The hidden variable of consciousness experiment

casebro said:
Ya gotta have soul?

But what if all 30 souls are identical?
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Then, according to Jabba, they would all be looking out of one set of eyes. It would be pretty crowded in there, and there would be a lot of arguments about who gets to drive.
 
ServiceSoon said:
While human subjects would provide valuable feedback to the experiment based on their introspection, it would be highly unethical to conduct my experiment on humans.
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This statement pretty clearly establishes that the question is not entirely serious, but rather seems intended to get folks to over-extend their powers of deduction.

OK. Fine by me. I'm bored and willing to make myself the butt of a joke.

First, of course, you have provided no description of the BPS model. Without this, there can be no judgement of whether or not the proposed experiment will address the model.

Next, there is the entertaining notion of identical subjects. Even if we assume the existence of 30 or so clones (identical at the DNA level, which you specified), each has a different past, and if the BPS model does not allow for experience to modify an organism's cognition it isn't likely to get much acceptance.

So it would seem that you are (implicitly) suggesting a larger version of the Skinner Box School of Child Raising.

Finally, you should really be aware that collecting a whole bunch of data without worrying about what you're looking for, then trawling the data set looking for "statistically significant" correlations is a classic sign of Bad Science. As the saying goes, "The Law of Averages not only permits the most outrageous of coincidences, it requires them."

In general, the more focussed and well-defined an experiment is, the better.
And this one is so nebulous, with quantification and error bars so completely unaddressed as to render the whole thing fairly laughable. As a matter of fact, it is the humor factor which inspired me to respond in the first place.

Well done.

And finally, finally, you need to consider the philosophical issue of zimboes. Let's say you do pick up some nebulous trait which you consider to establish consciousness in your test organisms. How can you be sure that they are not zimboes, who behave as if they are conscious, but are not? Your experiment, after all, only addresses external behavior, not the (more or less by definition) internal states?
 
1. Make up Woo.
2. Don't actually define the Woo outside of absolute vagueness.
3. Make up an experiment that doesn't exactly exist.
4. Take several paragraphs to go "What if the experiment prove the Woo?"
5. Therefore Woo exists.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
This part is true though the biopsychological model isn't compatible with the biology of consciousness:

Until we figure out the biology of consciousness, AI in a true sense is not going to happen. Consciousness does not appear to be the result of increasing amounts of data and processing power.

Your proposed test is highly flawed. You can't determine the missing variable in consciousness between subjects that all have consciousness.
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Why do you state that the BPS Model isn't compatible with the biology of consciousness? The BPS Model includes all areas of science. These are the only tools currently being used to make discovers in this area of research.

Would you agree that nobody is seriously suggesting that the emergence of consciousness is the result of anything other than biology? I cannot accept nor dismiss that assumption offhand without first conducting research and providing validity to that claim.

I am not trying to determine 'what' the missing variable is (if it exists), only confirm it's existence.
 
Dave Rogers said:
Thirty test subjects with identical DNA, for a start. Totally identical social/physical interaction requires thirty completely independent and completely identical environments, populated with thirty groups of similarly identical subjects who also have had identical social and physical environments, because otherwise there are uncontrolled variables. And, of course, each member of these thirty groups must therefore come from an identical social group, and so on for an infinite regress, because - for example - one different set of stories told in childhood to one member of one environment could serve as an uncontrolled variable.

Ethically, of course, the whole thing is unthinkable.

Dave
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Click here for a list of animals that have been successfully cloned.

I acknowledge that it is a monumental task to control for so many variables. The concern you mentioned that is most dangerous to my experiment is socialization. I agree that introducing free agents into a controlled environment would be impossibly hopeless. One solution I'd propose to negate that concern is to place the subjects in isolation. I also recognize that a great deal of information has been successfully extracted from other studies that failed to control for every variable. The data can still have value. Statistics can also be utilized to make inferences and draw conclusions.

The ability to communicate with the subjects would be invaluable. I agree that it would be impossible to meet most/any of the ethical guidelines of the sciences when conducting this experiment on humans. Fortunately, in the name of expanding our knowledge, our moral conscious allows us to conduct such experiments on living beings other than humans. The subjects could be simple celled organisms, mice, monkeys, other.

Subjects whose life cycles are very short would provide a couple of benefits. It would reduce the amount of time that mistakes in the proposed methodology could be unintentionally introduced. If mistake(s) were identified, the subject could be disposed of with no concern for lost time or capital.
 
ServiceSoon said:
Click here for a list of animals that have been successfully cloned.

I acknowledge that it is a monumental task to control for so many variables. The concern you mentioned that is most dangerous to my experiment is socialization. I agree that introducing free agents into a controlled environment would be impossibly hopeless. One solution I'd propose to negate that concern is to place the subjects in isolation. I also recognize that a great deal of information has been successfully extracted from other studies that failed to control for every variable. The data can still have value. Statistics can also be utilized to make inferences and draw conclusions.

