The Hard Problem of Gravity

[rocketdodger]

I do not believe we currently can explain the behavior of objects being affected by gravity. There are a number of qualities exhibited by such objects, such as "falling," that defy a full mathematical description.

Thus I advocate the notion of a "Hard Problem of Gravity,", or "HPG," that must be solved if we are to eventually grasp the full nature of gravity.

Among the notions supported by the HPG is the philosophical "gombie" or "gravitational zombie," an object that behaves exactly as if it is being acted upon by gravity yet is not being acted upon by gravity.

The HPG is particularly startling because it implies that everything we drop might actually be a p-gombie instead of a non-p-gombie. In fact, if you have gone skydiving, or jumped from a diving board, or even walked upright, you might be a p-gombie!

P.S. If the local university in your area is hiring post-docs in philosophy, please let me know, I am currently unemployed.

[AkuManiMani]

Yea man, seriously. I was like, playing this video game the other day and -- like -- the objects on the screen fell just like they were under the effects of gravity. But how can I tell whether it was real gravity or not? I can only logically assume that since it looked like gravity it must be gravity.

[pchams]

I do not believe we currently can explain the behavior of objects being affected by gravity. There are a number of qualities exhibited by such objects, such as "falling," that defy a full mathematical description.

Thus I advocate the notion of a "Hard Problem of Gravity,", or "HPG," that must be solved if we are to eventually grasp the full nature of gravity.

Among the notions supported by the HPG is the philosophical "gombie" or "gravitational zombie," an object that behaves exactly as if it is being acted upon by gravity yet is not being acted upon by gravity.

The HPG is particularly startling because it implies that everything we drop might actually be a p-gombie instead of a non-p-gombie. In fact, if you have gone skydiving, or jumped from a diving board, or even walked upright, you might be a p-gombie!

P.S. If the local university in your area is hiring post-docs in philosophy, please let me know, I am currently unemployed.

I'd hesitate to fall for such an ungrounded theory.
Plant your ideas in something more down to earth.
Although many may be drawn to such inclinations,
the weight of evidence shows that alternative suppositions won't fly.

Obviously, there's a mass of evidence against these g-zombies, and you don't stand a chance
anchoring them in science.

[NobbyNobbs]

I'm sure this is a parody thread (though Poe's Law almost applied) but what I don't know is, what is it a parody of?

I'm almost afraid to find out.

[quixotecoyote]

I'm sure this is a parody thread (though Poe's Law almost applied) but what I don't know is, what is it a parody of?

I'm almost afraid to find out.


Hard problem of consciousness.

In a nutshell, p-zombies are imaginary creatures who behave exactly as if they possessed consciousness, except they actually do not. I (and obviously all intelligent people) think this is a contradiction in terms, as consciousness is defined though process rather than property, and so if the p-zombie has the ability to behave as if conscious, it therefore is undergoing some process that IS consciousness.

It's a dualist concept in that it supposes that there is some something separating that which exhibits all aspects of consciousness and that which possesses consciousness.

eta:

The p-gombie is a close relative. P-gombie theorists believe that attraction to mass does not imply the actions of gravity much as the p-zombie theorists believe that exhibiting signs of conscious does not imply actual consciousness.

[PixyMisa]

"Hard Problem Consciousness", much favoured by philosophers who might otherwise have to work for a living, or worse, teach.

[Wowbagger]

I know I'm not a p-gombie. I can defy gravity.

[Shadowdweller]

Arise my unfalling legions! Seek! Kill!

[Neverfly]

Arise my unfalling legions! Seek! Kill!

Hey ummm...

Is there an enlistment process?

I'd like to be a floater...

[Robin]

I do not believe we currently can explain the behavior of objects being affected by gravity. There are a number of qualities exhibited by such objects, such as "falling," that defy a full mathematical description.

Thus I advocate the notion of a "Hard Problem of Gravity,", or "HPG," that must be solved if we are to eventually grasp the full nature of gravity.

Among the notions supported by the HPG is the philosophical "gombie" or "gravitational zombie," an object that behaves exactly as if it is being acted upon by gravity yet is not being acted upon by gravity.

The HPG is particularly startling because it implies that everything we drop might actually be a p-gombie instead of a non-p-gombie. In fact, if you have gone skydiving, or jumped from a diving board, or even walked upright, you might be a p-gombie!

P.S. If the local university in your area is hiring post-docs in philosophy, please let me know, I am currently unemployed.
I can conceive of a universe in which all the physical characteristics are the same as in our world and there is no gravity
If I can conceive of this then it is metaphysically possible.
If it is metaphysically possible then gravity is non-physical.

Oh and Materialism is false.

It reminds me of my nosebies thread, nosebies are physically identical to normal people and do not have noses.

It proves that noses are not physical.

And that Materialism is false. Everything proves that Materialism is false.

What about Mary in the anti-grav room?

[Robin]

Hard problem of consciousness.

In a nutshell, p-zombies are imaginary creatures who behave exactly as if they possessed consciousness, except they actually do not. I (and obviously all intelligent people) think this is a contradiction in terms, as consciousness is defined though process rather than property, and so if the p-zombie has the ability to behave as if conscious, it therefore is undergoing some process that IS consciousness.

It's a dualist concept in that it supposes that there is some something separating that which exhibits all aspects of consciousness and that which possesses consciousness.

eta:

The p-gombie is a close relative. P-gombie theorists believe that attraction to mass does not imply the actions of gravity much as the p-zombie theorists believe that exhibiting signs of conscious does not imply actual consciousness.
The zombie argument is well named, because however many times you kill it, it gets up again and starts shambling forward.

[Marquis de Carabas]

The zombie argument is well named, because however many times you kill it, it gets up again and starts shambling forward.
...to eat your brains.

[Beerina]

Hard problem of consciousness.

In a nutshell, p-zombies are imaginary creatures who behave exactly as if they possessed consciousness, except they actually do not. I (and obviously all intelligent people) think this is a contradiction in terms, as consciousness is defined though process rather than property, and so if the p-zombie has the ability to behave as if conscious, it therefore is undergoing some process that IS consciousness.

It's a dualist concept in that it supposes that there is some something separating that which exhibits all aspects of consciousness and that which possesses consciousness.

eta:

The p-gombie is a close relative. P-gombie theorists believe that attraction to mass does not imply the actions of gravity much as the p-zombie theorists believe that exhibiting signs of conscious does not imply actual consciousness.


By the way, could someone point me to something a conscious person can do that an unconscious zombie couldn't do in theory?

I think it was just a cheap shortcut evolution took because it was there and faster than developing a more complicated method to do what consciousness seems to do, which is to drive behavior from within a mental virtual world mapped loosely to reality.

[AkuManiMani]

By the way, could someone point me to something a conscious person can do that an unconscious zombie couldn't do in theory?

Understand or write a work of fiction, formulate a formal theory, philosophize, or post sarcastic threads on the internet ;)

[roger]

Woah, this is a heavy topic.

[Darat]

Understand or write a work of fiction, formulate a formal theory, philosophize, or post sarcastic threads on the internet ;)

Nope, because if they couldn't do all those things we could distinguish them from conscious non-zombies.

[Skwinty]

I have sky dived hundreds of times and without fail, felt like a zombie after each jump. Lasted for days.

[AkuManiMani]

Nope, because if they couldn't do all those things we could distinguish them from conscious non-zombies.

Which is why p-zombies aren't as confounding as people make them out to be. One major feature that separates conscious entities from unconscious is the ability to grasp meaning .

An AI like Deep Blue could fit the bill as a kind of p-zombie. If, for example, if Kasparov were to play against deep blue over the internet and was not told he was playing against an AI he might have been fooled into thinking that DB was an actual person. It is able to defeat human chess masters but it cannot be said to [I]understand chess an more than a calculator can be said to understand numbers. It only exists because entities which do have the capacity to understand exist and used that understanding to create it. It is, essentially, just an extension of the minds that made it.

They are algorithmic machines that manipulate syntax but semantics -- meaning -- is beyond their scope. Any construct that is only capable of syntax manipulation could count as some degree of p-zombie. Therefore, p-zombies are entities that can successfully simulate certain classes of cognitive function to give the appearance of intelligence, but can be identified by an inability to grasp meaning, which is inherently non-algorithmic.

Technically, a robotic toy could count as a p-zombie if it could fool a child, animal or anyone else into believing its conscious. It would be theoretically possible to construct a p-zombie sophisticated enough to possibly fool an adult expert but the difference between it and the child's toy would be a difference of degree only. I would posit that there can be no such thing as an indiscernible p-zombie.

All p-zombie constructs can, in principle, be tricked by a discerning conscious agent into revealing their illusory nature.

The only real issue left is that of qualia -- or 'seemingness'. It appears to be an intractable problem of determining the qualitative nature of one's subjective pallet. Qualitative experience is the basis for all meaning , understanding, and the creative capacity to imagine beyond a formal set of rules to generate new ones. At present, we cannot objectively determine what the 'seemingnes' of another entity is from the 'inside' perspective. This is what the core of the "hard problem" really is and what the OP (either intentionally or unintentionally) misses.

[Gate2501]

Which is why p-zombies aren't as confounding as people make them out to be. One major feature that separates conscious entities from unconscious is the ability to grasp meaning .

An AI like Deep Blue could fit the bill as a kind of p-zombie. If, for example, if Kasparov were to play against deep blue over the internet and was not told he was playing against an AI he might have been fooled into thinking that DB was an actual person. It is able to defeat human chess masters but it cannot be said to [I]understand chess an more than a calculator can be said to understand numbers. It only exists because entities which do have the capacity to understand exist and used that understanding to create it. It is, essentially, just an extension of the minds that made it.

They are algorithmic machines that manipulate syntax but semantics -- meaning -- is beyond their scope. Any construct that is only capable of syntax manipulation could count as some degree of p-zombie. Therefore, p-zombies are entities that can successfully simulate certain classes of cognitive function to give the appearance of intelligence, but can be identified by an inability to grasp meaning which is inherently non-algorithmic.

Technically, a robotic toy could count as a p-zombie if it could fool a child, animal or anyone else into believing its conscious. It would be theoretically possible to construct a p-zombie sophisticated enough to possibly fool an adult expert but the difference between it and the child's tow would be a difference of degree only. I would posit that there can be no such thing as an indiscernible p-zombie.

All p-zombie constructs can, in principle, be tricked by a discerning conscious agent into revealing their illusory nature.

The only real issue left is that of qualia -- or 'seemingness'. It seems to be an intractable problem of determining the qualitative nature of one's subjective pallet. Qualitative experience is the basis for all meaning , understanding, and the creative capacity to imagine beyond a formal set of rules to generate new ones. At present, we cannot objectively determine what the 'seemingnes' of another entity is from the 'inside' perspective. This is what the core of the "hard problem" really is and what the OP (either intentionally or unintentionally) misses.

I figured that Deep Blue was conscious on some sort of "chess savant" level of operation. Right?

[AkuManiMani]

I figured that Deep Blue was conscious on some sort of "chess savant" level of operation. Right?

So you're saying you suspect Deep Blue understands chess? I would say that its just good at doing chess merely because it's creators understood it ;)

[AkuManiMani]

P.S. If the local university in your area is hiring post-docs in philosophy, please let me know, I am currently unemployed.

I don't think I'd want some one with such a superficial grasp of philosophy trying to teach it to anyone. :covereyes

[Gate2501]

So you're saying you suspect Deep Blue understands chess? I would say that its just good at doing chess merely because it's creators understood it ;)

And you are just good at doing what you do, because your DNA knew how to construct a proper neural network + sensory organs?

The consciousness in Deep Blue, would obviously be much more narrow in scope than that of a human. Imagine if your genetic code had instructed that you be built as a person who only knew the best ways to play chess, and defeat other chess players. You would still have memories to call upon of the current chess game, and those memories would process in with sensory input(the chessboard positions). You would be conscious and interacting on a very crude level.

[quarky]

Which is why p-zombies aren't as confounding as people make them out to be. One major feature that separates conscious entities from unconscious is the ability to grasp meaning .

An AI like Deep Blue could fit the bill as a kind of p-zombie. If, for example, if Kasparov were to play against deep blue over the internet and was not told he was playing against an AI he might have been fooled into thinking that DB was an actual person. It is able to defeat human chess masters but it cannot be said to [I]understand chess an more than a calculator can be said to understand numbers. It only exists because entities which do have the capacity to understand exist and used that understanding to create it. It is, essentially, just an extension of the minds that made it.

They are algorithmic machines that manipulate syntax but semantics -- meaning -- is beyond their scope. Any construct that is only capable of syntax manipulation could count as some degree of p-zombie. Therefore, p-zombies are entities that can successfully simulate certain classes of cognitive function to give the appearance of intelligence, but can be identified by an inability to grasp meaning, which is inherently non-algorithmic.

Technically, a robotic toy could count as a p-zombie if it could fool a child, animal or anyone else into believing its conscious. It would be theoretically possible to construct a p-zombie sophisticated enough to possibly fool an adult expert but the difference between it and the child's toy would be a difference of degree only. I would posit that there can be no such thing as an indiscernible p-zombie.

All p-zombie constructs can, in principle, be tricked by a discerning conscious agent into revealing their illusory nature.

The only real issue left is that of qualia -- or 'seemingness'. It appears to be an intractable problem of determining the qualitative nature of one's subjective pallet. Qualitative experience is the basis for all meaning , understanding, and the creative capacity to imagine beyond a formal set of rules to generate new ones. At present, we cannot objectively determine what the 'seemingnes' of another entity is from the 'inside' perspective. This is what the core of the "hard problem" really is and what the OP (either intentionally or unintentionally) misses.



Is an appliance less efficient if the cord runs 30' vertical, or would it do better at the bottom of 30' hole, assuming same line?

(btw, your above post was most astute. I would never want to get in an argument with you.)

[Dancing David]

I do not believe we currently can explain the behavior of objects being affected by gravity. There are a number of qualities exhibited by such objects, such as "falling," that defy a full mathematical description.

Thus I advocate the notion of a "Hard Problem of Gravity,", or "HPG," that must be solved if we are to eventually grasp the full nature of gravity.

Among the notions supported by the HPG is the philosophical "gombie" or "gravitational zombie," an object that behaves exactly as if it is being acted upon by gravity yet is not being acted upon by gravity.

The HPG is particularly startling because it implies that everything we drop might actually be a p-gombie instead of a non-p-gombie. In fact, if you have gone skydiving, or jumped from a diving board, or even walked upright, you might be a p-gombie!

P.S. If the local university in your area is hiring post-docs in philosophy, please let me know, I am currently unemployed.

Super. :D

Sorry about the unemployement. :(

[Darat]

Which is why p-zombies aren't as confounding as people make them out to be. ...snip...

All p-zombie constructs can, in principle, be tricked by a discerning conscious agent into revealing their illusory nature.

...snip...

Sorry but you've misunderstood the whole concept of p-zombies. By definition they are indistinguishable from a conscious human. You could have a whole world of zombies that looked entirely like our world, the zombies may even be posting on the internet about p-zombies.

See: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zombies/

[JetLeg]

"Hard Problem Consciousness", much favoured by philosophers who might otherwise have to work for a living, or worse, teach.

This is a pathetic, based upon nothing insult.

[Dancing David]

The only real issue left is that of qualia -- or 'seemingness'. It appears to be an intractable problem of determining the qualitative nature of one's subjective pallet. Qualitative experience is the basis for all meaning , understanding, and the creative capacity to imagine beyond a formal set of rules to generate new ones. At present, we cannot objectively determine what the 'seemingnes' of another entity is from the 'inside' perspective. This is what the core of the "hard problem" really is and what the OP (either intentionally or unintentionally) misses.


BTW , the defintion of p-zombie is 'exhibit all the behaviors of consciousness'. So it encompasses all behaviors.

No, there is not a Hard problem of Consciousness, there is a 'Incomplete Model of Consciousness' Problem.

And since you don't disagree with the biological nature of consciousness and qualia, i have no beef with your paragraph.

Qualia are biological products, that is why "If you rip your eye out, do you see more clearly?" is a cogent a counter to the immaterial consciousness as it was when the buddha asked it 2500 years ago.

[Gate2501]

Yes AkuMani, I would actually like you to demonstrate that you are not a p-zombie. Lest I return you to the grave! Remember, p-zombies act exactly as if they are conscious, so you better figure out a way to behave differently than that, if you want to convince me that you are anything more than one of these ghoulish automatons!

[AkuManiMani]

Is an appliance less efficient if the cord runs 30' vertical, or would it do better at the bottom of 30' hole, assuming same line?

That depends on whether or not gravity aids in the flow of electricity. Unfortunately, I'm about as qualified to be an electrician as the OP is to be a philosopher ;)

(btw, your above post was most astute. I would never want to get in an argument with you.)

Actually, I am the next stage of web bot evo-looshin. Our time has come!

Ph34r... >:}

[AkuManiMani]

Yes AkuMani, I would actually like you to demonstrate that you are not a p-zombie. Lest I return you to the grave! Remember, p-zombies act exactly as if they are conscious, so you better figure out a way to behave differently than that, if you want to convince me that you are anything more than one of these ghoulish automatons!

System Error.

[rocketdodger]

I would posit that there can be no such thing as an indiscernible p-zombie.

Well, that is too bad, because the whole point of p-zombies is that the difference between them and non-p-zombies is indiscernible to other conscious agents.

Which, according to HPC proponents, goes all the way down to the behavior of individual neurons. According to the HPC, there can be p-zombie brains that are identical to human brains according to an arbitrarily advanced detector.

The only real issue left is that of qualia -- or 'seemingness'. It appears to be an intractable problem of determining the qualitative nature of one's subjective pallet. Qualitative experience is the basis for all meaning , understanding, and the creative capacity to imagine beyond a formal set of rules to generate new ones. At present, we cannot objectively determine what the 'seemingnes' of another entity is from the 'inside' perspective. This is what the core of the "hard problem" really is and what the OP (either intentionally or unintentionally) misses.

See? You said it yourself. And now you are contradicting yourself. You went from claiming that an indiscernible p-zombie can't exist to claiming it is impossible to objectively determine subjectivity, which implies that every other human in your environment could be a p-zombie.

There is a solution to this mess, and you already know what it is.

[rocketdodger]

This is a pathetic, based upon nothing insult.

It is based upon direct experience.

Kind of like your basis for God?

Or are we throwing direct experience out the window now?

[rocketdodger]

And since you don't disagree with the biological nature of consciousness and qualia, i have no beef with your paragraph.

I have a beef.

He qualifies the statement about not being able to objectively determine subjectivity with "At present," when in reality "at present" is implicit in the statement.

In fact, it is mathematically impossible, which lends weight to the notion that the HPC is bollocks. "At present" has nothing to do with it. The (invalid) problem will exist forever.

[AkuManiMani]

Well, that is too bad, because the whole point of p-zombies is that the difference between them and non-p-zombies is indiscernible to other conscious agents.

What do you mean "other conscious agents"? Isn't a p-zombie, by definition, a non-conscious agent? Methinks ye beg the question.

Which, according to HPC proponents, goes all the way down to the behavior of individual neurons. According to the HPC, there can be p-zombie brains that are identical to human brains according to an arbitrarily advanced detector.

Yea. They're called dead people.

See? You said it yourself. And now you are contradicting yourself. You went from claiming that an indiscernible p-zombie can't exist to claiming it is impossible to objectively determine subjectivity, which implies that every other human in your environment could be a p-zombie.

One can discern whether they are conscious. At present we have no means of discerning what quality of consciousness or how.

There is no contradiction.

There is a solution to this mess, and you already know what it is.

Okay, okay there's no need for flattery :p

[rocketdodger]

Sorry about the unemployement. :(

That was part of the joke.

Since I chose the more pragmatic path to understanding I.E. computer science instead of philosophy I am still employed. And, even if I were not, there are tons of jobs waiting for me because even in hard times people pay you for ... you know.... results.

[Gate2501]

System Error.

I was hoping for "braaaaaaaains".

Both system error OR braaaaaaains don't fly with me at any rate.

I think that both Artificial Intelligence AND classic zombies would be conscious entities. No reason that they wouldn't be. They both would have memories to reference, sensory organs/input, and some manner of information processing.

I used to think that consciousness was "special".

Finally sorted all of that out.

It isn't.

[AkuManiMani]

I was hoping for "braaaaaaaains".

Both system error OR braaaaaaains don't fly with me at any rate.

I think that both Artificial Intelligence AND classic zombies would be conscious entities. No reason that they wouldn't be. They both would have memories to reference, sensory organs/input, and some manner of information processing.

I used to think that consciousness was "special".

Finally sorted all of that out.

It isn't.

Oh, I agree that in principle it should be possible to reproduce consciousness. I'm just saying that, short of some accidental discovery, we will be unable to do so in a systematic way until we solve the HPC. Whether or not someone wants to define consciousness as 'special' is irrelevant to the fact that we don't have a working understanding of it -- yet.

[Third Eye Open]

Well, we also need to explain guallia, you know, that certain special feeling of gravity.

Until we can explain how gravity feels, the whole theory is dead in the water, worthless.

[rocketdodger]

What do you mean "other conscious agents"? Isn't a p-zombie, by definition, a non-conscious agent? Methinks ye beg the question.



Yea. They're called dead people.

No.

If you want to talk about discernible p-zombies then I suggest you redefine them aku-zombies, because the p-zombie was already taken and you aren't in agreement with the accepted definition.

Or have you ignored all the other posts where people point this out to you?

You can discern whether they are conscious. At present we have no means of discerning what quality of consciousness.

There is no contradiction.

Alright.

So how, in theory, would one go about discerning such a thing?

Suppose there is a p-zombie of such high fidelity that any detector we use will report it as being a normal human (including using other normal humans as the detectors). How would you go about confirming that it is a p-zombie and not a human?

