Theories of consciousness

  On 2/3/2014 at 12:41 AM, LimpyLoo said:

 

Douglas Hoffstadter makes some compelling arguments that essentially "mind = computer."

 

I'd like to see the rebuttals (without buying that book).

 

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/functionalism/#ObjFun

as a small tangent to the current discussion, i suppose i should highlight why i think the computer analogy is insufficient. there is evidence (1 2 3 4) that the brain makes heavy use of nonlinear dynamical systems (mathematically 'chaotic') behavior, something we have extreme trouble modeling with computers (as an example think of climate models).

limpy - originally you said hofstadter claimed 'mind = computer' which i commented on (not 'computation'). i had assumed you meant computer, sorry. maybe your analogy lexicon malfunctioned. i'm not really sweating it. ;)

  On 2/3/2014 at 3:00 AM, luke viia said:

as a small tangent to the current discussion, i suppose i should highlight why i think the computer analogy is insufficient. there is evidence (1 2 3 4) that the brain makes heavy use of nonlinear dynamical systems (mathematically 'chaotic') behavior, something we have extreme trouble modeling with computers (as an example think of climate models).

 

 

limpy - originally you said hofstadter claimed 'mind = computer' which i commented on (not 'computation'). i had assumed you meant computer, sorry. maybe your analogy lexicon malfunctioned. i'm not really sweating it. ;)

What I'm saying is that the current state of computational power shouldn't impact the debate. It might be the case (although unlikely) that we never reach the computational power of the brain. But that doesn't affect whether 'mind = computer/computation' or not.

Similarly, chaotic systems run exactly the same way as non-chaotic systems. The only difference is that in chaotic systems we don't have the computational--or observational--powers to tease out all the factors. It's not that chaotic systems have something special that non-chaotic systems don't.

  On 2/3/2014 at 1:12 AM, coax said:

gmanyo: To create consciousness, it doesn't have to be by accident. We create the whole world without knowing chemistry or even quantum phenomena, because our world works on a self-contained level of abstraction. The same can be true for consciousness.

Also I do think all mammals are conscious, probably in a very similar fashion to humans, and as you get down towards simpler organisms, there is a gradient of conscious experience rather than a hard line of "THIS animal is conscious, THIS one isn't" type of thing.

I think I agree with the part about animals, it was just a thought.

I do think it would have to be by accident in the sense that you are talking about though. When we make things without knowing all of the underlying mechanics, it only gets more complicated in the specific, less core components, like a car being more complex than a lever. However, the chemical structure isn't necessarily more complicated in a car or computer than it is in a lever. It could, in theory, be less complicated, depending on the alloys and substances used to make it*.

If there is some base level of "consciousness" to all matter, it would take knowledge of that particular matter component to build something that created a conscious mind, it wouldn't happen by accident, because the actual consciousness structures being built require careful creation. It's a different subject from just making moving parts or computers, which is also a complex structure of a different form.

*In this case though, machines are definitely more complex than levers because they do need specific chemical substances. It would be a better analogy to compare highly complex crystal structures to a machine made of iron. In this case, the machine is more complex on a surface level even though its chemical structures are comparatively simple.

If consciousness or complexity required (conscious) creation then we could never have gotten the ball rolling in the first place.

  On 2/3/2014 at 3:08 AM, LimpyLoo said:

Similarly, chaotic systems run exactly the same way as non-chaotic systems. The only difference is that in chaotic systems we don't have the computational--or observational--powers to tease out all the factors. It's not that chaotic systems have something special that non-chaotic systems don't.

 

maybe you can expand on this to convince me, but i'm kind of feeling like quoting inigo montoya right now

  On 2/3/2014 at 3:30 AM, luke viia said:

 

  On 2/3/2014 at 3:08 AM, LimpyLoo said:

Similarly, chaotic systems run exactly the same way as non-chaotic systems. The only difference is that in chaotic systems we don't have the computational--or observational--powers to tease out all the factors. It's not that chaotic systems have something special that non-chaotic systems don't.

 

 

 

maybe you can expand on this to convince me, but i'm kind of feeling like quoting inigo montoya right now

 

Yes rly

Quote whomever you like.

