The hard problem of consciousness

[Piggy]

Anyone care to explain to me, tho, how the hard problem assumes dualism?

I don't believe it does.

[PixyMisa]

You can use the word "know", but not in circumstances like this where you do not. The actual research in consciousness shows that the "momentary singular experience" is vastly different from what we usually report it as. (To take the simplest of examples--you do not, except under very constrained circumstances, experience a blind spot in your visual field [assuming you have normal vision]. But you do in fact have this blind spot.) The rich visual tapestry we report is very different from the piecemeal collection of details we actually perceive, but we can only tell this by careful experimentation.

In other words, momentary singular experience is a terrible thing to consider as your standard of reality.
Exactly. That's why I strongly recommend that MIT lecture series. It's a very good introduction to the fact that just because you have a conscious mind doesn't mean you have the faintest idea what it is or how it works. By discussing a series of concrete and interrelated examples of how minds behave, it builds up a picture of what minds are. Which is all we can do, of course.

Westprog and Skiba, the problem is that you are starting from a false belief of what consciousness is. Seriously, listen to the lecture series (http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Brain-and-Cognitive-Sciences/9-00Fall-2004/CourseHome/index.htm) - it's fascinating, entertaining, and free - and then we'll be able to have an interesting and meaningful discussion.

[PixyMisa]

Anyone care to explain to me, tho, how the hard problem assumes dualism?

I don't believe it does.
Qualia and P-Zombies are inherently dualistic (in other words, meaningless).

The idea of P-Zombies is to ask the question, what if you had something that behaved in every observable respect exactly like a human being, but had no internal experience.

Under a materialist (naturalist, physicalist) worldview, the question is nonsensical, because internal experiences are behaviours.

Qualia is a term for internal experiences that aren't behaviours. Again, necessarily dualistic.

[Piggy]

Qualia and P-Zombies are inherently dualistic (in other words, meaningless).

The idea of P-Zombies is to ask the question, what if you had something that behaved in every observable respect exactly like a human being, but had no internal experience.

Under a materialist (naturalist, physicalist) worldview, the question is nonsensical, because internal experiences are behaviours.

Qualia is a term for internal experiences that aren't behaviours. Again, necessarily dualistic.

Ok, but I don't think that answered my question.

[rocketdodger]

Westprog and Skiba, the problem is that you are starting from a false belief of what consciousness is. Seriously, listen to the lecture series (http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Brain-and-Cognitive-Sciences/9-00Fall-2004/CourseHome/index.htm) - it's fascinating, entertaining, and free - and then we'll be able to have an interesting and meaningful discussion.

Or read "Godel, Escher, and Bach."

[PixyMisa]

Ok, but I don't think that answered my question.
Well, if you look back to the original post and see the definitions of HPC, you'll find that qualia and P-Zombies are considered to be equivalent phrasings of the question.

[rocketdodger]

Ok, but I don't think that answered my question.

I don't agree with a statement that general either, Piggy.

I think it is more appropriate to say that the vast majority of proponents of the HPC don't accept monist solutions to the problem (one of which is that it does not exist) because they are dualists.

[PixyMisa]

Or read "Godel, Escher, and Bach."
Yes, excellent suggestion!

In fact, the two in combination would make an excellent foundation for a layman. I had to wait twenty-odd years between reading GEB and discovering Jeremy Wolfe's lecture series, but today you can get both at the same time. :)

[Piggy]

Well, if you look back to the original post and see the definitions of HPC, you'll find that qualia and P-Zombies are considered to be equivalent phrasings of the question.

Yeah, but I don't.

Seems to me, the hard question has to do with the simple fact that we all do have conscious experiences, and it's likely that grasshoppers don't.

So that's something significant that we need to try to explain.

And that's really all there is to it.

You can show how all the components work, but that won't necessarily answer the question of how this conscious experience we all have is generated by the brain.

[rocketdodger]

Well, if you look back to the original post and see the definitions of HPC, you'll find that qualia and P-Zombies are considered to be equivalent phrasings of the question.

Yes but you can come up with material definitions for qualia and p-zombies.

Of course, once you have done that, the HPC no longer exists -- you have solved the problem by defining the problem!

So... if one is a non-dualist who buys into the HPC, then they simply can't define the terms properly yet, I suppose?

[Piggy]

I think it is more appropriate to say that the vast majority of proponents of the HPC don't accept monist solutions to the problem (one of which is that it does not exist) because they are dualists.

And that's a shame. But I do think there's something distinct which needs explaining.

I'm completely confident that the explanation will not be dualistic.

But it seems clear to me that there's a higher-tier phenomenon to be explained which should require its own explanatory framework. In other words, knowing how other functions of the brain work may not, by itself, tell you how the phenomenon of conscious experience is generated.

[Piggy]

So... if one is a non-dualist who buys into the HPC, then they simply can't define the terms properly yet, I suppose?

So if that's the case -- and it may be -- then please explain why it has to be so.

[rocketdodger]

You can show how all the components work, but that won't necessarily answer the question of how this conscious experience we all have is generated by the brain.

*sigh* I have answered this at least twice in this thread alone.

Everyone arguing for the HPC just ignores my answer. Why is that?

Conscious experience is simply a reasoning system reasoning about some aspect of itself.

Self-consciousness is simply a reasoning system reasoning about reasoning about itself.

You want to learn about this stuff? Sit down, and think about what happens when you think. If you are honest, patient, and observant, you will learn much -- and arrive at the above conclusion.

[Piggy]

*sigh* I have answered this at least twice in this thread alone.

Everyone arguing for the HPC just ignores my answer. Why is that?

Conscious experience is simply a reasoning system reasoning about some aspect of itself.

Self-consciousness is simply a reasoning system reasoning about reasoning about itself.

You want to learn about this stuff? Sit down, and think about what happens when you think. If you are honest, patient, and observant, you will learn much -- and arrive at the above conclusion.

Sorry, that's not good enough.

That's guru stuff.

I'm asking a much more specific question than that.

If you're arguing that the phenomenon of conscious experience does not require a material explanation... or if you're arguing that material explanations of other phenomena suffice... then let's see why that should be the case.

Sitting and meditating isn't on my to-do list.

[rocketdodger]

But it seems clear to me that there's a higher-tier phenomenon to be explained which should require its own explanatory framework. In other words, knowing how other functions of the brain work may not, by itself, tell you how the phenomenon of conscious experience is generated.

Well, it does, but it isn't immediately apparent because the property of consciousness is emergent. All you need to know is how a neuron works when linked with other neurons. And perhaps a bit of computer science.

[rocketdodger]

Sorry, that's not good enough.

That's guru stuff.

I'm asking a much more specific question than that.

If you're arguing that the phenomenon of conscious experience does not require a material explanation... or if you're arguing that material explanations of other phenomena suffice... then let's see why that should be the case.

Sitting and meditating isn't on my to-do list.

Ugh.

I am saying you should sit down and patiently try to define the terms of the HPC.

What, exactly, are qualia? What, exactly, is a subjective experience?

As in, what is going on in your head when a qualia pops into awareness, or when you have a subjective experience? Here is a clue -- in every case, you will find that you are reasoning.

Hence, the explanation of conscious experience I gave you.

[Piggy]

Well, it does, but it isn't immediately apparent because the property of consciousness is emergent. All you need to know is how a neuron works when linked with other neurons. And perhaps a bit of computer science.

You're gonna have to pony up if you want to say something like that.

I'm not saying it's wrong. It might be right. But I haven't seen it yet.

I agree we're talking about an emergent property.

But precisely because of that, we will not be able to understand it by understanding what happens at the level of the neuron. That goes with the territory.

We will have to understand the shape of the brain, how signals from groups of these neurons are routed, triggered, related, etc.

The shape and macro-activity of the brain will likely be the necessary bridge between neural activity in the sensation-processing chain and both conscious experience and gross motor response on the output side.

If we're talking about the brain, we have to deal with the brain.

[Piggy]

Ugh.

I am saying you should sit down and patiently try to define the terms of the HPC.

What, exactly, are qualia? What, exactly, is a subjective experience?

As in, what is going on in your head when a qualia pops into awareness, or when you have a subjective experience? Here is a clue -- in every case, you will find that you are reasoning.

Hence, the explanation of conscious experience I gave you.

I don't care about qualia.

And if you think that conscious experience in humans in synonymous with reasoning, I say you're quite wrong about that.

[rocketdodger]

If we're talking about the brain, we have to deal with the brain.

Yes. And?

Look, Piggy, if you refuse to even try to understand something as basic as the idea of a reasoning system that can reason about itself, then there is no way you can possibly hope to understand how a given brain structure functions in our consciousness.

That is analagous to a ECE student telling his professor that he doesn't need to learn about digital logic to understand how a CPU works, because 'we are talking about the CPU, so we have to deal with the CPU.' As if it were even possible to understand a CPU without knowing digital logic...

That is the problem with all you HPC proponents -- you just immediately write stuff off because it seems "too simple" to be able to answer the question. Yes, it is simple. It is so simple that you can't answer the question without it.

[rocketdodger]

I don't care about qualia.

And if you think that conscious experience in humans in synonymous with reasoning, I say you're quite wrong about that.

Yes, I gathered as much. Like all the other HPC proponents.

Since you are a materialist, though, and you appear to actually want to understand this issue, you should try to figure out why you feel I am wrong.

So -- have a go at it. Give me an example of a conscious experience you have had that did not involve reasoning about something at the time.

I think it will be quite difficult for you, given that it is impossible to be aware that you are having an experience without reasoning that it is yourself having the experience.

[PixyMisa]

Yeah, but I don't.
Then you're not talking so-called "Hard Problem Consciousness", you're talking real valid scientific questions.

Seems to me, the hard question has to do with the simple fact that we all do have conscious experiences, and it's likely that grasshoppers don't.
No, that's an easy question. It's just the number of neurons.

So that's something significant that we need to try to explain.
Done!

And that's really all there is to it.
Cool.

You can show how all the components work, but that won't necessarily answer the question of how this conscious experience we all have is generated by the brain.
Why not?

[Darat]

Yeah, but I don't.

...snip...

Then we are talking about two different "HPCs" - the first is the dualistic one the OP introduced with its idea of "all that physical stuff plus something else" and one that those of us who do not think there is a HPC (as stated in the OP) hold which is "Isn't consciousness a bloody difficult problem to get a handle on?"

Traditionally the term HPC is used only for the first one, your HPC really needs its own name, I would suggest the "Difficult Problem of Consciousness" or DPC for short.



ETA: I see Pixy said the same thing sorry!

[skiba]

Turtles.

Doing
Experience of doing
Sensation of experience of doing
Perception of sensation of experience of doing
Feeling of perception of sensation of experience of doing
Qualia of feeling of perception of sensation of experience of doing



How can a "mechanical" device experience anything? I can understand a reaction based on its physical properties. If we have a photo sensitive plate and I shine a light on it, theres a fairly simple physical reaction. No experience happens. Can we agree on this? It is the same as a rock falling
to the ground due to gravity. It just happen because of the physical laws and the physical properties of the objects.
Cause and effect or the objects involved in it do no experience this reaction.

Any physical device is dependent on the same basic princple of cause and effect.

Do you claim that if you simply multiply this basic principle of cause and effect by many factors, and run it through feed back loops and complex calculations that the cause and effect somehow starts to have experience.
Who/what is experiencing? Theres nothing but reactive patterns, nothing but a huge domino effect.

Dont get caught in the word "experience". It's ONLY A WORD, that points to something beyond language. It's the simple act of "see-ing"(not analysing) the thought, the emotion, sense perception as it happens.


As Darat implies, it is only the assumption of dualism that initially creates "these two aspects". It is not that we are denying an additional something; rather, it is that we are not making up an additional something in the first place.

I'm not claiming it has to be dualistic, I'm claiming there is some part missing from the "model" that's been proposed.

[Darat]

No.

So then why aren't what you label "qualia" just like my "ran"? Why can't "qualia" be described (in principle) in the same way everything else in the world can be?

[Darat]

...snip...

I'm not claiming it has to be dualistic, I'm claiming there is some part missing from the "model" that's been proposed.

But your argument is really an argument from personal incredulity - you are really saying "I can't believe that "experience" can just be the result of environmental processes". The problem you have is that there is not an iota of evidence that there is anything but those environmental processes.

[skiba]

But your argument is really an argument from personal incredulity - you are really saying "I can't believe that "experience" can just be the result of environmental processes". The problem you have is that there is not an iota of evidence that there is anything but those environmental processes.

I can't show you the evidence. I can only point to your own subjective experience. To the phenomenon we call experience. Not to the thing we are experiencing(what ever that might be at the moment) but to the act of experiencing.

It has nothing to do with belief. I think I explained my position somewhat rationally in my last post, so the problem i'm trying to express can be graped.

[PixyMisa]

How can a "mechanical" device experience anything?
Experiences are information. Mechanical devices can encode and process information.

I can understand a reaction based on its physical properties. If we have a photo sensitive plate and I shine a light on it, theres a fairly simple physical reaction. No experience happens. Can we agree on this?
Sure.

It is the same as a rock falling
to the ground due to gravity. It just happen because of the physical laws and the physical properties of the objects.
That's true of everything.

Cause and effect or the objects involved in it do no experience this reaction.
Sure.

Any physical device is dependent on the same basic princple of cause and effect.
Yes.

That does not mean that physical systems cannot have experiences.

Do you claim that if you simply multiply this basic principle of cause and effect by many factors, and run it through feed back loops and complex calculations that the cause and effect somehow starts to have experience.
Yes.

Who/what is experiencing?
The system.

Theres nothing but reactive patterns, nothing but a huge domino effect.
Yes.

Dont get caught in the word "experience". It's ONLY A WORD, that points to something beyond language.
Unfounded assumption. The fact that you might not be able to adequately define your concept of experience does not mean that the concept of experience cannot be adequately defined.

It's the simple act of "see-ing"(not analysing) the thought, the emotion, sense perception as it happens.
Sure. Machines can do all this.

I'm not claiming it has to be dualistic, I'm claiming there is some part missing from the "model" that's been proposed.
What? Where? Why?

[PixyMisa]

I can't show you the evidence. I can only point to your own subjective experience. To the phenomenon we call experience. Not to the thing we are experiencing(what ever that might be at the moment) but to the act of experiencing.
I see absolutely no reason why all the properties of my own subjective experience could not be replicated by some other system of hardware. Can you propose such a reason?

It has nothing to do with belief. I think I explained my position somewhat rationally in my last post, so the problem i'm trying to express can be graped.
You keep saying that something is missing. You have yet to say what this something is. That's the problem of belief.

[Darat]

I can't show you the evidence. I can only point to your own subjective experience. To the phenomenon we call experience. Not to the thing we are experiencing(what ever that might be at the moment) but to the act of experiencing.

It has nothing to do with belief. I think I explained my position somewhat rationally in my last post, so the problem i'm trying to express can be graped.

But don't you see that you're basing this on an assumption that "the thing we are experiencing" and "act of experiencing" are not related to one another and/or of different type of "stuff" and that fuels your argument from incredulity? This is where my example of "ran" comes back into play; if we use your reasoning and argument on this we end up with a "hard problem of locomotion", yet for "ran" you do not see that there is a problem to be addressed.

[leon_heller]

I think its a combination of both. I wont start speculating on the non-physical, i'll just say it might be in the field quantum mechanics.
All I know for certain is that something vital is missing from the model.



Skiba,

Once again, what is it that is missing? You claim to know what it is but you won't tell us. Is it a secret that has been vouchsafed to you only, that may not be communicated to anyone else?

Leon

[skiba]

Pixy, Glad we can still agree on so many thing.
Lets get to the ones we dont.

Experiences are information. Mechanical devices can encode and process information.
Yes.

That does not mean that physical systems cannot have experiences.


So, cause and effect constructed in a specific manner = experience?

This gives no explanation why it's not all "happening in the dark" as a mere reaction


Unfounded assumption. The fact that you might not be able to adequately define your concept of experience does not mean that the concept of experience cannot be adequately defined.

You got it mixed up here. I'm not talking about concept of experience, which is again more WORDS or information. I'm talking about the actual event of experience that you can have. "The experience of experiencing."


You keep saying that something is missing. You have yet to say what this something is. That's the problem of belief.

The experiencer, which is different from a blind string of reaction after reaction

[skiba]

Skiba,

Once again, what is it that is missing? You claim to know what it is but you won't tell us. Is it a secret that has been vouchsafed to you only, that may not be communicated to anyone else?

Leon
Only to me? Theres people here who seems to have the same experience.

Anyway, I gave the answer to PixyMisa

[westprog]

Where did I mention programmers?



Call them software engineers or computing experts if you prefer.



Which physicists agree with him?

Leon

Which physicists are even considering the subject?

[PixyMisa]

Pixy, Glad we can still agree on so many thing.
Lets get to the ones we dont.

So, cause and effect constructed in a specific manner = experience?
No.

Experiences are information. Experience - as a verb - is information processing. Not every instance of cause and effect need be construed as information processing, and not all information processing is sufficient to constitute experience.

This gives no explanation why it's not all "happening in the dark" as a mere reaction
Why should it all "happen in the dark"? More than that, how could it all "happen in the dark"? Your brain is an immensely complicated computer with a great deal of internal state. It needs to be so, to do what it does. And that internal state is your consciousness. Is you.

You got it mixed up here. I'm not talking about concept of experience, which is again more WORDS or information. I'm talking about the actual event of experience that you can have. "The experience of experiencing."
You said that experience is beyond language. I say this is nonsense.

The experiencer, which is different from a blind string of reaction after reaction
Different how?

[PixyMisa]

Which physicists are even considering the subject?
Max Tegmark?

[leon_heller]

Only to me? Theres people here who seems to have the same experience.

Anyway, I gave the answer to PixyMisa

The experiencer, which is different from a blind string of reaction after reaction

That's not an answer! What exactly do you mean by the experiencer.

Leon

[westprog]

See, this is what I don't get.

I've actually read thru the thread, and a lot of this back-and-forth just loses me.

Maybe I'm missing something.

I see the HPC as a very real problem, and one amenable to inquiry.

I don't see how dualism has to be involved.

If I understand correctly, the "hard problem" consists merely in explaining how our brains produce the experience of self and sensation.

This is a different question from how the brain processes sensory input and how it generates responses, although obviously the latter are inextricable from the former.

I mean, we have no reason to expect that a rock has anything like a conscious experience. We know that humans do. It's reasonable to assume that apes, elephants, and other mammals do, too.

If Dennett is correct with his brain-in-a-brain theory, then insects and arachnids have no conscious experience, and yet they process input and produce responses.

So the problem is real, seems to me. You can tackle all the small problems, yet that doesn't necessarily tell you how it is that I have the experience of sitting here typing, how I'm aware of it.

That's a perfect layman's account of what the problem is. It's obviously expressed in a fuzzy way. It might be impossible to define it in a non-fuzzy way. However, that is the problem, and any explanation that doesn't deal with it is inadequate.

[westprog]

Computers have memory.


In fact, they don't. They have a current state - which includes the RAM*, the registers and the disks. It's not possible to determine from the current state what the previous state was. Programs don't run backwards.

* I know RAM stands for memory, but it really isn't - any more than the CPU is the brain.

[Darat]

In fact, they don't. They have a current state - which includes the RAM*, the registers and the disks. It's not possible to determine from the current state what the previous state was. Programs don't run backwards.

* I know RAM stands for memory, but it really isn't - any more than the CPU is the brain.

Using that as a definition for memory humans don't have memory.

[PixyMisa]

That's a perfect layman's account of what the problem is. It's obviously expressed in a fuzzy way. It might be impossible to define it in a non-fuzzy way.
Let me get this straight.

You're saying that you don't know what the question is, but we have to answer it anyway?

[skiba]

Experiences are information. Experience - as a verb - is information processing. Not every instance of cause and effect need be construed as information processing, and not all information processing is sufficient to constitute experience.

Thats why I said: a specific cause and effect = experience.


Why should it all "happen in the dark"? More than that, how could it all "happen in the dark"? Your brain is an immensely complicated computer with a great deal of internal state. It needs to be so, to do what it does. And that internal state is your consciousness. Is you.

Your doing the same as every NHPC. Your hiding behind the complexity or rather, fooling yourself with the complexity.
"complex calculation, information processes, Information feed back loops, information going round and round"


Different how?

*sigh* never mind....

[PixyMisa]

Thats why I said: a specific cause and effect = experience.
Read what I wrote. Experience requires information processing. Just saying "cause and effect" is meaningless. Everything is cause and effect.

Your doing the same as every NHPC. Your hiding behind the complexity or rather, fooling yourself with the complexity.
Utter nonsense.

The properties of consciousness show an obvious progression from simple brains (insects, worms and such) through to complex ones (birds and mammals) and then to us.

We recognise ourselves in the mirror. Ants can't do that. Gorillas can.

We use tools. Frogs don't. Crows do.

We dream. Most mammals do that too.

What we find in each case is that the progressions of sophistication in every aspect of consciousness follows the progression of complexity of the brains generating that consciousness.