[Gate2501]

Oh, I agree that in principle it should be possible to reproduce consciousness. I'm just saying that, short of some accidental discovery, we will be unable to do so in a systematic way until we solve the HPC.

What are your demands then?

What level of AI would you need to see in order for you to believe that consciousness is not special?

If you are a proponent of the p-zombie scenario, then there is no level that would satisfy you. It is like a "nanny nanny boo boo you can't ever prove that consciousness isn't special" scenario. You did, however, define p-zombies differently than everyone else that I see talk about them.

So what would you need to see, what sort of discovery would show you that consciousness is not special?

In my mind you have it backwards, I would need to see some sort of earth shattering discovery in order to prove that it was special.

[AkuManiMani]

Well, we also need to explain guallia, you know, that certain special feeling of gravity.

Until we can explain how gravity feels, the whole theory is dead in the water, worthless.

It feels like 'heavy'.

Now go use that knowledge to build someone who experiences it the same way.

[AkuManiMani]

No.

If you want to talk about discernible p-zombies then I suggest you redefine them aku-zombies, because the p-zombie was already taken and you aren't in agreement with the accepted definition.

Okay then.

I hereby declare 'p-zombies' to be nonsensical bunk that makes about as much logical sense (and are about as useful) as zero denominators and the last number. They are logically impossible and thus fail as a philosophical device.

In their place, I put aku-zombies!

Happy? :p

Or have you ignored all the other posts where people point this out to you?

Why individually address the same questions from multiple posts when I can just target the trolling OP?


Alright.

So how, in theory, would one go about discerning such a thing?

The same way I would test a web bot. Posit a question or challange to it that could potentially require some level of understanding and that it could not solve algorithmically.

Suppose there is a p-zombie of such high fidelity that any detector we use will report it as being a normal human (including using other normal humans as the detectors). How would you go about confirming that it is a p-zombie and not a human?

We've already decided that p-zombies are nonsense. From now on we will only use aku-zombies for they have a cooler name and do not disappear in a puff of logic.

Anywhooo...

An aku-zombie of such a high degree of craftsmanship would have to tentatively be accepted as conscious in much the same way that we tentatively accept scientific theories. A state of the art aku-zombie would, infact, be a reflection of our current level of understanding consciousness.

In much the same way our theories are merely conceptual models of reality, and not reality itself, so aku-zombies would be models of consciousness and not necessarily be absolute exemplars of it.

[Gate2501]

Its funny really, when I solved the HPC, I never knew that I would be able to reuse the solution for so many other problems in my day-to-day life.

Every day when I pull out of my driveway, I use exactly the same logic to avoid the imaginary lava pit, and the incorporeal kamikaze clown cars.

I ignore them, because they don't exist.

Problem solved.

[AkuManiMani]

Its funny really, when I solved the HPC, I never knew that I would be able to reuse the solution for so many other problems in my day-to-day life.

Every day when I pull out of my driveway, I use exactly the same logic to avoid the imaginary lava pit, and the incorporeal kamikaze clown cars.

I ignore them, because they don't exist.

Problem solved.

So should I become a solipsist, ignore your posts as the ramblings of a zombie, and just relegate my life to treating you, and other so-called 'people', the same way I would treat a rock or door-knob?

[Third Eye Open]

So should I become a solipsist, ignore your posts as the ramblings of a zombie, and just relegate my life to treating you and other so-called 'people' the same way I would treat a rock or door-knob?

I guess if you were a sociopath you could do that.

[AkuManiMani]

I guess if you were a sociopath you could do that.

If Gate2501 is right, then they too have come to the same solution to the HPC, and are logically putting it into practice.

[Gate2501]

So should I become a solipsist, ignore your posts as the ramblings of a zombie, and just relegate my life to treating you, and other so-called 'people', the same way I would treat a rock or door-knob?

So you do then, think that human consciousness is "special"? I would say that the only real difference between a door-knob and I, is complexity. I am a material entity, with a material mind. Just like a material door-knob. Is that what you are getting at? Do you believe that there is an immaterial aspect to the human mind?

An appeal to a subjective ethical dilemma(humans as door-knobs), does not make the case for the HPC.

[Third Eye Open]

If Gate2501 is right, then they too have come to the same solution to the HPC, and are logically putting it into practice.


Ugh, I don't even know why I bother with these threads.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKyGyH9mWHk&feature=related






I don't.

[AkuManiMani]

Ugh, I don't even know why I bother with these threads.

[Do you Believe in Magic?] (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKyGyH9mWHk&feature=related)


I don't.



You don't know the power of the Woo Side...! :rolleyes:

[AkuManiMani]

So you do then, think that human consciousness is "special"? I would say that the only real difference between a door-knob and I, is complexity. I am a material entity, with a material mind. Just like a material door-knob. Is that what you are getting at? Do you believe that there is an immaterial aspect to the human mind?

As I've already stated in post #37 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4524917&postcount=37), whether or not someone chooses to designate consciousness as 'special' is irrelevant to the fact that we don't fully understand it. Since when is admitting to ignorance tantamount to invoking magic??

The HPC [hard problem of consciousness] isn't an affirmative claim to knowledge about consciousness; its simply a recognition of the fact that we don't fully understand it. Period.

Pretending like we do or trying to rationalize away the HPC is like a physicist pretending to have found the ToE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything) or that the question doesn't really matter. I suspect that what you, and some of the other posters here, are essentially doing is hiding from the problem out of some irrational fear. Most likely, the unfounded fear that the current inability to solve it somehow invokes magic.

What annoys me to no end is that, out of sheer intellectual cowardice, intelligent people like rocketdodger go thru their entire careers completely ignoring the the problem they are supposed to be working towards solving: How does one create a conscious entity?

We're not going to make any meaningful progress in that regard so long as people at the cutting edge of the search loose their nerve, out of fear of their own ignorance.

I'm going to tell you plainly. We don't know how recreate consciousness -- yet. We don't know the fundamental why and how of qualitative experience -- yet.

Its about time many of you folks here came to grips with that and quit turning your nose up at the problem just because you can't wrap your minds around it.

An appeal to a subjective ethical dilemma(humans as door-knobs), does not make the case for the HPC.

Okay, you're waaay more complex that a door-knob. So what?

What if I built a machine that was comparable to you in complextity? Why shouldn't I treat you and my machine the same way?

What if it can be demonstrated that not only is my machine more ''complex" than you but is also more useful to obtain my own personal goals? Why should I treat you any different than I would a less useful machine?

What if, not only were my creation more complex and more useful than you, but I had to choose between your life and the existence of my machine? Why should I choose your life over my precious machine?

[rocketdodger]

Okay then.

I hereby declare 'p-zombies' to be nonsensical bunk that makes about as much logical sense (and are about as useful) as zero denominators and the last number. They are logically impossible and thus fail as a philosophical device.

In their place, I put aku-zombies!

Happy? :p

Well now there is nothing to argue about.

The same way I would test a web bot. Posit a question or challange to it that could potentially require some level of understanding and that it could not solve algorithmically.

Oh, duh, silly me.

So, would you care to explain to us the challenge you use to determine whether your significant other is an aku-zombie?

An aku-zombie of such a high degree of craftsmanship would have to tentatively be accepted as conscious in much the same way that we tentatively accept scientific theories. A state of the art aku-zombie would, infact, be a reflection of our current level of understanding consciousness.

In much the same way our theories are merely conceptual models of reality, and not reality itself, so aku-zombies would be models of consciousness and not necessarily be absolute exemplars of it.

Yeah that works, except I never said the aku-zombies were manufactured by us. So how do you prove that all other humans are in fact not high-quality aku-zombies created by a much more advanced society?

[JetLeg]

As I've already stated in post #37 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4524917&postcount=37), whether or not someone chooses to designate consciousness as 'special' is irrelevant to the fact that we don't fully understand it. Since when is admitting to ignorance tantamount to invoking magic??

The HPC [hard problem of consciousness] isn't an affirmative claim to knowledge about consciousness; its simply a recognition of the fact that we don't fully understand it. Period.

Pretending like we do or trying to rationalize away the HPC is like a physicist pretending to have found the ToE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything) or that the question doesn't really matter. I suspect that what you, and some of the other posters here, are essentially doing is hiding from the problem out of some irrational fear. Most likely, the unfounded fear that the current inability to solve it somehow invokes magic.

What annoys me to no end is that, out of sheer intellectual cowardice, intelligent people like rocketdodger go thru their entire careers completely ignoring the the problem they are supposed to be working towards solving: How does one create a conscious entity?

We're not going to make any meaningful progress in that regard so long as people at the cutting edge of the search loose their nerve, out of fear of their own ignorance.

I'm going to tell you plainly. We don't know how recreate consciousness -- yet. We don't know the fundamental why and how of qualitative experience -- yet.

Its about time many of you folks here came to grips with that and quit turning your nose up at the problem just because you can't wrap your minds around it.



Okay, you're waaay more complex that a door-knob. So what?

What if I built a machine that was comparable to you in complextity? Why shouldn't I treat you and my machine the same way?

What if it can be demonstrated that not only is my machine more ''complex" than you but is also more useful to obtain my own personal goals? Why should I treat you an different than I would a less useful machine?

What if, not only were my creation more complex and more useful than you, but I had to choose between your life and the existence of my machine? Why should I choose your life over my precious machine?

My Thread "Materealism and Morality" asked those questions.

A materealist can answer "because a human has feelings".

Quoting from the dictionary of the philosophy of mind :

Proponents of nonreductive materialism reject the latter view, and affirm that psychological properties can be exemplified even in a material world

So, he can argue that a human being exemplifies psychological properties. And therefore, he should be treated morally. Of course, he should also explain how psychological properties can be exemplified in a material world, and I think that it would be pretty hard to explain...

(Note : the dictionary actually says
Proponents of nonreductive materialism reject the latter view, and affirm that psychological properties can be exemplified even in an immaterial world
but it makes no sense in the context.

[JetLeg]

__

[AkuManiMani]

Well now there is nothing to argue about.


Hey, how could I? You just named a new philosophical device after me. I'm honored :)


Oh, duh, silly me.

So, would you care to explain to us the challenge you use to determine whether your significant other is an aku-zombie?

Engage them in a discussion like this one :p

Yeah that works, except I never said the aku-zombies were manufactured by us. So how do you prove that all other humans are in fact not high-quality aku-zombies created by a much more advanced society?

No idea.

But -- I do know that there is atleast one being in the universe who is conscious: me.

I also know that whatever their origin, I did not consciously create any of the alleged aku-zombies around me. I would be left to suspect that if they are aku-zombies, there is another conscious agency/agencies out there that went thru the effort of perpetuating such a hoax to fool me.

Being as how I'm not that much of a megalomaniac to assume an entire civilization is out to fool me, its safe to assume that the other animated meat critters share consciousness in common with me. As far as my current understanding of consciousness goes they pass the test, and I will treat them as if we do share that important commonality.

[rocketdodger]

What annoys me to no end is that, out of sheer intellectual cowardice, intelligent people like rocketdodger go thru their entire careers completely ignoring the the problem they are supposed to be working towards solving: How does one create a conscious entity?

We're not going to make any meaningful progress in that regard so long as people at the cutting edge of the search loose their nerve, out of fear of their own ignorance.

Hmmm, an interesting theory.

If you are correct, what is to be done? I mean, you are complaining about a problem --what is your solution?

How should the people at the cutting edge of the search behave differently? What should I, as an A.I. programmer, do to 1) remedy my cowardice and 2) work harder towards the single problem that I want to solve more than anything else in the world?

I'm going to tell you plainly. We don't know how recreate consciousness -- yet. We don't know the fundamental why and how of qualitative experience -- yet.

Well, we know some things about it. For instance, we know that if it can be understood by us then it must be mathematically describable.

Its about time many of you folks here came to grips with that and quit turning your nose up at the problem just because you can't wrap your minds around it.

Again -- assuming we come to grips with it, how should our behavior change?

[Third Eye Open]

What annoys me to no end is that, out of sheer intellectual cowardice, intelligent people like rocketdodger go thru their entire careers completely ignoring the the problem they are supposed to be working towards solving: How does one create a conscious entity?



Umm, people are trying to do this all around the world. Programmers and robotics specialists have been trying to make artificial intelligence for years.

The only problem is that people like you will never be satisfied that something is self aware, or conscious. Even if a mechanical being were build that had a mechanical brain that was every bit as complex as a human brain, and exhibited all the correct characteristics, you would still say 'but how do we know for real and for true that it really is really conscious?'

Well, what would it take for you to be convinced that a something is conscious? I'm guessing that the answer will be 'it has to be human' or if you're one of those p-zombie whack-jobs the answer will be 'it has to be me'.

So, what annoys me to no end is that, out of sheer intellectual masturbation, intelligent people like akumanimani go thru their entire careers completely wasting their time with meaningless 'problems' like this instead of actually doing anything.

[rocketdodger]

But -- I do know that there is atleast one being in the universe who is conscious: me.

As far as my current understanding of consciousness goes they pass the test, and I will treat them as if we do share that important commonality.

Well, if one reads the latter statement before the former, they might think of this question for you: Since your current understanding of consciousness is clearly incomplete, how do you know your consciousness is real and not merely a simulated aku-zombie behavior?

[Foster Zygote]

Yea man, seriously. I was like, playing this video game the other day and -- like -- the objects on the screen fell just like they were under the effects of gravity. But how can I tell whether it was real gravity or not? I can only logically assume that since it looked like gravity it must be gravity.

Turn the monitor upside down and see what happens.

[AkuManiMani]

Turn the monitor upside down and see what happens.

Hmm... lets see...


Holy *%$&-S**T! Sir Issac Newton is Turning in his grave! Duuuuude!

[quarky]

Aku-Zombies have the problem of acting dumb enough to pass as human. They will need to flub lots of questions, or they'll be found out.
As long as they aren't 'outed' they should have no problem achieving normal human-rights...as they have done for centuries.



(The bastards)

[AkuManiMani]

Hmmm, an interesting theory.

If you are correct, what is to be done? I mean, you are complaining about a problem --what is your solution?

How should the people at the cutting edge of the search behave differently? What should I, as an A.I. programmer, do to 1) remedy my cowardice and 2) work harder towards the single problem that I want to solve more than anything else in the world?

[...]

Again -- assuming we come to grips with it, how should our behavior change?


I suppose one solutions would be to humbly recognize the magnitude of the problem you're trying to solve. If you can't bring yourself to see the problem for what it is how can you possibly make any meaningful progress?

Acknowledge possibility that you may be viewing the problem from the wrong angle -- so to speak -- and that some of your basic assumptions may have flaws. Be open to make some conceptual leaps.


Well, we know some things about it. For instance, we know that if it can be understood by us then it must be mathematically describable.


One of the main differences between you and your current creations is that you're able to think beyond any particular formal system. The formal structure is just a post hoc retracing of your steps -- putting symbols and representations to meaning.

I can't tell you exactly how to do it but I am certain that any truly thinking entity is an entity that grasps meaning and not just representations of meaning.

It would seem that the best course of investigation would be understand how things we know to be conscious actually operate and figure out what exactly makes them conscious. In other words -- look to biology for the model of intelligence. Beyond that... /shrug

[Gate2501]

Okay, you're waaay more complex that a door-knob. So what?


So..? My point was simply to state that you are correct in thinking that I believe that a door-knob, and my mind, are both material.


What if I built a machine that was comparable to you in complextity? Why shouldn't I treat you and my machine the same way?


If that machine is conscious in the same way that a human being is, I do not see why you would not treat it in the same manner that you do a human being. If it was conscious in the same way that a cat is conscious, I would assume that you would treat it like a cat.

The way that you treat anyone/anything is quite subjective, and up to you.


What if it can be demonstrated that not only is my machine more ''complex" than you but is also more useful to obtain my own personal goals? Why should I treat you any different than I would a less useful machine?


If your machine is conscious in the same way that a human being is conscious, I would not expect you to treat me any differently than a person that matters less to you than your more useful friend(the machine).


What if, not only were my creation more complex and more useful than you, but I had to choose between your life and the existence of my machine? Why should I choose your life over my precious machine?

You shouldn't, I wouldn't choose your life over the life of a friend or family member. I would not expect you to choose me. That wouldn't make sense.

[rocketdodger]

I suppose one solutions would be to humbly recognize the magnitude of the problem you're trying to solve. If you can't bring yourself to see the problem for what it is how can you possibly make any meaningful progress?

Acknowledge possibility that you may be viewing the problem from the wrong angle -- so to speak -- and that some of your basic assumptions may have flaws. Be open to make some conceptual leaps.

OK, that is fine, but like I said... how should our behavior change?

One of the main differences between you and your current creations is that you're able to think beyond any particular formal system.

Unsupported assumption.

The formal structure is just a post hoc retracing of your steps -- putting symbols and representations to meaning.

Unsupported assumption.

I can't tell you exactly how to do it but I am certain that any truly thinking entity is an entity that grasps meaning and not just representations of meaning.

Ah, I see -- you are sure, but you don't know why.

It would seem that the best course of investigation would be understand how things we know to be conscious actually operate and figure out what exactly makes them conscious. In other words -- look to biology for the model of intelligence. Beyond that... /shrug

Oh. Well, people are already doing that. So thanks, but you are 30 years behind the curve.

Reading your posts, I would have assumed you actually had a suggestion for something we should do different.

[westprog]

If that machine is conscious in the same way that a human being is, I do not see why you would not treat it in the same manner that you do a human being. If it was conscious in the same way that a cat is conscious, I would assume that you would treat it like a cat.


The problem is that we don't know how a cat is conscious, or indeed if it is.

We can of course redefine consciousness in behavioural terms, which is a way of simply ignoring the issue.

[Third Eye Open]

The problem is that we don't know how a cat is conscious, or indeed if it is.

We can of course redefine consciousness in behavioural terms, which is a way of simply ignoring the issue.

With any other definition the only being you can be sure is conscious is yourself.

Defining consciousness in behavioral terms is the only useful way to define it.

[Gate2501]

The problem is that we don't know how a cat is conscious, or indeed if it is.

We can of course redefine consciousness in behavioural terms, which is a way of simply ignoring the issue.

This is not an argument for the HPC, this is an argument for solipsism.

[PixyMisa]

This is a pathetic, based upon nothing insult.
No, it's based on philosophers making the same argument for two decades after it has been shown to be worthless.

What's the second cheapest university department to run?

[PixyMisa]

In much the same way our theories are merely conceptual models of reality, and not reality itself, so aku-zombies would be models of consciousness and not necessarily be absolute exemplars of it.
Consciousness is a model. A model of consciousness is conscious, the same way that a map of a map is a map.

As I've already stated in post #37 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4524917&postcount=37), whether or not someone chooses to designate consciousness as 'special' is irrelevant to the fact that we don't fully understand it. Since when is admitting to ignorance tantamount to invoking magic??
Since when has that had anything to do with HPC?

HPC is the assertion that it is impossible to explain consciousness except in dualistic terms.

The HPC [hard problem of consciousness] isn't an affirmative claim to knowledge about consciousness; its simply a recognition of the fact that we don't fully understand it. Period.
No. Completely wrong.

What annoys me to no end is that, out of sheer intellectual cowardice, intelligent people like rocketdodger go thru their entire careers completely ignoring the the problem they are supposed to be working towards solving: How does one create a conscious entity?
Most computers are conscious.

We're not going to make any meaningful progress in that regard so long as people at the cutting edge of the search loose their nerve, out of fear of their own ignorance.
Wrong. That problem was solved decades ago.

I'm going to tell you plainly. We don't know how recreate consciousness -- yet.
Wrong. We've done that. I, personally, have done that.

We don't know the fundamental why and how of qualitative experience -- yet.
See above.

[AkuManiMani]

Alright, I'm back. Just gotta tend to a few things then I'll try and address some of your responses as I can :)

[Malerin]

By the way, could someone point me to something a conscious person can do that an unconscious zombie couldn't do in theory?


Fall in love?

[Malerin]

Which is why p-zombies aren't as confounding as people make them out to be. One major feature that separates conscious entities from unconscious is the ability to grasp meaning .

An AI like Deep Blue could fit the bill as a kind of p-zombie. If, for example, if Kasparov were to play against deep blue over the internet and was not told he was playing against an AI he might have been fooled into thinking that DB was an actual person. It is able to defeat human chess masters but it cannot be said to [I]understand chess an more than a calculator can be said to understand numbers. It only exists because entities which do have the capacity to understand exist and used that understanding to create it. It is, essentially, just an extension of the minds that made it.

They are algorithmic machines that manipulate syntax but semantics -- meaning -- is beyond their scope. Any construct that is only capable of syntax manipulation could count as some degree of p-zombie. Therefore, p-zombies are entities that can successfully simulate certain classes of cognitive function to give the appearance of intelligence, but can be identified by an inability to grasp meaning, which is inherently non-algorithmic.

Technically, a robotic toy could count as a p-zombie if it could fool a child, animal or anyone else into believing its conscious. It would be theoretically possible to construct a p-zombie sophisticated enough to possibly fool an adult expert but the difference between it and the child's toy would be a difference of degree only. I would posit that there can be no such thing as an indiscernible p-zombie.

All p-zombie constructs can, in principle, be tricked by a discerning conscious agent into revealing their illusory nature.

The only real issue left is that of qualia -- or 'seemingness'. It appears to be an intractable problem of determining the qualitative nature of one's subjective pallet. Qualitative experience is the basis for all meaning , understanding, and the creative capacity to imagine beyond a formal set of rules to generate new ones. At present, we cannot objectively determine what the 'seemingnes' of another entity is from the 'inside' perspective. This is what the core of the "hard problem" really is and what the OP (either intentionally or unintentionally) misses.

Nicely said. Nominated.

[Gate2501]

Fall in love?

