Clues about consciousness

[PixyMisa]

Originally Posted by Frank Merton

Where logical problems arise, if they do, is when you try to wedge it into the sort of world where the only possible science is what the positivists insist on.

Evidence?

[shuttlt]

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

So?

Saying "problem solved, nothing more to talk about" seems to me like an oversimplification. It may be that the problem is solved, but I think a little empathy with the dificulty that many people have accepting the solution would be helpful. Given that there appear to be perfectly respectable philosophers in both camps, I think it's at least worth having intellectual respect for both positions.

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

Name one.

There is only one, so far as I am aware. That's the one I'm talking about. I don't know if it has a name. You claim not to know what other philosophers claim Dennett is excluding? If you don't understand this I can certainly empathise with you and it accounts for a lot of the difficulty in communicating. I thought as you do once.

[shuttlt]

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

You don't care whether arguments are logically consistent or not? (Remember, dualism either posits an inconsistent universe, or is inconsistent itself. Either way, it's a one-way trip down a rabbit hole of nonsense.)

I don't care. I don't propose a solution. I don't say that dualism is true or false. I don't care. I don't say that positivism is true or false. I don't care. All I say is that I find the experience of being alive and being conscious isn't what I would have expected given a reductionist, positivist account of the world. I don't say, therefore God. I don't say, therefore anything.

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

Name one. Show me that Dennett says it doesn't exist. Show me that it does.

Are you saying that you don't know what any of the people who talk about "Consciousness Ignored" are talking about? Have you read them and not understood or not read them?

[Aepervius]

Originally Posted by shuttlt

So Daniel Dennett says. My limited understanding of this is that this is not an opinion that has been universally accepted in philosophy. Perhaps my understanding of current philosophical opinion is skewed but I thought that at least one criticism of Dennett's views, and hence your views, was that they take all the aspects of consciousness that philosophers weren't particularly interested in, claim it is all there is and then walk away.

I can see why it would be a popular scientific position to take. He claims that contrary to appearences consciousness is a problem that is accessible to science.


My problem isn't with the corollary. I do not accept that which it is a corollary of.

Here is your problem : you are trying to mix philosophy (mind wanking) with neurology/physiology (real system fucntion).

[PixyMisa]

Originally Posted by shuttlt

Saying "problem solved, nothing more to talk about" seems to me like an oversimplification.

Dennett doesn't say that the problem with consciousness is solved, he says (though I don't know if he's ever used these words) that the epistemic gap is closed.

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It may be that the problem is solved, but I think a little empathy with the dificulty that many people have accepting the solution would be helpful.

In science, you don't have empathy for falsified hypotheses; you discard them. That's why science works.

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Given that there appear to be perfectly respectable philosophers in both camps, I think it's at least worth having intellectual respect for both positions.

Who exactly are these perfectly respectable philosophers of whom you speak?

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There is only one, so far as I am aware. That's the one I'm talking about.

What?

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I don't know if it has a name.

Seriously, what?

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You claim not to know what other philosophers claim Dennett is excluding?

What are you saying is excluded?

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If you don't understand this I can certainly empathise with you and it accounts for a lot of the difficulty in communicating. I thought as you do once.

I don't really care whether you empathise with me or not. I do care that you state your position clearly.

If you want to criticise Dennett for excluding something that you believe exists, and you can neither name nor describe this thing, then you've failed very very badly at that.

[PixyMisa]

Originally Posted by shuttlt

I don't care. I don't propose a solution. I don't say that dualism is true or false.

It's not a question of whether it's true or false. It's not logically consistent.

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Are you saying that you don't know what any of the people who talk about "Consciousness Ignored" are talking about? Have you read them and not understood or not read them?

I want to know what you are talking about.

[dlorde]

Originally Posted by shuttlt

Given a good grasp of physics there should be nothing going on in brains, minds and consciousness that is, at least in principle, inexplicable.

Yup.

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All I am asking is whether the feeling of being sentient feels subjectively like an anomolous experience given that all that is really happening is physics?

