have more interneuron interaction in the brain. Last I heard, the release of neurotransmitters from synaptic vesicles into the synapse was several orders of magnitude away from being a quantum process. [eta: 13 orders? wow, even more than my poor memory was telling me!]

People bring QM into consciousness because it's the closest thing to magic they know. We want to be special; we want to be more than just biology. We want our magical assumptions about human consciousness to be true, rather than looking at what consciousness actually is. The Hard Problem is how to keep humans at the center of the universe and god's heart, while still being scientific.

Unless QM works differently in the brain than in the rest of the universe, it simply serves the function for some theorists that the pineal gland did for Descartes.

 

[westprog]

Apart from the fact we already have done? http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19926696.100-rise-of-the-ratbrained-robots.html

And what does it feel like, being a neural-network rat-brain simulation?

 

[Belz...]

Dude... Do..Do you READ what you're typing before you post it? That's one of the most asinine things I've ever known anyone to say.

Ever hear of sleep? Comas, maybe? Hows about death???

I don't know about you, but when I'm dead I don't process information.

 

[yy2bggggs]

But doesn't this support my argument?

No. Your argument is that this is beyond human logic and understanding.

You (again, this is what drkitten did!) attempt to resolve the issue by stepping out one level.

If by "the issue", you mean demonstrating my understanding, then... guilty as charged! But: ...

Instead of trying to assign a truth value to the statement, you try to assign a truth value to a claim about the statement.

...it appears that you think I was trying to "solve the issue". I wasn't. I'm trying, instead, to show you what "the issue" actually is. That's the motive for stepping out.

But it doesn't solve the problem of it being different from all other well formed sentences,

Actually, that is in fact the very problem that it solves. The entire reason for stepping out one level is to show understanding, and the whole point is to show precisely how those statements are different from other well formed sentences.

And the analysis does, in fact, illustrate an understanding not only that the statements differ, but how, and why. What's left to understand?

because if you do the same for other well formed sentences -- as you show! -- you can always find at least one way to make a true claim about them.

But it's not surprising. That the claims are self referential isn't the essential point here. The same sort of issue occurs if you give me a choice, and a prediction, and let me choose. I can pick independently from your prediction, or dependently. If I pick dependently, I can spite your prediction, in which case it's impossible for you to be correct, or I can humor it, in which case it'd be impossible not to be correct. These are simply "self spiters", or "self humorers", and they get to be simply because the thing they are about is bound to the evaluation of their validity.

The essential point is that self referential statements have such "outputs" hooked to "inputs" at all, and yeah, there are more complicated ones that make me scratch my head. But the simple one? What is it you suppose I don't understand about it?

I say people never come to a conclusion about it, you say you give up and give a postmortem -- same thing.

But you initially said that it was beyond human logic and understanding. That's what I'm objecting to. Were you to merely say "we don't come to a conclusion about it", you'd be correct. But it's no more meaningful than my not coming to a solution to an impossible sudoku puzzle (even after demonstrating it impossible). Once you claim that I don't understand it, you overstep your bounds--if I know exactly why that sudoku puzzle is impossible, I do understand it. That I can't find a solution is simply because it's impossible.

And less face it... sudoku's a great analogy, because it's not really even an analogy so much as it is an example.

The point is, we can't figure it out like we can figure out other sentences.

But isn't that because it's not like other sentences? Is your problem merely a manufactured one?

I get it that they are not like other claims. What you don't seem to grasp is that I get it that they are not like other claims. Even self referential claims for which there are assigned truth values fall into this class. The class can be called... quite legitimately... simply, self referential (i.e., in a logical sense, we can formally describe a statement as self referential when the statement is about, even in part, its own truth value).

 

[Belz...]

Well, solipsism is useless and unfalsifiable. So... that.

Useless, unfalsifiable, and most probably wrong anyway.

 

[Belz...]

How can you possibly know you are conscious, then, when you don't even know if the people who taught you about consciousness were themselves conscious? They might have taught it all wrong!

Wonderful, Mercutio. As usual. I applaud.

 

[PixyMisa]

-_-

....

Don't play dense, Pixy.

Oh, I'm not playing.

I give you a lot more credit than that.

It means that I'm calling 'consciousness' a specific class of phenomenon:

"An observable fact or occurrence or a kind of observable fact or occurrence; an appearance. "

More specifically, consciousness is THE "observable fact or occurrence", sine qua non. Its the fundamental basis of every human pursuit, including science. Without 'consciousness' there is no observation of anything.