The ability to communicate with the subjects would be invaluable. I agree that it would be impossible to meet most/any of the ethical guidelines of the sciences when conducting this experiment on humans. Fortunately, in the name of expanding our knowledge, our moral conscious allows us to conduct such experiments on living beings other than humans. The subjects could be simple celled organisms, mice, monkeys, other.

Subjects whose life cycles are very short would provide a couple of benefits. It would reduce the amount of time that mistakes in the proposed methodology could be unintentionally introduced. If mistake(s) were identified, the subject could be disposed of with no concern for lost time or capital.
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It seems that your assumption is that differences in behavior will be sign of your hidden variable.

Let me point out that I can take 30 completely identical computers. Load them with completely identical software, feed them with completely identical sets of input, ... and have them behave differently.

Hans
 
jrhowell said:
As others have stated the proposed experiment is impossible to perform. Identical biology goes beyond identical DNA. Even identical twins have different fingerprints and therefore differences in their physical makeup. If you are trying to demonstrate some non-physical influence on consciousness your experiment will not be capable of conclusively demonstrating it.
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Since you mention fingerprints, I recall hearing it before. Do you recall how they explained the difference in fingerprints for biologically identical beings? The most reliable source I found was live science who claimed (without references) this differentiation occurs in the womb. That would make this an environmental interaction that would have to be controlled for.

Is it your belief that the methodology is sound, however, impossible to carry out because of the numerous amount of environmental factors that would unintentionally interfere? Controlling for every environmental aspect is a monumental and thus impossible task?
 
ServiceSoon said:
Is it your belief that the methodology is sound, however, impossible to carry out because of the numerous amount of environmental factors that would unintentionally interfere? Controlling for every environmental aspect is a monumental and thus impossible task?
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I believe that the proposed experiment is unworkable due to the effects of chaos. The end result will be so extremely sensitive to the initial conditions and uncontrollable minute differences between the subjects that it will be impossible to detect the effects any other influences. The approach is all wrong.

Added: Say you run the experiment as you propose, controlling as best you can for differences between subjects and as a result you find minute differences in the pH of their urine samples. What would that tell you about consciousness? What would your next step be?
 
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RecoveringYuppy said:
How have either of those things be established?
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Through accidentally damaged brain research and other forms of brain research.

Damaged brains serve as a means of identifying brain function that goes on outside consciousness.

I've posted a bunch of this research before, it's a pain to go dig up the sources. Take a gander at where the study of consciousness is.

LiveScience: Scientists Closing in on Theory of Consciousness
But looking for neural or behavioral connections to consciousness isn't enough, Koch said. For example, such connections don't explain why the cerebellum, the part of the brain at the back of the skull that coordinates muscle activity, doesn't give rise to consciousness, while the cerebral cortex (the brain's outermost layer) does. This is the case even though the cerebellum contains more neurons than the cerebral cortex.

Nor do these studies explain how to tell whether consciousness is present, such as in brain-damaged patients, other animals or even computers. [Super-Intelligent Machines: 7 Robotic Futures]

Neuroscience needs a theory of consciousness that explains what the phenomenon is and what kinds of entities possess it, Koch said. And currently, only two theories exist that the neuroscience community takes seriously, he said.
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I don't think either of the theories in the article fit the evidence. They are both theories one might tie to AI rather than actual consciousness.

Integrated information theory, IMO, is trying to model consciousness on computer functioning.
The basic idea is that conscious experience represents the integration of a wide variety of information, and that this experience is irreducible. This means that when you open your eyes (assuming you have normal vision), you can't simply choose to see everything in black and white, or to see only the left side of your field of view.

Instead, your brain seamlessly weaves together a complex web of information from sensory systems and cognitive processes.
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Sure, you experience that when you are conscious, but it doesn't explain my choosing to think about the piece of art that I've gone to the museum to see. I'd hardly call that promising.

The other theory in that link:
Another promising theory suggests that consciousness works a bit like computer memory, which can call up and retain an experience even after it has passed.
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Another not promising model, a computer that isn't conscious. WTF?

Anyway, I think the evidence supports consciousness being the function of a brain organelle or groups of cells but that it has yet to be understood. IOW we need to look in a new direction, other than processing and managing memory.
 
ServiceSoon said:
Why do you state that the BPS Model isn't compatible with the biology of consciousness? The BPS Model includes all areas of science. These are the only tools currently being used to make discovers in this area of research.
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Your brain is a biological organ. Nature and nurture affect the brain but nurture doesn't create consciousness.

Though I have seen first hand psychological stress shut consciousness down.

Beyond that, you're talking gibberish.

ServiceSoon said:
Would you agree that nobody is seriously suggesting that the emergence of consciousness is the result of anything other than biology? I cannot accept nor dismiss that assumption offhand without first conducting research and providing validity to that claim.
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I have no idea what you mean by this. Biology is all there is. There is no evidence of anything else.