No, not really. That may be because I've thought and read about it for so long. When sentience evolves, experience has to be like something, but there is a divide between the subjective (experience) and the objective (behaviour). Subjective experience can only be described in terms of other subjective experiences, so there is always a problem trying to explain it objectively. But when you are the brain in question, a certain pattern of neuronal activity is your sensation of blue. Why is that particular pattern 'blue'? well I don't know, but it has to be something. It seems to me that experience and sensation is a level of abstraction above the firings of individual neurons in the same way that the operations of a microprocessor are a level of abstraction above the switching of individual transistors.

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None the less, what it feels like to be sentient isn't what I would have expected given that it's nothing but the behaviour of the physical properties of my brain.

I don't know what you would have expected, but you'll get a better objective description at the neurobiological level than the physics level. But whatever the level, objective description can, in principle, tell you everything except what it's like to be you.

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This is the JREF and we all know people can be mistaken about their interpretation of their experiences. What I find curious is that right now I'm not clear that anybody else has such an anomolous experience. Off the top of my head the explanations for this are:

1. None of you are having the experience. I kind of doubt this one.
2. You know something I don't about science/philosophy/neurology/ whatever that renders the experience non-anomolous.
3. You are having the experience but don't realize that I'm referring to it due to the difficulty in talking about subjective experiences.

Perhaps there are others?

To me the experience isn't anomalous because when I look at the big picture, it's everywhere. We are part of the same evolutionary tree as all Earthly life, and see indications of sentience and consciousness of various levels in mammals, birds, and even cephalopods. Ours is particularly well-developed, but the octopus, for example, has evolved with a completely different nervous system, yet despite a very short lifespan, shows high intelligence and clear signs of sentience (interesting that it has also independently evolved a camera-type eye). The number of animals that show signs of sentience and examples of convergent evolution such as the octopus, suggests that sentience can be a powerful selective advantage, enabling flexible, adaptive, and creative behaviours. So not anomalous, no; quite the opposite.

[Dancing David]

Originally Posted by shuttlt

The experience (perhaps qualia is the right word, perhaps it isn't) of being alive and being conscious feels deeply incompatible with a behaviourist explanation.

But it isn't those are behaviors, which in behaviorsim might as well be called events. All events are behaviors, the point of Skinner is to avoid the introspective interpretations. Peopl can report and try to quantify their internal states of experience, that is fine (and part of CBT), however then the door is shut on introspective interpretation of causality/events and connections. If the data shows something then it shows something.

[Dancing David]

Originally Posted by shuttlt

It is very easy to explain what you mean if you are saying there is nothing but behaviour. It is very hard to explain what you mean if you are saying something different, since generally I think language refers to behaviours and objects. Even emotions have associated behaviours. Describing something concisely that is neither an object than one could in principle point to, nor the behaviour of such an object is very hard and, I think, mainly involves saying what it isn't. Personally I would take it from all the verbage that has been expended that an attempt is being made to communicate something that is very hard to communicate. Whether it is a correct notion or not is something else.

Your explanation is again an account of how the behaviour of self-consciousness, the behaviour of emotion etc... comes about and is implemented. I do not think behaviour is what is being discussed.

Well it is!

[Frank Merton]

Originally Posted by dlorde

The number of animals that show signs of sentience and examples of convergent evolution such as the octopus, suggests that sentience can be a powerful selective advantage, enabling flexible, adaptive, and creative behaviours. So not anomalous, no; quite the opposite.

Of course it would be an incredible advantage and so one I would think would appear just as soon as the brain involved is able to have it.

Without sentience, all there is is reflex -- programmed responses to specific stimuli.

With sentience there is the possibility of reward/punishment (pleasure/displeasure) feedback, among other things.

[Dancing David]

Originally Posted by shuttlt

My own experience of myself is more than I would have expected from physics and neurology.

This is the SMT forum, personal expectations are fine, they are not however replicable, controlled and subject to science, in this context.

Now people study expectations as behaviors all the time, but there predictive value as whether p-zombies imply dualism is an opinion.

This is the behavioral formulation:
-all body events are a behavior, some are directly observable, others rely upon less direct means.
-any object which exhibits all the behaviors that make the criteria of consciousness, including private and indirectly measured behaviors is conscious

The philosophical construct of the p-zombie:
-a p-zombie exhibits all the behaviors of consciousness but is not conscious


There seems to be a misunderstanding of the behavioral definition there, yes?