We can map out an insect brain in complete detail. There's a complete working simulation of a rat neocortical column, with work in progress to simulate the entire neocortex. Where exactly is the magic injected, and how, and why do you think this?

"complex calculation, information processes, Information feed back loops, information going round and round"
Indeed. That is what the brain does, after all.

*sigh* never mind....
You brought it up. You keep claiming there's a difference. You are completely unable to explain what this difference is.

Look, it's a complex subject. You can't be expected to pick it up from a short forum thread. Read Godel, Escher, Bach. Listen to the lecture series I linked to previously. Then, when you have some understanding of the question you are asking, come back and we'll start again.

[Nick227]

Mercutio beat me too it, but you ARE wrong. We feel plenty of emotion, we just don't think there's something non-physical about it. There's no reason to think that emotions come from anywhere except our body, especially since emotion is very much a physical thing.


I am not saying emotions don't come from the body. I don't know where they come from. But it seems clear they are at least mediated by the body. I was interested to know how you would propose a machine could be made that would experience feeling.

It seems to me that HPC deniers rely on accepting that there are vast amounts of things we don't know in order to maintain denial. Whilst this may be true I find it never-the-less not so satisfying an approach.

Nick

[Nick227]

The thing that rocks, insects and arachnids seem to lack that humans, apes, elephants, and other mammals have seems to be memory. Memory seems to be sufficient to explain "experience of self and sensation". Why does consciousness need be any more complicated than that?

Can you explain me how memory is sufficient to explain the actual experience of sensation? Not of changes in sensation, but of sensation itself? I'm intrigued.

Nick

[cyberdyno]

One of the biggest mysteries in science is consciousness.....Or is it?



I know we have alot of materialists here, so would like their take on this, and ofcourse the non-materialistic POV too.

Instead of - to be is to be perceived - (consciousness precedes matter), it should have been - to be is to perceive - (matter precedes consciousness).

John Von Neumann was right when he said that the evolution of the Schroedinger wave depends on quantum mechanical observables, implying that this information can only come from spacetime. Yet, since the theory considers brains to be quantum measuring devices, it includes the observer as an efficacious agent. The only reason human brains entered the equation was that, as they received light (EMR) coming from the particle, just like all objects in spacetime do, information about momentum and location, which is vital to maintain energy conservation laws, became known to the particle/system, allowing it to complete the feedback control loop and continue to condense.

According to present day theory the total energy available to the Universe was preset at the moment of its emergence and Thermodynamics tell us that each of its parts must register how much energy is being used in relation to the whole. Each object that moves in space must follow the laws of energy conservation. But how else could the Universe register how much energy is being used by some galaxy 5 billion light years away if it wasn't through momentum space, a non-material medium from which spacetime emerges as a product of active information?

As Ernst Mach explained inertia he came to the conclusion that energy usage by objects within the Universe is instantaneously registered through momentum space. This is where phenomena like inertia comes from. Particles sense other particles as they complete the state information exchange and realize the spatial relationships, between them and space, required to collapse the state-wave packet from hyperspace as they crystallize into spacetime. Holistic perception is an intrinsic function of matter explained by the Aether's oneness and this function helps Nature to evolve.

The observer, in the present theory, must refer to any object that is able to interpret environmental information brought to it by EM waves. Observation with the only purpose of establishing the particle's spatial parameters (speed, size, mass...) in any given inertial frame. The particle must first be in thermal equilibrium with the environment before it can exist as matter in spacetime, that is the law.

So Quantum Mechanics' big mystery was - why do I have to observe the cat in order for Schroedinger's cat to live or die? The answer is that our brains are measuring devices, just like the rest of all matter. We are the best quantum measuring device that ever emerged from all the information processing that has transcurred in our neighborhood to date. Interactions within a system, like a brain for example, depend on more than the information it gets through the senses.

Perception is a very old natural function inherent to all matter, not some exclusive human ability. Particles in spacetime perceive, select, and integrate into their state-wave function only that information which is important or useful to them in their endless quest for thermal efficiency and equilibrium. Our mind, with all of its mental waves and accompanying frequencies, became the modern version of that same holistic awareness function after 14 billion years of information processing, autopoiesis and evolution. Wholeness in time and space is what allowed Nature to evolve.

[Nick227]

*sigh* I have answered this at least twice in this thread alone.

Everyone arguing for the HPC just ignores my answer. Why is that?

Conscious experience is simply a reasoning system reasoning about some aspect of itself.

Self-consciousness is simply a reasoning system reasoning about reasoning about itself.

You want to learn about this stuff? Sit down, and think about what happens when you think. If you are honest, patient, and observant, you will learn much -- and arrive at the above conclusion.

When I sit down and think about what happens when I think, more thoughts are created. I fail to see how this resolves anything to be honest. It just creates more thoughts. So what?

Nick

[Dancing David]

That is computation.

Yeah, I was trying to point out that it is not the computation that is the significant part.

:D

[Dancing David]

Anyone care to explain to me, tho, how the hard problem assumes dualism?

I don't believe it does.

It doesn't for you, for some it requires an ineffable that can't be described or measured, but exists.

[Dancing David]

You're gonna have to pony up if you want to say something like that.

I'm not saying it's wrong. It might be right. But I haven't seen it yet.

I agree we're talking about an emergent property.

But precisely because of that, we will not be able to understand it by understanding what happens at the level of the neuron. That goes with the territory.

We will have to understand the shape of the brain, how signals from groups of these neurons are routed, triggered, related, etc.

The shape and macro-activity of the brain will likely be the necessary bridge between neural activity in the sensation-processing chain and both conscious experience and gross motor response on the output side.

If we're talking about the brain, we have to deal with the brain.


Well the inhibitory and actualization effect extends to the whole brain. There is the gross anatomy , which is governed by the development of neural pathways through enzyme gradients during developement and may be influenced by usage.

What is really cool is that some areas actualy swap out the processing of material. What is also cool is that because it is a learned structure, you can't map one brain to another except at the gross structural level.

If say you were able to map the phrase "I see the dog." as a verbal cognitive phrse, it would involve the same gross areas of the brain, but it is likely that each individual has a unique pattern that generates that verbal cogintion. i would suggest this because the neural network is platic and learns the associations that form the basis of the actual verbal cognition. So when it comes to a Matrix style plug in, the interface software would have to be unique for each individual, in my estimation.

Then we get into something that i have discussed before, the brain makes up a lot of perception, and memory as well. It is not always accurate and is more of a consensus amongst the neural pattersns. And just like the House of Representatives, they don't always get it right.


But if you want to frame the HPC as an understanding of the actual metaprocess that we call 'consciousness' I am very cool with that.

[Nick227]

It doesn't for you, for some it requires an ineffable that can't be described or measured, but exists.

Well, the act of definition does take one away from the experience of definition. The attempt of the mind to define anything is just the mind attempting to define. So what? What has experience to do with definition? You can experience definition, but you can't actually define experience. It's too primary, too inescapable.

I think the HPC deniers are simply so identified with thought that they fail to see the issue lies with the inability of thought to convey experience. Thoughts can merely be used to invoke a similar experience in others, but they are not touching on experience. You can have the experience of trying to define experience through thinking, but you are not actually defining experience, merely trying.

If you are in-the-moment aware of the immediacy of experience you are aware of the HPC.

Nick

[Dancing David]

Dont get caught in the word "experience". It's ONLY A WORD, that points to something beyond language. It's the simple act of "see-ing"(not analysing) the thought, the emotion, sense perception as it happens.




'see-ing' is two things the sensations and then the perceptions, there is no need to suggest there is an unknown entity until evidence for it arises. It is possible, but as this point undocumented. Why can't it just BE the physical process?

[Dancing David]

I can't show you the evidence. I can only point to your own subjective dancing. To the phenomenon we call dancing. Not to the thing we are dancing(what ever that might be at the moment) but to the act of dancing.

[Dancing David]

The experiencer, which is different from a blind string of reaction after reaction


To quote the AHB again:

If you pluck out your eye, will you see better?

[Nick227]

'see-ing' is two things the sensations and then the perceptions, there is no need to suggest there is an unknown entity until evidence for it arises. It is possible, but as this point undocumented. Why can't it just BE the physical process?

It may be a physical process.

This regardless you are still confusing thoughts with experience. You cannot capture experience with thoughts. It is too immediate. You can direct the mind to try but if you examine the results you will see that they are not the experience.

This is not to suggest that there is some unknown entity involved, merely to point out the innate limitations of thought-based systems of understanding.

Nick

[Darat]

Well then Nick227 I haven't a clue what you mean by "experiencing". The only time "I" am aware of experiencing anything is when I have an internal dialogue (as I am doing at the moment when thinking about this post I am typing) the rest of the time "I" experience nothing.

[Nick227]

Well then Nick227 I haven't a clue what you mean by "experiencing".

Well, "experiencing" is just a word, a word I'm using to convey the primacy of whatever is in my mind in the moment. Of course this conveying inevitably fails!

The only time "I" am aware of experiencing anything is when I have an internal dialogue (as I am doing at the moment when thinking about this post I am typing) the rest of the time "I" experience nothing.

You're saying, for example, that you cannot experience a chair without having thoughts about the chair? I don't quite follow.

Nick

[rocketdodger]

When I sit down and think about what happens when I think, more thoughts are created. I fail to see how this resolves anything to be honest. It just creates more thoughts. So what?

Nick

And this is a perfect example of what I am talking about. Instead of just shutting up (not to be insulting) and actually trying something, you, as an HPC proponent, instantly write it off because "you fail to see how it resolves anything." Dude, science wouldn't have gotten very far if everyone didn't try stuff because they "fail to see how it resolves anything."

The point of the exercise (which I now must explain because you don't seem to have the patience to do it) is that subjective experience is reasoning.

When you receive sensory input, you are not experiencing anything. You are just receiving input. There is no experience yet. In fact, it won't ever be an experience unless you take some extra steps.

For example, when you are driving home every day, you look at literally millions of objects. How many of them do you "experience?" Do you "experience" the passing cars on the other side of the freeway? Do you "experience" every bush along every building? Do you "experience" every crack in the road? Absolutely not.

What you experience is sensory input that, for whatever reason, your mind chooses to process further. And this further processing is known as reasoning. So when a car on the other side of the freeway "catches your eye," the implicit reasoning system that is your neural network starts going to town. A whole cascade of inferences are made, automatically, that link that car with countless other ideas and memories. Perhaps your family had a similar car? Perhaps the car is your favorite color? Perhaps you think it is moving too fast? Perhaps the sun glinted off the hood in just the right way and made you think of the ocean in Mexico at sunset?

Furthermore, for you to be aware that you are having an experience, you have to infer that it is yourself having the experience. Otherwise, how could you think "I am having an experience?" This is yet more reasoning.

Subjective experience is reasoning. Self consciousness is just subjective experience considering the self -- a reasoning system reasoning about itself.

[rocketdodger]

If you are in-the-moment aware of the immediacy of experience you are aware of the HPC.


Ahhhhh. I see! So the HPC only exists in the infinitessimal period of time between when you experience something and you are aware of experiencing something.

Well, that makes so much more sense! I mean, other than the fact that the very definition of experience that the HPC requires is based on one being aware of experience (I.E. subjective).

But who cares about keeping definitions consistent in a debate, right?

[Mercutio]

Well, the act of definition does take one away from the experience of definition. The attempt of the mind to define anything is just the mind attempting to define. So what? What has experience to do with definition? You can experience definition, but you can't actually define experience. It's too primary, too inescapable.
More turtles.

I know you asked not to get hung up on the word "experience" (which was my point, actually, which was why I used the other words as well), but everything you are doing is adding an undefined something to what is known, then asking us to define that undefined something.

I think the HPC deniers are simply so identified with thought that they fail to see the issue lies with the inability of thought to convey experience. Thoughts can merely be used to invoke a similar experience in others, but they are not touching on experience. You can have the experience of trying to define experience through thinking, but you are not actually defining experience, merely trying.
See? You use the term "HPC deniers", when what is being "denied" is nothing more than the additional something you insist must be there.

If you are in-the-moment aware of the immediacy of experience you are aware of the HPC. No. You are falling prey to our language. If you insist that, in order to explain "sunrise", we must actually explain the movement of sun through sky over stationary earth, then we have the HPS, or Hard Problem of Sunrise. You are taking "conscious experience" as some sort of bedrock, when it clearly is not, and cannot be.

Take a listen to the course that Pixy linked to (I was surprised to see that it is just a psych class, not one specifically aimed at consciousness, but at second thought realized that this shows just how much we *do* know about the processes under debate here); the actual science involved frames the question in a vastly different way than philosophy does. There is evidence of how we perceive, sense, remember, think... and so far, none of it is pointing to anything like "qualia" as having any meaningful existence at all. "Qualia" is a philosophical construct, a shortcut to describe part of perceiving, no more real than "sunrise". Sure, both words allow us to be understood in many contexts, but neither helps us when trying to explain what is really happening.

[rocketdodger]

You're saying, for example, that you cannot experience a chair without having thoughts about the chair? I don't quite follow.


Anything that pops into your head is a thought.

Follow now?

[Nick227]

And this is a perfect example of what I am talking about. Instead of just shutting up (not to be insulting) and actually trying something, you, as an HPC proponent, instantly write it off because "you fail to see how it resolves anything." Dude, science wouldn't have gotten very far if everyone didn't try stuff because they "fail to see how it resolves anything."

Well, let me first be honest about my view on HPC. I don't really like the word consciousness, because like experience, to me it's trying to refer to something which is inescapable and thus irreferable (if such a word exists!). By their nature abstract concepts tend to imply that one can escape primacy and this doesn't really work for me. If we say however that we can refer to it, then personally I don't know if consciousness arises in the body. I don't know.

What I'm skeptical of, in considering the HPC, is whether a machine can be created which exhibits all the traits of human consciousness. I'm skeptical of it because I haven't seen one yet. It may well be possible. I'm just not yet convinced, because of these issues with experiencing.

Back to what you wrote. I did try what you suggested. I did have more thoughts. I don't see that having more thoughts resolves the issue. I think all it showed me was that having as many thoughts as you like does nothing to bridge the gap between conceptual models and the primacy of what is. The fact that scientists have developed thought-based models of understanding to the degree that they have does not undermine this for me.

The point of the exercise (which I now must explain because you don't seem to have the patience to do it) is that subjective experience is reasoning.

Do you need to reason about, say, a chair, to experience the chair?

Nick

[Nick227]

Anything that pops into your head is a thought.

Follow now?

You're saying the chair is a thought?

Nick

[Mercutio]

You're saying the chair is a thought?

Nick

*sigh*

What aspect of the chair are you experiencing? The texture? The color? The softness? Your associations about sitting at it for dinner?

Please give one example of anything about experiencing that chair that is *not* thinking.

As Calkins once put it, "can you conceive of something that cannot be conceived?" Her answer was "no". I want to see yours.

[Nick227]

See? You use the term "HPC deniers", when what is being "denied" is nothing more than the additional something you insist must be there.

I would agree with you in that, attempting to articulate the primacy of experience, one inevitably has to conceptualise, and that in so doing, one creates issues which are not present in primacy. Thus, certainly one does create a "something" out of that which is anyway inescapable, borderless, and indefinable. I consider this a tendency of the conceptual mind.

There are things. There are thoughts. There are feelings. Can a machine be created which has all the aspects characteristic of human consciousness, which experiences feelings?

Nick

[Nick227]

*sigh*

What aspect of the chair are you experiencing? The texture? The color? The softness? Your associations about sitting at it for dinner?

Please give one example of anything about experiencing that chair that is *not* thinking.

As Calkins once put it, "can you conceive of something that cannot be conceived?" Her answer was "no". I want to see yours.

To me there is the chair, and there are thoughts about the chair. I can passively observe the chair without thinking about it.

If you ask me about the experience I have only thoughts with which to try and convey it. In even considering the chair as an experience of a chair, I must inevitably create the duality I/chair. I have to write down thoughts I have about the chair. Yet there is still the chair.

Nick

[Darat]

To me there is the chair, and there are thoughts about the chair. I can passively observe the chair without thinking about it.

...snip...

No you can't.

[Nick227]

To me there is the chair, and there are thoughts about the chair. I can passively observe the chair without thinking about it.

...snip...

No you can't.

I can. In reflecting upon it, in considering it as a challenge, in considering it as "an experience," in trying to articulate it as an experience, in thinking "I'm passively observing it now!", so thoughts are created.

But I can passively observe the chair without thoughts.

Nick

[Mercutio]

I can. In reflecting upon it, in considering it as a challenge, in considering it as "an experience," in trying to articulate it as an experience, in thinking "I'm passively observing it now!", so thoughts are created.

But I can passively observe the chair without thoughts.

NickHow would you know you are doing so?

If you actually see the chair, how is that not a thought? If you do not (nor smell it, touch it, etc.), how are you observing it? Am I passively observing the small chair in the room down the hall from you right now? If I am, I certainly am not aware of it, and we can pretty much throw out any definition we have of "observing". If I am not, and it actually takes some form of actual observing to observe a chair, then you cannot passively observe the chair without thoughts.

(quibble: I hate the term "thoughts"; it is simply a reification of a process into a noun. There are no "thoughts", there is simply thinking. It makes so much more sense to end my last sentence as "without thinking".)

[JoeEllison]

Well, the act of definition does take one away from the experience of definition. The attempt of the mind to define anything is just the mind attempting to define. So what? What has experience to do with definition? You can experience definition, but you can't actually define experience. It's too primary, too inescapable.

I think the HPC deniers are simply so identified with thought that they fail to see the issue lies with the inability of thought to convey experience. Thoughts can merely be used to invoke a similar experience in others, but they are not touching on experience. You can have the experience of trying to define experience through thinking, but you are not actually defining experience, merely trying.

If you are in-the-moment aware of the immediacy of experience you are aware of the HPC.

Nick
The more I read your posts, the less sense they make. Seriously, I'm not sure you're even saying anything in this post. :confused:

[rocketdodger]

(quibble: I hate the term "thoughts"; it is simply a reification of a process into a noun. There are no "thoughts", there is simply thinking. It makes so much more sense to end my last sentence as "without thinking".)

I agree. Especially in the context of discussions like this, where people get hung up on the notion of a "thought" necessarily being something complex and analytical.

[rocketdodger]

Do you need to reason about, say, a chair, to experience the chair?

WTF?

Did you even read the entire middle of my post? Did you not understand that whole paragraph about all the objects you see on the side of the road but never experience?

Let me put it in an even simpler form for you. What is the difference between experiencing a lone chair in an empty room that you actually notice and experiencing a chair you don't notice in a stadium among thousands of others? You can clearly see both, plain as day. So what is the difference?

[Nick227]

How would you know you are doing so?

In my experience there is a certain lowering in the amount of thinking and then you become passively aware. It is inevitably hard to describe but I certainly can be aware without the mind churning out thoughts.

If you actually see the chair, how is that not a thought? If you do not (nor smell it, touch it, etc.), how are you observing it?

If I begin to reflect on what I'm doing so thoughts happen. But the experience itself has no thought attached to it. Can I ask you if you have experienced not thinking? Are there not periods of the waking day when the mind appears to be entirely passive? With stimulation, internal or external, thoughts happen but when the stimulation ceases it just moves back into a state of passive observation.


Am I passively observing the small chair in the room down the hall from you right now?

Well, I doubt it! I don't think there is one there.

If I am, I certainly am not aware of it, and we can pretty much throw out any definition we have of "observing". If I am not, and it actually takes some form of actual observing to observe a chair, then you cannot passively observe the chair without thoughts.

I'm sorry but I can't follow you here.

(quibble: I hate the term "thoughts"; it is simply a reification of a process into a noun. There are no "thoughts", there is simply thinking. It makes so much more sense to end my last sentence as "without thinking".)

But thoughts are what they are. Little packets of language, or whatever. You can have awareness without thoughts.

Once again, I am led to believe that the primary issue with those who cannot grasp HPC is that they are not sufficiently aware to realise what it refers to. It is not that the HPC is necessarily valid, rather that those who seem to deny it here actually have no experience of what is being discussed. If you cannot experience awareness without thought, if your mind is so busily churning out thoughts or you are so identified with thought, then I can well imagine that the HPC would simply make no sense.

Nick

[Darat]

...snip...

Once again, I am led to believe that the primary issue with those who cannot grasp HPC is that they are not sufficiently aware to realise what it refers to. It is not that the HPC is necessarily valid, rather that those who seem to deny it here actually have no experience of what is being discussed. If you cannot experience awareness without thought, if your mind is so busily churning out thoughts or you are so identified with thought, then I can well imagine that the HPC would simply make no sense.

Nick

Apart from this isn't the HPC of the opening post nor the "problem" usually labeled as "HPC". Which is fair enough but lets keep our terminology straight - I suggest using NHPC for "Nick's Hard Problem of Consciousness" for your version.

[Nick227]

For example, when you are driving home every day, you look at literally millions of objects. How many of them do you "experience?" Do you "experience" the passing cars on the other side of the freeway? Do you "experience" every bush along every building? Do you "experience" every crack in the road? Absolutely not.