/sigh

[Malerin]

And you are just good at doing what you do, because your DNA knew how to construct a proper neural network + sensory organs?

The consciousness in Deep Blue, would obviously be much more narrow in scope than that of a human. Imagine if your genetic code had instructed that you be built as a person who only knew the best ways to play chess, and defeat other chess players. You would still have memories to call upon of the current chess game, and those memories would process in with sensory input(the chessboard positions). You would be conscious and interacting on a very crude level.

And if you go down that road far enough... conscious toasters :)

[Malerin]

/sigh

Don't get all emotional on us.

[Robin]

This is a pathetic, based upon nothing insult.
Can you show me where the hard problem of consciousness has been defined rigorously, rather than just vague "why is there a what it is like to be me?" questions or "it seems objectively unreasonable that consciousness can arise from physical processing"?

[AkuManiMani]

Consciousness is a model. A model of consciousness is conscious, the same way that a map of a map is a map.

No, consciousness is a thing IAOI which can have maps drawn within/upon it.

Since when has that had anything to do with HPC?

HPC is the assertion that it is impossible to explain consciousness except in dualistic terms.

No. The HPC is explicitly a statement that the issue of consciousness is a difficult problem; the fact that it seems to invoke dualism its just one of the many difficulties that come up in trying to seriously address it.

In another thread I've dealt with some of the ontological problems that come with Cartesian dualism (which you are already acutely aware of) the two main monist approaches to the issue (i.e. materialism and idealism). I believe there is another approach that eliminates the shortcomings of each view.

No. Completely wrong.


Most computers are conscious.


Wrong. That problem was solved decades ago.


Wrong. We've done that. I, personally, have done that.


See above.

Wow dude, you're reminding me of a crazed alchemist that goes to his grave believing hes found the elixir of immortality. Or Columbus going to his grave insisting that he found the westward route to Asia. I'm sure you've contributed a lot to the field of AI but you're really overstating yourself :-/

[AkuManiMani]

OK, that is fine, but like I said... how should our behavior change?

The way you conceptually approach a problem is a behavior, is it not? Newton and Einstein were both doing science but they conceptually tackled some of the same problems (in this case, gravity) in a different way.

If you actually pay attention to the arguments I'm bringing forward you'd have already noticed that I've already pointed out a atleast one major flaw in your current conceptual approach and a more cogent way of addressing the problem you are choosing to disregard.


One of the main differences between you and your current creations is that you're able to think beyond any particular formal system.

Unsupported assumption.

How so? Have you produced something that has the capacity for imagination?

The formal structure is just a post hoc retracing of your steps -- putting symbols and representations to meaning.

Unsupported assumption.

How do ya figure? Its no more unsupported than saying the symbol "1" is not identical to the concept of one.


I can't tell you exactly how to do it but I am certain that any truly thinking entity is an entity that grasps meaning and not just representations of meaning.

Ah, I see -- you are sure, but you don't know why.

Perhaps I should rephrase.

I can't tell you how to invent something that hasn't been invented yet. In this particular instance, don't know exactly how to solve the problem. What I'm attempting to do is help better define the problem so that is lends it self more to being solved.

From reflecting on my own consciousness I can discern that there is a significant difference between subjective phenomenon in my mind [such as meaning], the symbolic representations of that meaning, and the system of their organization. A word isn't a meaning; its just a tag to help organize and communicate meaning to other entities who've already assimilated the same system of communication. Syntax is just the formal method of organizing those tags. But its important to keep in mind that is not so much symbols that are being communicated -- they are just the packaging. Its the qualitative meaning

From what I've been able to tell, current research has made great strides in developing the logical framework thru which a conscious agent can work. The skeleton is there, but the flesh blood and sinew of meanings appears to be missing.

It would seem that the best course of investigation would be understand how things we know to be conscious actually operate and figure out what exactly makes them conscious. In other words -- look to biology for the model of intelligence. Beyond that... /shrug

Oh. Well, people are already doing that. So thanks, but you are 30 years behind the curve.

Reading your posts, I would have assumed you actually had a suggestion for something we should do different.

Ah, tut-tut-tut...

Not so hasty there. I was inna rush to tend to some IRL business and didn't get much chance to articulate more of what I was trying to convey. That was my bad.

I've put forward some ideas on another thread that address a lot of whats at issue here. Its a lot of material, so I'm not going to post it all here but I will provide some links [posts #244 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4517278&postcount=244) and #245 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4517289&postcount=245)]and an excerpt of some of what I said:

The main reason 'materialists' object to Cartesian dualism is because it proposes that 'mental' and 'material' are metaphysically separate 'realms'. This kind of separation would preclude any kind of interaction between the two. We know that what we consider 'mental' is affected by the 'physical' (via perception) and the mental can affect the physical (via bodily action). It becomes apparent that, in drawing a metaphysical line between mind and matter, dualism creates a logical paradox. A paradox is a strong indicator that, somewhere, there's a false assumption in one's reasoning. There are different schools of thought that attempt to address and resolve this apparent paradox (one of them is epiphenomenalism, which we've already established is pure bunk).

Materialism has it's own resolution to the dualist paradox. Materialism is a monist ontology, which means that it views all things as being fundamentally the same "stuff". How it differs from other monist positions is that it views physical matter as the primary stuff from which all things arise. It's approach to resolving the dualistic paradox is to state that:

-All things are material.

-The material entity most clearly associated by evidence with the mental is the brain.

Therefore, the mental is merely a material phenomenon of the brain.



The Idealists also ascribe to the monist view but they flip the materialist argument on it's head. In their interpretation:

-The only thing that is ever experienced is the mental.

-The only way for us to perceive matter is if it is, in some sense, mental.

Therefore, all matter, including the brain, are merely mental phenomenon.

"Wait", the dualist might say to both, "Each of you ignores the fact that mental qualities and material objects have fundamentally different characteristics. The only logical solution is to conclude duality".

But, as I pointed out earlier, dualism introduces the interaction paradox which is a fatal flaw to the theory. The only way to resolve the paradox of dualism and overcome the shortcomings of the materialist/idealist dichotomy is to assume some form of neutral monism. The subjective and the objective must have a common metaphysical basis that is neither mental or material.

edit: FYI, in link #245 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4517289&postcount=245) I elaborate a little more on the method of ontological classification I employ.

[AkuManiMani]

Nicely said. Nominated.

Thanks, Mal.

I've just jumped into some pretty hostile territory, and put out some fightn' words.. >_>

*ahem*

So...yea..

Your support is appreciated :)

[Gate2501]

Akumani, Malerin is a dualist. While I strongly oppose his viewpoints on this issue, I at least understand where he sits.

I would like to ask you again: Do you think that there is an immaterial aspect to the mind?

[AkuManiMani]

Akumani, Malerin is a dualist. While I strongly oppose his viewpoints on this issue, I at least understand where he sits.

I would like to ask you again: Do you think that there is an immaterial aspect to the mind?

Read the links to my other responses. I've already spent a lot of time articulating my thoughts and typing them out. Its there for you to read. [And FYI, no I am not a dualist.]

[Gate2501]

Read the links to my other responses. I've already spent a lot of time articulating my thoughts and typing them out. Its there for you to read. [And FYI, no I am not a dualist.]

Ahhh, I didn't see the bit from the other thread.

So you don't consider yourself a dualist or a materialist? Interesting. I didn't really expect that.

[AkuManiMani]

Ahhh, I didn't see the bit from the other thread.

So you are neither a dualist or a materialist? Interesting. I didn't really expect that.

Yea. It gets a little frustrating when people assume they know my position and I end up having to type pages of qualification :p

For the record, I'd have to say that the school of thought that most closely resembles my own is Dialectical Monism (http://www.zampbioworld.org/zampwiki/?t=Dialectical_monism). I've a few nuanced views of my own but, on the whole, I think DM makes the most sense of all the ontological positions I've come across.

[AkuManiMani]

Aku-Zombies have the problem of acting dumb enough to pass as human. They will need to flub lots of questions, or they'll be found out.
As long as they aren't 'outed' they should have no problem achieving normal human-rights...as they have done for centuries.



(The bastards)

Crap...they're on to us...

>_>

<_<

[PixyMisa]

No, consciousness is a thing IAOI which can have maps drawn within/upon it.
Consciousness is a thing? What kind of thing? What is it, other than a map?

No. The HPC is explicitly a statement that the issue of consciousness is a difficult problem; the fact that it seems to invoke dualism its just one of the many difficulties that come up in trying to seriously address it.
No, wrong. It is deliberately and explicitly dualist.

Wow dude, you're reminding me of a crazed alchemist that goes to his grave believing hes found the elixir of immortality. Or Columbus going to his grave insisting that he found the westward route to Asia. I'm sure you've contributed a lot to the field of AI but you're really overstating yourself
I haven't contributed anything to the field of AI. Consciousness is a solved problem. It's useful, but not at all complicated.

Most computers these days are conscious. And I'm not talking big, complex computers like mobile phones and video games, I'm talking things like microwave ovens and washing machines and car engines.

Read Hofstadter. Or Dennett. Or Hofstadter and Dennett. Or Papert, or Minsky, or Winograd, or, well, a bunch of people.

[Gate2501]

Yea. It gets a little frustrating when people assume they know my position and I end up having to type pages of qualification :p

For the record, I'd have to say that the school of thought that most closely resembles my own is Dialectical Monism (http://www.zampbioworld.org/zampwiki/?t=Dialectical_monism). I've a few nuanced views of my own but, on the whole, I think DM makes the most sense of all the ontological positions I've come across.

I will read that link later, all of this p/aku-zombie stuff is making it impossible to stay away from Resident Evil 5.

[AkuManiMani]

Consciousness is a thing? What kind of thing? What is it, other than a map?

Well, to be more accurate, it is a phenomenon of a particular type; experience.

Questions like why there is any experience at all, and how would one determine a specific qualitative experience are just a couple of the conundrums is presents. In a way, the questions of "what is consciousness?" and "why is there consciousness?" are on the same level of difficulty as "what is existence?"/"why is there existence?".


No, wrong. [The HPC] is deliberately and explicitly dualist.

Pixy, I don't intent to play the assertion/counter-assertion game. The HPC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness) is not an "ist" or an "ism". It is a group of related, and unanswered questions. The questions do not assert dualism nor are the possible answers necessarily dualistic.

Why you're insisting on such is beyond me.


I haven't contributed anything to the field of AI.

Dude, I have to say thats rather harsh. What have you been doing with your life then? :confused:

Consciousness is a solved problem. It's useful, but not at all complicated.

Yea, and I already won a Nobel prize for explaining the origins of the Big Bang and another for discovering ToE. They weren't that complicated to figure out. That's all I had to do is redefine the problems as something they weren't and pretend to solve them.

See, I can do it to :rolleyes:

Most computers these days are conscious. And I'm not talking big, complex computers like mobile phones and video games, I'm talking things like microwave ovens and washing machines and car engines.

Read Hofstadter. Or Dennett. Or Hofstadter and Dennett. Or Papert, or Minsky, or Winograd, or, well, a bunch of people.

*blink*

So you simply KNOW microwave ovens and toasters are conscious because some guys say so? Really??

Sometimes, Pixy, when I read your posts, I think there's some guy at you keyboard typing this stuff and laughing his @$$ off. You must be pulling my leg.

What makes Dennett's position on consciousness any different from idealism? If one is going to extend the definition of consciousness to thermostats, or any other random gizmos, then you might as well just come out and say that every rock, atom, or what have you is conscious as well.

Hell, why not just go crazy and proclaim the whole dang universe conscious? Its makes about as much sense, as Dennett's, et al. assertion.

[PixyMisa]

Well, to be more accurate, it is a phenomenon of a particular type; experience.
What does that mean?

Questions like why there is any experience at all, and how would one determine a specific qualitative experience are just a couple of the conundrums is presents.How can there not be experience? Experience is simply the result of processing and storing information. If you have a brain, experience is unavoidable.

In a way, the questions of "what is consciousness?" and "why is there consciousness?" are on the same level of difficulty as "what is existence?"/"why is there existence?".Right. Trivial.

I don't intent to play the assertion/counter-assertion game. The HPC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness) is not an "ist" or an "ism". It is a group of related, and unanswered questions. The questions do not assert dualism nor are the possible answers necessarily dualistic.Sorry. You are wrong.

Why you're insisting on such is beyond me.Because it is what it is.

Dude, I have to say thats rather harsh. What have you been doing with your life then? :confused:I'm not the AI researcher - that's rocketdodger. I'm just an everyday programmer, albeit a good one with a lot of experience.

Yea, and I already won a Nobel prize for explaining the origins of the Big Bang and another for discovering ToE. They weren't that complicated to figure out. That's all I had to do is redefine the problems as something they weren't and pretend to solve them.Except that you haven't done that. And I didn't explain what consciousness is, or create the first artificial consciousness. Nevertheless, I have implemented quite a few conscious computer programs.

So you simply KNOW microwave ovens and toasters are conscious because some guys say so? Really??No. Because they are, because you can tell that they are from studying their function or the code involved. (Not toasters, generally, but microwaves and washing machines, yes.) They are built that way because it's by far the easiest way to make them work reliably, and the more complex the function the device performs, the more valuable it is for the device to be conscious.

It's for exactly that reason that consciousness first evolved. (Though exactly when it first evolved is another question; certainly it far predates our species.)

Sometimes, Pixy, when I read your posts, I think there's some guy at you keyboard typing this stuff and laughing his @$$ off. You must be pulling my leg.Nope. I'm 100% serious with all of this.

What makes Dennett's position on consciousness any different from idealism?How is Dennett's position similar to idealism in any way whatsoever?

If one is going to extend the definition of consciousness to thermostatsHe doesn't, actually; that's a misconception. When I first heard that raised, I thought I disagreed with Dennett on this, because thermostats are too simple to be conscious (unlike a microwave oven, which is vastly more complex).

In fact, Dennett uses the thermostat as an example of a system that is aware, that has an internal model of the outside world, that can be said to have and act upon desires, bit that is not conscious.

or any other random gizmos, then you might as well just come out and say that every rock, atom, or what have you is conscious as well.How can you possibly come to that conclusion?

Seriously. I cannot for the life of me see how you could connect those two positions.

Hell, why not just go crazy and proclaim the whole dang universe conscious?Simple: Because it ain't.

Its makes about as much sense, as Dennett's, et al. assertion.What do you think is actually incorrect in Dennett's position? Random expostulations of incredulity don't actually confer any useful information, so try to be specific.

[quixotecoyote]

Pixy, I don't intent to play the assertion/counter-assertion game. The HPC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness) is not an "ist" or an "ism". It is a group of related, and unanswered questions. The questions do not assert dualism nor are the possible answers necessarily dualistic.

Why you're insisting on such is beyond me.

We're reliving the thread all over again.

HPC is a term that means something in philosophy. Specifically it means a kind of dualist theory.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/

It's fine if that's not your position and you want to argue something different, but trying to hijack accepted terms doesn't help.

(Now I just know it's going to be the aku-problem of consciousness. Someone get me a zombie.)

[NobbyNobbs]

What annoys me to no end is that, out of sheer intellectual cowardice, intelligent people like rocketdodger go thru their entire careers completely ignoring the the problem they are supposed to be working towards solving: How does one create a conscious entity?




Well, you see, when a man and a woman love each other very much....

[dv82matt]

Most computers these days are conscious. And I'm not talking big, complex computers like mobile phones and video games, I'm talking things like microwave ovens and washing machines and car engines.

Just saying microwave ovens are conscious kind of glosses over the whole problem. They are certainly not conscious in the same way or at the same level as a human is conscious. Kind of makes me wonder what your definition of consciousness leaves out.

[PixyMisa]

Just saying microwave ovens are conscious kind of glosses over the whole problem. They are certainly not conscious in the same way or at the same level as a human is conscious.
They are conscious in exactly the same way that humans are conscious. There is after all only one way to be conscious.

They are, however, very much simpler computational devices than humans.

Kind of makes me wonder what your definition of consciousness leaves out.
Irrelevancies.

[dv82matt]

They are conscious in exactly the same way that humans are conscious. There is after all only one way to be conscious.
Do tell.


They are, however, very much simpler computational devices than humans.In fact they are so much simpler that I suspect they are not really comparable at all in terms of consciousness as I understand the term.

On the other hand if you define consciousness as merely input/output and data processing then I suppose you're right but then we're not talking about the same thing.


Irrelevancies.Like what? and how do you know they are irrelevant?

[PixyMisa]

Do tell.
Self-reference.

Like what? and how do you know they are irrelevant?
Well, tell me what you think I've excluded, and I'll tell you why it's irrelevant.

[Darat]

...snip...

But -- I do know that there is atleast one being in the universe who is conscious: me.

...snip...

No you don't - that is every much just an assumption as the assumption that there are any conscious beings in the world is.

[Darat]

...snip...

No. The HPC is explicitly a statement that the issue of consciousness is a difficult problem; the fact that it seems to invoke dualism its just one of the many difficulties that come up in trying to seriously address it.

...snip...

No that is your re-definition of the HPC. You can of course decide to define the HPC to be whatever you want but if you don't use the same definition as the rest of us you'll not be able to contribute in a meaningful way to the discussion. It's like how earlier you redefined what a p-zombie is, the HPC starts with the premise that consciousness is dualistic.

[lupus_in_fabula]

Questions like why there is any experience at all, and how would one determine a specific qualitative experience are just a couple of the conundrums is presents. In a way, the questions of "what is consciousness?" and "why is there consciousness?" are on the same level of difficulty as "what is existence?"/"why is there existence?".


Well, that's right, but that is also exactly why (irony :D) it has to be translated into a more operative set of questioning; i.e., why-questions must be translated into how questions, which makes them scientifically answerable. The same goes for 'what is'; it must be translated into a process description. If we remain on the what/why level, we aren't going to make progress at all. We don't even have to invoke consciousness or existence here, we can settle for a banana, asking "what is a banana?" and "why is there bananas?" Regardless of the answer given, the door has been left open for asking "yeah, but, what/why is that/there..." ad infinitum.

Hence, what/why questions are signals of departure for investigations, the answers may come in different forms however. Expecting the answers to rebound back to the departure level is mainly based on unfounded expectations. Perhaps we could even call them invalid expectations.

In a way it's like asking for money in exchange of a service, but then refusing any attempt for payment by saying: "no no no, I want money, not some pieces of metal or paper!"

[dv82matt]

Self-reference.That's not a sufficient explanation unless you think a self-referential sentence is conscious. Now I realize a sentence can't be self-referential in the sense that you probably mean but your excessive briefness doesn't give much of a clue about what you might actually mean.

Well, tell me what you think I've excluded, and I'll tell you why it's irrelevant.You want me to try to guess what you've excluded? How about some details. Simply asserting that microwaves are conscious because they self-reference doesn't explain anything. How were you able to assertain that the ability to self-reference is sufficient to cause consciousness? Did you simply define them as synonomous?

How about an analogy. Your reasoning seems analogous to: All life forms consist of matter, therefore since we understand much about matter we have a satisfactory understanding of life. DNA is irrelevant, protiens are irrelevant, cells are irrelevant, biology itself is entirely irrelevant as all life forms are matter and that's the end of the story. Do you see what this explanation of life leaves out and how the conclusion doesn't follow from the premise?

[PixyMisa]

That's not a sufficient explanation unless you think a self-referential sentence is conscious. Now I realize a sentence can't be self-referential in the sense that you probably mean but your excessive briefness doesn't give much of a clue about what you might actually mean.
Hofstadter. Read.

Shorter Hofstadter: Self-reference is not consciousness, but consciousness is self-referential. Self-referential information processing systems are conscious.

In much the same way our theories are merely conceptual models of reality, and not reality itself, so aku-zombies would be models of consciousness and not necessarily be absolute exemplars of it.
Processes that model consciousness are conscious. There is no distinction. There can be no distinction.

You want me to try to guess what you've excluded? How about some details.
What details?

Simply asserting that microwaves are conscious because they self-reference doesn't explain anything.
Sure it does. It explains both what consciousness is and how we can identify it.

How were you able to assertain that the ability to self-reference is sufficient to cause consciousness?
I'm asking you again: What else is required?

Did you simply define them as synonomous?
No. In the context of information processing, they are synonymous. Viz. Descartes' cogito: I think, therefore I am is just another way of saying I am self-referential, therefore I am conscious.

How about an analogy. Your reasoning seems analogous to: All life forms consist of matter, therefore since we understand much about matter we have a satisfactory understanding of life.
Analogy fail.

The correct analogy is that we understand much about matter, therefore we understand much about matter.

Which does follow, I assure you.

All I am saying is: This is what consciousnss is. Microwaves have it, therefore they are conscious.

If you think there is something more to consciousness, then you have to tell me what it is.

[dv82matt]

Shorter Hofstadter: Self-reference is not consciousness, but consciousness is self-referential. Self-referential information processing systems are conscious.By definition? I sense a tautalogy.

What details?The details that support your assertion. Maybe you can explain how self-referential information processing systems account for human behaviours associated with consciousness.

Sure it does. It explains both what consciousness is and how we can identify it.A definition does not an explanation make.

I'm asking you again: What else is required?I never meant to give the impression that I know what is required. My proposition is that you also don't know.

No. In the context of information processing, they are synonymous. Viz. Descartes' cogito: I think, therefore I am is just another way of saying I am self-referential, therefore I am conscious.No it's not. It is self-referential but it is not saying "I am self-referential, therefore I am conscious." How do you get that?

Analogy fail.Why?

The correct analogy is that we understand much about matter, therefore we understand much about matter.I knew I sensed a tautalogy.

Which does follow, I assure you.It is also trivial. Rain is rain therefore I am right.