What makes you think that?

I know from direct observation that there are periods of time that the phenomenon of my conscious experience has varying qualities (moods, sensations, colors, thoughts and accompanying emotional overtones, directions of focus, etc.) and varying degrees (ranging from full wakefulness, to drowsiness, and unconscious sleep).

How would you know this, though? And what difference does it make in any case?

You've already told me what your criteria for consciousness are and I reject them for a number of reasons [many of which I've already repeatedly and clearly stated in this an every other thread discussing this topic] but one of the primary reasons is that your criteria are met when I am, in fact, unconscious.

Being unconscious doesn't mean you're not conscious, of course. Because you are giving the word two different meanings.

From the empirical laboratory of my own experience

The what now?

I know that the criteria you've proposed are falsified.

You not only do not know this, you can't know this. And besides that, you're wrong.

I don't need to refer to the intellectual authority of Dennett or any other person to see that this is the case.

It might help if you knew anything at all about the subject, though. Hofstadter is a better place to start than Dennett, for that.

The argument in favor of the "toaster as conscious" view is, on its face, a lousy one because its based on an equivocation of the term 'consciousness'.

No. We don't need to equivocate on the term, because we have you to do that for us.

Many of the thinkers you've referenced in support of your definition of consciousness, I feel, are very intelligent people who should know better, so I can't help but concluding that this equivocation is deliberate.

Then name one thing we ascribe to consciousness that is not covered by my explanation. Show that it exists, show that it really is not covered, and we'll have something to discuss.

I also believe that you're intelligent enough to know better yourself and that you already know what is meant when I use the term 'consciousness'.

I don't even think you know what is meant when you use the term "consciousness".

At least I have a definition, meaningful, relevant, objective, and consistent, and I stick to it.

It seems that you're deliberately being obtuse. I'm referring the the phenomenon of qualitative experience that you undergo every waking moment.

The what?

I've pointed this out to you before and you responded with comments to the effect of:

"Irrelevant"

or

"Oh, that's just factory added extras"

I don't recall saying the latter.

Well, we just so happen to be discussing the "factory added extra" of consciousness.

No, we're not.

There's no compelling reason to conclude that appliances like microwaves and thermostats have been endowed with this "factory added extra"; in fact there are strong reasons to suspect the contrary. So lets just cut the bull, shall we?

Name one such reason. Really. Just one.

Your invoking of "appliances are conscious too" is a deliberate dodging of the issue at hand.

Dodging? On the contrary. It is the issue at hand.

You don't like it, for some reason you appear unable to articulate. This is not my problem.

Quite frankly, its getting really old.

And?

Wha....?

Dude... Do..Do you READ what you're typing before you post it? That's one of the most asinine things I've ever known anyone to say.

Ever hear of sleep? Comas, maybe? Hows about death???

Yes, I've heard of those. What of them?

Jebus, Pixy, you're seriously pushing it.

Nice to know.

"Random expostulations of incredulity"????

Yes. As in, pretty much everything you've posted in this thread.

I'm...I'm speechless.

Apparently not.

I think I've found a genuine aku-zombie -_-

Aku-zombie, hardly. P-zombie, sure. The concept might be incoherent, but at least it's defined.

 

[Mercutio]

I'm quite open to extreme skepticism about the existence of almost anything, but I think there's a clear hierarchy. I am certain of the sensation of reading words on the computer screen. You might doubt whether the sensation exists - but it seems rather strange to me to then regard the existence of the computer screen and the person at the other end as being real and the sensations of them as being possibly not there.

You have spent your lifetime in a language community that speaks of "sensations", "images", "feelings", etc. as nouns. You can sense things; does that mean that there is a thing called a sensation, with its own existence? You can see things; do you see images of things? If you consider that you would rather doubt the thing than the image, and thus say that you cannot see a thing but only its image, one wonders how you see the image. Do you see an image of this image? Or an image of that image of the image? Our language treats processes as nouns, but that does not magically make them exist separately from the processes.