No. This is true. Though I enjoy simply giving myself time to experience as much as possible, when my mind isn't too busy with things.

What you experience is sensory input that, for whatever reason, your mind chooses to process further. And this further processing is known as reasoning.

It could be that I am caused to regard something deeper because my mind is attracted to it, for sure. Women usually, when driving, though I have some counter-processing going here if my girlfriend is sitting beside me. I wouldn't call observing women reasoning personally. More lusting really.


So when a car on the other side of the freeway "catches your eye," the implicit reasoning system that is your neural network starts going to town. A whole cascade of inferences are made, automatically, that link that car with countless other ideas and memories. Perhaps your family had a similar car? Perhaps the car is your favorite color? Perhaps you think it is moving too fast? Perhaps the sun glinted off the hood in just the right way and made you think of the ocean in Mexico at sunset?

For sure all these things can happen, whole cascades of memories a la Proust can be invoked. But this does not infer that the trigger itself actually is a thought.

Furthermore, for you to be aware that you are having an experience, you have to infer that it is yourself having the experience. Otherwise, how could you think "I am having an experience?" This is yet more reasoning.

None of this reasoning is actually necessary. There is no need for selfhood in order to experience. Logic dictates that it is needed, but there is nothing I'm aware of in experience that requires an observer.

Subjective experience is reasoning. Self consciousness is just subjective experience considering the self -- a reasoning system reasoning about itself.

My mind certainly can reason about itself - consider it has personal identity, this kind of thing. But self-consciousness is primarily awareness. You can be passively aware of thoughts passing through the mind, unidentified with these thoughts. If this happens it is immediately clear that there is a great deal more to self-consciousness than mere reasoning.

Nick

[JoeEllison]

Once again, I am led to believe that the primary issue with those who cannot grasp HPC is that they are not sufficiently aware to realise what it refers to. It is not that the HPC is necessarily valid, rather that those who seem to deny it here actually have no experience of what is being discussed. If you cannot experience awareness without thought, if your mind is so busily churning out thoughts or you are so identified with thought, then I can well imagine that the HPC would simply make no sense.

NickIsn't this evidence that Nick and others who buy into the HPC are doing so from a solidly woo-tastic standpoint? Nick is claiming that we'd understand his inherently illogical position, if only we could have a revelatory or special experience, or access to "magical" knowledge. He's claiming that we've never actually experienced "experience" the way he does, as though he has access to special knowledge which is off-limits to others.

[Darat]

I'm afraid I have to agree with you Joe - it's simply revealed knowledge with a veneer of philosophy!

[Nick227]

Apart from this isn't the HPC of the opening post nor the "problem" usually labeled as "HPC". Which is fair enough but lets keep our terminology straight - I suggest using NHPC for "Nick's Hard Problem of Consciousness" for your version.

As I understand the HPC, the proposition is that there are certain experiential phenomena that cannot be accounted for by materialist explanations for consciousness. Very happy to be corrected if I'm wrong here.

I'm not saying that you need to experience awareness without thought to grasp HPC, though it would certainly help I think. I'm saying that there does appear to be a lot of thinking but not so much awareness amongst the HPC deniers. If your belief is that experience is merely thinking then I can imagine that HPC would literally make no sense, because the phenomena to which it refers you would have insufficient experience of.

Nick

[Nick227]

Isn't this evidence that Nick and others who buy into the HPC are doing so from a solidly woo-tastic standpoint? Nick is claiming that we'd understand his inherently illogical position, if only we could have a revelatory or special experience, or access to "magical" knowledge. He's claiming that we've never actually experienced "experience" the way he does, as though he has access to special knowledge which is off-limits to others.

I'm not a proponent of the HPC. I'm just pointing out that you do need to experience the phenomena to which it refers in order to relate to it.

Nick

[westprog]

Let me get this straight.

You're saying that you don't know what the question is, but we have to answer it anyway?

I'm saying that if we don't know what the question is, it's a little bit premature to be saying that the answer is easy.

There is a phenomenon which is unexplained. Part of the process of solving the problem is to formulate the right question. To simply dismiss the phenomenon because the question is elusive is hardly a solution.

What seems to be a popular approach in the consciousness debate is to ignore the concept of personal experience, produce a behavioural analysis, and write Qualia Erat Demonstrandum at the end. IMO, a solution that doesn't explain qualia isn't an attempt to solve the problem of consciousness.

There's a reason why it's called The Hard Problem, as opposed to, say, unifying gravity with the other fundamental forces. It's because it's wrapped up in subjectivity.

[Piscivore]

Can you explain me how memory is sufficient to explain the actual experience of sensation? Not of changes in sensation, but of sensation itself? I'm intrigued.

Nick

Depends on what you mean by "actual experience". It sounds like a "One True Scotsman" sort of thing. But for the everyday sort of experience of sensation, If I stick my wet finger in your ear while you are asleep or in a coma, you have no "experience" of the sensation. If I do it while you are awake, you do. If I did it ten years ago and you've entirely forgotten it, you also have no "experience" of the sensation.

[Ron_Tomkins]

Enough about the hard problem of consciousness. Lets talk about the simple problem of consciousness.

We are conscious.







... or are we?
Hmmm, second thought there is no simple problem of consciousness.

[Belz...]

For some reason, when I say "we don't know how it works" that gets translated into "there must be some mystical, non-materialistic explanation". When I say "we don't know" that's what I mean.

There isn't 40 different explanations. It's either physical or not. If it isn't the "soul", then it's the brain.

[JoeEllison]

I'm afraid I have to agree with you Joe - it's simply revealed knowledge with a veneer of philosophy!

Don't be afraid! :p

[rocketdodger]

I wouldn't call observing women reasoning personally. More lusting really.

What is lusting?

For sure all these things can happen, whole cascades of memories a la Proust can be invoked. But this does not infer that the trigger itself actually is a thought.

I didn't say it was -- experience is not the trigger either. It is what follows from the trigger.

None of this reasoning is actually necessary. There is no need for selfhood in order to experience. Logic dictates that it is needed, but there is nothing I'm aware of in experience that requires an observer.

I said self experience. If you are going to assert that self experience does not require self, then you aren't using the English language like every other human who speaks it does.

My mind certainly can reason about itself - consider it has personal identity, this kind of thing. But self-consciousness is primarily awareness. You can be passively aware of thoughts passing through the mind, unidentified with these thoughts.

Ok then let me ask you this. What do you call the neural activity responsible for this passive awareness? Because I call it thinking -- since, ya know, it happens in your head and all -- but you can call it whatever you want. Just give it a name so we know where we stand.

If this happens it is immediately clear that there is a great deal more to self-consciousness than mere reasoning.

Yes. But it does not happen. It is a logical impossibility.

What you are claiming is that it is somehow possible to add information (the awareness of an experience) to a collection of information (your consciousness) without actually changing any information. Don't you see that this is utter nonsense?

How can you have an experience, and then add an awareness of that experience, without somehow changing the system?

EDIT: and why have you avoided answering my chair question?

[rocketdodger]

If your belief is that experience is merely thinking then I can imagine that HPC would literally make no sense, because the phenomena to which it refers you would have insufficient experience of.

Admittedly, I have no experience of a complete lack of thought.

I also admittedly have no experience of being a can of tuna.

I suppose that makes me unqualified to argue with people who assert that they are cans of tuna and tell them that they are actually humans and only think they are a can of tuna. After all, I have never 'felt' what it is like to be a can of tuna.

[Belz...]

I'm not aware of machines experiencing illusions.

I know of at least six billion.

If that's the case, I can't ever use the word "know".

Indeed.

[Gurdur]

... It seems to me that the "problem" was created not because there IS a problem, but because people have all sorts of "solutions" that they'd like to pretend are valid. It seems not completely unlike the way creationists see "problems" with evolution that don't actually exist, because they start with the assumption of "God" as a solution.


Joe, just wondering how many years of academic philosophy you did. After all, I assume you wouldn't simply condemn something without actually knowing something about it.

_______

Edited to add: oh, my bad, nine pages to this crap already, my mistake, I'll just ease out of it.

[Piggy]

If you can retrieve information from memory, process it, and then store it back, then you have an experience of your own existence.

This is what Dennett is pointing out that thermostats are lacking (clearly true) and what Ramachandran is saying is lacking in bees (true to a substantial degree).


Memory and processing. An experience is a memory. Experiencing is a process.

I don't believe that's a supportable position.

One can easily imagine a system that stores data, senses the environment, retrieves data, and reacts, without have the sensation of conscious experience.

If you want to assert that such a process must engender conscious experience, you're going to have to explain why and how.

[Piggy]

Yes. And?

Look, Piggy, if you refuse to even try to understand something as basic as the idea of a reasoning system that can reason about itself, then there is no way you can possibly hope to understand how a given brain structure functions in our consciousness.

That is analagous to a ECE student telling his professor that he doesn't need to learn about digital logic to understand how a CPU works, because 'we are talking about the CPU, so we have to deal with the CPU.' As if it were even possible to understand a CPU without knowing digital logic...

That is the problem with all you HPC proponents -- you just immediately write stuff off because it seems "too simple" to be able to answer the question. Yes, it is simple. It is so simple that you can't answer the question without it.

I don't think you understand me at all.

I haven't written anything off.

I have no problem with "the idea of a reasoning system that can reason about itself".

The trouble is, you haven't explained why it should be that such a system must give rise to conscious experience.

[Piggy]

Yes, I gathered as much. Like all the other HPC proponents.

Since you are a materialist, though, and you appear to actually want to understand this issue, you should try to figure out why you feel I am wrong.

So -- have a go at it. Give me an example of a conscious experience you have had that did not involve reasoning about something at the time.

I think it will be quite difficult for you, given that it is impossible to be aware that you are having an experience without reasoning that it is yourself having the experience.

That's pure baloney.

You should be able to explain to me what you're saying, rather than sending me off to go meditate.

And you're getting it totally backward.

I didn't say that we can have consciousness without "reasoning about something" -- although I think it's pretty easy to show that we can, btw -- I said that there is no special reason why a system which processes sensory input, stores information, retrieves and manipulates information, and reacts should necessarily also produce the phenomenon of felt experience.

[Piggy]

Then you're not talking so-called "Hard Problem Consciousness", you're talking real valid scientific questions.

Funny, I thought I was talking about both.


No, that's an easy question. It's just the number of neurons.
I don't think there's any support for that notion. It would be bizarre if the number of neurons were the deciding factor.


Done!
No, that hasn't been done.



Why not?
Because you can't find it at that level.

Let's take the case of, say, brain damage which allows the physical effects of emotion (laughter, nervous sweat, etc.) but which blocks the person's ability to feel those emotions.

To answer why that happens, we have to look at the relationships among macro-level structures in the brain.

And even that doesn't answer the question of how conscious experience arises and is supported.

[Piggy]

Then we are talking about two different "HPCs" - the first is the dualistic one the OP introduced with its idea of "all that physical stuff plus something else" and one that those of us who do not think there is a HPC (as stated in the OP) hold which is "Isn't consciousness a bloody difficult problem to get a handle on?"

Traditionally the term HPC is used only for the first one, your HPC really needs its own name, I would suggest the "Difficult Problem of Consciousness" or DPC for short.



ETA: I see Pixy said the same thing sorry!

Ok, I see... if the HPC is going to be defined only the first way -- which is something I don't concern myself with because it's obvious nonsense -- then I got nothing to add here.

If that's the working definition here, then yeah, agreed, it's a non-problem.

[Piggy]

It doesn't for you, for some it requires an ineffable that can't be described or measured, but exists.

It either does or it doesn't. There is no "for some".

And it doesn't.

Besides, when you're talking about "an ineffable that can't be described or measured", then you're not talking about anything that can be meaningfully said to "exist" or to be "real".

If you can't conceive of it, describe it, or detect it, it's nothing. Just a placeholder meme in your head.

[JoeEllison]

I said that there is no special reason why a system which processes sensory input, stores information, retrieves and manipulates information, and reacts should necessarily also produce the phenomenon of felt experience.
Can you explain why you believe you've made some sort of point with this statement?

[westprog]

Using that as a definition for memory humans don't have memory.


Well, I have memory. It's something quite different from computer RAM. It has semantics, for a start.

[rocketdodger]

I have no problem with "the idea of a reasoning system that can reason about itself".

The trouble is, you haven't explained why it should be that such a system must give rise to conscious experience.

Yes, I have. I clearly explained that this is exactly what consciousness is.

So far all you have done is to say "well, I don't think so."

Where is that going to get you? Can you give me an argument as to why you don't think so?

[rocketdodger]

You should be able to explain to me what you're saying, rather than sending me off to go meditate.

Piggy, there is no way to explain it any further. A reasoning system that reasons about itself. That is it.

The "meditation" was my way of suggesting you examine your objections more closely. Can you really show that consciousness is possible without reasoning? Try it.

I didn't say that we can have consciousness without "reasoning about something" -- although I think it's pretty easy to show that we can, btw -- I said that there is no special reason why a system which processes sensory input, stores information, retrieves and manipulates information, and reacts should necessarily also produce the phenomenon of felt experience.

Unless the phenomenon of felt experience is nothing more than processing input, storing information, retrieving and manipulating information, and reacting -- from the perspective of the machine doing it. Which is exactly what all of us HPC opponents are claiming.

[Darat]

Well, I have memory. It's something quite different from computer RAM. It has semantics, for a start.

Never said it wasn't different from RAM - I said the definition you gave for memory is not the memory that humans are observed to have.

[Piggy]

Can you explain why you believe you've made some sort of point with this statement?

That depends.

If you're talking about dualism, then it's irrelevant.

If you're talking about explaining consciousness, then it gets right at what I'm talking about -- explaining the neurology won't be sufficient.

Just as you can't explain how a factory works by describing what all the molecules in it are doing.

[Piggy]

Yes, I have. I clearly explained that this is exactly what consciousness is.

So far all you have done is to say "well, I don't think so."

Where is that going to get you? Can you give me an argument as to why you don't think so?

Yes.

But first of all, if you're going to claim that any system that stores and retrieves and processes information must also give rise to conscious experience, then yeah, you got some explaining to do, too.

The reason I don't believe that such a system MUST give rise to conscious experience is that there's no convincing evidence that it must. That's pretty simple.

We know that it can, but we don't know that it must.

And even if it must, we still don't know how that's accomplished.

But we're certainly not going to get at it at the neurological level, because many problems that are being tackled right now -- such as the example I gave about "emotional blindness" -- require that we deal with macro-level structures in the brain above and beyond the neurology.

[Piggy]

Piggy, there is no way to explain it any further. A reasoning system that reasons about itself. That is it.

The "meditation" was my way of suggesting you examine your objections more closely. Can you really show that consciousness is possible without reasoning? Try it.

I'm going to have to insist that you start reading my posts.

It doesn't actually matter -- relative to my point -- whether or not consciousness is possible without reasoning. (But if you like, I can provide examples, as long as you first define "reasoning" so I'll know exactly what you mean by the term -- it could be that we already agree.)

The question is: If we define a system that reasons, does that necessarily imply consciousness? If it does, you haven't even begun to explain why it should. And if there is no clear reason to believe that it must, then we should not jump to that conclusion.

In short: If I examine my own experience and conclude that I am reasoning whenever I have a conscious experience, that does not mean that all reasoning therefore produces conscious experience.



Unless the phenomenon of felt experience is nothing more than processing input, storing information, retrieving and manipulating information, and reacting -- from the perspective of the machine doing it. Which is exactly what all of us HPC opponents are claiming.

I agree that the phenomenon of felt experience is entirely the result of all that processing, retrieval, and reaction.

But we can conclude that because we can see that all the sub-processes are the result of brain activity.

That doesn't mean we've explained how all these subroutines produce the phenomenon of felt experience -- and that, to me, is (to use Darat's term) the Difficult Problem of Consciousness.

We know the brain does it, but how? Pointing to all the processes we do understand still doesn't answer the question.

[JoeEllison]

That depends.

If you're talking about dualism, then it's irrelevant.

If you're talking about explaining consciousness, then it gets right at what I'm talking about -- explaining the neurology won't be sufficient.

Just as you can't explain how a factory works by describing what all the molecules in it are doing.

Why don't you try explaining the point of that comment I quoted earlier?

Then, when you're done with that, you can clarify why we can't explain how a factory works by describing the processes that go on inside the factory, or why anyone would try to do it by describing individual molecules.

It seems to me that you're dancing around and intentionally avoiding making coherent statements.

[skiba]

If you are in-the-moment aware of the immediacy of experience you are aware of the HPC.



Yes, exactly.

Even if you are in-the-moment for a split second and start to see it, then the analytical mind comes in and tries to grasp that experience, which ofcourse is no longer the experience but a conceptual thought.

[rocketdodger]

The reason I don't believe that such a system MUST give rise to conscious experience is that there's no convincing evidence that it must. That's pretty simple.

We know that it can, but we don't know that it must.

And even if it must, we still don't know how that's accomplished.



Except that I defined conscious experience as reasoning about something, and self consciousness as reasoning about the self. So the MUST is because that is how I defined it. The successor to 3 MUST give rise to 4 because it is 4.

You are free to choose a different definition. But so far, nobody has suggested a better one or even shown why that definition is inadequate.

And I agree that we don't know exactly how it is accomplished. But we have very plausible ideas. Much more plausible than you seem to think. Like I said in an earlier post, I am confident that we could make a consciousness based on those ideas, regardless of whether human consciousness turns out to be based on those ideas.

[PixyMisa]

I'm saying that if we don't know what the question is, it's a little bit premature to be saying that the answer is easy.
That's not what we're saying at all. What we are saying is that the question is meaningless.

There is a phenomenon which is unexplained. Part of the process of solving the problem is to formulate the right question. To simply dismiss the phenomenon because the question is elusive is hardly a solution.
So get the question right, then ask it.

What seems to be a popular approach in the consciousness debate is to ignore the concept of personal experience, produce a behavioural analysis, and write Qualia Erat Demonstrandum at the end. IMO, a solution that doesn't explain qualia isn't an attempt to solve the problem of consciousness.
Personal experience is behaviour. And the entire concept of qualia is meaningless.

If you disagree, then it's up to you to explain why, to provide a coherent definition of the concepts that you want to introduce.

There's a reason why it's called The Hard Problem, as opposed to, say, unifying gravity with the other fundamental forces. It's because it's wrapped up in subjectivity.
Why is this a problem at all? The subjective is merely a subset of the objective. Again, if you disagree, it is up to you to coherently explain what the distinction is.

[PixyMisa]

I don't believe that's a supportable position.

One can easily imagine a system that stores data, senses the environment, retrieves data, and reacts, without have the sensation of conscious experience.
Nope. That's a contradiction.

If you want to assert that such a process must engender conscious experience, you're going to have to explain why and how.
Sure.

Let's start with awareness. Dennett's thermostat is aware: It registers some condition in the world, makes a decision based on that, and does something about it.

But it's not self-aware. It has no idea that it is doing this; it just reacts.

But it is quite easy to add a second circuit that monitors and remembers what the thermostat has done, and that modifies the actions of the thermostat based on its history.

Now you have something that is self-aware.

The human brain is nothing more than our memory-thermostat, grande size.

[PixyMisa]

Well, I have memory. It's something quite different from computer RAM. It has semantics, for a start.
Memory in the human brain is associative, not a simple linear datastore. You can buy associative RAM chips. Voila, semantics.

[rocketdodger]

It doesn't actually matter -- relative to my point -- whether or not consciousness is possible without reasoning. (But if you like, I can provide examples, as long as you first define "reasoning" so I'll know exactly what you mean by the term -- it could be that we already agree.)

It matters relative to mine, because I provided a very plausible mechanism for consciousness, and it relies completely on reasoning. That is why I push the issue. And yes I am sure we already agree because I define reasoning at an extremely low level (basically communication between sets of neurons).

The question is: If we define a system that reasons, does that necessarily imply consciousness? If it does, you haven't even begun to explain why it should. And if there is no clear reason to believe that it must, then we should not jump to that conclusion.

I reach that conclusion because I can't find any criteria for consciousness other than reasoning. And I can't find any criteria for self consciousness other than reasoning about the self.

If someone can define consciousness better, then maybe we can add criteria and the "must" will become a "might."

In short: If I examine my own experience and conclude that I am reasoning whenever I have a conscious experience, that does not mean that all reasoning therefore produces conscious experience.

It does if that is the only criteria you can derive from an examination of your own experience. If you can derive more, then yes, you are absolutely right. I simply can't find any other criteria.

We know the brain does it, but how? Pointing to all the processes we do understand still doesn't answer the question.

It is an emergent phenomenon. Pointing to the processes answers the question, but there is "some assembly required."

For me, the assembly took a few months. When I read GEB I got a basic idea of how a system could be self-referential and how a system could exist without any knowledge of it's substrate. Then, when I got into A.I., I learned about inferential reasoning systems that humans have developed. A few months later I realized that neurons, because of the way they wire with each other, provide the perfect substrate for an inferential reasoning system.