[Mijin]

Originally Posted by Aepervius

Here is your problem : you are trying to mix philosophy (mind wanking) with neurology/physiology (real system fucntion).

It's a common perception here on JREF that qualia is just a thing philosophers talk about but neuroscientists know it is all nonsense.

But actually, that isn't the case. I studied Neuroscience at one of the top universities for that subject (UCL) and the clear explanatory gap in how brains can "make" sensations was readily acknowledged. And as a second anecdote I see there are two books beside my PC here; both were written by neuroscientists accepting of the hard problem of consciousness (V. Ramachandran and D. Eagleman).

Indeed I would say there are more qualia "believers" among neuroscientists than guys in the Dennett camp. Obviously that doesn't make the opinion right, I'm just saying this isn't a matter of science vs "mind wanking".

[Dancing David]

Originally Posted by shuttlt

I don't think I am asking you to explain how it happens. All I am asking is whether the feeling of being sentient feels subjectively like an anomolous experience given that all that is really happening is physics?

No

[Dancing David]

Originally Posted by Frank Merton

I don't think quantum mechanics is involved -- that would be at a scale of magnitude far smaller than the scale of brain activity.

We are back to the business of whether you "get it" or not, and for the moment at least I'm tired of repeating myself. Let me just say that neuron A and neuron B can talk to each other all they like, the whole thing in a highly causal way, and it doesn't create subjective sensations in our mind.

Neurons don't create experience?

Where pray tell is it created?

I would be interested in candidates and evidence.

(Neural networks seem causal but more probabilistic and learned.)

[shuttlt]

Originally Posted by Aepervius

Here is your problem : you are trying to mix philosophy (mind wanking) with neurology/physiology (real system fucntion).

No. I'm not. All I'm saying is that the experience of consciousness as I experience it surprises me, given that there is nothing but neurology. If that's philosophy it's philosophy of a very limited kind. In defending the experience from being told "no you aren't experiencing that because that is dualism" philosophy seems to necessarily creep in.

In any case, if you write philosophy off as mind wanking it's very difficult to have a conversation about a philosophical problem.

[Dancing David]

Originally Posted by Frank Merton

Because it is a mystery, and probably a great one.

Asserting the conclusion?

[Dancing David]

Originally Posted by shuttlt

My limited understanding of this is that this is not an opinion that has been universally accepted in philosophy.

I have different standards in SMT, R&P is that way >>>>>

[PixyMisa]

Originally Posted by Mijin

It's a common perception here on JREF that qualia is just a thing philosophers talk about but neuroscientists know it is all nonsense.

The notion of qualia as philosophers talk about it is all nonsense. It is inherently dualistic. Some neuroscientists use the term to refer to a particular class of mental process even while following a purely naturalistic basis for their explanations. I wish they wouldn't [use that term] because all it does is muddy the waters.

[Frank Merton]

Originally Posted by Mijin

Indeed I would say there are more qualia "believers" among neuroscientists than guys in the Dennett camp. Obviously that doesn't make the opinion right, I'm just saying this isn't a matter of science vs "mind wanking".

I've thought about saying something along those lines several times; the assumptions made by several of those posting here seem so out of it. However, it would be an appeal to authority, and would probably lead to no end of demands for proof (how does one prove what the prevailing opinion is?), so I refrained.

I think the reaction is that the talk about qualia and its seeming inexplicability has been jumped on by many mind wankers, as you call them. There is all too widespread a "no prisoners taken" attitude in the battle with pseudos -- one must absolutely reject everything they jump on or they will take unfair advantage. This is true, perhaps, but the unfortunate reality is that there are rare occasions where they are, if only by accident, on the right road.

I've also been accused of having an agenda -- to prove some supernatural or mystical factor in the universe. If I had such an agenda, I would preach it. All I do is confront the problem and say I have no answer, but that I see the problem, and it disturbs me, probably because I realize that this does imply a limit to the reach of science.

[PixyMisa]

Originally Posted by Dancing David

Well it is!

Indeed.

[Frank Merton]

Originally Posted by Dancing David

I would be interested in candidates and evidence.