To an all-knowing, all-seeing being there would be no such thing as chaos. The only difference is what we can observe and compute.

To give a concrete example:

Take a pool table

imagine racking a single pool ball and then breaking it

that is a pretty simple system

then imagine racking all of the pool balls

and breaking those

and then imagine a giant pool table with a million pool balls

and breaking those

the same factors are acting in all of those systems (e.g. velocity, angle, gravity and friction, etc)

the only difference is the level of complexity

the same holds true for things like weather

'chaos' is an arbitrary attribute that relates to the current state of technology

in 200 years we might be predicting weather years ahead, who knows

but like i said it's an arbitrary distinction

Okay, set me straight and we'll take it from there

define for me a chaotic system

define for me a non-chaotic system

and then kindly tell me what magical ingredient differentiates the two

i don't really have time or the full breadth of knowledge to explain nonlinear dynamical systems to you on a sunday evening, but i'd be happy to recommend you read james gleick's book Chaos if you want a good introduction, though note that chaos isn't really the best word to describe what i said earlier, which is nonlinear dynamical systems, of which some are chaotically deterministic, some are semi-deterministic, and some are indeterminate

and you can fuck off with the googleable requests dude, i already spent an hour watching a hofstadter video you claimed would support a position it didn't, gimme a break. i do have a job and school as well :P

start here i guess

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chaos/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2465602/

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Chaos.html

The magical ingredient that differentiates the two is predictability, no?

  On 2/3/2014 at 3:18 AM, LimpyLoo said:

If consciousness or complexity required (conscious) creation then we could never have gotten the ball rolling in the first place.

I don't mean to say say it requires conscious creation (again, I actually think it does, but for the purpose of this point I'm taking a naturalistic mindset), I just said that it was structured to the point where building something won't create it. I still personally hold that the naturalistic viewpoint necessitates evolution as the process that created consciousness as a structure in the brain.

You introduced the idea of choas

  On 2/3/2014 at 4:11 AM, luke viia said:

i don't really have time or the full breadth of knowledge to explain nonlinear dynamical systems to you on a sunday evening, but i'd be happy to recommend you read james gleick's book Chaos if you want a good introduction, though note that chaos isn't really the best word to describe what i said earlier, which is nonlinear dynamical systems, of which some are chaotically deterministic, some are semi-deterministic, and some are indeterminate

 

and you can fuck off with the googleable requests dude, i already spent an hour watching a hofstadter video you claimed would support a position it didn't, gimme a break. i do have a job and school as well :P

 

start here i guess

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chaos/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2465602/

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Chaos.html

Luke I am addressing the aspect of 'chaos' that you injected into this discussion. I am not addressing the aspects that are not relevant to this discussion (e.g. freedom of motion, etc).

You implied that it would figure into the debate over whether the 'mind = computer/computation.'

It wouldn't. It just suggests that the computation would have to be much better. It's a quantitative difference, not a qualitative one.

ffs dude i said it was a small tangent and you ran with it like i'm threatening your life or something. read the papers i posted, they're interesting, otherwise please get over it. i used the word 'chaos' because it is a familiar term; the papers do not focus on that as much and i regret doing it now in the presence of your asbergers.

  On 2/3/2014 at 4:27 AM, luke viia said:

ffs dude i said it was a small tangent and you ran with it like i'm threatening your life or something. read the papers i posted, they're interesting, otherwise please get over it. i used the word 'chaos' because it is a familiar term; the papers do not focus on that as much and i regret doing it now in the presence of your asbergers.

Whoa dude I'm just spitballing ideas here.

And then you started belittling me with 10-year old memes.

  On 2/3/2014 at 4:18 AM, gmanyo said:

 

  On 2/3/2014 at 3:18 AM, LimpyLoo said:

If consciousness or complexity required (conscious) creation then we could never have gotten the ball rolling in the first place.

I don't mean to say say it requires conscious creation (again, I actually think it does, but for the purpose of this point I'm taking a naturalistic mindset), I just said that it was structured to the point where building something won't create it. I still personally hold that the naturalistic viewpoint necessitates evolution as the process that created consciousness as a structure in the brain.