Finally, I made the discovery (through mediation, as you say) that every subjective experience, qualia, etc.. involves some amount of reasoning about something (where by reasoning I simply mean making connections between ideas and thoughts).

So what is left? All the parts of the puzzle are in place. Our neurons hook into each other to produce an extremely complex inferential reasoning system. Consciousness is just reasoning at a certain level. HPC solved.

[skiba]

In my experience there is a certain lowering in the amount of thinking and then you become passively aware.

This is how meditation basically works but only takes it further.
Silencing the mind and being aware of that silent mind.
Thoughtless awareness.


Can I ask you if you have experienced not thinking?

Would also like to hear the answer to this. I think this is a very important point.



It is not that the HPC is necessarily valid, rather that those who seem to deny it here actually have no experience of what is being discussed.


If I've learned anything at all here, it is this.
Some people only try to think about the HPC........and there lies the problem.

[rocketdodger]

Would also like to hear the answer to this. I think this is a very important point.

Yes -- it is quite easy. I managed to do it the same way you and Nick seem to do it: by redefining "thinking" to be "all the mental processes that, when defined as 'thinking,' would make my arguments contradictory."

[rocketdodger]

If I've learned anything at all here, it is this.
Some people only try to think about the HPC........and there lies the problem.

So... the HPC only exists to begin with if you don't think... and it can only be solved through non-thinking...

Does anyone else realize how absurd this thread has become? And it hasn't even been plumjammed yet!

[Mercutio]

In my experience there is a certain lowering in the amount of thinking and then you become passively aware. It is inevitably hard to describe but I certainly can be aware without the mind churning out thoughts.

If I begin to reflect on what I'm doing so thoughts happen. But the experience itself has no thought attached to it. Can I ask you if you have experienced not thinking? Are there not periods of the waking day when the mind appears to be entirely passive? With stimulation, internal or external, thoughts happen but when the stimulation ceases it just moves back into a state of passive observation.

But thoughts are what they are. Little packets of language, or whatever. You can have awareness without thoughts.

Once again, I am led to believe that the primary issue with those who cannot grasp HPC is that they are not sufficiently aware to realise what it refers to. It is not that the HPC is necessarily valid, rather that those who seem to deny it here actually have no experience of what is being discussed. If you cannot experience awareness without thought, if your mind is so busily churning out thoughts or you are so identified with thought, then I can well imagine that the HPC would simply make no sense.

NickYou (and skiba, and perhaps others) would have loved the Psychology of just over a century ago. Wundt, James, and others decided that Psychology should be the science of conscious thought, and that the methodology should be introspection--the careful analysis of one's own thinking by a systematic and trained observer.

Thing is, we don't do that any more. Science is, in the long term, self-correcting. Methodologies that are not productive (or which are simply bunk) tend to be discarded in favor of methodologies that work. Introspection is a flawed methodology, and is a terrible thing to base an analysis of consciousness on. Your description of events is highly detailed, and almost certainly false (parts are certainly false--or rather, if true would upset roughly a century of work by thousands of scientists).

Philosophy has the luxury of not requiring that we check results against reality. Thus, there are still dualists, and still people who think introspection is a nifty way to find out stuff.

[JoeEllison]

If I've learned anything at all here, it is this.
Some people only try to think about the HPC........and there lies the problem.

That's two... can we get a third appeal to revealed knowledge?

[Piggy]

Why don't you try explaining the point of that comment I quoted earlier?

Then, when you're done with that, you can clarify why we can't explain how a factory works by describing the processes that go on inside the factory, or why anyone would try to do it by describing individual molecules.

It seems to me that you're dancing around and intentionally avoiding making coherent statements.
Y'know, you could try being polite. Wouldn't hurt.

I'm not some loosey-goosey dualist, and I'm not a dissembler, so put your hackles down, please. It will make it more pleasant to talk with you.

I'll take the second point first.

There are plenty of folks who do insist that the neurology will explain it all. If no one here's claiming that, if I've misunderstood, then fine, we can drop that point.

That was where the factory analogy comes in, tho. Take 2 entirely different factories doing entirely different things. The molecules in those factories are all behaving exactly the same. You can't explain what the factory is doing on a macro level by simply understanding how the molecules behave.

Similarly, you can't explain higher-level functions of the brain by understanding how neurons work. You have to understand how larger-scale structures within the brain work, and how they relate to each other.

But hey, that may be a moot point here.

As for the first point... in all the confusion, I lost count myself. So let's try to reconstruct the train of argument:

Give me an example of a conscious experience you have had that did not involve reasoning about something at the time.

I think it will be quite difficult for you, given that it is impossible to be aware that you are having an experience without reasoning that it is yourself having the experience.

I didn't say that we can have consciousness without "reasoning about something" -- although I think it's pretty easy to show that we can, btw -- I said that there is no special reason why a system which processes sensory input, stores information, retrieves and manipulates information, and reacts should necessarily also produce the phenomenon of felt experience.

Can you explain why you believe you've made some sort of point with this statement?

So.... The point that I was making with that statement -- in response to rocketdodger -- is that it doesn't matter if we are always "reasoning about something" at all times when we're having conscious experiences.

(I think it's very easy to show that we're not always reasoning about something when we have conscious experiences, but that's beside the point.)

Let's assume that it's true that we are. So what? That doesn't mean that reasoning = consciousness, or that reasoning explains consciousness.

There are all kinds of things my body is doing whenever I'm conscious. That doesn't mean that any of these functions = consciousness, or that they explain consciousness.

That's the point I was making by that statement.

[Piscivore]

(I think it's very easy to show that we're not always reasoning about something when we have conscious experiences.)

So you've said twice. Would you indulge me and do so?

[Piggy]

Except that I defined conscious experience as reasoning about something, and self consciousness as reasoning about the self. So the MUST is because that is how I defined it. The successor to 3 MUST give rise to 4 because it is 4.

You are free to choose a different definition. But so far, nobody has suggested a better one or even shown why that definition is inadequate.

Oh, I can tell you why it's inadequate.

First, it's a self-serving tautology.

But more importantly, it's inaccurate. If someone throws a baseball at me from behind and I turn my head, catch site of it, and duck... I have a conscious experience of flinching and ducking. But that's all hard-wired. There's no higher-level reasoning necessary.

So obviously, defining consciousness as reasoning is inadequate.

There's also no logic behind it. Why should we accept that reasoning is, for some reason, equivalent to consciousness?

Not too long ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with the realization that'd I'd left something outside in the yard. I knew what it was and where I'd left it, and I went outside and brought it in.

Clearly, my mind was doing some processing that I wasn't conscious of.

So it fails on that point, too. We can be consious without reasoning, we can reason without being conscious.

Quite simply, there's no reason to accept that definition, and every reason to reject it.

And I agree that we don't know exactly how it is accomplished. But we have very plausible ideas. Much more plausible than you seem to think. Like I said in an earlier post, I am confident that we could make a consciousness based on those ideas, regardless of whether human consciousness turns out to be based on those ideas.

I hope that we'll understand it in my lifetime. We do have some attractive ideas, but none of it's anywhere near proven.

I don't know if I want to be around when the first man-made conscious beings are created. That just spooks me.

[Piggy]

So you've said twice. Would you indulge me and do so?

Sure. I gave one just now. Something catches your eye and you flinch. You experience it. You're aware of it. But there's no higher-order reasoning necessary in order for you to either do that or experience doing it.

In fact, since emotions and barely-processed sensory input and motor functions and such are handled by the more primitive parts of the brain, it's possible that some critters -- like voles, maybe -- actually live their entire lives in such states.

You're in a hammock, staring up at the leaves, and you just let your mind drift, and for a while you're actually not consciously thinking about anything. You're just a data processor.

Meditative practices can get you to states where you're wide awake but you're not doing any higher-level reasoning. You're not day-dreaming or napping, and you're not thinking.

Of course, most of the time we got all the monkey-chatter going on upstairs. But not always. It's one of the things we do most all the time, but it's likely that conscious experience came first, that a mixture of senses and emotions was (is) the most primitive consciousness, and all our fuss and fretting and chatter came later.

[INRM]

It is an emergent phenomenon. Pointing to the processes answers the question, but there is "some assembly required."

For me, the assembly took a few months. When I read GEB I got a basic idea of how a system could be self-referential and how a system could exist without any knowledge of it's substrate. Then, when I got into A.I., I learned about inferential reasoning systems that humans have developed. A few months later I realized that neurons, because of the way they wire with each other, provide the perfect substrate for an inferential reasoning system.

Okay, please explain.

1.) How does an inferential reasoning system work?
2.) How is a system able to operate self-referentially without knowing how it works? (I actually believe you, I just want to hear the full explanation)

Finally, I made the discovery (through mediation, as you say) that every subjective experience, qualia, etc.. involves some amount of reasoning about something (where by reasoning I simply mean making connections between ideas and thoughts).

What exact meditation did you do? How did you arrive at said conclusions?

So what is left? All the parts of the puzzle are in place. Our neurons hook into each other to produce an extremely complex inferential reasoning system. Consciousness is just reasoning at a certain level. HPC solved.

Well, I already asked how a complex inferential reasoning system worked, so I got nothing else,

INRM

[PixyMisa]

Sure. I gave one just now. Something catches your eye and you flinch. You experience it. You're aware of it. But there's no higher-order reasoning necessary in order for you to either do that or experience doing it.
No "higher-order reasoning", no. Reasoning, yes. I use the term computation, to make it clearer - except then people get stuck on what they think computers are...

[Dancing David]

It either does or it doesn't. There is no "for some".

And it doesn't.

Besides, when you're talking about "an ineffable that can't be described or measured", then you're not talking about anything that can be meaningfully said to "exist" or to be "real".

If you can't conceive of it, describe it, or detect it, it's nothing. Just a placeholder meme in your head.


Well, I have Nick 227 on ignore, try asking him about the nature of objective experience.

I agree with you, I like the 'Difficult Problem of Consciousness", it still allows me to be a p-zombie.

[Dancing David]

Well, I have memory. It's something quite different from computer RAM. It has semantics, for a start.


It also appears to be recreated from a consensus of associaltion. Not realy stored. Except in pieces that might or might not be valid.

[Dancing David]

Why is there something special about the process.

the brain creates perception wholesale, the 'chair' you see, is only a model of the chair that your brain creates for you to experience from the sensation.

Consciousness is the process. Why would there be more than that?

You have a mechanism for memory, you can remember different pefceptions, you can have thoughts, you can have thoughts about perceptions, you can emotions, you can have emotions in relation to perceptions, you can have perceptions.

So if HPC means that you are not engaging in verbal cognition IE the common deifintion of thought, what aboy visual cognittion, what if you have a visual experience without verbal cognition?

You still have the different cognitive processes, when you see the chair it is a recreation from the sensation, through a set of learned filters. When you 'feel' something it is the same way:

So where is this mystery that can not be explained?

[Piggy]

No "higher-order reasoning", no. Reasoning, yes. I use the term computation, to make it clearer - except then people get stuck on what they think computers are...

I'd prefer "computation" to "reasoning".

But there's certainly no basis for equating computation, in that sense, with consciousness, is there?

[PixyMisa]

I'd prefer "computation" to "reasoning".

But there's certainly no basis for equating computation, in that sense, with consciousness, is there?
Computation isn't consciousness, but consciousness is computation.

[rocketdodger]

I'd prefer "computation" to "reasoning".

But there's certainly no basis for equating computation, in that sense, with consciousness, is there?

Other than the fact that when you are conscious, you are engaging in computation and nothing else.

[rocketdodger]

Sure. I gave one just now. Something catches your eye and you flinch. You experience it. You're aware of it. But there's no higher-order reasoning necessary in order for you to either do that or experience doing it.

In fact, since emotions and barely-processed sensory input and motor functions and such are handled by the more primitive parts of the brain, it's possible that some critters -- like voles, maybe -- actually live their entire lives in such states.

You're in a hammock, staring up at the leaves, and you just let your mind drift, and for a while you're actually not consciously thinking about anything. You're just a data processor.

Meditative practices can get you to states where you're wide awake but you're not doing any higher-level reasoning. You're not day-dreaming or napping, and you're not thinking.

Of course, most of the time we got all the monkey-chatter going on upstairs. But not always. It's one of the things we do most all the time, but it's likely that conscious experience came first, that a mixture of senses and emotions was (is) the most primitive consciousness, and all our fuss and fretting and chatter came later.


1) I never said it had to be "higher order" reasoning.

2) Why don't you try answering this question (since Nick refuses to -- for good reason):

What is the difference between experiencing a chair that you notice, all by itself in an empty room, and experiencing a chair you don't notice, amongst thousands of others in a stadium? There must be a difference, because although you can clearly see both, you notice one and not the other. So what is the difference?

Likewise, what is the difference between experiencing one of the leaves above you in the hammock that you notice as opposed to one of the leaves you don't?

[rocketdodger]

But more importantly, it's inaccurate. If someone throws a baseball at me from behind and I turn my head, catch site of it, and duck... I have a conscious experience of flinching and ducking. But that's all hard-wired. There's no higher-level reasoning necessary.

Thats probably why I explicitly stated that neurons are automatic reasoning devices -- their networks are a physical reasoning system. So yes, when you see a ball and duck, you are reasoning. Why else would you duck? It wasn't a random muscle spasm, was it?

There's also no logic behind it. Why should we accept that reasoning is, for some reason, equivalent to consciousness?

Well, I accept it because I can't find a definition for consciousness that doesn't rely on reasoning, and I can't find any attributes of consciousness that aren't explained by reasoning. If two sets are subsets of each other, they are equal.

Not too long ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with the realization that'd I'd left something outside in the yard. I knew what it was and where I'd left it, and I went outside and brought it in.

Clearly, my mind was doing some processing that I wasn't conscious of.

So? Unless you are going to claim that this was also another random muscle spasm, your neurons had to engage in some level of reasoning to remember the object and then direct your body outside to the object.

Quite simply, there's no reason to accept that definition, and every reason to reject it.

Other than the fact that by far it is the most plausible explanation for human consciousness and every single observation is in agreement with it yes, there is no reason to accept it.

[Piggy]

Computation isn't consciousness, but consciousness is computation.

I can see where you're going with that, and I don't reckon I'd disagree. Consciousness is a result of, and entirely dependent upon, computation.

[Piggy]

Other than the fact that when you are conscious, you are engaging in computation and nothing else.

Well, that's also demonstrably false.

There are all kinds of processes going on in my body, and in my brain, which are not computation when I am conscious.

And computation goes on when I'm not conscious.

Therefore, you cannot reasonably equate computation with consciousness.

[Roboramma]

So? Unless you are going to claim that this was also another random muscle spasm, your neurons had to engage in some level of reasoning to remember the object and then direct your body outside to the object. That's the point - they were reasoning, but he wasn't conscious of it.
Thus, it's possible to have reasoning without consciousness.

[Piggy]

1) I never said it had to be "higher order" reasoning.

If you define "reasoning" as "brain activity", then I don't find that a very useful definition.

2) Why don't you try answering this question (since Nick refuses to -- for good reason):

What is the difference between experiencing a chair that you notice, all by itself in an empty room, and experiencing a chair you don't notice, amongst thousands of others in a stadium? There must be a difference, because although you can clearly see both, you notice one and not the other. So what is the difference?

I'm sorry, but I don't understand that question.

I also don't understand why you're asking it.

There might be a more direct way to get an answer to what you want to know.


Likewise, what is the difference between experiencing one of the leaves above you in the hammock that you notice as opposed to one of the leaves you don't?

At the time that you notice it?

It's very difficult to say, but for one thing, in the hammock example, you'll be visually focused on that leaf, attentive to detail and contrast. You'll be picking up edges, tracking movement, judging color and shade.

When you get away from the leaves you're focusing on, it gets difficult to claim that you're actually "experiencing" most of the other leaves at all. It's more likely that you're experiencing a great deal of fill-in produced by your brain instead.

[Piggy]

Thats probably why I explicitly stated that neurons are automatic reasoning devices -- their networks are a physical reasoning system. So yes, when you see a ball and duck, you are reasoning. Why else would you duck? It wasn't a random muscle spasm, was it?

I'm sorry, I just don't buy that.

I think that's a totally idiosyncratic and bogus definition of "reasoning".

If you get to that level, plants reason.

A device like a neuron cannot be both "automatic" and "reasoning". That's absurd on its face.

You duck because you're hardwired to duck. No reasoning is required.

To say otherwise is to invent unique and convenient definitions of "reason".

[Piggy]

Well, I accept it because I can't find a definition for consciousness that doesn't rely on reasoning, and I can't find any attributes of consciousness that aren't explained by reasoning. If two sets are subsets of each other, they are equal.

But they're not. That's my point.

Even when you define "reasoning" to include any activity of the brain, you still must be wrong because all of that goes on when we're not conscious as well as when we're conscious.

[Piggy]

Other than the fact that by far it is the most plausible explanation for human consciousness and every single observation is in agreement with it yes, there is no reason to accept it.

You're wrong about that.

Every single observation is in agreement with the most plausible explanation for human consciousness, which is that it results from the activity of the brain.

But I don't know of any observation which indicates that consciousness is equivalent to, or is explained by, either reason or computation.

[JoeEllison]

Oh no... someone referenced the subconscious! Consciousness exists on the mental plane beyond the brain, and the subconscious exists at the top of Big Rock Candy Mountain with the pixies and the unicorns! :rolleyes:

[Piggy]

Oh no... someone referenced the subconscious! Consciousness exists on the mental plane beyond the brain, and the subconscious exists at the top of Big Rock Candy Mountain with the pixies and the unicorns! :rolleyes:

Where's the reference?

Who brought up "the subconscious"?

(Much less pixies, unicorns, and Big Rock Candy Mountain.)

[rocketdodger]

1.) How does an inferential reasoning system work?

They take premises (facts about the world) and produce a conclusion (a derived fact about the world) according to the rules of logic. For instance:

premise 1 -- all apples are red
premise 2 -- x is an apple
conclusion -- x is red

Notice that you can derive new facts from existing facts by going both ways I.E. you can derive the fact that x is red if you know x is an apple, or if you know x is red you can derive the fact that x might be an apple, or if you know x is an apple and that x is red you can derive the fact that at least some apples are red.

There are many different algorithms we have thought up for doing this. You should buy a university textbook for A.I. (probably 400 or 500 level) if you are really interested.

The theory I am trying to explain to piggy, and that the HPC proponents are utterly clueless about, is that neurons can wire together to produce a physical inferential reasoning system.

Imagine you have a group of neurons that are active when you think of an apple. Imagine you have a group that is active when you think of red. Because those two are always active together when you see an apple (since apples are red) they will wire together -- henceforth, every time the apple group is activated it has a chance to activate the red group, and every time the red group is active it has a chance to activate the apple group. Notice how this is nothing more than a hard-wired version of the inference example I gave !

The problem with all computer inferential reasoning systems is that they simply do not have the memory to cache all these rules -- typically they can only cache a few and have to re-derive all the rest. That is prohibitively slow right now. Our brain, on the other hand, caches nearly everything because the limit to how many connections a neuron can form is extremely high.

Thus, the theory goes that every time your mind gets any kind of input, it begins an enormous chain of inferential reasoning that influences the neural groups for idea after idea in parallel. Any neuron groups that are in any way connected with that original input, even indirectly by many rules of inference (apple -> your mom gave you apples as a kid -> your mom -> your mom wore blue shoes -> blue -> your first girlfriend wore a blue ribbon) might be activated. What determines which ones are activated is the additive effect of everything going on in your mind at that time (since neurons only fire after they receive a threshold amount of input).

Throw a group for "self" into the mix -- which will influence and be influenced by all the other groups, including itself -- and you have subjective experience and self consciousness.

Does that make sense? You are always interested in the feedback loops of consciousness -- this is it.

2.) How is a system able to operate self-referentially without knowing how it works? (I actually believe you, I just want to hear the full explanation)

Well, to be precise, it can't, right. A system must have some idea of how it works -- even if it is as basic as observing the effects of its own actions in the environment -- before a group for self can be formed.

What I meant, and what is shown clearly in GEB, is that the system doesn't need to know exactly how it works. Case in point -- you have no idea about the workings of the individual neurons in your brain. You can't feel them, you can't pinpoint them, nothing. Just like a computer has no idea about the individual transistors that make up its logic gates.

In GEB the example was an ant colony that supported a consciousness that had no clue it was an ant colony.

What exact meditation did you do? How did you arrive at said conclusions?

I just meant extremely careful thought. Meditation in the jedi sense. Preventing myself from being biased by assumptions. Etc.

[JoeEllison]

... and reflexes are your body thetan moving you around, right?

[rocketdodger]

That's the point - they were reasoning, but he wasn't conscious of it.
Thus, it's possible to have reasoning without consciousness.

Then kindly tell me at what point reasoning goes from unconscious to conscious?

I can't think of any. Thats why we say a thermostat is conscious.

If you want to talk about self conscious, that is a different story.

[rocketdodger]

At the time that you notice it?

It's very difficult to say, but for one thing, in the hammock example, you'll be visually focused on that leaf, attentive to detail and contrast. You'll be picking up edges, tracking movement, judging color and shade.