ServiceSoon said:
I am not trying to determine 'what' the missing variable is (if it exists), only confirm it's existence.
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You cannot determine anything about a "missing" variable if you haven't identified the variables you are testing.
 
"Consciousness is totally mysterious!"
"Okay but that's not true...
"Nope. Totally mysterious!"
"But neuroscience..."
"NOPE! Totally... mysterious! Science knows nothing about it!"

We will now spend several pages with the "Science doesn't understand consciousnesses!" crowd refusing to define or even describe the thing they think science can't explain.
 
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I'm trying to visualize the experiment in terms of how it might play out and how conclusions about consciousness are supposed to follow from the described observations.

Let's suppose on day 24, test subject #5 doesn't eat 10% of its food rations, unlike all the other subjects.

1. What can you conclude about hidden variables in consciousness from this?

2. Test subject #5 now no longer has the same history as the others. If you force it to eat the rest of its ration, that's an experience the other test subjects don't have. If you don't, its diet is different from the others. Either way, any future variations in #5's behavior might be a result of that different history. Do you drop #5 from the study at that point? Can you learn anything meaningful from future observations of #5 if you continue?

3. If that is not a good example of the kind of variation you expect to observe during the experiment, can you give a better example, and what you would conclude about hidden variables in consciousness if you did observe that variation? Hypothetically, of course.
 
Okay before the philosophy fanclub drags this thread down to to their usual level of intellectual pig pen-ess, I propose the following challenge to any of the "Questions of Consciousness People."

Without using the word consciousness, explain to me what factor of the functioning, normal mental operation level of the human mind you think "science" doesn't understand or can't account for? In this answer you are not allowed to:

1. Beg the question.
2. Circular answer the question by defining it only as the thing you are trying to prove.
3. Loud angry incredulity.
4. Word salad.
5. Anything that is obviously a soul just not being called that.
6. Attack the broader concept of knowledge conceptually. (No scorching the Earth.)

Using those criteria, please describe the thing you think science can't describe.

I will not waste the keystrokes answering proudly ignorant questions that have been answered for decades or centuries. "Can your precious science explain consciousness" is "Show me just one transitional fossil" level of having vaccinated oneself against knowledge. Might as well say "Astronomy doesn't work because it hasn't proven the sun isn't a magical flaming chariot being driven across the sky by Apollo." Explaining the facts to someone who is that far behind as to what science understands would be as much a waste of time as trying to teach a cow to make a summit attempt on Everest, a situation that could not be improved by you explaining it to them more clearly. So I have no intentions of PRATTing the entire base concept of neuroscience at them just to see goalposts break the land speed record they'd be moved back so fast.
 
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ServiceSoon said:
servicesoon said:
Synopsis: Controlling by exactly duplicating every aspect currently known to contribute to the individual conscious experience (nature/biology and nurture/environment) would provide evidence to allow reasonable inference if a variable exists which contributes to consciousness that is not currently found in the scientific literature.

Scientific Process:
1. Ask a question. Does the Biopsychosocial (BPS) Model adequately capture all variables that contribute to consciousness?

2. Background research. The current scientific literature is awash with evidence that supports the theories that Biology, Psychology, and Sociology contribute to consciousness. These areas of study are all included in the BPS Model.

My assessment for any scientific literature examining the possible existence of factors outside the BPS Model that contribute to the emergence of consciousness are very limited. All of them have been sensibly dismissed for various breaches in the scientific methodology.

3. Hypothesis. There exist a variable which contributes to consciousness that the current BPS Model does not include.

4. Test with experiment. This experiment will consist of no less than thirty test subjects. All three areas of the BPS Model will be controlled and exactly duplicated. Every test subject will have exactly the same;
DNA, nutrition, social/physical interaction and stimulation, environment, etc.

The test administered will seek differential anomalies among test subjects and could include the following tests and/or observations; behavioral, intelligence/adaptation, neuroscience, inspection of urine/fecal matter and blood, etc.

Any deviations from this protocol or observations of divergence among the test subjects will be recorded and documented so that they can be accessed for distortion of the results.

5. Analyze data and draw conclusion. Possible outcomes and conclusions:
a) The test subjects exhibit statistical and practically significant differences that are consistent and measurable on anytests. There exists a variable which contributes to consciousness that the current BPS Model does not account for.
b) The test subjects exhibit no statistical or practically significant differences that are consistent and measurable on all tests. The BPS Model completely includes all variables that contribute to consciousness.
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Outside of quoting myself :D Do you like it, love it, thoughts?
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You have yet to say what your experiment is,:
What are you variables; dependent/independent, how will you test for them?
 
Within a metaphysical certainty nobody who is making the claim that "science" cannot explain "consciousness" will:

1. Define "consciousness" to any meaningful degree.
2. Lay out how any test is supposed to test for it.
 
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