Looking at the computer screen, as per your example... the screen is termed the distal stimulus; its corresponding excitation of the retinal cone cells is a proximal stimulus. This bleaching of photopigments begins a chain of reactions, processed to some degree at each step, from the architecture of the retina itself to the multiple throughputs which respond differentially to edges, wavelengths, past associations, faces, motion, and a dozen or more separate characteristics. There is no place where an image exists. We can, through psychophysical testing, even demonstrate that what most of us think of as a rich tapestry of visual experience simply does not exist. It is illusory--there is something there, but what it is is not at all what we describe. One problem with consciousness researchers is that they tend to take our verbal descriptions of conscious awareness as bedrock (as Interesting Ian always did--does anyone remember the colored cube thread?), and sets the task as one of describing this fictional consciousness. When we fall short, as we must, our explanations are seen as inadequate or even denying basic human experience. No. We are describing and explaining what is there, and are under no obligation to describe what is not there. To trot out my old analogy again, it is enough to describe the rotation of the earth; we need not describe how the sun actually climbs a stationary sky in order to explain a sunrise. Our language speaks of sunrises and of minds; both are prescientific vocabulary. The things they refer to are real and meaningful, but we do not have to accept the historical explanation.

 

[Third Eye Open]

1 Bachelors are not married.
2 Exactly one claim in this list is true.


When I look at this I see claim 2 as flickering back and forth between true and false.

 

[rocketdodger]

But you initially said that it was beyond human logic and understanding. That's what I'm objecting to. Were you to merely say "we don't come to a conclusion about it", you'd be correct. But it's no more meaningful than my not coming to a solution to an impossible sudoku puzzle (even after demonstrating it impossible). Once you claim that I don't understand it, you overstep your bounds--if I know exactly why that sudoku puzzle is impossible, I do understand it. That I can't find a solution is simply because it's impossible.

I get it that they are not like other claims. What you don't seem to grasp is that I get it that they are not like other claims. Even self referential claims for which there are assigned truth values fall into this class. The class can be called... quite legitimately... simply, self referential (i.e., in a logical sense, we can formally describe a statement as self referential when the statement is about, even in part, its own truth value).

I think the issue between us is that I am meaning something other than what you think I am meaning. Perhaps it is my fault for using a term like "understand' without fully defining it.

To me, "understanding" means coming to a conclusion about something, even if subconsciously. Actually, especially subconsciously.

Formally, my definition for understanding would be:

Given a rational agent A and a statement P, A understands P if and only if A can infer new or existing facts from P (combined with A's existing knowledge base, of course).

I suspect that is different from what you mean when you say "understand."

Note that in this case, your statements about a self-referential sentence lead to new facts -- but those facts are not inferred from the self-referential statement itself. Hence under the above definition you would not "understand" such statements.

Do you agree that our definitions are not the same? Once we get this definition stuff out of the way we can move on to the meat of the matter.

 

[PixyMisa]

You have spent your lifetime in a language community that speaks of "sensations", "images", "feelings", etc. as nouns. You can sense things; does that mean that there is a thing called a sensation, with its own existence? You can see things; do you see images of things? If you consider that you would rather doubt the thing than the image, and thus say that you cannot see a thing but only its image, one wonders how you see the image. Do you see an image of this image? Or an image of that image of the image? Our language treats processes as nouns, but that does not magically make them exist separately from the processes.

Well said, as usual.

 

[Darat]

Each individual sensation is unique. How that relates to an imagined "external world" is another matter.

Which is not the point you originally made and what I replied to.

 

[Darat]

And what does it feel like, being a neural-network rat-brain simulation?

Again you try and change the point, in effect (whether conscious or not) you are simply trying to evade the fact that the evidence shows that your assertions are not correct.

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

But even if I lacked language, or suppose I lived in a masochistic culture with 107 different names for different types of pain - would that change the actual sensation? I'm fairly sure not. The sensation is.

We could be fairly certain 'the reaction is'. Less so between sensation and interpretation into "hurt".

But I do not have brain damage which prevents me from

• experiencing something
• knowing that I am experiencing it

And hence I can be certain of the experience. I cannot be certain that I experience something ten minutes ago, but I can be certain of my experience of the memory of it.

If we were to take away all the "content" in your experience, would you 'experience nothing', or would there be 'no experience'?

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

AkuManiMani, I think Krauss' main point was that the brain was the least of places he could think quantum effects were to play a meaningful role. I don't think he's the only one.It's a shame they Bingham (the organizer) did not really let them go at each other, it would have been interesting to listen to, almost certainly informative.

Also, the article you pointed to says the following: "However, we still don’t know to what degree photosynthesis benefits from these quantum effects."