When you get away from the leaves you're focusing on, it gets difficult to claim that you're actually "experiencing" most of the other leaves at all. It's more likely that you're experiencing a great deal of fill-in produced by your brain instead.

yes

You understand.

[JoeEllison]

yes

You understand.

:D

[rocketdodger]

Therefore, you cannot reasonably equate computation with consciousness.

I am talking about what goes on with your neurons.

And the whole point is that you can because it is impossible to come up with a criteria for consciousness other than computation.

You keep saying no, it is. But you don't come up with this other criteria!

[rocketdodger]

A device like a neuron cannot be both "automatic" and "reasoning". That's absurd on its face.


Feel free to actually explain why it is absurd.

[JoeEllison]

I am talking about what goes on with your neurons.

And the whole point is that you can because it is impossible to come up with a criteria for consciousness other than computation.

You keep saying no, it is. But you don't come up with this other criteria!
I'm still waiting for that other criteria as well... and waiting, and waiting.

I'm exhausted, which has me feeling pretty punchy, and all that is going on in my brain and not anywhere else, and not for some mysterious reason.

[rocketdodger]

But they're not. That's my point.

Even when you define "reasoning" to include any activity of the brain, you still must be wrong because all of that goes on when we're not conscious as well as when we're conscious.

It does?

As far as I know from the research I have seen, there is nothing that can be considered computation going on between neurons unless you are in a waking state or a dreaming state.

[rocketdodger]

I'm exhausted, which has me feeling pretty punchy, and all that is going on in my brain and not anywhere else, and not for some mysterious reason.

Yeah, I am exhausted too. I need to get up in seven hours -- to go program A.I., as ironic as that is -- so I will see you all tomorrow.

[INRM]

Does that make sense? You are always interested in the feedback loops of consciousness -- this is it.

Yeah, it influences other groups of neurons including itself. Self-feedback.

Just out of curiousity, is this 100% certain (as in backed by repeated experimentation)? Or is it just a nearly 100% obvious observation?

Well, to be precise, it can't, right. A system must have some idea of how it works -- even if it is as basic as observing the effects of its own actions in the environment -- before a group for self can be formed.

Like, I can run, I can jump, I can do this and that etc...

What I meant, and what is shown clearly in GEB, is that the system doesn't need to know exactly how it works. Case in point -- you have no idea about the workings of the individual neurons in your brain. You can't feel them, you can't pinpoint them, nothing. Just like a computer has no idea about the individual transistors that make up its logic gates.[quote]

That makes sense

[quote]I just meant extremely careful thought. Meditation in the jedi sense. Preventing myself from being biased by assumptions. Etc.

Relaxing and really thinking it out throughly with an open mind basically?


INRM

[Roboramma]

Then kindly tell me at what point reasoning goes from unconscious to conscious?

I can't think of any. Thats why we say a thermostat is conscious.

If you want to talk about self conscious, that is a different story.
To clarify, are you suggesting that when I reason about something, but am not consciously aware of it, there's still consciousness associated with the reasoning?

[skiba]

Yes -- it is quite easy. I managed to do it the same way you and Nick seem to do it: by redefining "thinking" to be "all the mental processes that, when defined as 'thinking,' would make my arguments contradictory."

Thank you very much, that answers my question

This too.

So... the HPC only exists to begin with if you don't think... and it can only be solved through non-thinking...


Clearly you never experienced not thinking....well maybe you have, but your not aware of that

[westprog]

Depends on what you mean by "actual experience". It sounds like a "One True Scotsman" sort of thing. But for the everyday sort of experience of sensation, If I stick my wet finger in your ear while you are asleep or in a coma, you have no "experience" of the sensation. If I do it while you are awake, you do. If I did it ten years ago and you've entirely forgotten it, you also have no "experience" of the sensation.

But even though I don't remember the incident, I might flinch when you walk behind me.

[Darat]

Which can only be not considered "remembering" if you consider that "you" are not the bag of chemicals that runs (or not in your case) around and people point at and say "Hey look at Westprog he's just ran!".

[westprog]

Yes, I have. I clearly explained that this is exactly what consciousness is.

So far all you have done is to say "well, I don't think so."

Where is that going to get you? Can you give me an argument as to why you don't think so?

If I claimed that juggling generates gamma rays, I think the onus would be on me to demonstrate just how that happened.

There's a bit more to an "explanation" that repeatedly saying that it's so.

[westprog]

I agree that the phenomenon of felt experience is entirely the result of all that processing, retrieval, and reaction.

But we can conclude that because we can see that all the sub-processes are the result of brain activity.

That doesn't mean we've explained how all these subroutines produce the phenomenon of felt experience -- and that, to me, is (to use Darat's term) the Difficult Problem of Consciousness.

We know the brain does it, but how? Pointing to all the processes we do understand still doesn't answer the question.

We also don't know whether the processes that go on in the brain could be transferred to a computational device and still produce consciousness. We don't know that what goes on in the brain is really analogous to data processing.

[westprog]

Personal experience is behaviour. And the entire concept of qualia is meaningless.


Qualia might seem like a strange concept, but it's something that's accessible to anyone.

The essence of science is that one can repeat any experiment or assertion, and test it oneself. If I read John Searle's assertion that inner mental states exist, and that pinching oneself on the back of the hand produces a sensation, I can perform that experiment myself. Yes, there is an inner sensation. It's a perfectly sound, objective test for the existence of qualia. It happens to be almost too simple. It doesn't need wires into the brain, or perceptual scientists. In fact, it's something that's done every day.

Thus the claim that the concept of qualia is meaningless is something that I can instantly refute, for myself. And so can anyone else.

What I can't do is to directly compare John Searle's pinch sensation with mine. I can definitely prove that the sensation is there - but I can't qualititatively analyse it yet. However, that's not to dismiss qualia. It's merely a problem yet to be solved. The existence of qualia is proven, and readily verifiable.


If you disagree, then it's up to you to explain why, to provide a coherent definition of the concepts that you want to introduce.


Why is this a problem at all? The subjective is merely a subset of the objective. Again, if you disagree, it is up to you to coherently explain what the distinction is.


It's up to anyone researching consciousness to explain all the phenomena involved.

If one were researching goldfish, one would not throw away half the data as not scientifically relevant. However, in the case of human beings - who have the enormous advantage of being able to report on their own internal states - there seems to be a body of opinion that regards such reporting as in some sense, unscientific.

It isn't, of course. Refusing to consider a human being's report on his own internal state is like refusing to look at the speedometer on a car, and then claiming it must be standing still.

Are such reports unreliable? Well, as psychic research has found, people do claim things which aren't true. However, the existence of internal sensations can be verified with controls, and by the investigator simply checking whether what is claimed by other people corresponds with what he finds in himself.

Nope. That's a contradiction.


Sure.

Let's start with awareness. Dennett's thermostat is aware: It registers some condition in the world, makes a decision based on that, and does something about it.

But it's not self-aware. It has no idea that it is doing this; it just reacts.

But it is quite easy to add a second circuit that monitors and remembers what the thermostat has done, and that modifies the actions of the thermostat based on its history.

Now you have something that is self-aware.

The human brain is nothing more than our memory-thermostat, grande size.

There's another ongoing thread where people are queueing up to laugh at Catholics for believing that a wafer of bread is the body of God. But at least the Catholics admit that it's a mystical belief. They don't claim to be materialists.

The idea that a thermostat can have an internal state which corresponds to a human being is absurd on many different levels. The easiest refutation is to consider what a mechanism is. As far as the wider universe goes, there is no such thing as a mechanical device. There are just atoms, gaining and losing energy. A rock is entirely equivalent to a thermostat in this sense. It expands and contracts in the sun. It records information about weather - taking many years to do so, but it records it. So why is the thermostat any different?

There's a strange anthropomorphism going on here. Saying that the thermostat "wants" to do something is like old ladies who think the dog is laughing, or the kitten is dancing - taking a superficial external similarity, and extending it to assume an internal state.
Of course, the thermostat doesn't want anything. The thing that wants is the person who designed, or built, or installed, or used the thermostat. He has wants. We know this because he can tell us so! Dennet's thermostat should be taken about as seriously as The Brave Little Toaster.

All this springs, of course, from ignoring the qualia. The man in the street, naturally, if asked if he believed in qualia, would probably look blank. Ask him if he experienced sensations when you slapped his face, and you would certainly get a brisk response.

As has been pointed out, Dennet's retreat from qualia - the most significant datum in our understanding of consciousness - is driven by fear that a materialistic explanation of our experience of the world might not be possible. So he ignores the data and produces a self-consistent description of the world that is debunked, literally, by a moment's thought.

[PixyMisa]

If I claimed that juggling generates gamma rays, I think the onus would be on me to demonstrate just how that happened.

There's a bit more to an "explanation" that repeatedly saying that it's so.
That's hardly analogous.

If you persistently claimed that technetium-99m didn't produce gamma rays, because we couldn't provide a detailed explanation of its decay process, that would be analogous.

[PixyMisa]

Qualia might seem like a strange concept, but it's something that's accessible to anyone.
Okay, so, define it. We'll wait. We've been waiting for a coherent definition ever since the term was coined.

Thus the claim that the concept of qualia is meaningless is something that I can instantly refute, for myself. And so can anyone else.Not until you say what they are.

It's up to anyone researching consciousness to explain all the phenomena involved.No. It's up to anyone researching consciousness to research consciousness.

If one were researching goldfish, one would not throw away half the data as not scientifically relevant. However, in the case of human beings - who have the enormous advantage of being able to report on their own internal states - there seems to be a body of opinion that regards such reporting as in some sense, unscientific.It's not unscientific, if it's approached scientifically. It's mostly not, of course, and mostly wrong as a result.

The idea that a thermostat can have an internal state which corresponds to a human being is absurd on many different levels. The easiest refutation is to consider what a mechanism is. As far as the wider universe goes, there is no such thing as a mechanical device. There are just atoms, gaining and losing energy. A rock is entirely equivalent to a thermostat in this sense. It expands and contracts in the sun. It records information about weather - taking many years to do so, but it records it. So why is the thermostat any different?It processes information.

There's a strange anthropomorphism going on here. Saying that the thermostat "wants" to do something is like old ladies who think the dog is laughing, or the kitten is dancing - taking a superficial external similarity, and extending it to assume an internal state.The thermostat reacts to an external situation based on an internalised model of that situation.

Rocks... don't.

Of course, the thermostat doesn't want anything.It behaves as though it does.

All this springs, of course, from ignoring the qualia. The man in the street, naturally, if asked if he believed in qualia, would probably look blank. Ask him if he experienced sensations when you slapped his face, and you would certainly get a brisk response.What does that have to do with qualia? Remember, you still haven't defined the term.

As has been pointed out, Dennet's retreat from qualia - the most significant datum in our understanding of consciousness - is driven by fear that a materialistic explanation of our experience of the world might not be possible.Playing the fear card? Typical.

And arrogant, and hopelessly wrong.

The rejection of qualia as nonsensical is simply because no coherent definition has ever been provided. Feel free to offer your own.

So he ignores the data and produces a self-consistent description of the world that is debunked, literally, by a moment's thought.You cannot relate any data to "qualia" until you have defined it.

[Darat]

Qualia might seem like a strange concept, but it's something that's accessible to anyone.

...snip...

They aren't accessible to me.




The essence of science is that one can repeat any experiment or assertion, and test it oneself. If I read John Searle's assertion that inner mental states exist, and that pinching oneself on the back of the hand produces a sensation, I can perform that experiment myself. Yes, there is an inner sensation. It's a perfectly sound, objective test for the existence of qualia.

...snip...

Since you say this is objective evidence of qualia you must have a coherent definition of qualia - can you please provide the defintion you are using?


It happens to be almost too simple. It doesn't need wires into the brain, or perceptual scientists. In fact, it's something that's done every day.

...snip...

No it is not "too simple" it is in fact breaching Occam's razor, i.e. adding to the fewest entities required to explain it. The simplest explanation does not have to add the (still waiting to be coherently defined) qualia.



Thus the claim that the concept of qualia is meaningless is something that I can instantly refute, for myself. And so can anyone else.

...snip...

Still waiting for the defintion....


What I can't do is to directly compare John Searle's pinch sensation with mine. I can definitely prove that the sensation is there

...snip...

How?


- but I can't qualititatively analyse it yet. However, that's not to dismiss qualia. It's merely a problem yet to be solved. The existence of qualia is proven, and readily verifiable.

...snip...

Not by me it isn't.



It's up to anyone researching consciousness to explain all the phenomena involved.

...snip...

But it's not up to people to provide explanations for things that can't even be defined coherently or that are not required to explain the evidence we have or that we have not an iota of evidence to support.

Quick and serious question for you to answer: is my "ran" a qualia?



If one were researching goldfish, one would not throw away half the data as not scientifically relevant. However, in the case of human beings - who have the enormous advantage of being able to report on their own internal states - there seems to be a body of opinion that regards such reporting as in some sense, unscientific.

...snip...

Where is this body of opinion? Certainly it's not been expressed in this thread. Indeed if you think that is what people in this thread (who hold the opinion that there is not a HPC as defined in the OP) have been saying than you have totally misunderstood what has been said.



It isn't, of course. Refusing to consider a human being's report on his own internal state is like refusing to look at the speedometer on a car, and then claiming it must be standing still.

...snip...

This reads like a strawman however I think what it does is confirm that you haven't understood what has been said in this thread. Have you watched the videos that Pixy pointed folk to? If not I really, really do suggest you watch them as it will help you understand the arguments made in this thread.



...snip... They don't claim to be materialists.

...snip...

Just as point of interest - neither Merc nor myself are materialists, not considering that there is a HPC does not have to follow from being a materialist.



The idea that a thermostat can have an internal state which corresponds to a human being is absurd on many different levels.

...snip...

Argument from personal incredulity and really a very poor example to pick out since part of you is demonstratively a thermostat! Hint: How do you think you maintain a constant temperature?




...snip...

There's a strange anthropomorphism going on here. Saying that the thermostat "wants" to do something is like old ladies who think the dog is laughing, or the kitten is dancing - taking a superficial external similarity, and extending it to assume an internal state.

...snip...



All this boils down to is that you feel you should be somehow special and different to everything else in the universe, however that view is not supported by any evidence. There is nothing you and I do that is not simply atoms obeying TLOP. (Had to throw that in for the old timers ;) )

[PixyMisa]

This reads like a strawman however I think what it does is confirm that you haven't understood what has been said in this thread. Have you watched the videos that Pixy pointed folk to? If not I really, really do suggest you watch them as it will help you understand the arguments made in this thread.
Those are actually just audio lectures. But that reminds me, the video of the Brain, Mind, and Consciousness (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4831204601412295941&q=&hl=en) conference is available on Google video.

All this boils down to is that you feel you should be somehow special and different to everything else in the universe, however that view is not supported by any evidence. There is nothing you and I do that is not simply atoms obeying TLOP. (Had to throw that in for the old timers ;) )
That brings back memories. :)

[Darat]

Those are actually just audio lectures. But that reminds me, the video of the Brain, Mind, and Consciousness (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4831204601412295941&q=&hl=en) conference is available on Google video.



Damn how could my consciousness betray me with such a silly slip-up? You'd almost have thought my behaviour post was somehow related to pretty much always be posting about youtube video clips these days.




That brings back memories. :)

Hopefully the pain has now passed.....

[skiba]

What does that have to do with qualia? Remember, you still haven't defined the term.



I think it's been stated many times here. You can't convey experience / qualia through language.
You can experience it thou. If you pinch yourself, you have it in that exact moment. Not the second after that, when you start analysing and thinking about the experience, but in the exact moment when the pinching happens.

No thought needed. Very simple, very basic.

[westprog]

Have you watched the videos that Pixy pointed folk to?


Without wishing to be unkind, I learned in my early days on the conspiracy forum that Rule #1 of JREF is


Don't look at videos.
I'm actually two thirds of the way through a book summarising the different schools of thought on consciousness. I started it when I joined this thread, so, yes, I am doing my homework. Videos, no. Other reference material - yes.

(And the book includes several pages when Dunnett gets to reply to the refutation of his theories. I'm not cherry-picking.)

[John Freestone]

Hello again - I've been reading this thread which reminds me fondly of a very similar one I started myself months ago. It's kind of comforting to see, plus ca change...(gallic shrug, having forgotten the rest).

In case the materialists, natural physicalists or whatever they're called get sick and wonder if it's all worth it, I want to say thanks for putting the effort in with me (Darat, Pixy, Joe, Dancing David, et al.).

I haven't finished reading this thread, but it keeps going off in different directions and I miss responding, thinking "Someone will reply to that". I want to sieze this particular sequence and point out something to westprog.

It began with Darat trying to re-clarify the HPC:

Doesn't the HPC require an assumption of dualism before we can say it is in fact a problem?to which westprog simply saidNo.

Westprog had a question:
If there's an illusion, what is experiencing the illusion?and cyborg answeredThe machine.
Then westprog says:The qualia are the hard problem. It's the fact that they are inherently subjective, and individual, that makes them nearly impossible to pin down. Ignore the qualia, and we just have behaviour. We can pretend that experience = computation, and we all work like thermostats. [...]
Now, westprog, when you say that the problem with consciousness (the HPC) is the qualia, and that they are 'inherently subjective', does that express any more than that they are of a different order of things from 'objects', and isn't that the definition of dualism? Isn't that what 'subjective' means - not objective? If qualia could be put away in a box you'd not think them curious at all. It is the fact that "you" (as subject) has a (cognitive) reality (to you) that makes the HPC mean what it means. One materialist POV common here is that that is the illusion - "you" as subject, essence, continuous over time - do not exist.

I was asking similar questions to you earlier, and contemplating these ideas has led me towards the difficult, uncomfortable and counterintuitive position that i am in fact a process, a Darat's "ran", insubstantive in just the same way that "ran" is. Hence, every time I refer to "my experience" with such confidence that it is primary, I'm refering (in this view) to an illusion, and, as they insist, re-constructing an illusory Hard Problem.

I hope I might be able to help you see the point, whether you find it persuasive or not eventually, because of my recent enlightenment on it. I kept getting to that point and then something made my brain refuse to accept the conclusion. I haven't even done much more study on it - not even to clarify to myself what a p-zombie actually is, but I kind of get the idea now. (What's the p bit ...excuse me a moment.... ah, that's better) :)

It was - and still is in a sense - 'obvious' that I 'know' 'my' experience, as you assert - that was indeed what I said - my consciousness was my primary fact. However, it is only a 'fact' in the sense of being an illusory, insubstantial or temporary 'fact', i.e. a process, not a 'something'. Like running, it is a fact when it is there.

When I actually analyse my experience (meditation is good for you), it is various moments of perception. It can even be a moment of perception that what-calls-itself-I is perceiving, computing, sensing, or whatever. It is an incredibly tenacious illusion that this is a reality, in the sense of having some essence or continuing property.

Consider how you asserted at the beginning and again at least once a monist position, that the material brain gives rise to consciousness. Now consider: if there is only matter - why do you ask "what is experiencing the illusion?" - as if expecting an answer that is non-material somehow, i.e. subjective?

I have come to the position that you are indeed, as you have been told, failing to put these things together logically, especially when the ideas "Illusion" and "I" approach equivalence in your brain's computations! Something must give, because you must have a real, yet somehow subjective, yet physical, I. The alternative is horrific. The machine that is you has a rather powerful routine that avoids that particular output. It will even lie to itself: "It doesn't make sense". It is horrific, it may not even be true, but it does now make sense to me ("I" is still protesting, however). Besides, once you get over the shock, it isn't even horrific anymore. It's absolutely wonderful. I am Nothing, Void, Process, Universal-Fragment-In-Motion, Buddha-Nature??? 2500 years of p-zombie theory? Another thread perhaps, but Buddhism's CENTRAL POINT (or one of them) is exactly that you do not exist in any real sense.

I'm not aware of machines experiencing illusions.It's a tough one to get. Look in a mirror. Peace and Love, BTW.

There are things I agree with you about. I do think that often the 'skeptical' view (or rather the materialist view) does rather get put forward with certainty, which is philosophically indefensible (and thus fails to be skepticism), but then philosophy seems to get a bad press round here.

I do think, however, that the subject might be discussed more fruitfully if one side dared to accept that it is dualist. It seems utterly obvious to me now that it has to be for the HPC to be posed, and that probably, if I bothered to read up about dualism and monism, that is exactly why monism is prefered - the HPC is actually saying "How can we meaningfully connect two completely different realms of reality that have nothing whatever to do with each other except for apparently coexisting under certain conditions?". You won't bridge the gap if you even keep denying that it's there at all, then repeatedly asking other people to explain why they don't believe "the other side" exists at all.

(Please ignore all earlier assertions by me that I had experiences of 'pure awareness', 'empty mind' or whatever nonsense I used to describe waking up from a short nap :o and thanks again).

[Dancing David]

I'm sorry, I just don't buy that.

I think that's a totally idiosyncratic and bogus definition of "reasoning".

If you get to that level, plants reason.