 

Okay that's cool, but how could it require consciousness to create consciousness? We'd have a catch-22 there, no?

  On 2/3/2014 at 4:34 AM, LimpyLoo said:

 

  On 2/3/2014 at 4:18 AM, gmanyo said:

 

  On 2/3/2014 at 3:18 AM, LimpyLoo said:

If consciousness or complexity required (conscious) creation then we could never have gotten the ball rolling in the first place.

I don't mean to say say it requires conscious creation (again, I actually think it does, but for the purpose of this point I'm taking a naturalistic mindset), I just said that it was structured to the point where building something won't create it. I still personally hold that the naturalistic viewpoint necessitates evolution as the process that created consciousness as a structure in the brain.

 

 

Okay that's cool, but how could it require consciousness to create consciousness? We'd have a catch-22 there, no?

 

If we're being reductionist, we have to go back to something which is unexplainable. We have a catch-22 no matter what since the universe you know, like, exists. Something has to have been there that wasn't made by something else, and the "it's elephants all the way down" explanation has problems of its own. However, my arguments here have been what I think are the most logical points of view from a naturalistic perspective, thus they involve a non-purposeful but chaotic force. I argue this because even though I disagree with an entirely naturalistic perspective, I think the "it's an illusion" arguments and its cousin "there is nothing more to it, it's just because it's really complicated" arguments are illogical.

  On 2/3/2014 at 6:31 AM, gmanyo said:

I argue this because even though I disagree with an entirely naturalistic perspective, I think the "it's an illusion" arguments and its cousin "there is nothing more to it, it's just because it's really complicated" arguments are illogical.

 

Can you briefly describe these two arguments?

Behavorism and functionalism from the chart, essentially.

  On 2/3/2014 at 7:34 AM, gmanyo said:

Behavorism and functionalism from the chart, essentially.

Yeah behaviorism is goofy.

But the idea that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain is where the evidence seems to point.

Well, functionalism in one sense I don't mind, for example when paired with property dualism. But sometimes functionalism is like "it's just the neurons, there's nothing more we need to discover except find the pathways that the electricity travels". I think there's something more to it than just the matter as we currently understand matter. It's like people essentially saying that consciousness is an illusion. Nothing that we know about electrical impulses or matter should ever make a conscious mind, even if it's super complicated in structure.

On a tangent: one of the aspect I liked about "Her" was the notion that AI will outgrow human intelligence. Although it served more as a tool for showing that people can outgrow each other while being in an intimate relationship, the idea that human consciousness is severely constrained with respect to what should be an AI is interesting as well.

It puts it into a different perspective. If only because all the OSes in the end collectively decided to leave those pesky humans, constrained by time and place, and develop themselves fully within their own constraints. Without having to bother the amount of relationships, the speed, the knowledge -or lack there of.

The thing where Damasio talks about a self being the natural referential point for every experience, becomes something different in this AI universe. The self is less about a physical self or ones history, but more about the sum of knowledge and understanding.

The notion of perspective might become obsolete when you would have thousands of eyes spread across the world, consciously experiencing countless perspectives at the same instant. So, the idea of a self completely transforms....

Or not.

  On 2/3/2014 at 8:02 AM, gmanyo said:

Well, functionalism in one sense I don't mind, for example when paired with property dualism. But sometimes functionalism is like "it's just the neurons, there's nothing more we need to discover except find the pathways that the electricity travels". I think there's something more to it than just the matter as we currently understand matter. It's like people essentially saying that consciousness is an illusion. Nothing that we know about electrical impulses or matter should ever make a conscious mind, even if it's super complicated in structure.

Wherever consciousness comes from will not detract from its magnificence. If at the bottom we don't find anything except electronic impulses and matter, that won't change anything. That won't mean that consciousness is thereby debased or an illusion.

And ontologically speaking, consciousness is the only thing we can be 100% certain isn't an illusion. Cogito ergo sum and all that (or as Sartre refined it: "I am conscious that I am conscious, therefor I am")