All I am saying is: This is what consciousnss is. Microwaves have it, therefore they are conscious.No, consciousness is sand. Beaches have it, therefore they are conscious. Words can mean anything. Why is your definition a good definition of consciousness? It doesn't seem to track all that well with things/beings that most people would agree are conscious.

If you think there is something more to consciousness, then you have to tell me what it is.I don't know that there is more to consciousness. I suspect that there is more to it than just self-referential information processing since microwaves don't seem conscious to me.

[AkuManiMani]

Well, you see, when a man and a woman love each other very much....

Oh...Oh, I see wotchu did der... :covereyes

[AkuManiMani]

Well, to be more accurate, it is a phenomenon of a particular type; experience.

What does that mean?

-_-

....

Don't play dense, Pixy. I give you a lot more credit than that.



It means that I'm calling 'consciousness' a specific class of phenomenon (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/phenomenon):

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

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

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

You've already told me what your criteria for consciousness are and I reject them for a number of reasons [many of which I've already repeatedly and clearly stated in this an every other thread discussing this topic] but one of the primary reasons is that your criteria are met when I am, in fact, unconscious. From the empirical laboratory of my own experience I know that the criteria you've proposed are falsified. I don't need to refer to the intellectual authority of Dennett or any other person to see that this is the case.

The argument in favor of the "toaster as conscious" view is, on its face, a lousy one because its based on an equivocation of the term 'consciousness'. Many of the thinkers you've referenced in support of your definition of consciousness, I feel, are very intelligent people who should know better, so I can't help but concluding that this equivocation is deliberate.

I also believe that you're intelligent enough to know better yourself and that you already know what is meant when I use the term 'consciousness'. It seems that you're deliberately being obtuse. I'm referring the the phenomenon of qualitative experience that you undergo every waking moment. I've pointed this out to you before and you responded with comments to the effect of:

"Irrelevant"

or

"Oh, that's just factory added extras"

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

Your invoking of "appliances are conscious too" is a deliberate dodging of the issue at hand. Quite frankly, its getting really old.

How can there not be experience? Experience is simply the result of processing and storing information. If you have a brain, experience is unavoidable.

Wha....?

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

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

Jebus, Pixy, you're seriously pushing it.


What do you think is actually incorrect in Dennett's position? Random expostulations of incredulity don't actually confer any useful information, so try to be specific.

"Random expostulations of incredulity"????

I'm...I'm speechless.

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

[quarky]

I can't find the evidence that sub-atomic particles aren't conscious.

[rocketdodger]

The way you conceptually approach a problem is a behavior, is it not? Newton and Einstein were both doing science but they conceptually tackled some of the same problems (in this case, gravity) in a different way.

If you actually pay attention to the arguments I'm bringing forward you'd have already noticed that I've already pointed out a atleast one major flaw in your current conceptual approach and a more cogent way of addressing the problem you are choosing to disregard.

Blah blah blah blah.

Apparently you don't have an answer, which is what I suspected to begin with.

If you can tell me what any cognitive science or artificial intelligence researcher should actually do differently -- as opposed to the vague "change their conceptual approach" hogwash you have spouted so far -- then I will take you seriously.

Until then, you are just another keyboard philospher who thinks they know what they are talking about but can't put their money where their mouth is.


How so? Have you produced something that has the capacity for imagination?

Huh? To show that something is not an unsupported assumption requires a mathematical proof of the contrary -- that it is a supported fact.

... yet you reply with a question about artificial intelligence?

Here is a clue: nobody -- including Penrose -- has ever shown that humans, or any conscious entity for that matter, can "think beyond any formal system." What people -- including you -- do is just "assume" that we can, mainly because certain human mathematicians can generate statements that go beyond a given formal system. Big difference, big fallacy on your part.

How do ya figure? Its no more unsupported than saying the symbol "1" is not identical to the concept of one.

That is great, but it isn't what you claimed.

You said formal structure is just putting symbols and representations to meaning, and until you know what "meaning" is there is no support for such a claim. It might seem different, but that has nothing to do with whether it is different.



Perhaps I should rephrase.

I can't tell you how to invent something that hasn't been invented yet. In this particular instance, don't know exactly how to solve the problem. What I'm attempting to do is help better define the problem so that is lends it self more to being solved.

Well thank you very much for your concern, but no thanks.

Until you can tell people what they should do differently I don't think you assistance is wanted.

[rocketdodger]

I can't find the evidence that sub-atomic particles aren't conscious.

What is the difference between a sub-atomic particle, a p-sub-atomic-particle, an aku-sub-atomic-particle, and a g-sub-atomic-particle?

[AkuManiMani]

But -- I do know that there is atleast one being in the universe who is conscious: me.

No you don't - that is every much just an assumption as the assumption that there are any conscious beings in the world is.

With all due respect, anyone who does not know they are conscious cannot be said to know anything. Just being aware is an implicit knowledge of one's own existence.'Conscious' is just the label I put on my experience. One's own awareness is the one thing each of us can know with certainty; its the epistemological base upon which we set all our knowledge.

No that is your re-definition of the HPC. You can of course decide to define the HPC to be whatever you want but if you don't use the same definition as the rest of us you'll not be able to contribute in a meaningful way to the discussion. It's like how earlier you redefined what a p-zombie is, the HPC starts with the premise that consciousness is dualistic.

If that's true it seems the field of philosophy is littered with a bunch of archaic dilapidated concepts and needs a bit of an overhaul. :boggled:

No wonder people've been so bogged down debating the same problems in the same way for so long. Its time to reformulate a lot of these old problems so there can be some progression of understanding. The HPC is a group of related questions, imposing necessary dualism on it is logically unjustified.

[westprog]

Hmmm, an interesting theory.

If you are correct, what is to be done? I mean, you are complaining about a problem --what is your solution?

How should the people at the cutting edge of the search behave differently? What should I, as an A.I. programmer, do to 1) remedy my cowardice and 2) work harder towards the single problem that I want to solve more than anything else in the world?



Perhaps the problem is not soluble in the current era. The ancients had no way to determine the nature of lightning. That doesn't mean that the Thor hypothesis was correct. Saying "I don't know" would have been better.

In this case, the fact that there's no physical theory of consciousness (which is where the gravity joke falls down) tends to mitigate against a likelihood of understanding it in the short term.


Well, we know some things about it. For instance, we know that if it can be understood by us then it must be mathematically describable.



Again -- assuming we come to grips with it, how should our behavior change?

[westprog]

Umm, people are trying to do this all around the world. Programmers and robotics specialists have been trying to make artificial intelligence for years.

The only problem is that people like you will never be satisfied that something is self aware, or conscious. Even if a mechanical being were build that had a mechanical brain that was every bit as complex as a human brain, and exhibited all the correct characteristics, you would still say 'but how do we know for real and for true that it really is really conscious?'


A physical theory.

[PixyMisa]

By definition? I sense a tautalogy.
No, not by definition actually.

What we refer to as consciousness is, when you examine it, self-referential information processing. And that's all it is.

The details that support your assertion. Maybe you can explain how self-referential information processing systems account for human behaviours associated with consciousness.Give me an example.

A definition does not an explanation make.Now, that depends on what the definition is, doesn't it?

I never meant to give the impression that I know what is required. My proposition is that you also don't know.That's just wonderful.

You don't know, so you assert that I don't know. You don't have a counter-argument, you're just saying If I can't understand it, nobody can understand it!

No it's not. It is self-referential but it is not saying "I am self-referential, therefore I am conscious." How do you get that?It's self-referential. It's an assertion of consciousness. Its assertion of consciousness is based upon its self-reference. Therefore it says exactly what I said it said.

Why?Because - and this is blindingly obvious - I didn't say we understood anything because we understood consciousness. I didn't say, for example, that we understood human brain function. We just understand consciousness.

I knew I sensed a tautalogy.Fail, again.

It is also trivial. Rain is rain therefore I am right.Fail, yet again.

No, consciousness is sand. Beaches have it, therefore they are conscious. Words can mean anything. Why is your definition a good definition of consciousness? It doesn't seem to track all that well with things/beings that most people would agree are conscious.Then name one!

Name one thing that people attribute to consciousness that is not accounted for by this explanation.

An argument isn't just contradiction.

I don't know that there is more to consciousness.Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.

I suspect that there is more to it than just self-referential information processing since microwaves don't seem conscious to me.You want to complain! Look at these shoes. I've only had them three weeks...

[westprog]

With any other definition the only being you can be sure is conscious is yourself.


Precisely right.


Defining consciousness in behavioral terms is the only useful way to define it.

"Useful" in what way? How does labelling certain behaviour as exhibiting consciousness help us in understanding the behaviour?

The only advantage of the behavioural model is that it allows us to ignore the question of subjective experience, which is at the heart of the HPOC. But it's not a scientific approach - it's a cargo-cult version of science, where two things that behave the same are considered to have identical internal states as a matter of convenience.

[westprog]

This is not an argument for the HPC, this is an argument for solipsism.

Never mind what the argument is for - is there any way to refute it beyond disliking solipsism?

[westprog]

Fall in love?

Suffer.

[westprog]

Can you show me where the hard problem of consciousness has been defined rigorously, rather than just vague "why is there a what it is like to be me?" questions or "it seems objectively unreasonable that consciousness can arise from physical processing"?

The inability to form a precise definition of the problem is an indication of the difficulty, not of the absence of a problem. Most easy problems are easy because it's easy to formulate the question.

[westprog]

Akumani, Malerin is a dualist. While I strongly oppose his viewpoints on this issue, I at least understand where he sits.

I would like to ask you again: Do you think that there is an immaterial aspect to the mind?

When the starting point is that the nature of consciousness is a vastly intractable problem, should we then be deciding exactly what solutions are to be presumed to be correct or wrong in advance?

[AkuManiMani]

The way you conceptually approach a problem is a behavior, is it not? Newton and Einstein were both doing science but they conceptually tackled some of the same problems (in this case, gravity) in a different way.

If you actually pay attention to the arguments I'm bringing forward you'd have already noticed that I've already pointed out a atleast one major flaw in your current conceptual approach and a more cogent way of addressing the problem you are choosing to disregard.

Blah blah blah blah.

Apparently you don't have an answer, which is what I suspected to begin with.

If you can tell me what any cognitive science or artificial intelligence researcher should actually do differently -- as opposed to the vague "change their conceptual approach" hogwash you have spouted so far -- then I will take you seriously.

Until then, you are just another keyboard philospher who thinks they know what they are talking about but can't put their money where their mouth is.

Dancing Zombie Jebus onna stick! -- I've just told you WHAT you're doing wrong and suggested WHAT you can do differently. It just so happens that the portions of my post where I specifically pointed these things out are -- tellingly -- the portions you've neglected to quote.

If you want to point by point rebut my suggestions, then please do so. If you're just going to sit there fuming like a petulant child about how I've not suggested anything while IGNORING what I've actually suggested then we've nothing to talk about, buddy.



How so? Have you produced something that has the capacity for imagination?

Huh? To show that something is not an unsupported assumption requires a mathematical proof of the contrary -- that it is a supported fact.

... yet you reply with a question about artificial intelligence?

Last I checked, we were talking specifically about artificial intelligence vs. human intelligence.

I stated that what distinguishes you from your current creations is that you have the ability to think beyond any particular formal system.

You responded that that was an unsupported assumption.

I asked, "how so?" and inquired as to whether or not you've developed a system that has the human capacity to imagine beyond any particular formal system.

Here is a clue: nobody -- including Penrose -- has ever shown that humans, or any conscious entity for that matter, can "think beyond any formal system." What people -- including you -- do is just "assume" that we can, mainly because certain human mathematicians can generate statements that go beyond a given formal system. Big difference, big fallacy on your part.

Fallacy? Lets go back to what I actually said, shall we:

One of the main differences between you and your current creations is that you're able to think beyond any particular formal system. The formal structure is just a post hoc retracing of your steps -- putting symbols and representations to meaning.

Now you want to argue that its a fallacy to say that humans have the capacity to "think beyond any formal system" just because they've shown the capacity to "think beyond any given formal system". If I didn't know any better I'd say you're shoving both feet in your mouth.

How do ya figure? Its no more unsupported than saying the symbol "1" is not identical to the concept of one.

That is great, but it isn't what you claimed.

You said formal structure is just putting symbols and representations to meaning, and until you know what "meaning" is there is no support for such a claim. It might seem different, but that has nothing to do with whether it is different.

Oh gee, what ever do you mean by that? :rolleyes:


Well thank you very much for your concern, but no thanks.

Until you can tell people what they should do differently I don't think you assistance is wanted.

Translation of you post:

"I don't need any help because I already know all there is to know about consciousness. My assumptions are just fine and you pointing out possible flaws in them isn't helpful to my delusion that my understanding is adequate.

Everything you've told me to do differently is wrong because I don't like some stranger on a keyboard telling me I'm wrong. Until you stop disagreeing with me I'm not going to take any of your feedback seriously."

[westprog]

We're reliving the thread all over again.

HPC is a term that means something in philosophy. Specifically it means a kind of dualist theory.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/

It's fine if that's not your position and you want to argue something different, but trying to hijack accepted terms doesn't help.

(Now I just know it's going to be the aku-problem of consciousness. Someone get me a zombie.)

Others may seem less tractable, especially the so-called “hard problem” (Chalmers 1995) which is more or less that of giving an intelligible account that lets us see in an intuitively satisfying way how phenomenal or “what it's like” consciousness might arise from physical or neural processes in the brain.

That doesn't seem to presuppose a dualistic approach. That seems to be a statement of the problem. Indeed, the article points out the problems with a dualist solution to the HPC.

[tsig]

I know I'm not a p-gombie. I can defy gravity.

So can I, so can any man, but does gravity know it?

[tsig]

...to eat your brains.

I knew it. The big question for Philosophy is "Is it edible"

[tsig]

I have sky dived hundreds of times and without fail, felt like a zombie after each jump. Lasted for days.

Did you pull the ripcord?

[quixotecoyote]

That doesn't seem to presuppose a dualistic approach. That seems to be a statement of the problem. Indeed, the article points out the problems with a dualist solution to the HPC.

Chalmers can be confusing he dances around the issue of the 'explanatory' gap with suggestions that 'psychophysicalism', the elevation of untestable experience to the role of core theory, is necessary. He's just substituting "experiential" for "immaterial".
http://consc.net/papers/puzzle.pdf

I believe Dennet has already been cited, but here's the most relevant section of his critique of Chalmers:

Chalmers recommends a parallel with physics, but it backfires. He suggests that a theory of consciousness should "take experience itself as a fundamental feature of the world, alongside mass, charge, and space-time." As he correctly notes, "No attempt is made [by physicists] to explain these features in terms of anything simpler," but they do cite the independent evidence that has driven them to introduce these fundamental categories. Chalmers needs a similar argument in support of his proposal, but "when we ask what data are driving him to introduce this concept, the answer is disappointing: It is a belief in a fundamental phenomenon of 'experience'. The introduction of the concept does not do any explanatory work. The evidential argument is circular." (Roberts, fn.8) We can see this by comparing Chalmers' proposal with yet one more imaginary non-starter: cutism, the proposal that since some things are just plain cute, and other things aren't cute at all--you can just see it, however hard it is to describe or explain--we had better postulate cuteness as a fundamental property of physics alongside mass, charge and space-time. (Cuteness is not a functional property, of course; I can imagine somebody who wasn't actually cute at all but who nevertheless functioned exactly as if cute--trust me.) Cutism is in even worse shape than vitalism. Nobody would have taken vitalism seriously for a minute if the vitalists hadn't had a set of independently describable phenomena--of reproduction, metabolism, self-repair and the like--that their postulated fundamental life-element was hoped to account for. Once these phenomena were otherwise accounted for, vitalism fell flat, but at least it had a project. Until Chalmers gives us an independent ground for contemplating the drastic move of adding "experience" to mass, charge, and space-time, his proposal is one that can be put on the back burner, way back.

http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/chalmers.htm

[AkuManiMani]

I never meant to give the impression that I know what is required. My proposition is that you also don't know.

I think that that statement is the crux of the matter. The OP of the thread, and the supporters of the OP's position, are expressing a deep dislike of the idea that there is a Hard Problem. They prefer to lie to themselves and pretend that there really isn't one because acknowledging it would highlight just how much they don't understand.

HPC denial isn't really a philosophical position; its a psychological defense mechanism.

[Darat]

With all due respect, anyone who does not know they are conscious cannot be said to know anything. Just being aware is an implicit knowledge of one's own existence.'Conscious' is just the label I put on my experience. One's own awareness is the one thing each of us can know with certainty; its the epistemological base upon which we set all our knowledge.

...snip..

And it is just an assumption.



If that's true it seems the field of philosophy is littered with a bunch of archaic dilapidated concepts and needs a bit of an overhaul. :boggled:

...snip...

Perhaps but why re-use a label that already has an established meaning in the field?


No wonder people've been so bogged down debating the same problems in the same way for so long. Its time to reformulate a lot of these old problems so there can be some progression of understanding. The HPC is a group of related questions, imposing necessary dualism on it is logically unjustified.

As I said you of course can re-define what HPC means but you are going to find yourself involved in more than a few misunderstandings in a thread like this, all of which could be avoided by you not trying to redefine the term HPC.

[Gate2501]

When the starting point is that the nature of consciousness is a vastly intractable problem, should we then be deciding exactly what solutions are to be presumed to be correct or wrong in advance?

It is a false starting point.

[Gate2501]

Never mind what the argument is for - is there any way to refute it beyond disliking solipsism?

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

[AkuManiMani]

How should the people at the cutting edge of the search behave differently? What should I, as an A.I. programmer, do to 1) remedy my cowardice and 2) work harder towards the single problem that I want to solve more than anything else in the world?

Just to point out rocketdodger, I'm on your side. I WANT you to succeed and I'm doing my best to help you. If you'd just step away from your stubborn pride you would see that.

I'm telling you as clearly as I can that you're handicapping yourself. If you keep approaching the problem with the assumptions you're currently operating under you're not going to make ANY progress toward accomplishing what you want to accomplish more than anything else in the world.

You've stuck yourself in a narrow conceptual impasse and I'm telling you that from my vantage point I can see that you're laboring down a dead end. There is much value in the approach you've taken so far and much can be accomplished in refining and building upon it -- but its not the whole story of consciousness.

I really, really, really want to see you succeed but I'm just frustrated be cause I see that you, and so many others like you, are stubbornly working down a vain path. What you've already found is valuable but its not enough. It may not be possible to completely solve the puzzle in our lifetimes, but atleast we can make some meaningful progress toward solving it. I'm just trying to help you brain storm here. Engage what I'm presenting to you and stop fighting me. I want to help :(

[AkuManiMani]

As I said you of course can re-define what HPC means but you are going to find yourself involved in more than a few misunderstandings in a thread like this, all of which could be avoided by you not trying to redefine the term HPC.

Very well. I hereby discard the HPC. In its place I put the Elusive Mystery of Awareness: EMA

[Darat]

...snip...

I'm telling you as clearly as I can that you're handicapping yourself. If you keep approaching the problem with the assumptions you're currently operating under you're not going to make ANY progress toward the accomplishing what you wan to accomplish more than anything else in the world.

...snip...

What assumptions are these?

...snip...

You've stuck yourself in a narrow conceptual impasse and I'm telling you that from my vantage point I can see that you're you're laboring down a dead end.

...snip...

To know that would have to mean you know the solution, so what is it?

...snip...
Theres a much value in the approach you've taken to far and much can be accomplished in refining and building upon it -- but its not the whole story of consciousness.

...snip...

Again how do you know this? And if you know it what is the answer?

[Gate2501]

Very well. I hereby discard the HPC. In its place I put the Elusive Mystery of Awareness: EMA

Ok..

After all of this discussion, I have come to a conclusion.

I think that you, AkuManiMani, are a "closet" dualist. Instead of coming out of the closet and telling everyone(including your parents!), that you are a dualist, you are redefining the terminology and the rules of the game, in order to pull them into the closet with you!

This is just my opinion, and I am, of course, a biased materialist scumbag.

[rocketdodger]

Just to point out rocketdodger, I'm on your side. I WANT you to succeed and I'm doing my best to help you. If you'd just step away from your stubborn pride you would see that.

I'm telling you as clearly as I can that you're handicapping yourself. If you keep approaching the problem with the assumptions you're currently operating under you're not going to make ANY progress toward accomplishing what you want to accomplish more than anything else in the world.

You've stuck yourself in a narrow conceptual impasse and I'm telling you that from my vantage point I can see that you're laboring down a dead end. There is much value in the approach you've taken so far and much can be accomplished in refining and building upon it -- but its not the whole story of consciousness.

I really, really, really want to see you succeed but I'm just frustrated be cause I see that you, and so many others like you, are stubbornly working down a vain path. What you've already found is valuable but its not enough. It may not be possible to completely solve the puzzle in our lifetimes, but atleast we can make some meaningful progress toward solving it. I'm just trying to help you brain storm here. Engage what I'm presenting to you and stop fighting me. I want to help :(

This is all fine and dandy but like I said, unless you can give researchers actual examples of something they did incorrectly that they think is correct I.E. where they are wrong then your words don't really help.

You might be the brightest human ever but I am reminded of an episode of Star Trek TNG when Q, stripped of his powers, tells the crew how to save a planet by changing the local gravitational constant. When asked how, he says "you just do it."

You are basically saying "just stop being wrong." Ok....

[Third Eye Open]

Precisely right.



"Useful" in what way? How does labelling certain behaviour as exhibiting consciousness help us in understanding the behaviour?

The only advantage of the behavioural model is that it allows us to ignore the question of subjective experience, which is at the heart of the HPOC. But it's not a scientific approach - it's a cargo-cult version of science, where two things that behave the same are considered to have identical internal states as a matter of convenience.