A device like a neuron cannot be both "automatic" and "reasoning". That's absurd on its face.

You duck because you're hardwired to duck. No reasoning is required.

To say otherwise is to invent unique and convenient definitions of "reason".

Nitpick of a minor character that makes my point. You are not hardwired to duck, that is a conditioned response that is learned.

[westprog]

Okay, so, define it. We'll wait. We've been waiting for a coherent definition ever since the term was coined.

Not until you say what they are.



The assertion seems to be that if an unambiguous definition is not available, then we can consign the phenomenon to not mere uncertain status, but assert it's certain unreality.

What happens to the theory when someone smarter than I am comes up with an unambiguous definition of qualia tomorrow?


No. It's up to anyone researching consciousness to research consciousness.

It's not unscientific, if it's approached scientifically. It's mostly not, of course, and mostly wrong as a result.



It processes information.

The thermostat reacts to an external situation based on an internalised model of that situation.


And the obvious fallacy there is in the idea that a thermostat has an internalised model of a thermostat. It doesn't, in any way. The only thing in the universe that has an internalised model of a thermostat is a human being.


Rocks... don't.


This is where Dunnett goes from being just mistaken to not even being wrong.

As anyone discussing evolution elsewhere on JREF can agree, rocks do store information. They also process information. The one thing they can't do - which they share with the thermostat - is understand information.

But that's not the main mistake. Physicists understand that when we refer to a rock, or a thermostat, or a human being, we are using an abstraction for our own convenience. The objects don't have any real existence beyond being a collection of particles that we've given a name.

As far as physics goes, we can subdivide the rock in any way we like, and it will be, physically speaking, equally valid. It depends what way we want to think about it. Or we can consider all the rocks in the field. We can consider just the silicon atoms. All of these ways of considering the rock are equally valid. Considering the rock as a single object is a convenient fiction.

And the same applies to the thermostat. Considered physically, we can treat the thermostat as any number of objects. We can consider the entire heating system, or the house, or the entire earth, as single objects.

And when we examine the operation of the thermostat, and compare it to the rock, what is going on that is any different between them? They both interact with the environment, electrically, thermally and otherwise. The components of both interact. In fact, when we look closely, we find that the idea of setting boundaries between rock and ground, or thermostat and wires, is meaningless.

The only way that the thermostat has any intention is via the person who created or used it. Otherwise nothing is going on except the laws of physics.


It behaves as though it does.

What does that have to do with qualia? Remember, you still haven't defined the term.

Playing the fear card? Typical.

And arrogant, and hopelessly wrong.

The rejection of qualia as nonsensical is simply because no coherent definition has ever been provided. Feel free to offer your own.

You cannot relate any data to "qualia" until you have defined it.

Let's consider qualia for a moment. If we treat human beings as experimental objects, we can, due to their special characteristics, ask them things. We can ask them if they experience sensations.

If they uniformly report that they do, we have three possibilities.


They are lying. Across the board, human beings are programmed to assert such things as an evolutionary survival trick.
They are telling the truth. Sensations actually exist.
They think that qualia exist, but they are in fact illusory.
(1) is a possibility, but there's a simple check I can run. Do I experience sensations? Yes, I do. Is it plausible that I'm the only human being in existence for whom sensation is real, and everyone else is pretending? It seems very unlikely.

(3) is a possibility - but we then have the problem of deciding how an illusion of a sensation would differ from a sensation. A sensation might be mistaken in it's relation to the outside world - a phantom limb, or a sex-avoiding headache - but it would still be a sensation. An illusory sensation just reduces to a sensation. It has nowhere else to go.

Given the above, the real existence of qualia seems, in my mind, to be established. Theories that explain consciousness without regard to the qualia can therefore be either ignored, or at best regarded as incomplete.

There are also theories that regard the qualia as being generated by the computing process that goes on inside the brain. This might be the case, but there are many processes going on in the brain - electrical, chemical, and according to Penrose, quantum. We don't know what generates the qualia, and we can't simply assume that it's the computation.

[westprog]

Nitpick of a minor character that makes my point. You are not hardwired to duck, that is a conditioned response that is learned.

But you are hardwired to suck.

Sorry, that sounds rude. I mean mammals in general in order to feed when born.

[Darat]

Without wishing to be unkind, I learned in my early days on the conspiracy forum that Rule #1 of JREF is


Don't look at videos.


...snip...

Well don't worry about breaking your rules as Pixy corrected I should have said "listened". (Never mind that it is silly to dismiss an entire medium.) And I have some further bad news for you, books are not 100% reliable....

[Dancing David]

It does?

As far as I know from the research I have seen, there is nothing that can be considered computation going on between neurons unless you are in a waking state or a dreaming state.

Well given the broad defintion of reason you are using, that is sort of false.

There is neural activity most of the time, it is larger and more active in vaious regegions in various stages of sleep. Strangely there was study that showed people will report dreams in most stages of sleep when roused. the level of 'thought' in the dreams was correlated to how close to REM it was.

The brian ticks over in sleep.

[westprog]

That's hardly analogous.

If you persistently claimed that technetium-99m didn't produce gamma rays, because we couldn't provide a detailed explanation of its decay process, that would be analogous.

I won't go analogy chasing, so I'll leave this one.

[Dancing David]

To clarify, are you suggesting that when I reason about something, but am not consciously aware of it, there's still consciousness associated with the reasoning?

I think that is why the HPC is really a definitional issue.

'Consciousness' is a word that is like a rug, much is swept under it.

[Darat]

....snip...

Let's consider qualia for a moment. If we treat human beings as experimental objects, we can, due to their special characteristics, ask them things. We can ask them if they experience sensations.

If they uniformly report that they do, we have three possibilities.


They are lying. Across the board, human beings are programmed to assert such things as an evolutionary survival trick.
They are telling the truth. Sensations actually exist.
They think that qualia exist, but they are in fact illusory.
(1) is a possibility, but there's a simple check I can run. Do I experience sensations? Yes, I do. Is it plausible that I'm the only human being in existence for whom sensation is real, and everyone else is pretending? It seems very unlikely.

(3) is a possibility - but we then have the problem of deciding how an illusion of a sensation would differ from a sensation. A sensation might be mistaken in it's relation to the outside world - a phantom limb, or a sex-avoiding headache - but it would still be a sensation. An illusory sensation just reduces to a sensation. It has nowhere else to go.

Given the above, the real existence of qualia seems, in my mind, to be established. Theories that explain consciousness without regard to the qualia can therefore be either ignored, or at best regarded as incomplete.

...snip...

The problem is that you started with qualia, that's circular reasoning.

[Dancing David]

I have come to the position that you are indeed, as you have been told, failing to put these things together logically, especially when the ideas "Illusion" and "I" approach equivalence in your brain's computations! Something must give, because you must have a real, yet somehow subjective, yet physical, I. The alternative is horrific. The machine that is you has a rather powerful routine that avoids that particular output. It will even lie to itself: "It doesn't make sense". It is horrific, it may not even be true, but it does now make sense to me ("I" is still protesting, however). Besides, once you get over the shock, it isn't even horrific anymore. It's absolutely wonderful. I am Nothing, Void, Process, Universal-Fragment-In-Motion, Buddha-Nature??? 2500 years of p-zombie theory? Another thread perhaps, but Buddhism's CENTRAL POINT (or one of them) is exactly that you do not exist in any real sense.

The five heaps appear to exist. they appear to contain the wonder of life.



Hi JF! And welcome back.

I change my mind a lot as a result of the discussion here, I have learned a lot as well. The AHB did an amazing amount of study to reach that conclusion.

[westprog]

They aren't accessible to me.


Then just pinch the back of your hand. You should get an immediate example of what a sensation feels like. If you assert that nothing happens beyond your immediate behavioural response, then that's interesting, but fairly unlikely.


Since you say this is objective evidence of qualia you must have a coherent definition of qualia - can you please provide the defintion you are using?


That which is reported by human beings when they pinch the back of their hand.


No it is not "too simple" it is in fact breaching Occam's razor, i.e. adding to the fewest entities required to explain it. The simplest explanation does not have to add the (still waiting to be coherently defined) qualia.


The qualia are not part of the explanation set. They are part of the data to be explained. Occam's razor doesn't allow one to discard the data that doesn't fit the neat explanation.


Still waiting for the defintion....


Hope you like it.


How?


Not by me it isn't.



Then maybe you should warm your hands up first.

This is an example of an area of philosophy where only people who think about things too much have a problem.

Just go to a bar, and try the "can you feel anything when I do this" test.


But it's not up to people to provide explanations for things that can't even be defined coherently or that are not required to explain the evidence we have or that we have not an iota of evidence to support.

Quick and serious question for you to answer: is my "ran" a qualia?



No, ran is an abstraction, like rock or thermostat. It doesn't refer to a sensation.


Where is this body of opinion? Certainly it's not been expressed in this thread. Indeed if you think that is what people in this thread (who hold the opinion that there is not a HPC as defined in the OP) have been saying than you have totally misunderstood what has been said.


Then how do you justify discarding the qualia?


Just as point of interest - neither Merc nor myself are materialists, not considering that there is a HPC does not have to follow from being a materialist.


I will take that on board. I certainly regard your reporting of your internal state as valid data which I should incorporate into my model of the universe.


All this boils down to is that you feel you should be somehow special and different to everything else in the universe, however that view is not supported by any evidence. There is nothing you and I do that is not simply atoms obeying TLOP. (Had to throw that in for the old timers ;) )

I think that there's a valid view that human beings are unique, and that their claim of an internal subjective capacity for sensation differentiates them from other states of matter. It's also possible to include various gradations of life as potentially self aware.

It's also possible to consider that all matter is equivalent, and nothing is any more special than anything else.

However, a view of the universe that puts human beings and thermostats on one side, and rocks on the other, is inherently ridiculous.

[Darat]

Then just pinch the back of your hand. You should get an immediate example of what a sensation feels like. If you assert that nothing happens beyond your immediate behavioural response, then that's interesting, but fairly unlikely.



Unlikely as it is (and I have just pinched the back of my hand to check) all I seem to have is a behavioural response - no "qualia" has appeared anywhere that I can sense.




That which is reported by human beings when they pinch the back of their hand.

..snip...



Before I even tackle the rest of your post - this is the definition I can substitute whenever I see you use the word "qualia" (which is what you can do wit ha definition)? I really want to make certain of this so I do not inadvertently create any strawmen by misunderstanding your use of the word "qualia" in the rest of your post.

[westprog]

It was - and still is in a sense - 'obvious' that I 'know' 'my' experience, as you assert - that was indeed what I said - my consciousness was my primary fact. However, it is only a 'fact' in the sense of being an illusory, insubstantial or temporary 'fact', i.e. a process, not a 'something'. Like running, it is a fact when it is there.

When I actually analyse my experience (meditation is good for you), it is various moments of perception. It can even be a moment of perception that what-calls-itself-I is perceiving, computing, sensing, or whatever. It is an incredibly tenacious illusion that this is a reality, in the sense of having some essence or continuing property.

Consider how you asserted at the beginning and again at least once a monist position, that the material brain gives rise to consciousness. Now consider: if there is only matter - why do you ask "what is experiencing the illusion?" - as if expecting an answer that is non-material somehow, i.e. subjective?

I have come to the position that you are indeed, as you have been told, failing to put these things together logically, especially when the ideas "Illusion" and "I" approach equivalence in your brain's computations! Something must give, because you must have a real, yet somehow subjective, yet physical, I. The alternative is horrific. The machine that is you has a rather powerful routine that avoids that particular output. It will even lie to itself: "It doesn't make sense". It is horrific, it may not even be true, but it does now make sense to me ("I" is still protesting, however). Besides, once you get over the shock, it isn't even horrific anymore. It's absolutely wonderful. I am Nothing, Void, Process, Universal-Fragment-In-Motion, Buddha-Nature??? 2500 years of p-zombie theory? Another thread perhaps, but Buddhism's CENTRAL POINT (or one of them) is exactly that you do not exist in any real sense.


The possibility of my own non-existence is certainly not to be ruled out.

However, what I can't accept is the reliablity of my reports of the universe, when the consciousness through which I view it is non-existent.

It's as if I were informed that I'd been taking electrical measurements with a broken voltmeter - but that all the measurements were actually correct. If my consciousness is illusory - then so is everything else, since my consciousness is the measuring device. Which might fit quite well to a Buddhist perspective, but it doesn't seem to be particularly materialist.

Excuse brutal snipping. I assume that someone who wants your long, thoughtful piece will find it above this one. And thanks also for the politeness, which always goes down well.

[PixyMisa]

The assertion seems to be that if an unambiguous definition is not available, then we can consign the phenomenon to not mere uncertain status, but assert it's certain unreality.
The definition is not merely ambigious; it is self-contradictory.

What happens to the theory when someone smarter than I am comes up with an unambiguous definition of qualia tomorrow?
If you mean, non-contradictory, well, that's easy enough to do. But it would remove the entire purpose of the term and reduce HPC to a triviality.

And the obvious fallacy there is in the idea that a thermostat has an internalised model of a thermostat.
I didn't say that. In fact, the whole point of the thermostat example is that it doesn't have an internalised model of itself.

It doesn't, in any way. The only thing in the universe that has an internalised model of a thermostat is a human being.
Baloney. It is trivial to model in a computer, and this would have been done many times.

This is where Dunnett goes from being just mistaken to not even being wrong.
Really?

As anyone discussing evolution elsewhere on JREF can agree, rocks do store information.
Encode information. Sure. Irrelevant.

They also process information.
No.

The one thing they can't do - which they share with the thermostat - is understand information.
What's this "understand"?

But that's not the main mistake. Physicists understand that when we refer to a rock, or a thermostat, or a human being, we are using an abstraction for our own convenience. The objects don't have any real existence beyond being a collection of particles that we've given a name.
A human being is a process, rather than an object, but yeah.

As far as physics goes, we can subdivide the rock in any way we like, and it will be, physically speaking, equally valid.
What do you mean, "valid"?

It depends what way we want to think about it. Or we can consider all the rocks in the field. We can consider just the silicon atoms. All of these ways of considering the rock are equally valid. Considering the rock as a single object is a convenient fiction.
It's not a fiction, it's an abstraction.

And the same applies to the thermostat. Considered physically, we can treat the thermostat as any number of objects. We can consider the entire heating system, or the house, or the entire earth, as single objects.
But those other objects are not thermostats.

And when we examine the operation of the thermostat, and compare it to the rock, what is going on that is any different between them? They both interact with the environment, electrically, thermally and otherwise. The components of both interact. In fact, when we look closely, we find that the idea of setting boundaries between rock and ground, or thermostat and wires, is meaningless.
Nope. The thermostat responds to an external condition based on an internal model of that condition. The rock does not.

The only way that the thermostat has any intention is via the person who created or used it.
It behaves as though it has intent. And all you get is behaviours.

Otherwise nothing is going on except the laws of physics.
That's a tautology. The laws of physics are a description of how the universe behaves.

Let's consider qualia for a moment.
Okay, let's start with: What are they?

If we treat human beings as experimental objects, we can, due to their special characteristics, ask them things. We can ask them if they experience sensations.
How is this relevant?

If they uniformly report that they do, we have three possibilities.


They are lying. Across the board, human beings are programmed to assert such things as an evolutionary survival trick.
They are telling the truth. Sensations actually exist.
They think that qualia exist, but they are in fact illusory.

Where do qualia come into this?

Given the above, the real existence of qualia seems, in my mind, to be established.
If you would just provide a definition of the term, this might have some sort of meaning. As it stands, it doesn't.

Theories that explain consciousness without regard to the qualia can therefore be either ignored, or at best regarded as incomplete.
Definition. Still waiting.

There are also theories that regard the qualia as being generated by the computing process that goes on inside the brain. This might be the case, but there are many processes going on in the brain - electrical, chemical, and according to Penrose, quantum. We don't know what generates the qualia, and we can't simply assume that it's the computation.
Once more, Westprog: What are these qualia of which you speak? I have no knowledge of them.

[Belz...]

How can a "mechanical" device experience anything? I can understand a reaction based on its physical properties. If we have a photo sensitive plate and I shine a light on it, theres a fairly simple physical reaction. No experience happens.

That's because you assume that experience is something more than that.

[westprog]

Well don't worry about breaking your rules as Pixy corrected I should have said "listened". (Never mind that it is silly to dismiss an entire medium.)

However, the problem with a worthless video (and I'm not asserting that Pixy's "sound videos" have anything wrong with them) is that they take up a disproportionate amount of time to absorb. It might be fifteen minutes into Loose Change before you start to think "No, this is not how I want to spend my life".

I do refer to videos, TV programmes, etc, but having had some bad experiences with "Watch this, it will explain everything" I'm imposing an across the board rule.


And I have some further bad news for you, books are not 100% reliable....

They are, however, random access. A skim through a bad book can be sufficient to reject it. I only wasted a few seconds on The Da Vinci Code.

[PixyMisa]

That's because you assume that experience is something more than that.
Exactly.

"Machines can't experience, because experience is magical."

When we ask what is magical about it, the answer is "It feels magical."

HPC in a nutshell.

[westprog]

The problem is that you started with qualia, that's circular reasoning.

No, I started with the reports that they existed.

In the same way, I might start with reports of volcanoes in Venezuela.

Are there any other options apart from the three that I mentioned? I don't want to exclude anyone's thoughts on the matter.

[Belz...]

This regardless you are still confusing thoughts with experience.

There's a difference ?

[John Freestone]

This is the dualistic assumption that Darat complained about. Using the phrase "inherently subjective" implies a difference in kind; [...]Ah, ok. I turn the page and someone did answer that. Cheers.

In other words, momentary singular experience is a terrible thing to consider as your standard of reality.The problem with this seems to be that all of our perception, including all the results of our experiments, and the whole body of knowledge we acquire, is mediated through momentary singular experiences. It seems clear that there are two very different views:
1. says that if that final funnel where facts arrive - let me be directly dualistic for a moment - if that final subject does not exist, all of the observed facts of science rest on nothing at all. You can discount everything from when we first banged the rocks together;
2. relies on collective agreement about the results of repeated experiments in supposed physical external reality. It makes no assumption that there is a subject at all, and would appear to be converging on theories that refute it altogether.

I used to keep coming back to position 1, and it still has a curious persuasiveness about it. For instance, I could ask "If none of us exist as subjects of experience, what is happening when one such person-process tells another to go off and read about his/her non-existence in the latest material?" It is tempting to say "You can't tell me I don't exist - that is nonsense". But fit into 2 it does. It's kind of deeply scary, disgusting perhaps, in some senses - all life is just a machine, meaningless, random (they will complain) - but the illusion that is me does not disappear or stop enjoying - in fact, it quite likes to boggle. I even feel I'm actually closer to mystical insights when I consider it. Indeed, ultimately it seems not to matter whether I come from the God POV or the Matter POV - if all of it is all of it doing what it all does, and both camps seem only to want to unify it. A field of fluidly differentiated energy is passing information round, perceiving itself, educating itself, sharing around its parts more of what was only held in certain parts before, having all been Unity to begin with.

Whether the idea that we're all machines is horrible or not depends on how horrible you think machines are.

[PixyMisa]

However, the problem with a worthless video (and I'm not asserting that Pixy's "sound videos" have anything wrong with them) is that they take up a disproportionate amount of time to absorb. It might be fifteen minutes into Loose Change before you start to think "No, this is not how I want to spend my life".
This is generally fair. There is far more trash than treasure out there.

I have an hour-long commute by train, so I'm always looking for interesting stuff to load onto my iPod (I have the 160GB model, and it's perpetually overflowing). These lectures filled that and then some; I've listened to the entire series twice.

They are, however, random access. A skim through a bad book can be sufficient to reject it. I only wasted a few seconds on The Da Vinci Code.
Agreed again. I'd highly recommend Godel, Escher, Bach; it doesn't cover the huge advances in the field over the past 25 years, but it does an admirable job of explaining the basis of the computational model of consciousness, and a whole bunch of other fascinating topics.

[Belz...]

To me there is the chair, and there are thoughts about the chair. I can passively observe the chair without thinking about it.

Oh, Really ?

[Darat]

No, I started with the reports that they existed.



Which is what I said, i.e you start with qualia and then conclude they must exist!

[Belz...]

My mind certainly can reason about itself

Indeed, but not in early childhood. It's not a built-in function as much as a learned behaviour.

[Belz...]

I'm saying that if we don't know what the question is, it's a little bit premature to be saying that the answer is easy.

[...]

There's a reason why it's called The Hard Problem

If we don't know what the question is, it's a little bit premature to be saying that the answer is hard, wouldn't you say ?

[westprog]

Before I even tackle the rest of your post - this is the definition I can substitute whenever I see you use the word "qualia" (which is what you can do wit ha definition)? I really want to make certain of this so I do not inadvertently create any strawmen by misunderstanding your use of the word "qualia" in the rest of your post.

I will see what Skiba and Piggy come up with. Since they do seem to feel something when they pinch the back of their hands, as opposed to observing behaviour, then they might be more precise.