So would I. That I have no alternative is not grounds for adopting one that doesn't work.

There is no doubt that neurons are needed. They are just not sufficient.

[Frank Merton]

Originally Posted by Dancing David

Asserting the conclusion?

Taking quotes out of context?

[PixyMisa]

Originally Posted by Frank Merton

I think the reaction is that the talk about qualia and its seeming inexplicability has been jumped on by many mind wankers, as you call them. There is all too widespread a "no prisoners taken" attitude in the battle with pseudos -- one must absolutely reject everything they jump on or they will take unfair advantage. This is true, perhaps, but the unfortunate reality is that there are rare occasions where they are, if only by accident, on the right road.

Here's the problem: The term qualia was originally invented, later popularised, and is most widely used in philosophy to represent a concept that is either logically inconsistent in itself or requires a logically inconsistent framework for meaning. As such, the term is meaningless and the discussions revolving around it without merit.

Some people use it without all that baggage as a shorter term for "subjective experience". But subjective experience poses no epistemic problem for science they way philosophical qualia would (if they could exist); just the usual ones of hypothesis and evidence.

[PixyMisa]

Originally Posted by Frank Merton

There is no doubt that neurons are needed. They are just not sufficient.

Evidence?

[shuttlt]

Originally Posted by dlorde

No, not really. That may be because I've thought and read about it for so long.

:-)

Originally Posted by dlorde

When sentience evolves,[

Why would it evolve?

Originally Posted by dlorde

experience has to be like something,

If it exists. It surprises me that it does.

Originally Posted by dlorde

but there is a divide between the subjective (experience) and the objective (behaviour). Subjective experience can only be described in terms of other subjective experiences, so there is always a problem trying to explain it objectively.

Yes.

Originally Posted by dlorde

But when you are the brain in question, a certain pattern of neuronal activity is your sensation of blue. Why is that particular pattern 'blue'? well I don't know, but it has to be something.

I don't see anything about that that isn't objective. It might be specific to me, but if it is just neurons then there isn't anything about it that isn't, at least in principle, externally knowable.

Originally Posted by dlorde

It seems to me that experience and sensation is a level of abstraction above the firings of individual neurons in the same way that the operations of a microprocessor are a level of abstraction above the switching of individual transistors.

Microprocessors are just very complicated switches. You give them an input and by a complicated process and output is returned. If the experience of consciousness arrises in the same way then I find it surprising.

Originally Posted by dlorde

I don't know what you would have expected, but you'll get a better objective description at the neurobiological level than the physics level. But whatever the level, objective description can, in principle, tell you everything except what it's like to be you.

I guess I agree with the addition that I don't see that physics or neurobiology tell me that there is a thing that it is like to be at all.

Originally Posted by dlorde

To me the experience isn't anomalous because when I look at the big picture, it's everywhere. We are part of the same evolutionary tree as all Earthly life, and see indications of sentience and consciousness of various levels in mammals, birds, and even cephalopods.

If they are conscious, I find that just as surprising as my own consciousness.

Originally Posted by dlorde

Ours is particularly well-developed, but the octopus, for example, has evolved with a completely different nervous system, yet despite a very short lifespan, shows high intelligence and clear signs of sentience (interesting that it has also independently evolved a camera-type eye). The number of animals that show signs of sentience and examples of convergent evolution such as the octopus, suggests that sentience can be a powerful selective advantage, enabling flexible, adaptive, and creative behaviours. So not anomalous, no; quite the opposite.

I think we are talking at cross purposes here. This is behaviour. I do not find any of it any more surprising than you do.

[shuttlt]

Originally Posted by Dancing David

This is the SMT forum, personal expectations are fine, they are not however replicable, controlled and subject to science, in this context.

Then perhaps the thread needs to be moved.

Originally Posted by Dancing David

There seems to be a misunderstanding of the behavioral definition there, yes?

I am misunderstanding it?

[SusanB-M1]

Originally Posted by PixyMisa

Evidence?

Yes, I was wondering whether to ask why (neurons are not sufficient). Also he says earlier:

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All I do is confront the problem and say I have no answer, but that I see the problem, and it disturbs me, probably because I realize that this does imply a limit to the reach of science

That too prompts the question why? i.e. Why is there such a limit?