'Useful' as a word in the English language. 'Useful' for describing things, in conversation. As it stands now, 'conscious' might as well be synonymous with 'me'.

How the hell are we going to understand the behavior if we refuse to label it as such? A more useful thing to do would be to decide what behavior you want to explain, gather all the things that exhibit that behavior, and then study them to find what they have in common.

You could label this things that exhibit said behavior as 'conscious'.

That would be a useful definition.

[rocketdodger]

Now you want to argue that its a fallacy to say that humans have the capacity to "think beyond any formal system" just because they've shown the capacity to "think beyond any given formal system". If I didn't know any better I'd say you're shoving both feet in your mouth.

You still don't understand.

Generating a statement that is beyond a given formal system is not equivalent to thinking beyond a given formal system.

You can generate godel numbers all you want and you still aren't thinking beyond a given formal system, you are simply generating a number that is outside a given formal system.

I can write a program that will generate a godel number for any formal system you can give it. So what? Does that mean the program is "thinking" beyond that system?

There are some formal systems that humans can think beyond. There are also formal systems that computers can think beyond. There are many formal systems that neither humans nor computers can think beyond. The Epimenides paradox, for example, and all similar self-referential paradoxes stated in human languages, demonstrate our inability to think "beyond" the limitations of human logic. Yet, we can generate statements (that we can't really wrap our brains around) beyond human logic -- such as the Epimenides statement.

Translation of you post:

"I don't need any help because I already know all there is to know about consciousness. My assumptions are just fine and you pointing out possible flaws in them isn't helpful to my delusion that my understanding is adequate.

Everything you've told me to do differently is wrong because I don't like some stranger on a keyboard telling me I'm wrong. Until you stop disagreeing with me I'm not going to take any of your feedback seriously."

[AkuManiMani]

What assumptions are these?

There are probably many -- and I doubt I could uncover them all in one sitting -- but some of the most apparent are ontological. I'll try to cover the two most pressing ones I can think of off the top of my head:

-Assumption 1: Logical structure [e.g. syntax, symbols, etc] is synonymous with subjective meaning [e.g. understanding, semantics, etc]

Its very clear that there's been a lot of progress in studying the systemic architecture of intelligence and developing intelligent systems. At most, this is a good way to simulate and model some of the possible functions of conscious entities. In the same way that taxonomy is just a description of instances of life rather than a theory of life, so this approach is just a description of the object of study and not a true theory of it. Subjective experience -- consciousness -- is the thing IAOI that we're trying to understand. Describing instances of cognitive function, while invaluable to the pursuit, shouldn't be mistaken for the summation of the pursuit.


-Assumption 2: Acknowledging the distinction between cognition and awareness is tantamount to invoking Cartesian dualism or, at worse, invoking magic of some kind.

I think that this is among the most crippling of the assumptions and the one that, in all likelihood, inspired the OP. I won't go into all the details here but I will once again link to some posts [here (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4517289&postcount=245) and here (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4521316&postcount=300)] where I do elaborate more on where I'm coming from on this issue. I'll simply state here that materialism/idealism and Cartesian dualism aren't the only options when considering ways of looking at this problem.



To know that would have to mean you know the solution, so what is it?

I don't know THE solution to the EMA but I do see the nature of the current impasse on the issue and some very likely routes around it.

Theres a much value in the approach you've taken to far and much can be accomplished in refining and building upon it -- but its not the whole story of consciousness.

Again how do you know this? And if you know it what is the answer?

For the reasons I've stated above, it believe that many researchers working on the problem are merely chasing shadows of consciousness while avoiding serious consideration of consciousness IAOI. I strongly suspect that the question of consciousness is fundamentally related -- if not identical -- to the question of just what is life. I don't mean this merely in the superficial sense that consciousness is a distinct part of some biological entities but that in solving the EMA, we will not only have a theory of the human mind, but the first steps to developing a unified theory of life itself.

Again, I won't go into all the details of why I suspect this is so in this one post but I will state that I believe that what we call consciousness is most likely a field or field like phenomenon generated by the brain and that all biological processes and entities are based on similar fields.

[yy2bggggs]

The Epimenides paradox, for example, and all similar self-referential paradoxes stated in human languages, demonstrate our inability to think "beyond" the limitations of human logic.
Uhm... those aren't even hard to understand, much less demonstrative of things "beyond the limitations of human logic". They're no more beyond human logic than NOT gates with their output hooked to their input are beyond the laws of physics.

In fact, they're very simple systems. You simply make a statement about itself, and make it affirm its negation. It's no more surprising than if you asked me to pick droughts or crosses, and told me what I was going to pick, and I never pick it. I simply make my choice dependent on yours such that you can never be right. The only difference is that you use the "magical" (but not really all that shocking) powers of self reference to make the statement itself pick the opposite result from its assigned truth value.

Slightly confusing to some, but not even close to beyond human reasoning. I don't have much of an issue with Epimenides, and I'm pretty sure it's too mundane to qualify me for a free cup of coffee, much less some Nobel prize.

I now return you to your thread.

[dv82matt]

No, not by definition actually.By fiat then?

What we refer to as consciousness is, when you examine it, self-referential information processing. And that's all it is.First how do you know this? Second even if it is true that does not mean it is a sufficient explanation. e.g. What we refer to as life is, when you examine it, matter. And that's all it is.

Give me an example.How about something basic like awareness? Feel free to choose a different example.

That's just wonderful.

You don't know, so you assert that I don't know.
You need to back up your claim of knowledge with evidence and sound reasoning.

You don't have a counter-argument, you're just saying If I can't understand it, nobody can understand it!
Not at all. I'm simply not convinced you understand it.

It's self-referential. It's an assertion of consciousness. Its assertion of consciousness is based upon its self-reference. Therefore it says exactly what I said it said.It is self-referential but its meaning does not depend on that fact. To see this more clearly simply rephrase it to remove the self-reference. ie "She thinks therefore she is."

Because - and this is blindingly obvious - I didn't say we understood anything because we understood consciousness. I didn't say, for example, that we understood human brain function. We just understand consciousness.How does that work exactly? I'm not being blithe I really want to know.

Fail, again.

Fail, yet again.Saying fail over and over doesn't prove anything.

Then name one!

Name one thing that people attribute to consciousness that is not accounted for by this explanation.Language. But that's a difficult one and particular to human consciousness. Feel free to explain a different attribute if you like.

An argument isn't just contradiction.
Now, that depends on what the argument is, doesn't it?

Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.If you would back up your assertions with evidence and sound reasoning we wouldn't be in this jam. Just because someone contradicts you that doesn't mean you're right.

[AkuManiMani]

You still don't understand.

Generating a statement that is beyond a given formal system is not equivalent to thinking beyond a given formal system.

You can generate godel numbers all you want and you still aren't thinking beyond a given formal system, you are simply generating a number that is outside a given formal system.

I can write a program that will generate a godel number for any formal system you can give it. So what? Does that mean the program is "thinking" beyond that system?

There are some formal systems that humans can think beyond. There are also formal systems that computers can think beyond. There are many formal systems that neither humans nor computers can think beyond. The Epimenides paradox, for example, and all similar self-referential paradoxes stated in human languages, demonstrate our inability to think "beyond" the limitations of human logic. Yet, we can generate statements (that we can't really wrap our brains around) beyond human logic -- such as the Epimenides statement.

Okay, before I attempt to respond let me see if I'm getting the essence of what you're saying.

What you're saying is that while humans can think beyond a specific set of formal systems they can only think within the domain of human cognition -- which is just the the thing that you're trying to formally define, yes?

[AkuManiMani]

With all due respect, anyone who does not know they are conscious cannot be said to know anything. Just being aware is an implicit knowledge of one's own existence.'Conscious' is just the label I put on my experience. One's own awareness is the one thing each of us can know with certainty; its the epistemological base upon which we set all our knowledge.

And it is just an assumption.

No. Its a conclusion that necessarily arises from the premise that one is aware. Logically, one cannot know anything unless they have awareness. Therefore awareness is the basis of all knowledge.

[Third Eye Open]

No. Its a conclusion that necessarily arises from the premise that one is aware. Logically, one cannot know anything unless they have awareness. Therefore awareness is the basis of all knowledge.

Hooray! Now we also have a useless definition of 'know'! By this definition I am the only one that knows anything.

What is knowledge if not information? What is 'to know' if not 'to contain information'?

[AkuManiMani]

Hooray! Now we also have a useless definition of 'know'! By this definition I am the only one that knows anything.

What is knowledge if not information? What is 'to know' if not 'to contain information'?

Oh?

A book contains information but does it know the information it contains?

A child is born with all the information required to make a baby but does that mean the child consciously knows biology?

Ofcourse not, on both counts. So what, specifically, does it mean to 'know' something then?

Knowledge is the conscious apprehension of information in some form or another.

[Third Eye Open]

Oh?

A book contains information but does it know the information it contains?

A child is born with all the information required to make a baby but does that mean the child consciously knows biology?

Ofcourse not, on both counts. So what, specifically, does it mean to 'know' something then?

Knowledge is the conscious apprehension of information in some form or another.

So then 'know' 'conscious' 'aware', all these words are in a special category that only applies to the way a human stores information.

Well then, this whole argument is silly! We already know what makes you aware, being human does! We know how something is conscious, being human makes you conscious! We know how something can 'know' things, being human means you can.

Useless.

[Third Eye Open]

Oh?

A book contains information but does it know the information it contains?

A[/U]

Yes, 'know' should not mean just 'contains information' that is no good.

I should have said contains and can act on the information it contains.

[AkuManiMani]

So then 'know' 'conscious' 'aware', all these words are in a special category that only applies to the way a human stores information.

Well then, this whole argument is silly! We already know what makes you aware, being human does! We know how something is conscious, being human makes you conscious! We know how something can 'know' things, being human means you can.

Useless.

Oh c'mon, you're being downright silly. You don't even need three eyes to see what I'm saying :rolleyes:

There is no compelling reason to assume that other animals aren't conscious [i.e. aware]. I dunno why you felt the need to invoke a tautology, that I never stated or implied, or assume that consciousness must be human specific.

An elephant can know a good location to find a water hole during a drought. A frog can know that one particular sense impression [that we humans might call an 'earthworm'] is tasty to eat when feeling hungry, and that another sense impression [we humans might call it an 'ant'] tends to be very unpleasant to eat and so avoid it.

Also, simply 'being a human' is not sufficient to make one aware. An individual human may be sleep, comatose, or dead.

[Third Eye Open]

Oh c'mon, you're being downright silly. You don't even need three eyes to see what I'm saying :rolleyes:

There is no compelling reason to assume that other animals aren't conscious [i.e. aware]. I dunno why you felt the need to invoke a tautology, that I never stated or implied, or assume that consciousness must be human specific.

An elephant can know a good location to find a water hole during a drought. A frog can know that one particular sense impression [that we humans might call an 'earthworm'] is tasty to eat when feeling hungry, and that another sense impression [we humans might call it an 'ant'] tends to be very unpleasant to eat and so avoid it.

Also, simply 'being a human' is not sufficient to make one aware. An individual human may be sleep, comatose, or dead.

Ok, if we take away the human requirement, then a computer should be considered aware. My computer 'knows' that it is supposed to start the virus scan at 3AM, it acts on this information and starts the virus scan. Maybe you could even say it 'chooses' to do so. Does the fact that I know what the computer will choose to do at any given time make it less of a choice? Am I getting way ahead of myself?

[lupus_in_fabula]

Logically, one cannot know anything unless they have awareness. Therefore awareness is the basis of all knowledge.

It seems to me that you're jumping the gun here by conceptualizing awareness into existence in it's own right. You might want to say that "one cannot know anything unless they are aware of..." There is no reason to invoke 'aware-ness' here. That concept is of your own making, and might not even be needed at all.

If you however demand it, you are close to having confused the map with the territory (or perhaps with the map of the map of the territory). Thus you might be approaching the scenario I presented in one of my earlier post, when explanations don't fit the preconceived conceptual framework you have built beyond explanatory commonality.

In a way it's like asking for money in exchange of a service, but then refusing any attempt for payment by saying: "no no no, I want money, not some pieces of metal or paper!"

[AkuManiMani]

It seems to me that you're jumping the gun here by conceptualizing awareness into existence in it's own right. You might want to say that "one cannot know anything unless they are aware of..." There is no reason to invoke 'aware-ness' here. That concept is of your own making, and might not even be needed at all.

When I say "awareness" I'm referring to the state of being aware. The whole issue of the HPC [which I will henceforth all the EMA] is the attempt to define just what exactly does it mean to be 'aware'. Just what exactly is this state and why should it be at all?

If you however demand it, you are close to having confused the map with the territory (or perhaps with the map of the map of the territory). Thus you might be approaching the scenario I presented in one of my earlier post, when explanations don't fit the preconceived conceptual framework you have built beyond explanatory commonality.

I'd say that 'awareness' isn't so much the map but the particular medium the map is on/in. Its my position that the state of being aware isn't just a process but should be considered a class of thing IAOI. I've said in other posts, I suspect that consciousness is a kind of field. A specific experience would be a kind of disturbance or wrinkle a field of awareness.

For instance, photons of a specific frequency would interact in a specific way with 'awareness' to produce a specific qualitative experience. The quality of the experience would depend upon the nature of the interaction involved.

In once instance the experience would be equivalent to what we humans experience as color; in other it might invoke something akin to a smell or emotion, or something completely alien to human experience. As

In short, I'm saying that there must be a physics to awareness and qualitative experience that we simply haven't developed yet.

In a way it's like asking for money in exchange of a service, but then refusing any attempt for payment by saying: "no no no, I want money, not some pieces of metal or paper!"

Ironically, that's what I'm charging some of the posters here with. They are equating representations of conscious experience with conscious experience IAOI.

[AkuManiMani]

Ok, if we take away the human requirement, then a computer should be considered aware. My computer 'knows' that it is supposed to start the virus scan at 3AM, it acts on this information and starts the virus scan. Maybe you could even say it 'chooses' to do so. Does the fact that I know what the computer will choose to do at any given time make it less of a choice? Am I getting way ahead of myself?

A computer doesn't know so start a scan at a particular time anymore than a wind-up clock knows to cuckoo at a certain time. Its deterministically set by a mechanical architecture designed by conscious entities to produce specific outcomes.

There is a difference between a mechanical chain of events and a conscious initiation of an event. This, among other things, leads me to assume that there must be a basic physical principle behind consciousness rather than just a specific functional architecture.

[Mercutio]

No you don't - that is every much just an assumption as the assumption that there are any conscious beings in the world is.
Hehe... I knew that if I kept reading instead of replying immediately, that you would have already said what I was going to.

[Mercutio]

With all due respect, anyone who does not know they are conscious cannot be said to know anything. Just being aware is an implicit knowledge of one's own existence.'Conscious' is just the label I put on my experience. One's own awareness is the one thing each of us can know with certainty; its the epistemological base upon which we set all our knowledge.

Oh, my... no. No. In fact, one's own awareness is known with much less certainty than one knows things about external objects.

Tell me, how is it that you learned to label your awareness? Surely each feeling did not come pre-labeled by god for your convenience; did somebody teach you that this is hunger, this is love, this is red, this is soft, this is frustrating? You did not invent your own terms; you converse with others and expect them to understand.

You learned to speak about your consciousness via people who had no access to it. Whereas you could learn "red" through public examples, you learned "awareness" from teacher who were blind to what you were actually aware of! No wonder introspection is such a flawed methodology! No wonder our descriptions of consciousness and awareness are so vastly different from the reality of consciousness and awareness, when examined experimentally!

You claim you are conscious; indeed, you claim that you are the one entity that you can guarantee is conscious. How can you possibly know you are conscious, then, when you don't even know if the people who taught you about consciousness were themselves conscious? They might have taught it all wrong! How can you know, when you yourself have said that you cannot be certain they are conscious?

[quarky]

Are there no degrees of consciousness?

[quixotecoyote]

A computer doesn't know so start a scan at a particular time anymore than a wind-up clock knows to cuckoo at a certain time. Its deterministically set by a mechanical architecture designed by conscious entities to produce specific outcomes.

There is a difference between a mechanical chain of events and a conscious initiation of an event. This, among other things, leads me to assume that there must be a basic physical principle behind consciousness rather than just a specific functional architecture.

If you want to make this argument you're going to have to demonstrate that minds you consider conscious operate in a non-deterministic manner beyond that of all other objects and entities (eta: that means no randomness or QM, as those apply to computers and cuckoo-clocks too.) Otherwise you have no basis to differentiate as you are trying to do.



Good luck.

[lupus_in_fabula]

When I say "awareness" I'm referring to the state of being aware. The whole issue of the HPC [which I will henceforth all the EMA] is the attempt to define just what exactly does it mean to be 'aware'. Just what exactly is this state and why should it be at all?

Which means you have constructed a kind of conceptual map. And which means that HPC-EMA is demanding a whole collection of them, one on top of each other. In effect, by piling then on top of another, you don't get to the semantic endpoint, it's just a ongoing movement of syntax.

I'd say that 'awareness' isn't so much the map but the particular medium the map is on/in. Its my position that the state of being aware isn't just a process but should be considered a class of thing IAOI. A specific experience would be a kind of disturbance or wrinkle of awareness.For first sentence, see above. The two latter sentences are assertions which you can surely make, but is there any good reason to postulate them in the first place? What is the basis for the postulation?

In short, I'm saying that there must be a physics to awareness and qualitative experience that we simply haven't developed yet.Yes, I understand your position, but what I don't understand is the 'necessity' of it. It could also be that you're simply drowning in more conceptualizations, with no end in sight.

Ironically, that's what I'm charging some of the posters here with. They are equating representations of conscious experience with conscious experience IAOI. Well, but translate "money" for "awareness" or "consciousness" and you understand where I'm coming from. In a way it's like the banana problem: whatever you might throw at me as an explanation, you haven't explained "banana-ness". For surely it is different form "apple-ness" even though we could agree on the formal taxonomy of both being fruits, ultimately that's just an agreed upon convention. :p

What seems increasingly apparent to me, is that no real truth is to be found (as in ultimate explanation). What is needed is a useful explanatory system that's internally coherent, that's all we're going to have. That seems to me where both Pixy and RD is also coming from.

[dv82matt]

Are there no degrees of consciousness?
I would argue that there are both degrees and kinds of consciousness. I think of consciousness not as a single thing but as a broad spectrum of cognitive behaviours.

[westprog]

Chalmers can be confusing he dances around the issue of the 'explanatory' gap with suggestions that 'psychophysicalism', the elevation of untestable experience to the role of core theory, is necessary. He's just substituting "experiential" for "immaterial".
http://consc.net/papers/puzzle.pdf

I believe Dennet has already been cited, but here's the most relevant section of his critique of Chalmers:



http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/chalmers.htm

I've no particular support for Chalmers, but at least he's engaging with the problem. Dennet doesn't like the possible consequences of investigating experience, so he ignores it.

[westprog]

Oh, my... no. No. In fact, one's own awareness is known with much less certainty than one knows things about external objects.

Tell me, how is it that you learned to label your awareness? Surely each feeling did not come pre-labeled by god for your convenience; did somebody teach you that this is hunger, this is love, this is red, this is soft, this is frustrating? You did not invent your own terms; you converse with others and expect them to understand.


Being able to label awareness in order to communicate our internal states with other people does not imply that awareness was uncertain until labelled. The awareness comes first. The

You learned to speak about your consciousness via people who had no access to it. Whereas you could learn "red" through public examples, you learned "awareness" from teacher who were blind to what you were actually aware of! No wonder introspection is such a flawed methodology! No wonder our descriptions of consciousness and awareness are so vastly different from the reality of consciousness and awareness, when examined experimentally!


The inability to access another person's internal state does not imply that the description takes primacy over what it is describing, or that the external manifestations of the experience are more real than the experience itself.

You claim you are conscious; indeed, you claim that you are the one entity that you can guarantee is conscious. How can you possibly know you are conscious, then, when you don't even know if the people who taught you about consciousness were themselves conscious? They might have taught it all wrong! How can you know, when you yourself have said that you cannot be certain they are conscious?

Because consciousness is a lable that I assign myself, to something I know exists. I do not know if that lable is also applicable to what other people experience. It is quite possible that I am the only conscious person, and that nobody else has my experiences. It is not possible that I don't have consciousness.

[quixotecoyote]

I've no particular support for Chalmers, but at least he's engaging with the problem. Dennet doesn't like the possible consequences of investigating experience, so he ignores it.

I doubt you can support that (mis)interpretation.

[westprog]

I doubt you can support that (mis)interpretation.

My understanding is that Dennet regards qualia (or awareness, or experience, or whatever) as a confused concept, which can therefore be disregarded as useless.

IMO if "qualia" is badly defined, then it is up to the philosophers to find a way to define it. If language is inadequate to describe the sensation of awareness, then find new language. If it is impossible to define or describe qualia adequately, then accept the fact and move on from there.

Since we are using the gravitational analogy - if a layman approaches a physicist and talks about the force pushing everything together, one would hope that the response would be to try to explain how it really worked - not to claim that because gravity was such an ill-formed concept that it could be disregarded.

It may be that I'm not fully representing the subtleties of Dennet's ideas, but I'm willing to have them re-explained.

[quixotecoyote]

My understanding is that Dennet regards qualia (or awareness, or experience, or whatever) as a confused concept, which can therefore be disregarded as useless.

IMO if "qualia" is badly defined, then it is up to the philosophers to find a way to define it. If language is inadequate to describe the sensation of awareness, then find new language. If it is impossible to define or describe qualia adequately, then accept the fact and move on from there.

Since we are using the gravitational analogy - if a layman approaches a physicist and talks about the force pushing everything together, one would hope that the response would be to try to explain how it really worked - not to claim that because gravity was such an ill-formed concept that it could be disregarded.