An alternative would be "that which important professors discussing consciousness refer to when they refer to qualia" but I can see how that would be insufficient.

[Belz...]

Well, I have memory. It's something quite different from computer RAM. It has semantics, for a start.

Uh-huh, and why can't human "memory" be described as a "state", too ?

[Mercutio]

I'm exhausted, which has me feeling pretty punchy, and all that is going on in my brain and not anywhere else, and not for some mysterious reason.
quibble: Actually, it is going on in you, not in your brain. The rest of your body always seems to get left out of these things, but you certainly would not be feeling the way you are without it, nor acting on your feelings without it.

This may seem a trivial point, but actually it makes a big difference. It is not merely "what your brain does" that is consciousness, but rather "what you do", which of course is the definition of behavior. Or behaviour, for Darat.

Secondarily, focusing on the brain instead of the whole organism can lead to a form of dualism--not a substance dualism like Descartes or the modern dualists, but a functional dualism that still has the brain working somehow by different rules than the rest of the universe. When we artificially call the brain a puppeteer for the body, it is easy to pretend that the brain is the causal entity rather than part of a system (the organism) that actively processes and responds to environmental stimuli.

[westprog]

Agreed again. I'd highly recommend Godel, Escher, Bach; it doesn't cover the huge advances in the field over the past 25 years, but it does an admirable job of explaining the basis of the computational model of consciousness, and a whole bunch of other fascinating topics.

I haven't read the book in the last 25 years, but I did enjoy it at the time. It's use of Godel makes it a good companion volume to Penrose.

They both have the advantage that one ends the books knowing a lot more than when one started, even if the conclusions are contrary.

[Belz...]

This is how meditation basically works but only takes it further.
Silencing the mind and being aware of that silent mind.
Thoughtless awareness.

Wouldn't that be an oxymoron ?

[westprog]

Uh-huh, and why can't human "memory" be described as a "state", too ?

Because it has semantics. Human memory remembers a dog. Computer memory has electrical potential.

Whatever about the idea that certain AI programs can in some way understand the data held in the computer, that doesn't apply to computer memory in general. If computer memory is memory, so is any physical object that is effected by things that happened in the past.

[Mercutio]

Those are actually just audio lectures. But that reminds me, the video of the Brain, Mind, and Consciousness (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4831204601412295941&q=&hl=en) conference is available on Google video.
Actually, sessions 1 and 3 are available, but session 2 is no longer. I don't know why this is so. The talks from session 2 are much more applicable to this thread, too.

It was a wonderful conference; I was at it, and had a wonderful time translating the talks for friends at lunchtime. ("so, what did he mean by...")

If anyone knows why session 2 is down, or can find someone to put it back, that would be wonderful.

[Mercutio]

Without wishing to be unkind, I learned in my early days on the conspiracy forum that Rule #1 of JREF is


Don't look at videos.
I'm actually two thirds of the way through a book summarising the different schools of thought on consciousness. I started it when I joined this thread, so, yes, I am doing my homework. Videos, no. Other reference material - yes.

(And the book includes several pages when Dunnett gets to reply to the refutation of his theories. I'm not cherry-picking.)
If that is the Searle book (I think it was you who referenced it earlier in this thread), then it kinda sorta is cherry-picking. Good place to start, but there is quite a lot more out there, including of course stuff by people who are doing experimental work, not philosophy.

[PixyMisa]

Because it has semantics. Human memory remembers a dog. Computer memory has electrical potential.
Neurons have electrical potential. Computers remember dogs.

Whatever about the idea that certain AI programs can in some way understand the data held in the computer, that doesn't apply to computer memory in general. If computer memory is memory, so is any physical object that is effected by things that happened in the past.
You're confusing memory with thinking. Rocks encode information, but don't think.

[Darat]

Because it has semantics. Human memory remembers a dog. Computer memory has electrical potential.

....snip...

It is entirely possible to design a computer memory that works in such a way (indeed some early neural net tests used this idea so that what the net was "remembering " or responding to correlated with visual pixels so we could even watch the process of it "remembering"; so when it recognised a dog from incomplete data it would show that it was "remembering" a dog picture). The reason we don't see this more widely used is that it isn't an efficient use of hardware for the tasks we want computers to perform.


...snip..., so is any physical object that is effected by things that happened in the past.

That seems a good workable definition of what memory is, much better than your last one that said humans don't have memory!

[westprog]

Nope. The thermostat responds to an external condition based on an internal model of that condition. The rock does not.



There is no internal model, except in the mind of the human being who created the thermostat. In this system, the only intent is where a human being wanted the thermostat to do something.


It behaves as though it has intent. And all you get is behaviours.



In that case, the rock has behaviour. It likes to lie in the sun. It enjoys letting the outside warm up and

Inanimate objects might look as if they have intent. They don't. The intent only lies with the human beings who create them.

Is there an unambiguous description of a thermostat which doesn't include the intentions of a human being who made it?

If there is intent, it's an extension of the intent of a conscious object - i.e. the human mind. Human beings exhibit intent. Otherwise, we just have physical laws applying.


That's a tautology. The laws of physics are a description of how the universe behaves.

[Ivor the Engineer]

The main difference between human memory and computer memory is how they are organised and accessed.

Computer memory is generally (but there are some exceptions) serially accessed and linearly organised, while human memory is accessed in parallel and organised by content.

[Darat]

...snip...

Is there an unambiguous description of a thermostat which doesn't include the intentions of a human being who made it?

...snip...

Yep, quite literally billions, and you are one of the billions of examples of it.

...snip...
If there is intent, it's an extension of the intent of a conscious object - i.e. the human mind. Human beings exhibit intent. Otherwise, we just have physical laws applying.

And we are now back to dualism, as I said the HPC requires an assumption of dualism.

[Mercutio]

Let's consider qualia for a moment. If we treat human beings as experimental objects, we can, due to their special characteristics, ask them things. We can ask them if they experience sensations.
Let us consider sunrises for a moment. If we treat... We can ask them if they experience sunrises.

If they uniformly report that they do, we have three possibilities.


They are lying. Across the board, human beings are programmed to assert such things as an evolutionary survival trick.
They are telling the truth. Sensations actually exist.
They think that qualia exist, but they are in fact illusory.


They are lying. Across the board, human beings are programmed to assert such things as an evolutionary survival trick.
They are telling the truth. The sun actually climbs through the sky over a stationary earth.
They think that the sun climbs through the sky, but this is in fact illusory.

(1) is a possibility, but there's a simple check I can run. Do I experience sensations? Yes, I do. Is it plausible that I'm the only human being in existence for whom sensation is real, and everyone else is pretending? It seems very unlikely.

(3) is a possibility - but we then have the problem of deciding how an illusion of a sensation would differ from a sensation. A sensation might be mistaken in it's relation to the outside world - a phantom limb, or a sex-avoiding headache - but it would still be a sensation. An illusory sensation just reduces to a sensation. It has nowhere else to go.
(1) is a possibility, but there's a simple check I can run. Do I experience sunrises? Yes, I do. Is it plausible that I'm the only human being in existence for whom sunrises are real, and everyone else is pretending? It seems very unlikely. [pragmatically, I have to agree with you here.]

(3) is a possibility - but we then have the problem of deciding how an illusion of a sunrise would differ from a sunrise. A sunrise might be mistaken in its relation to the outside world - it might just be the world spinning- but it would still be a sunrise. An illusory sunrise just reduces to a sunrise. It has nowhere else to go. [ah! here is the problem--an illusory qualia does not have to reduce to a qualia! There may indeed be another explanation, and the concept "qualia" may be unneeded baggage!]

Given the above, the real existence of qualia seems, in my mind, to be established. Theories that explain consciousness without regard to the qualia can therefore be either ignored, or at best regarded as incomplete.
Your logic is, of course, flawed here, and your conclusions false.

There are also theories that regard the qualia as being generated by the computing process that goes on inside the brain. This might be the case, but there are many processes going on in the brain - electrical, chemical, and according to Penrose, quantum. We don't know what generates the qualia, and we can't simply assume that it's the computation.
We do know that Penrose is wrong. And we know quite a lot about what is going on in the brain, too (again, see the videos, listen to the lectures). Rather than starting with the assumption of qualia, we should follow the evidence; if there is no need for qualia, and a perfectly good explanation of sensation & perception without it, then why on earth would we burden ourselves with an undefinable concept bodged in on our explanation?

Oh, that's right, because it makes humans special again.

[John Freestone]

quibble: Actually, it is going on in you, not in your brain. The rest of your body always seems to get left out of these things, but you certainly would not be feeling the way you are without it, nor acting on your feelings without it.

This may seem a trivial point, but actually it makes a big difference. It is not merely "what your brain does" that is consciousness, but rather "what you do", which of course is the definition of behavior. Or behaviour, for Darat.

Secondarily, focusing on the brain instead of the whole organism can lead to a form of dualism--not a substance dualism like Descartes or the modern dualists, but a functional dualism that still has the brain working somehow by different rules than the rest of the universe. When we artificially call the brain a puppeteer for the body, it is easy to pretend that the brain is the causal entity rather than part of a system (the organism) that actively processes and responds to environmental stimuli.
Thanks for that Mercutio, and would you agree we can extend that too - our consciousness would not be the same without the fact of its being not just 'embrained' and embodied, but 'emworlded' too, interacting with its environment, conditioned by its past and programmed by its genetic information? Where do we stop, if at all? Does it just merge by degrees into everything, including billions of years of condensation of the universe? Please say yes.:)

[westprog]

Neurons have electrical potential. Computers remember dogs.


You're confusing memory with thinking. Rocks encode information, but don't think.

And nor do computers. There's no difference in principle between what a rock does and what a computer does.

The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.

[Darat]

Thanks for that Mercutio, and would you agree we can extend that too - our consciousness would not be the same without the fact of its being not just 'embrained' and embodied, but 'emworlded' too, interacting with its environment, conditioned by its past and programmed by its genetic information? Where do we stop, if at all? Does it just merge by degrees into everything, including billions of years of condensation of the universe? Please say yes.:)

Yes (until it would seem you get to the problems that the speed of light seems to impose).

And I can speak on behalf of Merc because there is no real ;) distinction between us. (And if that image doesn't make Merc adopt dualism nothing will.)

[PixyMisa]

There is no internal model, except in the mind of the human being who created the thermostat.
There is clearly an internal model, for otherwise the thermostat would not function.

In this system, the only intent is where a human being wanted the thermostat to do something.
And yet, the thermostat behaves according to its model.

In that case, the rock has behaviour. It likes to lie in the sun. It enjoys letting the outside warm up and
A rock does not react to anything except in bulk material ways. A thermostat does react. A thermostat has behaviours on a level that a rock does not.

To deny this is absurd.

Inanimate objects might look as if they have intent. They don't. The intent only lies with the human beings who create them.
Humans only look as if they have intent.

Is there an unambiguous description of a thermostat which doesn't include the intentions of a human being who made it?
Yes. A detailed diagram of a thermostat should be easy to find, and fully explanatory.

If there is intent, it's an extension of the intent of a conscious object - i.e. the human mind. Human beings exhibit intent. Otherwise, we just have physical laws applying.
We do just have physical laws applying. That's the whole point. Rocks, thermostats, or humans, are all just physical systems following physical laws. They have different structures, so they have different behaviours.

Why do you think there is anything else?

[Mercutio]

Thanks for that Mercutio, and would you agree we can extend that too - our consciousness would not be the same without the fact of its being not just 'embrained' and embodied, but 'emworlded' too, interacting with its environment, conditioned by its past and programmed by its genetic information? Where do we stop, if at all? Does it just merge by degrees into everything, including billions of years of condensation of the universe? Please say yes.:)

Yes (until it would seem you get to the problems that the speed of light seems to impose).

And I can speak on behalf of Merc because there is no real distinction between us. (And if that image doesn't make Merc adopt dualism nothing will.)

[PixyMisa]

And nor do computers. There's no difference in principle between what a rock does and what a computer does.
Nor is there any difference in principle between what a computer does and what a human does.

But there are a whole bunch of differences in the details.

[Darat]

You bloody sod - for a moment I thought I'd found in a glitch in the universe software!

[westprog]

Let us consider sunrises for a moment. If we treat... We can ask them if they experience sunrises.
They are lying. Across the board, human beings are programmed to assert such things as an evolutionary survival trick.
They are telling the truth. The sun actually climbs through the sky over a stationary earth.
They think that the sun climbs through the sky, but this is in fact illusory.
(1) is a possibility, but there's a simple check I can run. Do I experience sunrises? Yes, I do. Is it plausible that I'm the only human being in existence for whom sunrises are real, and everyone else is pretending? It seems very unlikely. [pragmatically, I have to agree with you here.]

(3) is a possibility - but we then have the problem of deciding how an illusion of a sunrise would differ from a sunrise. A sunrise might be mistaken in its relation to the outside world - it might just be the world spinning- but it would still be a sunrise. An illusory sunrise just reduces to a sunrise. It has nowhere else to go. [ah! here is the problem--an illusory qualia does not have to reduce to a qualia! There may indeed be another explanation, and the concept "qualia" may be unneeded baggage!]
Your logic is, of course, flawed here, and your conclusions false.


Well, up to point three, we were solid. The trouble is, we do know what the illusion of a sunrise is, we can define how the Earth moving will produce the effect of the sun moving, and there is no irreducability.

However, what can the illusions of qualia be other than qualia? An illusion requires perception. It requires that there be something to be decieved.

"You don't really have a headache, you just think you do".



We do know that Penrose is wrong. And we know quite a lot about what is going on in the brain, too

Yes, we do. But we don't know where the qualia come from.

(again, see the videos, listen to the lectures). Rather than starting with the assumption of qualia, we should follow the evidence; if there is no need for qualia,

Of course there's no need for qualia. It's messy data that spoils a nice theory. No qualia means no hard problem. Just behaviour.

The trouble is that any theory that dispenses with the qualia will never explain human beings.

and a perfectly good explanation of sensation & perception without it, then why on earth would we burden ourselves with an undefinable concept bodged in on our explanation?

Oh, that's right, because it makes humans special again.

Better special human beings than special thermostats.

[JoeEllison]

And nor do computers. There's no difference in principle between what a rock does and what a computer does.

Really? No difference at all? How about between a rock and a slug? A slug and a bee? At what point do you acknowledge a similarity to what humans do, and a difference from rocks?

[westprog]

Nor is there any difference in principle between what a computer does and what a human does.


The difference is that the human beings claim to experience internal states. Rocks and computers don't.


But there are a whole bunch of differences in the details.

[JoeEllison]

The difference is that the human beings claim to experience internal states. Rocks and computers don't.

What is an "internal state"? Is that like feeling a little Montana today, but yesterday I was mostly South Dakota?

[John Freestone]

Yes (until it would seem you get to the problems that the speed of light seems to impose).

And I can speak on behalf of Merc because there is no real ;) distinction between us. (And if that image doesn't make Merc adopt dualism nothing will.)

Yes (until it would seem you get to the problems that the speed of light seems to impose).

And I can speak on behalf of Merc because there is no real distinction between us. (And if that image doesn't make Merc adopt dualism nothing will.)
lol - I knew I was going to say that. Just glad that there's still togetherness in my miserable robotic existence.

[Nick227]

Admittedly, I have no experience of a complete lack of thought.

I also admittedly have no experience of being a can of tuna.

I suppose that makes me unqualified to argue with people who assert that they are cans of tuna and tell them that they are actually humans and only think they are a can of tuna. After all, I have never 'felt' what it is like to be a can of tuna.

It seems to me that the HPC is here being debated by two camps of people - those who believe that all human existence is thought-based, and those who believe that there are other phenomena too. The problem is that, for the latter camp, it is necessary to translate these proposed other phenomena into thought-based constructs in order to debate them.

Nick

[PixyMisa]

The difference is that the human beings claim to experience internal states. Rocks and computers don't.
My computers claim to experience internal states. They even send me email about it.

[Darat]

It seems to me that the HPC is here being debated by two camps of people - those who believe that all human existence is thought-based, and those who believe that there are other phenomena too. The problem is that, for the latter camp, it is necessary to translate these proposed other phenomena into thought-based constructs in order to debate them.

Nick

Nope.

It's just that one camp wants to know what the bloody hell the other camp is going on about with their secret language that only they understand!

[Nick227]

What is lusting?

That you need to ask I think says a lot.

I said self experience. If you are going to assert that self experience does not require self, then you aren't using the English language like every other human who speaks it does.

Do you need a concept of selfhood to experience something? I don't. The chair is there in my awareness. That's it. Of course, logic dictates that there is a self who is experiencing, but in terms of actual a priori experience, there's no self.

Ok then let me ask you this. What do you call the neural activity responsible for this passive awareness? Because I call it thinking -- since, ya know, it happens in your head and all -- but you can call it whatever you want. Just give it a name so we know where we stand.

I call thinking the experience of having thoughts.


EDIT: and why have you avoided answering my chair question?

Wasn't aware that I had.

Nick

[Nick227]

Yes -- it is quite easy. I managed to do it the same way you and Nick seem to do it: by redefining "thinking" to be "all the mental processes that, when defined as 'thinking,' would make my arguments contradictory."

Well, I would consider "thinking" to be "conscious ideation," the experience of having thoughts basically. I'm not suggesting that there are no unconscious mental processes going on whilst not thinking. I assume there are!

Nick

[Nick227]

You (and skiba, and perhaps others) would have loved the Psychology of just over a century ago. Wundt, James, and others decided that Psychology should be the science of conscious thought, and that the methodology should be introspection--the careful analysis of one's own thinking by a systematic and trained observer.

Thing is, we don't do that any more. Science is, in the long term, self-correcting. Methodologies that are not productive (or which are simply bunk) tend to be discarded in favor of methodologies that work. Introspection is a flawed methodology, and is a terrible thing to base an analysis of consciousness on. Your description of events is highly detailed, and almost certainly false (parts are certainly false--or rather, if true would upset roughly a century of work by thousands of scientists).

Philosophy has the luxury of not requiring that we check results against reality. Thus, there are still dualists, and still people who think introspection is a nifty way to find out stuff.

Well, I'm just articulating my experience. It's quite normal for me to experience a passive mental state with no thoughts. Very relaxing it is too. Course you don't get much done!

If your only experience of life is via thinking, or you are not aware of passivity, then it makes sense to me that you would not grasp HPC.

Nick

[Nick227]

2) Why don't you try answering this question (since Nick refuses to -- for good reason):

What is the difference between experiencing a chair that you notice, all by itself in an empty room, and experiencing a chair you don't notice, amongst thousands of others in a stadium? There must be a difference, because although you can clearly see both, you notice one and not the other. So what is the difference?

I can't really see why this should be a problem. Our conscious mind can be directed to examine one object deeper by other mental processes - memory, defence, etc. Or because there is a thought that it would like to examine this particular chair more deeply.

Nick

[John Freestone]

However, what can the illusions of qualia be other than qualia? An illusion requires perception. It requires that there be something to be decieved.You may be heading for a repetition of the observation that you are repeating an assertion.

What if illusions of qualia are just that, illusions of qualia, not "qualia", as you assert without reason, but non-existent ideas, however persuasive they seem to you?

Surely an illusion does not require perception, it requires invention? If the deception is that the perceiver exists as a subjective point, witness-space or whatever else you want to call it - "I" - receiving qualia, there is nothing to be deceived except a machine, and it seems reasonable to posit a machine (human) that can deceive itself that it has a special centre of some kind that is subject(ive), experiencing subjective momentary whatevers it calls qualia. All that is required is for it to construct a recursive computation every now and then reaffirming the reality of it's "qualia" and that of its subjective self.

If you say "but it must have a self to reaffirm itself to", yes, of course it has a self, which is itself, the same self that is doing the computation and the deception. A machine exists telling itself stories. That's all.

All of the above may be untrue, of course, but is it illogical?

[Nick227]

Nope.

It's just that one camp wants to know what the bloody hell the other camp is going on about with their secret language that only they understand!

The problem is the communication milieu. I have only thoughts with which to communicate what I experience. It's the only game in town, and if I wish to communicate a non-thought experience then I'm entirely relying on you to have experienced the same or similar to know what the hell I'm talking about.

Nick

[Darat]

How did you learn to label this "non-thought experience"?

[Nick227]

How did you learn to label this "non-thought experience"?

Through wanting to communicate it. I just applied a label I figured others who experience it would recognise.

Nick

[Darat]

This is quite intriguing, why did you think other people would recognise this?

[Nick227]

This is quite intriguing, why did you think other people would recognise this?

Some intrinsic need to share experience? I mean, many do recognise it. I guess it's the same reason we have names for emotions.

Nick

[westprog]

That's not what we're saying at all. What we are saying is that the question is meaningless.


So get the question right, then ask it.


Personal experience is behaviour. And the entire concept of qualia is meaningless.

If you disagree, then it's up to you to explain why, to provide a coherent definition of the concepts that you want to introduce.


Why is this a problem at all? The subjective is merely a subset of the objective. Again, if you disagree, it is up to you to coherently explain what the distinction is.