Perhaps your statement – "In fact, given what is already known about the brain, is seems extremely implausible that QM scale processes would not have a cogent effect on the neurological function of the brain and organism as a whole." – is a bit of an overstatement.

 

[Beth]

People bring QM into consciousness because it's the closest thing to magic they know. We want to be special; we want to be more than just biology. We want our magical assumptions about human consciousness to be true, rather than looking at what consciousness actually is. The Hard Problem is how to keep humans at the center of the universe and god's heart, while still being scientific.

You are ascribing motives to other people you don't actually know. Always a bad idea IMO. I think people bring QM into consciousness because they don't understand how consciousness happens and QM is one plausible explanation for inherently unpredictable individual behavior. Rocks and thermometers are predictable in essentially deterministic ways. Humans and other living creatures are not. They are only predictable in stochastic ways. Since QM is stochastically predictable rather than deterministically predictable, it seems plausible enough to me that it may be involved.

I've been following this thread, but have little to contribute. However, I don't think the HPC is a way to keep humans special while being scientific. I see is as a real issue because otherwise, it is necessary to sweep consciousness under the rug claiming that perhaps we aren't actually conscious at all. Clearly, we are conscious. Further, I can tell when a newborn baby is conscious and when they are sleeping. Even without the ability to speak in words, newborn babes can communicate their feelings to their mothers and fathers. A cry of pain or discomfort is easily distinuishable from a happy gurgle. No one has taught the babe what pain and joy are, but they clearly experience such sensations without having been taught which is which. Nor does the babe have to teach the parent how to distinguish the different cries.

What consciousness is, I can't say. I don't see as unique to humans, I think animals are clearly conscious too. I don't think rocks qualify as conscious. I'm not sure about plants or computers, though I lean towards thinking they are not. As for p-zombies, I think they are like square circles - a contradiction of terms that cannot actually exist. A being that simulated consciousness perfectly in all ways would have to be conscious. Otherwise, they would not be able to simulate it perfectly.

 

[PixyMisa]

You are ascribing motives to other people you don't actually know. Always a bad idea IMO. I think people bring QM into consciousness because they don't understand how consciousness happens and QM is one plausible explanation for inherently unpredictable individual behavior.

Unfortunately, that only works if you don't understand QM either. And most of the people who bring this up demonstrably don't.

Rocks and thermometers are predictable in essentially deterministic ways.

So are transistors, and yet.

Humans and other living creatures are not.

So?

They are only predictable in stochastic ways.

So are rocks.

Since QM is stochastically predictable rather than deterministically predictable, it seems plausible enough to me that it may be involved.

If you don't understand consciousness, neurological processes, or quantum mechanics, sure.

I've been following this thread, but have little to contribute. However, I don't think the HPC is a way to keep humans special while being scientific.

Then you're wrong. It is deliberately and explicitly dualistic, precisely to keep consciousness in the realm of magic.

I see is as a real issue because otherwise, it is necessary to sweep consciousness under the rug claiming that perhaps we aren't actually conscious at all. Clearly, we are conscious.

How is this clear?

Further, I can tell when a newborn baby is conscious and when they are sleeping.

Whoops! You just switched definitions. You don't get to do that either.

Even without the ability to speak in words, newborn babes can communicate their feelings to their mothers and fathers.

So can thermostats.

A cry of pain or discomfort is easily distinuishable from a happy gurgle.

They would have little utility otherwise.

No one has taught the babe what pain and joy are, but they clearly experience such sensations without having been taught which is which.

And?

Nor does the babe have to teach the parent how to distinguish the different cries.

And?

What consciousness is, I can't say.

That's funny, because you keep talking about it regardless.

I don't see as unique to humans, I think animals are clearly conscious too.

Sure.

I don't think rocks qualify as conscious.

Sure.

I'm not sure about plants or computers, though I lean towards thinking they are not.

Why not? Well, it's pretty straightforward in the case of plants, but why not in the case of computers? I mean, you don't even know what consciousness is, so what criteria can you possibly have to make this distinction?

As for p-zombies, I think they are like square circles - a contradiction of terms that cannot actually exist. A being that simulated consciousness perfectly in all ways would have to be conscious.

You mean, like a computer?

Otherwise, they would not be able to simulate it perfectly.

Actually, I think you have that backwards. It's not that you have to be conscious to simulate consciousness; it's that the simulation is the thing. Just as a virtual computer is a computer.

 

[Belz...]

Do you really doubt that you're conscious, Darat?

Hurts, doesn't it ?