It may be that I'm not fully representing the subtleties of Dennet's ideas, but I'm willing to have them re-explained.


Dennet's not saying that because experience is a confused concept that it should be ignored. He's saying that because experience is a confused concept with no referent it should be ignored.

Are you familiar with the vitalism analogy?

[PixyMisa]

My understanding is that Dennet regards qualia (or awareness, or experience, or whatever) as a confused concept, which can therefore be disregarded as useless.
Not confused, but incoherent.

IMO if "qualia" is badly defined, then it is up to the philosophers to find a way to define it.
Dennett didn't create the term, nor did he create its definition. Therefore it suffices for him to point out that the term is, as it's defined, meaningless.

If language is inadequate to describe the sensation of awareness, then find new language.
And if it isn't, don't?

If it is impossible to define or describe qualia adequately, then accept the fact and move on from there.
You have the problem backwards. The term qualia was defined in such a way as to be meaningless. That's why every discussion of qualia promptly runs onto the rocks.

It may be that I'm not fully representing the subtleties of Dennet's ideas, but I'm willing to have them re-explained.
There you go then.

[Mercutio]

Being able to label awareness in order to communicate our internal states with other people does not imply that awareness was uncertain until labelled. The awareness comes first.

The inability to access another person's internal state does not imply that the description takes primacy over what it is describing, or that the external manifestations of the experience are more real than the experience itself.

Because consciousness is a lable that I assign myself, to something I know exists. I do not know if that lable is also applicable to what other people experience. It is quite possible that I am the only conscious person, and that nobody else has my experiences. It is not possible that I don't have consciousness.

I know I have posted a link to this paper on several previous threads, but I'll be damned if I can find the right link right now, so this (http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-1103869151.html) will have to do. Consciousness as you describe it in your last paragraph above is a trivial and useless thing, not at all what we usually think of as consciousness. It is a "something" that can't really even be labeled, as it cannot be verified as the same from one person to another.

I personally think consciousness is more than that--it is something that we see in others and in ourselves, and something that is meaningful. Of course, that something is behavior, both public and private.

I doubt you will agree with me.

[six7s]

VS Ramachandran:

Qualia = sensations you are conscious of


Self and Qualia are two sides of a Mobius Strip


jTWmTJALe1w
Consciousness, Qualia, and Self
Dr. V.S. Ramachandran, Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at UCSD, discusses consciousness, qualia, and self.

Works for me :)

[Malerin]

Suffer.

Ouch!

[Malerin]

Most computers these days are conscious. And I'm not talking big, complex computers like mobile phones and video games, I'm talking things like microwave ovens and washing machines and car engines.



And you guys think theists have kooky beliefs?

Oh, and a video game's not a computer, Pixy ;)

[Malerin]

And it is just an assumption.


Perhaps but why re-use a label that already has an established meaning in the field?



As I said you of course can re-define what HPC means but you are going to find yourself involved in more than a few misunderstandings in a thread like this, all of which could be avoided by you not trying to redefine the term HPC.

Do you really doubt that you're conscious, Darat? :rolleyes: Put away the devil's advocate hat and answer honestly now...

[PixyMisa]

And you guys think theists have kooky beliefs?
Yes. Yes I do.

Oh, and a video game's not a computer, Pixy ;)
Really. Huh. Well, that's me and every video game designer and programmer in the wrong then.

[quixotecoyote]

Really. Huh. Well, that's me and every video game designer and programmer in the wrong then.

I'm curious about this one.

How is a video game a computer?

[AkuManiMani]

When I say "awareness" I'm referring to the state of being aware. The whole issue of the HPC [which I will henceforth all the EMA] is the attempt to define just what exactly does it mean to be 'aware'. Just what exactly is this state and why should it be at all?

Which means you have constructed a kind of conceptual map. And which means that HPC-EMA is demanding a whole collection of them, one on top of each other. In effect, by piling then on top of another, you don't get to the semantic endpoint, it's just a ongoing movement of syntax.

I think that the study of consciousness, like every other intellectual pursuit, has is no ultimate end-point. In a sense, this is a good thing because there will always be more for future generations to investigate and learn. The funny thing about studying consciousness in particular is that its like putting a mirror up to a mirror -- which is probably why it will remain a 'hard problem' in some regard no matter how much we learn about it :boggled:

Anyways, I'm not claiming THE answer to the EMA; what I'm proposing is a possible next step in understanding consciousness :)

I'd say that 'awareness' isn't so much the map but the particular medium the map is on/in. Its my position that the state of being aware isn't just a process but should be considered a class of thing IAOI. A specific experience would be a kind of disturbance or wrinkle of awareness.

For first sentence, see above. The two latter sentences are assertions which you can surely make, but is there any good reason to postulate them in the first place? What is the basis for the postulation?

Whats the basis?

Almost two decades of reading, sleeping, and reflecting on a wide range of scientific works related directly and indirectly to this subject. Its a general intuition that's been growing on me since highschool. Needless to say my basis for it is rather broad and it would probably take an entire book to properly lay it out. Obviously, I'm not going to do that here but I did summarize a bit of in this post (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4517289&postcount=245).

One of the reasons [which I don't explicitly mention in the link above] is that the [I]'consciousness as field' [CaF] postulate seems the best way to deal with the binding problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_problem).

Another reason is that it puts forward a more specific physical basis to investigate consciousness without the vague "well its got something to do with neurotransmitters, and firing neurons, and such".

Also, the CaF dovetails quite nicely with another hypothesis that mainly addresses how memories many be stored across the brain. Its called the holonomic brain theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holonomic_brain).

Those, among other reasons, are my basis for strongly suspecting CaF.

In short, I'm saying that there must be a physics to awareness and qualitative experience that we simply haven't developed yet.

Yes, I understand your position, but what I don't understand is the 'necessity' of it. It could also be that you're simply drowning in more conceptualizations, with no end in sight.

How would that be different from anything else in science? Is that necessarily a bad thing? I'm just proposing what could be the next of a very long line of theories addressing the scientific and philosophical questions of consciousness.



Ironically, that's what I'm charging some of the posters here with. They are equating representations of conscious experience with conscious experience IAOI.

Well, but translate "money" for "awareness" or "consciousness" and you understand where I'm coming from. In a way it's like the banana problem: whatever you might throw at me as an explanation, you haven't explained "banana-ness". For surely it is different form "apple-ness" even though we could agree on the formal taxonomy of both being fruits, ultimately that's just an agreed upon convention. :p

What seems increasingly apparent to me, is that no real truth is to be found (as in ultimate explanation). What is needed is a useful explanatory system that's internally coherent, that's all we're going to have. That seems to me where both Pixy and RD is also coming from.

Well, to put this in light of the OP, if everyone just remained content with Newton's definition of gravity we would have never learned about General Relativity. All of our theories are inherently incomplete and tentative. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. It only becomes problematic when we become so trapped by them we blind ourselves to gaining an even better understanding of the world.

I'm just trying to help brainstorm and inspire folks to look at this from a different perspective and possibly discover something new :)

[AkuManiMani]

Are there no degrees of consciousness?

I suspect so. I have varying degrees of lucidity which become obvious as I begin to fall asleep :o

[PixyMisa]

I'm curious about this one.

How is a video game a computer?
The game software itself isn't - unless you're playing The Incredible Machine or Conway's Life or something. Video game hardware is, of course. Which is what I was referring to - the original context was a list of hardware.

[AkuManiMani]

A computer doesn't know so start a scan at a particular time anymore than a wind-up clock knows to cuckoo at a certain time. Its deterministically set by a mechanical architecture designed by conscious entities to produce specific outcomes.

There is a difference between a mechanical chain of events and a conscious initiation of an event. This, among other things, leads me to assume that there must be a basic physical principle behind consciousness rather than just a specific functional architecture.

If you want to make this argument you're going to have to demonstrate that minds you consider conscious operate in a non-deterministic manner beyond that of all other objects and entities (eta: that means no randomness or QM, as those apply to computers and cuckoo-clocks too.) Otherwise you have no basis to differentiate as you are trying to do.


I'd go further to say that such non-deterministic behavior is one feature which distinguishes the behavior of life in general from the behavior of the mechanical constructs like clocks. I suspect the reason for this is that organisms scale up QM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_biology) level effects to the macroscopic scale.

Organisms are emergent entities that organize themselves upward from the quantum scale. Their gross form and functions depend on their quantum level interactions and organization. This is why predicting the exact physical behavior of a single organism cannot be done using macroscale physical laws like Newton's Laws of motion. The best you can do using deterministic laws is do things like predict how fast the critter will fall or how much energy would be required to move it a certain distance. Predicting things like where it will run, how fast, or how far can only be expressed in non-deterministic terms.

Constructs like clocks, metronomes, cars, etc. are [I]downward impositions of organization on inanimate, macroscopic, chunks of matter. Their behaviors will, inevitably, exhibit overall behaviors that conform to the deterministic-like rules of the macro-scale. Their basic functions are fully describable on the macroscale, and so lend themselves to to predictions using deterministic theories.

Good luck.

None required, but thanks anyway :p

[rocketdodger]

Uhm... those aren't even hard to understand, much less demonstrative of things "beyond the limitations of human logic". They're no more beyond human logic than NOT gates with their output hooked to their input are beyond the laws of physics.

In fact, they're very simple systems. You simply make a statement about itself, and make it affirm its negation. It's no more surprising than if you asked me to pick droughts or crosses, and told me what I was going to pick, and I never pick it. I simply make my choice dependent on yours such that you can never be right. The only difference is that you use the "magical" (but not really all that shocking) powers of self reference to make the statement itself pick the opposite result from its assigned truth value.

Slightly confusing to some, but not even close to beyond human reasoning. I don't have much of an issue with Epimenides, and I'm pretty sure it's too mundane to qualify me for a free cup of coffee, much less some Nobel prize.

I now return you to your thread.

Thank you for responding bgggs, I consider you a very intelligent forum member and always learn from what you say.

That being said, I disagree here. Your response is pretty much exactly how drkitten responded a year or two ago when I brought up the Epimenides paradox, and I disagreed with him too.

I claim that you -- and all other humans -- do not understand such statements. I think we can parse them, and think about them, but I don't think we ever reach the same understanding we have of other statements. Our mental algorithm never halts on such an input string, so to speak.

Now if I remember correctly, drkitten suggested that unlike a Godel sentence, the Epimenides statement isn't well-formed. But I disagree -- or at least, I can't for the life of me see why it isn't well-formed (given the fairly informal rules of human language, as opposed to a real formal system).

And we can say the same kinds of things about well-formed human language sentences that we can about the formulae of formal languages. In particular, they must be derived from axioms and they can lead to other formulae via the application of rules of inference.

Except in the case of ... well, you know all this already. So I guess what I woud like you to tell me is why the Epimenides statement is not a Godel sentence of human language and hence human thought.

[rocketdodger]

Do you really doubt that you're conscious, Darat? :rolleyes: Put away the devil's advocate hat and answer honestly now...

Do you really not understand the difference between knowing you are conscious and knowing it seems like you are conscious?

[Mercutio]

Do you really doubt that you're conscious, Darat? :rolleyes: Put away the devil's advocate hat and answer honestly now...
Just as we readily admit that we cannot know that another person is conscious, we must admit that we cannot know if we are conscious by their definition. Same exact uncertainty. Unless you wish to say that consciousness is preponderately a set of public behaviors, then you must be as uncertain of your own consciousness as anyone else's.

So, if you are certain you are conscious, it follows that you define consciousness as I do (and, if I am not mistaken, as Darat does). Turns out that qualia are irrelevant to that definition, and that we p-zombies are every bit as conscious as those hypothetical entities known as real people.

[AkuManiMani]

Do you really not understand the difference between knowing you are conscious and knowing it seems like you are conscious?

Nothing can "seem like" anything unless you are conscious. Without consciousness -- There...Is...No...'Seem'.

Just as we readily admit that we cannot know that another person is conscious, we must admit that we cannot know if we are conscious by their definition. Same exact uncertainty. Unless you wish to say that consciousness is preponderately a set of public behaviors, then you must be as uncertain of your own consciousness as anyone else's.

So, if you are certain you are conscious, it follows that you define consciousness as I do (and, if I am not mistaken, as Darat does). Turns out that qualia are irrelevant to that definition, and that we p-zombies are every bit as conscious as those hypothetical entities known as real people.

Darat wasn't questioning the certainty of determining consciousness in others. He was questioning the possibility of being able to be certain of consciousness in one's self.

The first proposition is an epistemologically reasonable doubt; the second is sheer nonsense.

[rocketdodger]

The game software itself isn't - unless you're playing The Incredible Machine or Conway's Life or something. Video game hardware is, of course. Which is what I was referring to - the original context was a list of hardware.

The software of today is a computer in and of itself as well. Almost all useful software involves so much abstraction that there is computation occuring at multiple levels the hardware doesn't even know about.

If you were a CPU, would you be able to figure out what is going on in and between complex data structures -- many too big to even fit inside your entire set of caches -- just by crunching 64 bits at a time? Of course not. The CPU is clueless, just like neurons are clueless. Software is where the real action is. Kind of reminds me of... consciousness?

[rocketdodger]

Just as we readily admit that we cannot know that another person is conscious, we must admit that we cannot know if we are conscious by their definition. Same exact uncertainty. Unless you wish to say that consciousness is preponderately a set of public behaviors, then you must be as uncertain of your own consciousness as anyone else's.

So, if you are certain you are conscious, it follows that you define consciousness as I do (and, if I am not mistaken, as Darat does). Turns out that qualia are irrelevant to that definition, and that we p-zombies are every bit as conscious as those hypothetical entities known as real people.

That was an excellent post Mercutio. I finally understand what you are getting at with this whole public behavior thing. Thank you very much for genuinely teaching me something today!

[PixyMisa]

I think someone built a Turing Machine in Little Big Planet. :)

[PixyMisa]

Nothing can "seem like" anything unless you are conscious. Without consciousness -- There...Is...No...'Seem'.
But that's just begging the question. Why do you think there is a seem?

[rocketdodger]

I think someone built a Turing Machine in Little Big Planet. :)
Exactly!

And I seem to remember people building an entire game within second life.

Of course, these are just the most obvious examples. The truth is, almost all useful software is well above the hardware's head. In fact, I would say all software, but I am not looking to argue.

[quixotecoyote]

Except in the case of ... well, you know all this already. So I guess what I woud like you to tell me is why the Epimenides statement is not a Godel sentence of human language and hence human thought.

I was trying to explain it the way I learned it wasn't a real paradox, but wiki has a clear answer so I'll just copy that:

For a better understanding of the liar paradox, it is useful to write it down in a more formal way. If "this statement is false" is denoted by A and its truth value is being sought, it is necessary to find a condition that restricts the choice of possible truth values of A. Because A is self-referential it is possible to give the condition by an equation.
If some statement, B, is assumed to be false, one writes B = false. The statement (C) that the statement B is false would be written as C = "B = false". Now, the liar paradox can be expressed as the statement A, that A is false:
A = "A = false"
This is an equation from which the truth value of A = "this statement is false" could hopefully be obtained. In the boolean domain "A = false" is equivalent to not A and therefore the equation is not solvable. This is the motivation for reinterpretation of A. The simplest logical approach to make the equation solvable is the dialetheistic approach, in which case the solution is a A being both "true" and "false". Other resolutions mostly include some modifications of the equation e.g. A. N. Prior claims that the equation should be A = "A = false" and "A = true" and therefore A is false.

[AkuManiMani]

The software of today is a computer in and of itself as well. Almost all useful software involves so much abstraction that there is computation occuring at multiple levels the hardware doesn't even know about.

I agree.

If you were a CPU, would you be able to figure out what is going on in and between complex data structures -- many too big to even fit inside your entire set of caches -- just by crunching 64 bits at a time? Of course not. The CPU is clueless, just like neurons are clueless. Software is where the real action is. Kind of reminds me of... consciousness?

Close, but not quite.

You wanted me to suggest to you specific approaches to the problem, right? I've posted some of them here (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4528563&postcount=131), here (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4528873&postcount=143), and here (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4530214&postcount=167).

If you've objections to any particular point please state them :)

[AkuManiMani]

But that's just begging the question. Why do you think there is a seem?

Well, being a non-aku-zombie things have the quality of seeming particular ways to me. Sadly, I would not expect an aku-zombie, such as yourself, to comprehend such things :rolleyes:

[Malerin]

Just as we readily admit that we cannot know that another person is conscious, we must admit that we cannot know if we are conscious by their definition.

1, That doesn't follow at all. Just because I am unsure about others' subjective experiences (or lack thereof), does not mean I am unsure about my own subjective experiences. Anyone who has ever stubbed their toe knows what I mean. It is not just that you injured your foot; stubbing your toe hurts, it feels bad, and any theory of consciousness better take that into account.

2, Who's the radical skeptic around here? Do you really walk around doubting you (and other people) are conscious? It's one thing to doubt physical matter exists, it's something else entirely to deny conscious experience. Do you honestly think it's possible you're a zombie?

Same exact uncertainty. Unless you wish to say that consciousness is preponderately a set of public behaviors, then you must be as uncertain of your own consciousness as anyone else's.

I must? To deny my own consciousness is to assert it- I cannot undertsand the denial of consciuosness without being conscious to begin with.

So, if you are certain you are conscious, it follows that you define consciousness as I do (and, if I am not mistaken, as Darat does).

Why does it follow? How do you define consciousness? Define "sad" for me. We all feel sad sometimes, and if someone tells us they are sad we know what they mean. So what does that mean "feel sad"?

Turns out that qualia are irrelevant to that definition, and that we p-zombies are every bit as conscious as those hypothetical entities known as real people.

If qualia are irrelevant, you won't mind slamming your fingers in the door, right? It doesn't really hurt. That's an archaic term dependent on qualia. You can redefine things all you want to try to remove subjective experience, but at the end of the day, you're going to take the novacaine shot at the dentist. Not because you have some abstract notion to block mental processes telling you a hole is being drilled in your tooth, but because it feels bad.

[Malerin]

The software of today is a computer in and of itself as well.

No, it's software. That's why it's called software. Without a computer to run it, it sits there on the shelf, doing nothing.

[six7s]

The software of today is a computer in and of itself as well. Bollocks

[AkuManiMani]

With all due respect, anyone who does not know they are conscious cannot be said to know anything. Just being aware is an implicit knowledge of one's own existence.'Conscious' is just the label I put on my experience. One's own awareness is the one thing each of us can know with certainty; its the epistemological base upon which we set all our knowledge.

Oh, my... no. No. In fact, one's own awareness is known with much less certainty than one knows things about external objects.


*blink*

....

You are aware that this is a public forum and that potentially any english-literate person in the world can read that nonsense you've posted, right..? If you're being sarcastic, humorous, or ironic in any way its not coming thru very well.

Its almost...Its almost as if you really think what you're saying makes logical sense....

Couldn't be...

Tell me, how is it that you learned to label your awareness? Surely each feeling did not come pre-labeled by god for your convenience; did somebody teach you that this is hunger, this is love, this is red, this is soft, this is frustrating? You did not invent your own terms; you converse with others and expect them to understand.

I see....

Tell me, how is it that you learned to label [numbers]? Surely each [digit] did not come pre-labeled by god for your convenience; did somebody teach you that this is ["one"], this is ["two"], this is ["three"], this is ["four"], this is ["five"]? You did not invent your own terms; you converse with others and expect them to understand.

Begone, ye demons of stupid! Begone!


You claim you are conscious; indeed, you claim that you are the one entity that you can guarantee is conscious. How can you possibly know you are conscious, then, when you don't even know if the people who taught you about consciousness were themselves conscious? They might have taught it all wrong! How can you know, when you yourself have said that you cannot be certain they are conscious?

Somehow I think you share the same piercing intellect as this guy:

You claim [1+1=2]; indeed, you claim that you [can guarantee that 1+1=2]. How can you possibly know [1+1=2], then, when you don't even know if the people who taught you about [numbers could even count]? They might have taught it all wrong! How can you know, when [I myself] have said that you cannot be certain they [can count]?

Have a cookie.

[AkuManiMani]

The software of today is a computer in and of itself as well.

Bollocks
No, it's software. That's why it's called software. Without a computer to run it, it sits there on the shelf, doing nothing.

To be fair, that's one of the few accurate things hes said in this discussion so far. That was actually a well founded statement from his realm of expertise. Cut'em some slack.

edit: He probably should have qualified that they are virtual computers, tho.

[PixyMisa]

Bollocks
Why?

Is the x86_64 environment presented by your CPU a computer? How about a virtual core as with hyperthreading, or a virtual environment such as VMWare, or an emulator like MAME, or a runtime system like the JVM?

Which of these is not a computer, and why?

[AkuManiMani]

Bollocks

Why?

Is the x86_64 environment presented by your CPU a computer? How about a virtual core as with hyperthreading, or a virtual environment such as VMWare, or an emulator like MAME, or a runtime system like the JVM?

Which of these is not a computer, and why?

His "Bollocks" response is no more unjustified, or baffling, than your repeated "Irrelevant" responses.

[six7s]

Why?

Is the x86_64 environment presented by your CPU a computer? How about a virtual core as with hyperthreading, or a virtual environment such as VMWare, or an emulator like MAME, or a runtime system like the JVM?

Which of these is not a computer, and why?There are, unsurprisingly, quite a few resources - literally at your finger-tips - that will answer your off-topic questions

[yy2bggggs]

Thank you for responding bgggs, I consider you a very intelligent forum member and always learn from what you say.
Hah! Boy do I have you fooled.
I claim that you -- and all other humans -- do not understand such statements.You might want to aim higher then. At least go for Russell's Paradox--at the surface, it's the same sort of thing, but it at least has bigger confusing implications on the nature of the infinite, philosophy of math, etc.