You may be heading for a repetition of the observation that you are repeating an assertion.

What if illusions of qualia are just that, illusions of qualia, not "qualia", as you assert without reason, but non-existent ideas, however persuasive they seem to you?

Surely an illusion does not require perception, it requires invention? If the deception is that the perceiver exists as a subjective point, witness-space or whatever else you want to call it - "I" - receiving qualia, there is nothing to be deceived except a machine, and it seems reasonable to posit a machine (human) that can deceive itself that it has a special centre of some kind that is subject(ive), experiencing subjective momentary whatevers it calls qualia. All that is required is for it to construct a recursive computation every now and then reaffirming the reality of it's "qualia" and that of its subjective self.

If you say "but it must have a self to reaffirm itself to", yes, of course it has a self, which is itself, the same self that is doing the computation and the deception. A machine exists telling itself stories. That's all.

All of the above may be untrue, of course, but is it illogical?

If the "illusory qualia" are percieved in the sense of a machine telling itself stories, then how are they different from the qualia? Assuming that the perciever thinks that it is percieving something, then the very facts of perception become the qualia.

If the machine is not percieving anything - just telling itself stories - then there are neither qualia nor illusions of qualia - merely lying machines.

[westprog]

My computers claim to experience internal states. They even send me email about it.

No, they claim to have internal states, not to experience them.

It is of course trivial to have a program which claims to have experiences.

100 PRINT "I'm Alive!"
200 END

[westprog]

If that is the Searle book (I think it was you who referenced it earlier in this thread), then it kinda sorta is cherry-picking.

Yes, in the sense that Searle has his own strong opinions, which flavour the entire work. No, in that he honestly tries to present the opinions of each of the people putting forward ideas. Yes in that he hates Dennett and Dennett hates him, to the extent that I doubt they could be in a room together without coming to blows. They make Gould and Dawkins seem like drinking buddies.

Good place to start, but there is quite a lot more out there, including of course stuff by people who are doing experimental work, not philosophy.

I'm looking in parallel at Jeffrey Gray - Consciousness, Creeping Up On The Hard Problem, which seems (I'm only browsing it right now) to cover issues of perception in more detail. Then there's How To Build A Mind - Igor Aleksander, which seems to be a Strong AI viewpoint. Then there's De La Mettries Ghost - The Story Of Decisions, by Chris Nunn. Not to speak of the Penrose material.

I hasten to say that I didn't select these as a representative selection of what I should be reading. I just picked 'em up at random. Nor am I familiar with all the contents as yet. But I am researching.

[westprog]

There is clearly an internal model, for otherwise the thermostat would not function.



No, there needs to be an external designer. Whatever about designers for animals and human beings, I think there's a consensus about the existence of designers for thermostats.

Once the thermostat is made, it doesn't need an internal model. It just sits there, exactly like a rock. It does the same things the rock does. Get hot, expand. Cool down, contract.




And yet, the thermostat behaves according to its model.



Because it is designed. Not because it is aware.

What does the concept of awareness add to our understanding of a thermostat? How would an aware thermostat differ from a non-aware thermostat?


A rock does not react to anything except in bulk material ways. A thermostat does react. A thermostat has behaviours on a level that a rock does not.


No, it has no behaviours whatsoever that a rock does not have.

The concept of behaviour is something existing in the mind of the human observer. A physics analysis of rock and thermostat will find no instances of behaviour, or awareness. These are human concepts which apply to human beings, and possibly animals.


To deny this is absurd.


Humans only look as if they have intent.


Yes. A detailed diagram of a thermostat should be easy to find, and fully explanatory.


And will a physical description of a thermostat and a rock differ in kind except in the intentions and uses of human beings.


We do just have physical laws applying. That's the whole point. Rocks, thermostats, or humans, are all just physical systems following physical laws. They have different structures, so they have different behaviours.

Why do you think there is anything else?

I didn't bring in awareness for thermostats. That's a non-physical concept which seems to have no basis whatsoever. Why not say there's a mystical spirit which inhabits the thermostat which is lacking in the rock. There's as much evidence for that as for awareness - it's just less palatable words.

[PixyMisa]

No, they claim to have internal states, not to experience them.
Really? What's the difference?

[PixyMisa]

No, there needs to be an external designer. Whatever about designers for animals and human beings, I think there's a consensus about the existence of designers for thermostats.
Sure.

The consensus is that you are wrong. Animals contain thermostats. Where then the external designer?

Once the thermostat is made, it doesn't need an internal model. It just sits there, exactly like a rock. It does the same things the rock does. Get hot, expand. Cool down, contract.
Wrong again. Without the internal model, the thermostat would not switch; it would be merely a thermometer.

Because it is designed. Not because it is aware.
It makes decisions according to its senses. That is awareness; that is the very essence of awareness. It is irrelevant how it came to be; it is what it is.

What does the concept of awareness add to our understanding of a thermostat? How would an aware thermostat differ from a non-aware thermostat?
The concept of awareness does not add to our understanding of the thermostat; rather, the concept of the thermostat adds to our undersanding of awareness. That's rather the point.

No, it has no behaviours whatsoever that a rock does not have.
This rock I have here is entirely failing to control my air conditioning.

The concept of behaviour is something existing in the mind of the human observer.
Sure. Behaviour is a concept. And rocks have behaviours. They have no concept of behaviour, but that is entirely another question.

A physics analysis of rock and thermostat will find no instances of behaviour, or awareness.
No awareness, certainly. Behaviour, most definitely.

These are human concepts which apply to human beings, and possibly animals.
The concept of behaviour applies to everything that exists.

And will a physical description of a thermostat and a rock differ in kind except in the intentions and uses of human beings.
It will differ in detail. All you ever get is differences in the detail. There is never a difference in kind - unless you subscribe to dualism, and the inherent contradictions therein.

I didn't bring in awareness for thermostats. That's a non-physical concept which seems to have no basis whatsoever.
No, awareness is a straightforward physical concept. Whyever do you say it is non-physical?

Why not say there's a mystical spirit which inhabits the thermostat which is lacking in the rock.
Because that would be silly.

There's as much evidence for that as for awareness - it's just less palatable words.
What the thermostat does is impossible without awareness. It's that simple. And awareness is that simple.

[John Freestone]

If the "illusory qualia" are percieved in the sense of a machine telling itself stories, then how are they different from the qualia?They are internal states, computations and private processes without a subject, elicited by inpinging information from other areas of the universe. They are purely behavioural. Their results are the behavioural thought "Oooh look, that's red" or "I'm running". They then have further results, further thoughts about them and the behaviour of asserting that they are discrete, real entities as your fingers type on a keyboard waiting for further input from the other machines. The idea of a machine telling itself stories was misleading, sorry. It naturally suggests what I should have been more careful to avoid, the assumption that someone other than the same machine is listening to its stories. But you're good at that recursion.

Assuming that the perciever thinks that it is percieving something, then the very facts of perception become the qualia.But if there is no perceiver, as I'm trying to explain, then the facts of perception do not. They in fact - if only you'd let them - become something much more wonderful and miraculous (steady, skeptics, they're just words!) - illusions of qualia! Imagine that, the Universe has condensed, broken out in rampant life forms, learned to perceive, and is now imagining that it has qualia. What will it do next?

If the machine is not percieving anything - just telling itself stories - then there are neither qualia nor illusions of qualia - merely lying machines.If, however, there are lying machines, and they are perceiving, and perception is a behavioural process seamlessly connected to the telling of the story (which is what I have been trying to describe, obviously not very well) then there can be illusory qualia. They'd be a bit like the image on a TV. In fact, you could perhaps imagine a TV with a camera doing the old feedback thingy, going "Yep, I'm still there. There's a subjective me watching my objective self. Yep, Oprah-quale is still there."

Strangely, you seem to be saying that the qualia are real, and that it's pixels all the way down as well. I'm confused. Do you actually think that physical energy-matter is all there is, or have I missed a post where you've accepted that your position is dualistic? I've only caught up about half way. Can we turn this round - if there is someone perceiving your experience - and s/he isn't matter, who-what is that?

[Mercutio]

Well, I'm just articulating my experience. It's quite normal for me to experience a passive mental state with no thoughts. Very relaxing it is too. Course you don't get much done!

If your only experience of life is via thinking, or you are not aware of passivity, then it makes sense to me that you would not grasp HPC.

Nick
So, what you are saying is that you observe this when you are not being systematic and applying any sort of controls; the abandonment of the methodology of introspection is irrelevant to you. The fact that hundreds of researchers, very sincere and motivated to explain their conscious experience, tested it and found it wanting, does not matter to you.

When you wonder about wondering, it is no wonder that you find what you assume you will. Try challenging your assumptions; you may find that some of them (like qualia) dry up and blow away.

[rocketdodger]

Just out of curiousity, is this 100% certain (as in backed by repeated experimentation)? Or is it just a nearly 100% obvious observation?


Just a nearly 100% obvioius observation.

I mean all the research in neuroscience and neurobiology agrees 100%, but we don't have the technology yet to track individual neural impulses in the human brain so it isn't 100% certain.

[rocketdodger]

Well given the broad defintion of reason you are using, that is sort of false.

There is neural activity most of the time, it is larger and more active in vaious regegions in various stages of sleep. Strangely there was study that showed people will report dreams in most stages of sleep when roused. the level of 'thought' in the dreams was correlated to how close to REM it was.

The brian ticks over in sleep.

Yes I admit I sort of misspoke there.

Certainly there is always brain "computation" happening, especially in the lower echelons of the mind.

But if I remember correctly certain areas of the cortex become much less active during deep sleep.

[INRM]

Just a nearly 100% obvioius observation.

I mean all the research in neuroscience and neurobiology agrees 100%, but we don't have the technology yet to track individual neural impulses in the human brain so it isn't 100% certain.

I guess that's a reasonable assessment.

Just to clarify here

Throw a group for "self" into the mix -- which will influence and be influenced by all the other groups, including itself -- and you have subjective experience and self consciousness.

How exactly is it influenced by itself? Is it that all the group firing causes all the neurons in that mix to have been signaled by other in the mix? Or is it something else, or the former AND something else?


INRM

[rocketdodger]

It seems to me that the HPC is here being debated by two camps of people - those who believe that all human existence is thought-based, and those who believe that there are other phenomena too. The problem is that, for the latter camp, it is necessary to translate these proposed other phenomena into thought-based constructs in order to debate them.

Nick

Well actually I would say the main problem for the latter camp is that it is necessary to translate these proposed other phenomena into thought-based constructs in order to think about them.

The idea that you can somehow grasp something, using thought, that is inaccesible to thought, is right at the heart of dualism. And that is why it is utter nonsense.

[Beth]

Excellent thread. I've particularly enjoyed Piggy's and Mercutio's contributions. I have little to add other than thanks for the food for thought, but I’ll add what I can.

The definition of ‘qualia’ that I find most understandable comes from ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’. I’m paraphrasing, but he described it as what occurs during the instant of time when you accidently touch a hot stove but before you stop touching it. The reaction – jerking your hand away from the stove – can and usually will occur before the conscious realization that it was hot and if you don’t move, you will be burned. The qualia is the cause of the reaction to jerk your hand away. Whether or not that means qualia is something ‘real’, that is data that requires explanation, is yet another question I am undecided about.

Why is this a problem at all? The subjective is merely a subset of the objective. Again, if you disagree, it is up to you to coherently explain what the distinction is.

I think the objective is a subset of the subjective. It seems to me that all of our perceptions are subjective, whether they are perceptions of things internal or external to our bodies. When something is labeled 'objective', it refers to a set of subjective perceptions (observations? experiences?) that have congruence across different individuals.

[rocketdodger]

That you need to ask I think says a lot.

Yes -- it says that I don't think you know what lusting really is.

Do you need a concept of selfhood to experience something? I don't. The chair is there in my awareness. That's it. Of course, logic dictates that there is a self who is experiencing, but in terms of actual a priori experience, there's no self.

And....? I didn't say experience required self, I said self experience required self. Please read my posts and respond to the post if you are going to act like you are responding to my posts. Otherwise I feel like I am debating a politician that only provides responses to the question they wanted to answer instead of the one that was actually asked.

I call thinking the experience of having thoughts.

*sigh* And what is a thought, Nick? Lemme guess... what you have when you are thinking? Awesome.

[JoeEllison]

The feeling I always get in these sorts of threads is that if we came up with a complete, 100% explanation of the "experience of consciousness", the same folks would say that we still haven't explained the "feeling of experience of consciousness."

[rocketdodger]

How exactly is it influenced by itself? Is it that all the group firing causes all the neurons in that mix to have been signaled by other in the mix? Or is it something else, or the former AND something else?


INRM

If I knew that, my friend, I would have a nobel prize.

It isn't too hard to imagine a whole bunch of ways such self-influence might happen. All of the above? I guess the the tightest feedback loop possible would be you thinking about yourself thinking about yourself thinking about yourself.......

It would be a very hard task indeed to wire a bunch of neurons together to get them to be self conscious. I have no idea how I would do it other than to start with the basic concepts I told you about. It would involve an enormous amount of trial and error, to be sure.

How big are these "groups" I mentioned? Can they be a single neuron, or just a few, or are they thousands of neurons? How strong, how long, and how many impulses need to come into a group to activate it? Do they all need to converge on one neuron of the group, or all in the group, or just a few key neurons, or what? What kind of timing needs to be involved for the mechanism to work properly? Does an entire group activate at once, or can parts of it act independently? Are there even enough distinctions that can be made during computation for us to discern one group from another I.E. do the groups even exist outside of the conceptual framework we use? These are the questions that constitute the real hard problem of consciousness.

[Mercutio]

The definition of ‘qualia’ that I find most understandable comes from ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’. I’m paraphrasing, but he described it as what occurs during the instant of time when you accidently touch a hot stove but before you stop touching it. The reaction – jerking your hand away from the stove – can and usually will occur before the conscious realization that it was hot and if you don’t move, you will be burned. The qualia is the cause of the reaction to jerk your hand away. Whether or not that means qualia is something ‘real’, that is data that requires explanation, is yet another question I am undecided about.
So the qualia is the stimulus? Arguably, in the external world?

I think the objective is a subset of the subjective. It seems to me that all of our perceptions are subjective, whether they are perceptions of things internal or external to our bodies. When something is labeled 'objective', it refers to a set of subjective perceptions (observations? experiences?) that have congruence across different individuals.Objective and subjective are nasty words. Public and private don't imply the different kinds implied by O&S, and one does not have to claim the primacy of either subjective or objective realms. It is, after all, when we start making that sort of distinction that we are led to conclusions of dualism; it takes some doing to realize that it was our assumption that led to this in the first place.

[rocketdodger]

I can't really see why this should be a problem. Our conscious mind can be directed to examine one object deeper by other mental processes - memory, defence, etc. Or because there is a thought that it would like to examine this particular chair more deeply.

Nick

Well, Nick, this illuminates the inherent dishonesty that you and all other HPC proponents can't seem to get away from.

You don't examine the chair in the stadium AT ALL. Your brain doesn't even register that it exists. It comes in as a little blip of sensory data in a sea of sensory data, and it is immediately discarded. There is no experience of it at all.

For you to claim that there is in fact an experience of the chair in the stadium -- 'it just isn't as "deep" as with the chair in the empty room' -- is indicative of the nonsense you people will come up with to cling to your dualism. Perhaps this is why you people refuse to define experience? So you can make claims like this without being completely contradictory?

[PixyMisa]

Excellent thread. I've particularly enjoyed Piggy's and Mercutio's contributions. I have little to add other than thanks for the food for thought, but I’ll add what I can.

The definition of ‘qualia’ that I find most understandable comes from ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’. I’m paraphrasing, but he described it as what occurs during the instant of time when you accidently touch a hot stove but before you stop touching it. The reaction – jerking your hand away from the stove – can and usually will occur before the conscious realization that it was hot and if you don’t move, you will be burned. The qualia is the cause of the reaction to jerk your hand away. Whether or not that means qualia is something ‘real’, that is data that requires explanation, is yet another question I am undecided about.
That's a coherent definition. But of course, that's just neurons firing. We can observe that, measure it. And we have done. As I said earlier, if you provide a coherent definition for qualia, HPC evaporates.

I think the objective is a subset of the subjective. It seems to me that all of our perceptions are subjective, whether they are perceptions of things internal or external to our bodies. When something is labeled 'objective', it refers to a set of subjective perceptions (observations? experiences?) that have congruence across different individuals.
That's an internally consistent worldview, but one that makes everything more difficult to understand. For example, if everything is subjective, why is there some particular subset of the subjective that can temporarily - or permanently - put an end to our subjective experience? Baseball bats, for example.

[69dodge]

This rock I have here is entirely failing to control my air conditioning.

Your thermostat too will fail to control your air conditioner, if you disconnect them from each other. So, is the thermostat alone aware, or does awareness belong only to the system comprising the thermostat and the air conditioner and the wires connecting them?

[Belz...]

But more importantly, it's inaccurate. If someone throws a baseball at me from behind and I turn my head, catch site of it, and duck... I have a conscious experience of flinching and ducking. But that's all hard-wired. There's no higher-level reasoning necessary.

In that case I'd say you experienced your reaction, not the thing you reacted to, otherwise there isn't much choice: there was some thinking involved.

[westprog]

Sure.

The consensus is that you are wrong. Animals contain thermostats. Where then the external designer?


Evolution.


Wrong again. Without the internal model, the thermostat would not switch; it would be merely a thermometer.


Describing something designed to do a job as possessing an "internal model" is a very odd way of putting it. I can see no justification for such a term beyond obfuscation.



It makes decisions according to its senses. That is awareness; that is the very essence of awareness. It is irrelevant how it came to be; it is what it is.


What the thermostat does can in no sense be described as making decisions.


The concept of awareness does not add to our understanding of the thermostat; rather, the concept of the thermostat adds to our undersanding of awareness. That's rather the point.


That is of course the point. The reason for assigning qualities such as awareness to objects that clearly don't possess them is not to increase our understanding of the objects. It's to defuse possible implications of the word "aware".

If "awareness" were a property which really existed in thermocouples, then we would have some means of evaluating it, or measuring it, or testing it. We don't, of course. The same goes for describing the thermostat as "making decisions". It clearly doesn't. All it does is what the rock does. Expand or contract as it heats up or cools down. It doesn't decide to do this any more than the rock does.


This rock I have here is entirely failing to control my air conditioning.


Which is the significant factor. The my is what gets us into awareness and decisions. The person who owns the air conditioning is aware, and makes decisions. They extend to his tools.


Sure. Behaviour is a concept. And rocks have behaviours. They have no concept of behaviour, but that is entirely another question.


No awareness, certainly. Behaviour, most definitely.


The concept of behaviour applies to everything that exists.



If it's a name for what things do under the laws of physics, then that's quite acceptable.

However, if a thermostat has awareness of what it is doing, then there is no physical measurement of any quantity which can determine that the rock doesn't.

However, we can perform an awareness test if our thermostat is a human being in the room, the mechanical thermostat being broken.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm turning up the air conditioning because I'm hot".

That's a valid test of awareness.

It will differ in detail. All you ever get is differences in the detail. There is never a difference in kind - unless you subscribe to dualism, and the inherent contradictions therein.



No, awareness is a straightforward physical concept. Whyever do you say it is non-physical?


If it's a physical concept, then it should be measurable in a physical way.

As described, it appears to be something like utility, or value. Something assigned by human beings to an object depending on how well it does what they want.


Because that would be silly.




What the thermostat does is impossible without awareness. It's that simple. And awareness is that simple.

I was told that there was a shortage of physicists who agree with Penrose's ideas on consciousness. I conjectured thet that might be due to his views being on a specialised subject outside the normal remit of physics.

However, if we are considering "a straightforward physical concept" - awareness - which is possessed by objects such as thermocouples - then surely this would be of interest to physicists. Measuring properties of objects is what physicists do. How's that going, so far?

[PixyMisa]

Your thermostat too will fail to control your air conditioner, if you disconnect them from each other. So, is the thermostat alone aware, or does awareness belong only to the system comprising the thermostat and the air conditioner and the wires connecting them?
The thermostat alone is aware. It may be ineffective, but it does react.

This rock just sort of sits here.

Fortunately it's 7 degrees here in Sydney tonight, so air conditioning is not at the top of my priorities. ;)

[Belz...]

The essence of science is that one can repeat any experiment or assertion, and test it oneself. If I read John Searle's assertion that inner mental states exist, and that pinching oneself on the back of the hand produces a sensation, I can perform that experiment myself. Yes, there is an inner sensation. It's a perfectly sound, objective test for the existence of qualia. It happens to be almost too simple. It doesn't need wires into the brain, or perceptual scientists. In fact, it's something that's done every day.

Thus the claim that the concept of qualia is meaningless is something that I can instantly refute, for myself. And so can anyone else.

You're using private experience as objective evidence ?

[Darat]

Evolution.

...snip...

The theory of evolution has no mention of intent so according to you it cannot be said to design something. And also when you invoke "evolution" as an answer for anything you are really only saying "TLOP did it". In other words humans aren't special just another manifestation of how things work.