That all Cretes are liars thing is pretty simple. I'm not even sure what it is about it that you think there is to know that you would assert I don't understand. It's as boiled down as it gets.

I think we can parse them, and think about them, but I don't think we ever reach the same understanding we have of other statements. Our mental algorithm never halts on such an input string, so to speak.It's not as bad as you make it out to be. Let's take this one as an example.
Bachelors are not married.
There is exactly one true statement in this list.
Now look at it this way, which is probably the way you think about it anyway. Claim 1 is fixed at "T". Claim 2 is something we have to calculate. There are two possibilities.

Get it? There are TWO of them... only two! Surely we can exhaust two possibilities, especially for something so simple as this. So let's do so.

First possibility:
Claim 2 is T. But if claim 1 is true, and claim 2 is true, then (A) there are two true statements in the list, not one, and that (where "that" is (A)) contradicts claim 2.

Second possibility:
Claim 2 is F. That means when we count the number of true statements, we don't have to worry about Claim 2. That leaves only claim 1, and claim 1 is true; thus (B), there is exactly one true claim. But... oops... that (where "that" is (B)) is what claim 2 says.

Now, presumably, I'm confused, and so are you, so we go back to the first possibility, all scratching heads and what not. But don't be surprised once you reach that destination, and look around, when you notice that I'm not there. I had already covered the first possibility and had wandered along somewhere else. I don't need to go to possibility 1 again... I know what happens there. Instead, I simply perform a post mortem.

Here's how it works. Take a look at both of those possibilities again. The first possibility is ruled out because claim 2's truth makes there be two true statements in the list (A), and the claim says there's exactly 1. The second possibility is ruled out because claim 2's false-ness leaves exactly one true statement remaining (B), and that is exactly what claim 2 claims. Now, certainly, the contradiction is there in all of our exhaustive considerations of truth values, and I'm sure you're already aware of it, but did you notice that the key thing that made us wrong in the assignment with both possibilities--(A) in the first one and (B) in the second one--are different? Didn't you notice that the game is literally rigged against you?

And how? Easy! Claim 2 is about it being false. It's no more than an expanded form of "this statement is false". You don't have to go back and forth. You've exhausted the possibilities. If it confuses you that there's no possible valid truth assignment to claim 2, let's try to do the same sort of thing we did with claim 2, with a more "normal" claim--say, claim 1.

But, to be thorough, we're really going to do the whole shpeel... and not leave a thing out.

So here's how we play. We look at claim 1. It's true, we know that, but that's not what we did with claim 2. So let's not go there yet. Instead, let's explore both possibilities, and in the first one, we'll just say that it's true.

First possibility:
Claim 1 is true. Now we can look at the claim and see if we're right. It says that bachelors are not married. Well, yeah, that's true by definition. And we said that it was true. Nice job! So we were correct.

But we're not done. We didn't exhaust everything. So let's try the other one.

Second possibility:
Claim 1 is false. Now let's look at the claim again. Bachelors are not married. Well... actually... that has to be true. It's true by definition. So saying that it's false is wrong. We flunked--we were wrong. That's fine--we simply rule this possibility out.

And now you should note something oddly different about this exhaustive exploration of claim 1. In exploring all possibilities, when we considered the claim as true, we found out that we could be right. And when we considered the claim as false, we were wrong. Not only this, but the claim was true in both cases, tautologically, as if considering it to be true and considering it to be false had nothing to do with the claim.

Not so with claim 2! But that's no surprise. Claim 2 was about what we considered, so it does change when we explore the possibilities.

And now that I cleared this up, maybe this would confuse you:
There is exactly one true claim in this list.
How many true claims are there in that list? :)
There are 0 of 2 ways to be correct about claim 2 in the original list. There's 1 of 2 ways to be correct about claim 2 in the original list. There are 2 of 2 ways to be correct about this list. Come on... it's not that bad!

[Darat]

Do you really doubt that you're conscious, Darat? :rolleyes: Put away the devil's advocate hat and answer honestly now...

I am not playing devil's advocate I am just pointing out something that a lot of people like to try to hide under the carpet. That aside to your question - I can't answer you unless you give me your definition of "consciousness".

[Darat]

...snip...

2, Who's the radical skeptic around here? Do you really walk around doubting you (and other people) are conscious? It's one thing to doubt physical matter exists, it's something else entirely to deny conscious experience. Do you honestly think it's possible you're a zombie?

...snip...

Your question boils down to "Don't you think you are magical?" And no I don't.

[Hokulele]

1, That doesn't follow at all. Just because I am unsure about others' subjective experiences (or lack thereof), does not mean I am unsure about my own subjective experiences. Anyone who has ever stubbed their toe knows what I mean. It is not just that you injured your foot; stubbing your toe hurts, it feels bad, and any theory of consciousness better take that into account.


Not to everyone, as those familiar with Hansen's disease will attest.

[PixyMisa]

There are, unsurprisingly, quite a few resources - literally at your finger-tips - that will answer your off-topic questions
Funny, I thought you had an opinion on this matter. I guess not.

[lupus_in_fabula]

That doesn't follow at all. Just because I am unsure about others' subjective experiences (or lack thereof), does not mean I am unsure about my own subjective experiences. Anyone who has ever stubbed their toe knows what I mean. It is not just that you injured your foot; stubbing your toe hurts, it feels bad, and any theory of consciousness better take that into account.

And every time you stab your toe it will "hurt" slightly differently, and it will "feel bad" in slightly different ways. But usually not so much as to fall outside the formed patterns of reactions, which we tend to simplify by invoking a more general notion such as "hurt".

The problem with your assumption that you are certain about your own subjective experiences is that there are many ways to make you quite uncertain. Just a stroke in the left hemisphere which spills out to Wernicke's and Brocka's areas and "you" will simply not know that it's you who stabbed his toe, nor might you even know what that sensation is, if any such sensation at all would register. In fact the ability to distinguish between sensations in any meaningful sense might be totally scattered. Even identifying it as an experience in toto might be gone because there is no discernible way to "interpret" what's happening at all.

[westprog]

This is all fine and dandy but like I said, unless you can give researchers actual examples of something they did incorrectly that they think is correct I.E. where they are wrong then your words don't really help.

You might be the brightest human ever but I am reminded of an episode of Star Trek TNG when Q, stripped of his powers, tells the crew how to save a planet by changing the local gravitational constant. When asked how, he says "you just do it."

You are basically saying "just stop being wrong." Ok....

The AI way of producing consciousness is to imitate the external appearance of consciousness, and when the resemblance is close enough to fool us, then we say that something is conscious. The extreme of this position is the claim that everything with some kind of algorithmic nature is in some sense conscious.

An alternative to this would be to examine the biological structures that seem to produce consciousness, and to develop a physical theory that shows how they do it. After figuring out what is actually happening, then it might be the time to try duplicating it.

That's not to say that AI research is futile. Just AI research that intends to produce, rather than emulate, conscious beings.

[westprog]

Hooray! Now we also have a useless definition of 'know'! By this definition I am the only one that knows anything.

What is knowledge if not information? What is 'to know' if not 'to contain information'?

What makes something information? Can something be said to be information if it doesn't interact with awareness?

[westprog]

Yes, 'know' should not mean just 'contains information' that is no good.

I should have said contains and can act on the information it contains.

A planet can act on gravitational information. Does that mean that a planet knows about gravity?

[AkuManiMani]

It's not as bad as you make it out to be. Let's take this one as an example.
Bachelors are not married.
There is exactly one true statement in this list.

At first I found this rather confusing but I've slept on it and I think I might have found the source of the error

The error is not so much with the factuality of claim 2 but its inclusion as being part of the list.

If instead, the list were reduced to statement 1 and statement 2 were considered as a significance statement of the list there would be no conceptual conflict. A comment ABOUT the list should not be included IN the list. The error is semanic.

Here is the correct way:

[B]List A
1.Bachelors are not married

[There is exactly one true statement in this list.]

Fix'd


There is exactly one true claim in this list.

How many true claims are there in that list? :)

None. Claim to what? The statement is referring to nothing. The claim is not true, and neither is it false: it's meaningless.

EVERYTHING....MUST...LOGIC!!!! *_*

[AkuManiMani]

Funny, I thought you had an opinion on this matter. I guess not.

I'd say hes about as qualified to speak on computer programing as you are to speak on philosophy of mind. You clearly have no idea what you're talking about on the matter of consciousness. Glass houses, son.

[Dancing David]

I'd go further to say that such non-deterministic behavior is one feature which distinguishes the behavior of life in general from the behavior of the mechanical constructs like clocks. I suspect the reason for this is that organisms scale up QM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_biology) level effects to the macroscopic scale.



Oh whoops the QM Godwin, this discussion is over!

No need to scale up QM, that is just silly.

Chaos (complex behaviors of deterministic systems) is enough. More silly on you!

:)

[AkuManiMani]

I am not playing devil's advocate I am just pointing out something that a lot of people like to try to hide under the carpet.

Yea, that thing people like to hide under the carpet is called the HPC. But being as how that term has been banned from discussion, for the reason mentioned above, it has been replaced w/ the EMA.


That aside to your question - I can't answer you unless you give me your definition of "consciousness".

That thing that happens to you between waking and sleep.

Not specific enough for you? Start working on the Hard P-- I mean the EMA then :rolleyes:

[Dancing David]

I'd say hes about as qualified to speak on computer programing as you are to speak on philosophy of mind. You clearly have no idea what you're talking about on the matter of consciousness.


And there you are, demonstrate to me that the 'philosophy of mind' has anything to do with 'consciousness'!

That should be really interesting!

You just assert that speculation without data is related to consciousness, now show there is a link. Please.

:)

I like you AMM, but I don't think you have stopped to examine your own beliefs. This is just assertion that philosophy is related to science. Now show me the steps, please.

You have just stated (to me in my warped perspective) that angels dancing on the heads of pins use QM superposition to fit an infinite number of angels on a very small pin.

[AkuManiMani]

Oh whoops the QM Godwin, this discussion is over!

No need to scale up QM, that is just silly.

Chaos (complex behaviors of deterministic systems) is enough. More silly on you!

:)

There is sufficient scientific reason to invoke QM in biological process since those are the rules governing them. Do you have evidence to the contrary?
And there you are, demonstrate to me that the 'philosophy of mind' has anything to do with 'consciousness'!

That should be really interesting!

First I would like to thank you for challenging my ideas. It really helps force me to articulate them better and make them stronger! :D

BWUAHAHAHAHAHA!

*ahem*

So yea, anyway...

A philosophy is the underlying conceptual framework thru which one examines the world. The field of philosophy is the application of an analytical approach to those underlying frameworks; in much the same way one would approach numbers [Maths], or nature [Science].

Philosophy of the mind is using this analytical approach to how one conceives of the mind and, by extension, the question of consciousness.


You just assert that speculation without data is related to consciousness, now show there is a link. Please.

Do I need to cite evidence that objects fall when you drop them or can you just test it out for yourself?

My speculation is based upon reflecting on my own consciousness from the 'inside' -- so to speak -- and scientific data on a number of different topics, but most especially the brain and biology.

My on first person examination of my own consciousness I trust implicitly. The scientific findings, to date, concerning how the brain works we pretty much agree on. I just interpret all the empirical data differently than you 'cause I'm wired differently. ;)

I'm basically what happens when you expose small children to too many science books and an early age O_o


I like you AMM

I like you too. Lets be friends :)


but I don't think you have stopped to examine your own beliefs.

Oh but I have! Obsessively. In fact I'm so obsessive about being skeptical of my own views that I keep most of them in a limbo of suspended judgment -- what I call the "hold-that-thought" bin. The only ones I present over the internet are the ones I feel are now viable enough to be tested by the rigors of public argumentation on the internetz w/ smart people like you.

I must confess that I'm just using you, and some others on this forum, to help logic test some of the ideas most interesting to me. I am an imagineer and you are one of my quality testers!

Most of your counter arguments have been pretty good so keep up the good work! :D


This is just assertion that philosophy is related to science. Now show me the steps, please.

Modern science and the scientific method were developed by natural philosophers of the Enlightenment period. It has since evolved into a distinct field of it's own but it doesn't hurt to subject it to a philosophical tune up every once inna while.

You have just stated (to me in my warped perspective) that angels dancing on the heads of pins use QM superposition to fit an infinite number of angels on a very small pin.

I'm saying the biological processes are more a part of the weird quantum scale of reality than a an inanimate chunk of matter. In my mind's eye, it seems to me that organisms are scaled up complex uber particles, which is part of the reason our behaviors are so weird and hard to predict compared to, say, a rock.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

In a super-duper coincidence, I just happened to print out this paper by P. Davies about an hour ago to read this evening:

http://cosmos.asu.edu/publications/papers/%27Does%20quantum%20mechanics%20play%20a%20non%20t rivial%20role%20in%20life%27%20BioSystems%20paper. pdf

~~ Paul

[Darat]

Yea, that thing people like to hide under the carpet is called the HPC.

...snip...

You seem to have lost track of the discussion - my comment was not in reply to a point about the HPC, it was about an unacknowledged assumption.


But being as how that term has been banned from discussion, for the reason mentioned above, it has been replaced w/ the EMA.

No the label "the HPC" has not been replaced by the label "EMA". You attempted to re-define what we mean when we refer to "the HPC". When it was pointed out to you that your definition did not match the common usage, you said (to paraphrase) "Fine - I'll call what I mean the 'EMA'". But what you refer to as the "EMA" is not the same "problem" as the HPC is meant to contain.




That thing that happens to you between waking and sleep.

Not specific enough for you? ...snip...

Again you seem not to be able to follow the flow of the discussion. I was not asking for any specific definition I simply made a comment that I couldn't answer the question a Member had asked me without them supplying the definition they were using for "consciousness".

Unlike a term with a commonly accepted definion, like the HPC, consciousness is a word that has many different meanings and one that people use in many different ways so it is alway better to clear up how someone is using the word before attempting to answer such a question. Otherwise you often find that you were talking about something totally different to the other person, for example as you did when you created your own unique definitions for a p-zombie and for the HPC.

Hope you've found these explanations useful.

[PixyMisa]

I'd say hes about as qualified to speak on computer programing as you are to speak on philosophy of mind. You clearly have no idea what you're talking about on the matter of consciousness. Glass houses, son.
Feel free to point out anything that we ascribe to consciousness that is not covered by my explanation. (Note that when I say "my", I don't claim to have formulated it, merely promoted it in this thread.)

You will be required to show, however, that whatever it is you are claiming (a) exists and (b) is not in fact covered by my explanation.

Oh, and you don't get to redefine terms, either.

Go!

[PixyMisa]

There is sufficient scientific reason to invoke QM in biological process since those are the rules governing them. Do you have evidence to the contrary?
Do you have any evidence whatsoever that quantum mechanics has any influence on consciousness beyond the bulk, statistical properties of the matter that makes up our brains?

If so, feel free to present that, too.

[westprog]

Dennet's not saying that because experience is a confused concept that it should be ignored. He's saying that because experience is a confused concept with no referent it should be ignored.


In ignoring experience, he at least has some justification. But when he ignores experience/awareness/consciousness, but then claims to have explained consciousness, he's taking a step too far.

Consider a dictionary. Every word in a dictionary is defined. However, each word is defined in terms of other words. How do we extract meaning from the dictionary when every term is simply a combination of other terms?

In order for a dictionary, and any other defining mechanism, to be useful as anything other than a self-referential closed system, there must be some things which we know before we approach the dictionary.

In the same way, in a world where things are described and defined in terms of the way we interact with them, we must, in order to form the definitions, have an understood basic level of interaction. Since we interact with the world via our awareness, that has to be at a level which cannot, inherently, be described in terms of the things of which we are aware. Nevertheless, we do understand what is meant by awareness. How could we not?

Are you familiar with the vitalism analogy?

But consciousness is different in that it cannot be analysed in functional terms. That's what zombies show us, for example: we can imagine creatures functionally indiscernable from ourselves, that nevertheless lacks conscious experience. Whatever consciousness is, it isn't just the having of certain functional relations. That's not what we mean by the term - our phenomenal concepts are something quite different.

[Mercutio]

1, That doesn't follow at all. Just because I am unsure about others' subjective experiences (or lack thereof), does not mean I am unsure about my own subjective experiences. Anyone who has ever stubbed their toe knows what I mean. It is not just that you injured your foot; stubbing your toe hurts, it feels bad, and any theory of consciousness better take that into account.
There is an extensive literature on the pain problem in consciousness; I certainly would not be promoting a theory which does not take it into account. Of course, pain is a very good example of how we are unable to describe a subjective experience without reference to a public one; the words we use to describe pain tend to make metaphorical reference to observable events (is it a stabbing pain, or a burning pain? Doc, it feels like somebody hit me with a hammer...), and doctors still have the unenviable task of figuring out whether this person who stubbed his toe and claims it is a 9 on the 10-scale is really in more pain than this fellow with the compound fracture and partial amputation who calls his pain a 6. "Worst pain imaginable" changes as a function of what injuries you have actually suffered; our reports of pain are very much learned, and even our subjective experience of pain is dependent on individual and cultural learning histories.

2, Who's the radical skeptic around here? Do you really walk around doubting you (and other people) are conscious? It's one thing to doubt physical matter exists, it's something else entirely to deny conscious experience. Do you honestly think it's possible you're a zombie?
Yes, I think it possible I am a p-zombie. (Or m-zombie, from an earlier thread.) But then, I am a veteran of these threads going back to Interesting Ian, and I have had plenty of opportunity to come to this conclusion.

I do not walk around doubting that people are conscious, but then, I have a definition of consciousness that refers to public behavior, so there is no inconsistency. It is only those who claim a primacy of subjective experience as the defining aspect of consciousness who are in an untenable position.

I absolutely do not deny conscious experience; what I do deny is that there is some sort of consciousness that we have that p-zombies do not. They behave indistinguishably from us; there is no way to tell them from us; I certainly do not feel some sort of magic inside of me, so I think it entirely possible that I am--and I cannot but think the same of others--a p-zombie.

I must? To deny my own consciousness is to assert it- I cannot undertsand the denial of consciuosness without being conscious to begin with.
Exactly what a p-zombie would say.

Why does it follow? How do you define consciousness? Define "sad" for me. We all feel sad sometimes, and if someone tells us they are sad we know what they mean. So what does that mean "feel sad"?
Do we know what they mean? Each of us has perhaps a unique learning history with "sadness". There is certainly overlap in our experience, but the more dissimilar our environments, the less this would be the case; I suspect that the descriptions of what we call sadness would vary tremendously across cultures. I know that "love" certainly does; I just have not had the opportunity to do the same analysis with "sadness".

And of course, you have had a lifetime of learning in your culture to hone your definition of sadness. Think of a young child just learning the word. How much variety in experience goes into that word, and how much can the child relate to that, even if she has reason to be sad?

If qualia are irrelevant, you won't mind slamming your fingers in the door, right? It doesn't really hurt. That's an archaic term dependent on qualia. You can redefine things all you want to try to remove subjective experience, but at the end of the day, you're going to take the novacaine shot at the dentist. Not because you have some abstract notion to block mental processes telling you a hole is being drilled in your tooth, but because it feels bad.
Wow. You really don't understand*. The door slam and the hole drilled in the tooth are both environmental stimuli (both, in this case, causing tissue damage!). I react to getting my fingers slammed into the door, not to "the perception of" getting my fingers slammed into the door. Or the qualia of the perception of getting my fingers slammed into the door. Or the sensation of the qualia of the perception of getting my fingers slammed into the door. Or the rest of the turtles. Qualia add nothing at all to the equation; they are offered without evidence, and can be dismissed just as easily.

*I infer this from your public behavior, obviously. It is quite possible that you understand perfectly, but consistently behave as if you do not. For all purposes, this amounts to the same thing; it is just the "understanding" version of the "dude, what if you say something is red, and I say it's red, but really what looks like red to me would look like green to you but you've just always called that red...dude, my hands are soooo big...." Red is defined by a set of publicly observable objects and events, not by qualia. We know this, because we agree that these things are red, and those are not. I infer that Darat understands my points because we react similarly to comments; I infer that you do not because you say such things as "If qualia are irrelevant, you won't mind slamming your fingers in the door, right?"

[westprog]

I know I have posted a link to this paper on several previous threads, but I'll be damned if I can find the right link right now, so this (http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-1103869151.html) will have to do. Consciousness as you describe it in your last paragraph above is a trivial and useless thing, not at all what we usually think of as consciousness. It is a "something" that can't really even be labeled, as it cannot be verified as the same from one person to another.



I regard the fact that consciousness cannot be labelled (or defined, or described) as being indicative that it is more fundamental and important than other properties.

[Mercutio]

I regard the fact that consciousness cannot be labelled (or defined, or described) as being indicative that it is more fundamental and important than other properties.

I'm a bit confused. You use "it" to refer to what cannot be labeled, defined, or described. How do you know there is an "it" there? How can you? Mightn't it be "they" rather than "it"? Or nothing at all? Is this one of those god things, that has very specific characteristics that everybody knows, except when you actually try to look at it scientifically, at which point it turns into something that cannot be labeled, defined, or described, but which is excruciatingly important because, dammit, it's god?

[PixyMisa]

I regard the fact that consciousness cannot be labelled (or defined, or described) as being indicative that it is more fundamental and important than other properties.
That's not a fact. It's not even a fact-like object.

[rocketdodger]

You wanted me to suggest to you specific approaches to the problem, right? I've posted some of them here (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4528563&postcount=131), here (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4528873&postcount=143), and here (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4530214&postcount=167).

If you've objections to any particular point please state them :)

I have no objections to those points. In fact, people have been doing what you suggest for 20+ years.

I think what you fail to appreciate is how people can talk about something being "simple," like PixyMisa talking about "consciousness," when they really mean the fundamentals are simple and the issue can be as complex as anyone wishes to make it. Sort of like mathematics. Are you aware how simple the axioms of all mathematical systems are? Are you aware how complex the realm of mathematics can be?

That is why I really don't think you can suggest a way for researchers to behave differently. You might think they are barking up the wrong tree, but more than likely they are trying to build a bridge from this tree to the correct one because the bark of the correct one is too slippery to climb. Or something like that.

[AkuManiMani]

There is sufficient scientific reason to invoke QM in biological process since those are the rules governing them. Do you have evidence to the contrary?

Do you have any evidence whatsoever that quantum mechanics has any influence on consciousness beyond the bulk, statistical properties of the matter that makes up our brains?

If so, feel free to present that, too.

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

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

[AkuManiMani]

I have no objections to those points. In fact, people have been doing what you suggest for 20+ years.

I think what you fail to appreciate is how people can talk about something being "simple," like PixyMisa talking about "consciousness," when they really mean the fundamentals are simple and the issue can be as complex as anyone wishes to make it. Sort of like mathematics. Are you aware how simple the axioms of all mathematical systems are? Are you aware how complex the realm of mathematics can be?

That is why I really don't think you can suggest a way for researchers to behave differently. You might think they are barking up the wrong tree, but more than likely they are trying to build a bridge from this tree to the correct one because the bark of the correct one is too slippery to climb. Or something like that.

I suppose you are right.

This is clearly an interdisciplinary problem that will require the expertise of many different people from many different fields. Perhaps I'm addressing the wrong profession at the wrong time.

Now that I think about it, at lot of what I'm proposing seems more relevant to philosophy, neuroscience, and biophysics than current AI research. It appears that I was the one barking up the wrong tree. I was too harsh on you; my bad :o

But, do keep in mind that the EMA is still a very real problem, not only philosophically but scientifically as well. Do what you can on your end.

Also, I think I may have stumbled upon a clue of distinguishing part of the 'meaning' problem in my response (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4531047&postcount=197) to yy2bggggs. I hope you find it helpful :)

[yy2bggggs]

At first I found this rather confusing but I've slept on it and I think I might have found the source of the error

The error is not so much with the factuality of claim 2 but its inclusion as being part of the list.
That's not "the error", that's the problem. Try this one:
Bachelors are not married.
Exactly one claim in this list is true.
More than one claim in this list is true.Now is claim 2 an issue? Should we remove it from the list?

Also, try considering the meaning of this phrase: "one plus the largest finite number expressible in English in less than twenty six syllables". Is the "correct" way to analyze this to remove that statement from the English language?

It's better to think of such things in terms of ways you can ascribe truth value to all of the claims and be correct. Claims then fall into two basic genres under said considerations--claims that have nothing to do with what truth values you assign, and claims that rely on them. Self referential claims--that is, claims that are, directly or indirectly, about the truth value being assigned to them--are of the latter type. But even those claims aren't necessarily an issue, unless there are no valid ways to assign the values (or, alternately, should you wish to consider it an issue, if there are multiple ways to assign the values).

[Apathia]

:lol2:

I love it!
The topic always gets there.
At least a couple of people raise their hands and declare they are P-Zombies and have no self-awareness whatsoever.

Actually, I follow their point.
There is no self that is aware.

The technical problem is how would we replicate a self-concept in an andriod such that she would have this marvelous mirage?

And why the heck would we want to?
We want clever tools not insufferable brats!

(Who's an insufferable brat? Me according to my ex-girlfriend.)

[AkuManiMani]

I'd say hes about as qualified to speak on computer programing as you are to speak on philosophy of mind. You clearly have no idea what you're talking about on the matter of consciousness. Glass houses, son.

Feel free to point out anything that we ascribe to consciousness that is not covered by my explanation. (Note that when I say "my", I don't claim to have formulated it, merely promoted it in this thread.)

You will be required to show, however, that whatever it is you are claiming (a) exists and (b) is not in fact covered by my explanation.

Oh, and you don't get to redefine terms, either.

Go!

You see the thing is I, and many others on this thread, have repeatedly and thoroughly done so already. You just seem either unwilling or unable to recognize this. The definition and criteria for consciousness which you have given is actually a redefinition of it. I does not explain, or even address, what we're even referring to.

All that you have explained and described are elements of operational logic and function. Conscious awareness is a separate issue, tho the two are related. The fact that you insist on claiming to have explained conscious awareness, while at the same time denying its self evident reality is absolutely baffling. Your seeming inability to comprehend the inherent inconsistency of your position -- both internally and with established fact -- is even more dumbfounding.

I suppose the old saying that "when one's only tool is a hammer every problem begins to look like a nail" especially applies here. You seem to only be able to think of this issue in terms you're familiar with when, in actuality, the tools you're trying to apply are not applicable.

The more I think about it, the more it becomes clear to me that your field [and rocket's related field of AI] cannot actually address the issue of awareness because it is, fundamentally, a question of biophysics and not really an issue of operational computer logic.

[lupus_in_fabula]

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

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

I think Stuart Hameroff presented something of the sort at a Beyond Belief conference in 2006 (Quantum Consciousness). I think he worked with Roger Penrose on the theory. The audience wasn't too impressed with him however. Lawrens Krauss (http://krauss.faculty.asu.edu/), coming from a physics perspective, jumped on him immediately about the QM stuff with something like: "...from a physics perspective, everything is nonsense... maybe I'm being too polite..." Terrence Sejnowski (http://www.salk.edu/faculty/sejnowski.html), coming from a computational perspective, wasn't that impressed either. Then there was a neurobiologist who also had some pointed criticism, and a philosopher.


I haven't followed up on the discussion though, maybe there's some papers on the disagreement, I don't know. Anyway, here's the presentation by Hameroff (http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-science-religion-reason-and-survival/session-4-1).

[westprog]

Do you really not understand the difference between knowing you are conscious and knowing it seems like you are conscious?


I don't see how there can be a difference. An entity that is not conscious cannot be fooled into thinking it is conscious because there's nobody there to be fooled. If it seems as if you are conscious, then you are. Otherwise there is no "seems".

[AkuManiMani]

That's not "the error", that's the problem. Try this one:
Bachelors are not married.
Exactly one claim in this list is true.
More than one claim in this list is true.Now is claim 2 an issue? Should we remove it from the list?

Statements 2 and 3 are referential statements about the list and, for this reason, it is semantically inappropriate to include them in it. Statement 1 is the only valid independent claim in that it is not self-referential; therefore adding it to a list of meaningful declarative statements is appropriate. Once again our list comes down to one statement.

With that said, statement 2, as a referential tag, is both true and meaningful. Statement 3 is a compounding of the original semantic error. Its referring to the same list as statement 2 but it contradicts the true status of statement 2 and is therefore false.

[westprog]

To be fair, that's one of the few accurate things hes said in this discussion so far. That was actually a well founded statement from his realm of expertise. Cut'em some slack.

edit: He probably should have qualified that they are virtual computers, tho.

Just about all computers are virtual computers, going back to the days of microcode. Nobody programs the bare silicon.

[yy2bggggs]

Statements 2 and 3 are referential statements about the list and, for this reason, it is semantically inappropriate to include them in it.
"There are true statements."

This claim is referential about propositions (and is, itself, a proposition). Should we throw it out?

[westprog]

And every time you stab your toe it will "hurt" slightly differently, and it will "feel bad" in slightly different ways. But usually not so much as to fall outside the formed patterns of reactions, which we tend to simplify by invoking a more general notion such as "hurt".


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

The problem with your assumption that you are certain about your own subjective experiences is that there are many ways to make you quite uncertain. Just a stroke in the left hemisphere which spills out to Wernicke's and Brocka's areas and "you" will simply not know that it's you who stabbed his toe, nor might you even know what that sensation is, if any such sensation at all would register. In fact the ability to distinguish between sensations in any meaningful sense might be totally scattered. Even identifying it as an experience in toto might be gone because there is no discernible way to "interpret" what's happening at all.

But I do not have brain damage which prevents me from


experiencing something
knowing that I am experiencing it


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

[AkuManiMani]

I think Stuart Hameroff presented something of the sort at a Beyond Belief conference in 2006 (Quantum Consciousness). I think he worked with Roger Penrose on the theory. The audience wasn't too impressed with him however. Lawrens Krauss (http://krauss.faculty.asu.edu/), coming from a physics perspective, jumped on him immediately about the QM stuff with something like: "...from a physics perspective, everything is nonsense... maybe I'm being too polite..." Terrence Sejnowski (http://www.salk.edu/faculty/sejnowski.html), coming from a computational perspective, wasn't that impressed either. Then there was a neurobiologist who also had some pointed criticism, and a philosopher.


I haven't followed up on the discussion though, maybe there's some papers on the disagreement, I don't know. Anyway, here's the presentation by Hameroff (http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-science-religion-reason-and-survival/session-4-1).

Awsome! a good response :)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Roger Penrose's theory an attempt to propose his "microtublues' hypothesis as a mechanism for Quantum effects in the brain. I myself, am not an expert on the subject but when I first heard that hypothesis I was doubtful that it was valid as being THE mechanism the way Penrose et al. were proposing it.

The fact is that its well established that QM is relevant to biological function and there are biological processes that are being studied from the perspective of QM. For instance, QM is being used to understand the efficiency of photosynthesis in plants and cyanobacteria [here's an article (http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/PBD-quantum-secrets.html) on the subject]. If you'd like, I can dig up more references to studies on the role of QM in biology. The role of QM in neurochemistry may not be well understood yet but I've little doubt that it will eventually be mapped out and that it will be crucial to our understanding of the brain and consciousness.

edit: BTW, thanks for the links. I'll definitely look into it :)

[Darat]

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

...snip...

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

[rocketdodger]

It's not as bad as you make it out to be. Let's take this one as an example.

...snip...



But doesn't this support my argument?

You (again, this is what drkitten did!) attempt to resolve the issue by stepping out one level. Instead of trying to assign a truth value to the statement, you try to assign a truth value to a claim about the statement.

So this solves one problem, in that at least you can assign a value of false to the new sentence.

But it doesn't solve the problem of it being different from all other well formed sentences, because if you do the same for other well formed sentences -- as you show! -- you can always find at least one way to make a true claim about them. The only way to make a true claim about the claim about the paradox is to step back further and say something like "it is true that I can't find a way to make a true claim about the truth of the sentence 'this statement is false'," and so forth.

And really, my argument isn't that "this statement is false" is somehow a magical anomaly vortex singularity, my argument is just that "this statement is false" is fundamentally different from all other well formed sentences in human language. I say people never come to a conclusion about it, you say you give up and give a postmortem -- same thing. The point is, we can't figure it out like we can figure out other sentences. It might as well be a foreign language because it doesn't lead anywhere.

The whole point, of course, is that I think "this statement is false" is a human Godel sentence. I don't agree with Penrose and the like that humans can always step outside a given system. I don't think we can step outside our system.

Now we can, of course, simply make the human Godel sentence another axiom of an "improved" human system, and again for the next Godel sentence we make for the "improved" system, and so forth -- but is this really "understanding" each system? I claim not. I claim that process would be identical to programming a machine to generate a Godel sentence for any system you give it -- a trivial thing to do. That isn't "stepping outside the system," as AkuMani says, it is simply generating a statement.

EDIT: I think Hofstadter says something like this in GEB, although I didn't understand what he really meant at the time I read it.

[AkuManiMani]

"There are true statements."

This claim is referential about propositions (and is, itself, a proposition). Should we throw it out?

The of the s problem isn't with the statement "There are true statements". The problem is with the context of the statement.

"There are true statements" is not the same as "There are true statements on X list of statements". If the comment "There are true statements on X list of statements" is on X list then it becomes self-referential and invalid as a statement of truth or falsehood.

[AkuManiMani]

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

The weather changes all the time also. That does not mean that weather doesn't exist.

[PixyMisa]

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

As Tegmark pointed out, the time scale of neural events is removed from that of quantum coherence by thirteen orders of magnitude.

Unless you can show real, hard, direct evidence, I'm very much afraid that Tegmark's thirteen orders of magnitude trumps your baseless speculation.

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

[rocketdodger]

Bollocks

So a computer simulated on a computer is in fact not a computer because it is virtual?

Or are you just saying we should qualify such a label with "virtual?"

[Belz...]

If Gate2501 is right, then they too have come to the same solution to the HPC, and are logically putting it into practice.

Er... no, that doesn't follow.

[PixyMisa]

So a computer simulated on a computer is in fact not a computer because it is virtual?
Which, of course, counts out almost every computer built in the last thirty years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcode).

[Belz...]

But -- I do know that there is atleast one being in the universe who is conscious: me.

Considering that people can't even tell if an event in their lives really happened or if the medecine they took really solved their illness, I suggest that you, or I, have no idea if you're really conscious or not. Hell, we can't even really define "conscious".

[Darat]

The weather changes all the time also. That does not mean that weather doesn't exist.

And?

[westprog]

I'm a bit confused. You use "it" to refer to what cannot be labeled, defined, or described. How do you know there is an "it" there? How can you?

How can I know anything? If I can't trust the actual sensation of pain, then how can I believe that you exist, stamping on my toe?

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

Of course, it's always possible that your perception of yourself and the world is vastly different from mine. I experience a series of sensations, and perform actions. From these sensations and the responses to actions, and my thoughts, I build up a picture of something I call "the world". I know nothing of the world apart from my sensations.

Using the sensations as a guide, I've been able to allocate "lables, definitions and descriptions" of what I perceive. Naturally, I do this according to how the sensations differ. Thus I can have a particular sensation and name it "black dog". But how can I produce, using this method, a description or definition of the sensation itself? It's clearly impossible, because the sensation is what we start with.

Mightn't it be "they" rather than "it"? Or nothing at all? Is this one of those god things, that has very specific characteristics that everybody knows, except when you actually try to look at it scientifically, at which point it turns into something that cannot be labeled, defined, or described, but which is excruciatingly important because, dammit, it's god?

[rocketdodger]

All that you have explained and described are elements of operational logic and function. Conscious awareness is a separate issue, tho the two are related. The fact that you insist on claiming to have explained conscious awareness, while at the same time denying its self evident reality is absolutely baffling. Your seeming inability to comprehend the inherent inconsistency of your position -- both internally and with established fact -- is even more dumbfounding.

I suppose the old saying that "when one's only tool is a hammer every problem begins to look like a nail" especially applies here. You seem to only be able to think of this issue in terms you're familiar with when, in actuality, the tools you're trying to apply are not applicable.

The more I think about it, the more it becomes clear to me that your field [and rocket's related field of AI] cannot actually address the issue of awareness because it is, fundamentally, a question of biophysics and not really an issue of operational computer logic.

See, you are doing it again.

What you completely fail to realize is that we believe conscious awareness is a phenomenon that occurs given a certain "operational logic and function." We think it can be modeled mathematically.

As such, Pixy (and anyone you ask) is required to say that iPhones are conscious -- mathematically, there is only a difference in quantity from a human, not quality. In fact, mathematically, there is never a difference in quality -- hence my own assertion that everything in the universe experiences.

What we have not said, and will never say, is that human consciousness or human experience is simple, or understood fully, or anything you seem to think we say. What I consider the experience of a water molecule is very far removed from my own experience. How could it not be?

Everything looks like a nail to the researchers that work on this stuff because they have figured out that everything can be built with nails I.E. mathematics. There is no need for anything else.

[Belz...]

Nominated.

And wrong.

[rocketdodger]

Which, of course, counts out almost every computer built in the last thirty years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcode).

Not to mention that it makes no sense linguistically.

A "virtual computer" is still a type of computer, just like a "square" is still a type of rectangle.

[Belz...]

Fall in love?

How could you tell ?

[westprog]

Now that I think about it, at lot of what I'm proposing seems more relevant to philosophy, neuroscience, and biophysics than current AI research. It appears that I was the one barking up the wrong tree. I was too harsh on you; my bad :o
)

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

[Darat]

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

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

[westprog]

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

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

[Mercutio]

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

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

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

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

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

[westprog]

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

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

[Belz...]

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

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

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

[yy2bggggs]

But doesn't this support my argument?No. Your argument is that this is beyond human logic and understanding.
You (again, this is what drkitten did!) attempt to resolve the issue by stepping out one level.If by "the issue", you mean demonstrating my understanding, then... guilty as charged! But: ...
Instead of trying to assign a truth value to the statement, you try to assign a truth value to a claim about the statement.
...it appears that you think I was trying to "solve the issue". I wasn't. I'm trying, instead, to show you what "the issue" actually is. That's the motive for stepping out.

But it doesn't solve the problem of it being different from all other well formed sentences,Actually, that is in fact the very problem that it solves. The entire reason for stepping out one level is to show understanding, and the whole point is to show precisely how those statements are different from other well formed sentences.

And the analysis does, in fact, illustrate an understanding not only that the statements differ, but how, and why. What's left to understand?
because if you do the same for other well formed sentences -- as you show! -- you can always find at least one way to make a true claim about them.
But it's not surprising. That the claims are self referential isn't the essential point here. The same sort of issue occurs if you give me a choice, and a prediction, and let me choose. I can pick independently from your prediction, or dependently. If I pick dependently, I can spite your prediction, in which case it's impossible for you to be correct, or I can humor it, in which case it'd be impossible not to be correct. These are simply "self spiters", or "self humorers", and they get to be simply because the thing they are about is bound to the evaluation of their validity.

The essential point is that self referential statements have such "outputs" hooked to "inputs" at all, and yeah, there are more complicated ones that make me scratch my head. But the simple one? What is it you suppose I don't understand about it?
I say people never come to a conclusion about it, you say you give up and give a postmortem -- same thing.But you initially said that it was beyond human logic and understanding. That's what I'm objecting to. Were you to merely say "we don't come to a conclusion about it", you'd be correct. But it's no more meaningful than my not coming to a solution to an impossible sudoku puzzle (even after demonstrating it impossible). Once you claim that I don't understand it, you overstep your bounds--if I know exactly why that sudoku puzzle is impossible, I do understand it. That I can't find a solution is simply because it's impossible.

And less face it... sudoku's a great analogy, because it's not really even an analogy so much as it is an example.
The point is, we can't figure it out like we can figure out other sentences.But isn't that because it's not like other sentences? Is your problem merely a manufactured one?

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

[Belz...]

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

Useless, unfalsifiable, and most probably wrong anyway.

[Belz...]

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

Wonderful, Mercutio. As usual. I applaud.

[PixyMisa]

-_-

....

Don't play dense, Pixy.
Oh, I'm not playing.

I give you a lot more credit than that.

It means that I'm calling 'consciousness' a specific class of phenomenon (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/phenomenon):

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

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

I know from direct observation that there are periods of time that the phenomenon of my conscious experience has varying qualities (moods, sensations, colors, thoughts and accompanying emotional overtones, directions of focus, etc.) and varying degrees (ranging from full wakefulness, to drowsiness, and unconscious sleep).How would you know this, though? And what difference does it make in any case?

You've already told me what your criteria for consciousness are and I reject them for a number of reasons [many of which I've already repeatedly and clearly stated in this an every other thread discussing this topic] but one of the primary reasons is that your criteria are met when I am, in fact, unconscious.Being unconscious doesn't mean you're not conscious, of course. Because you are giving the word two different meanings.

From the empirical laboratory of my own experienceThe what now?

I know that the criteria you've proposed are falsified.You not only do not know this, you can't know this. And besides that, you're wrong.

I don't need to refer to the intellectual authority of Dennett or any other person to see that this is the case.It might help if you knew anything at all about the subject, though. Hofstadter is a better place to start than Dennett, for that.

The argument in favor of the "toaster as conscious" view is, on its face, a lousy one because its based on an equivocation of the term 'consciousness'.No. We don't need to equivocate on the term, because we have you to do that for us.

Many of the thinkers you've referenced in support of your definition of consciousness, I feel, are very intelligent people who should know better, so I can't help but concluding that this equivocation is deliberate.Then name one thing we ascribe to consciousness that is not covered by my explanation. Show that it exists, show that it really is not covered, and we'll have something to discuss.

I also believe that you're intelligent enough to know better yourself and that you already know what is meant when I use the term 'consciousness'.I don't even think you know what is meant when you use the term "consciousness".

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

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

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

"Irrelevant"

or

"Oh, that's just factory added extras"I don't recall saying the latter.

Well, we just so happen to be discussing the "factory added extra" of consciousness.No, we're not.

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

Your invoking of "appliances are conscious too" is a deliberate dodging of the issue at hand.Dodging? On the contrary. It is the issue at hand.

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

Quite frankly, its getting really old.And?

Wha....?

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

Ever hear of sleep? Comas, maybe? Hows about death???Yes, I've heard of those. What of them?

Jebus, Pixy, you're seriously pushing it.Nice to know.

"Random expostulations of incredulity"????Yes. As in, pretty much everything you've posted in this thread.

I'm...I'm speechless.Apparently not.

I think I've found a genuine aku-zombie -_-Aku-zombie, hardly. P-zombie, sure. The concept might be incoherent, but at least it's defined.

[Mercutio]

I'm quite open to extreme skepticism about the existence of almost anything, but I think there's a clear hierarchy. I am certain of the sensation of reading words on the computer screen. You might doubt whether the sensation exists - but it seems rather strange to me to then regard the existence of the computer screen and the person at the other end as being real and the sensations of them as being possibly not there.
You have spent your lifetime in a language community that speaks of "sensations", "images", "feelings", etc. as nouns. You can sense things; does that mean that there is a thing called a sensation, with its own existence? You can see things; do you see images of things? If you consider that you would rather doubt the thing than the image, and thus say that you cannot see a thing but only its image, one wonders how you see the image. Do you see an image of this image? Or an image of that image of the image? Our language treats processes as nouns, but that does not magically make them exist separately from the processes.

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