Shuttlt - Well, I'd definitely like the thread to stay firmly in Science; it needs a different title for R&P.

[dlorde]

Originally Posted by Frank Merton

Of course it would be an incredible advantage and so one I would think would appear just as soon as the brain involved is able to have it.

That's an odd way of putting it.

The advantage depends on the environmental context. High-level cognition comes with energetic costs. If you have evolved a phenotype and set of behaviours that are sufficient to keep your population at sustainable levels, and the environment is relatively constant and consistent, then flexible, adaptable behaviours may not be necessary, so sophisticated sentience may not have sufficient advantage to outweigh its costs, and it won't develop.

One tends to see it most often in social animals, where the complexities of social group interaction & co-operation make it advantageous.

[Frank Merton]

Originally Posted by dlorde

The advantage depends on the environmental context. High-level cognition comes with energetic costs.

Evolution doesn't work in quantum leaps. Sentience would evolve gradually. Any animal with eyes, I would think, most likely has sentience when it comes to visual qualia, but some would see in color and others would not, etc.

[Frank Merton]

Originally Posted by SusanB-M1

That too prompts the question why? i.e. Why is there such a limit?

The point is that we experience. Think about that word. Do rocks experience? Well, no. So when does experience begin? With the first life? Probably not. This is just chemicals -- the same stuff as rocks.

But then we are also just chemicals, the same stuff as rocks, and we experience. My mind doesn't tell me "There is an object out there reflecting light at the following wavelengths . . ." Instead, it says, "There is something blue out there." (This is even though all that happens in the eye is a report of certain wavelengths coming in).

The mind is consistent about this. Sometimes it gets fooled, but usually if certain wavelengths are coming in it sees blue while if others are coming in it sees some other color. Indeed, different individuals, even though they have no way of directly comparing their experiences, nevertheless apply the same English word to what is seen.

We conclude that the brain (not mind) does its thing, and we know some of what it does and are steadily learning more. We know that certain parts of the brain give off certain stimulators and certain suppressors if what the eye is signalling blue wavelengths. This is all great.

The neurons do not "see." They do not "experience." The mass of neurons that is the brain does not do those things either. Only the mind.

The neurologists are abuzz, and have been for over a decade, about this problem, and have done so without becoming Buddhists or whatever. I don't see an answer; I don't see the possibility of an answer. It is a serious problem.

It may work out something like the problem Newton had in "explaining" how his gravity reached across the vacuum of space to hold the Earth in orbit. He merely said he offered no hypotheses. He only offered a description.

[dlorde]

Originally Posted by Frank Merton

We are back to the business of whether you "get it" or not, and for the moment at least I'm tired of repeating myself. Let me just say that neuron A and neuron B can talk to each other all they like, the whole thing in a highly causal way, and it doesn't create subjective sensations in our mind.

This seems to me a bit like saying the squares in Conway's Game of Life can set themselves black or white depending on their neighbor's settings all they like, but that doesn't create a glider gun...

[Frank Merton]

Originally Posted by dlorde

This seems to me a bit like saying the squares in Conway's Game of Life can set themselves black or white depending on their neighbor's settings all they like, but that doesn't create a glider gun...

I'm not sure what you are saying.

What I'm saying is a bit arrogant. I "get it," while it is rather plain to me that some around here don't. I have to fall back on the old cliches. They are thinking in a box, they have blinders on, etc. The thing is, when one has such blinders on, one is not aware of it and therefore reacts, not unreasonably, with some heat.

It's frustrating to try to argue with someone who fairly obviously doesn't understand the point, and I've stopped responding, for the most part, to such messages.

I think maybe the problem comes from the fact that we are dealing with phenomena that are so familiar to us we don't realize they are even there. That we experience the world as the key of our existence is an example.

I need to practice explaining this, and I need help doing it, but some things don't break in no matter how well you choose your words. Even the language seems to conspire against me.

[Frank Merton]

Originally Posted by dlorde

This seems to me a bit like saying the squares in Conway's Game of Life can set themselves black or white depending on their neighbor's settings all they like, but that doesn't create a glider gun...

Now on second try I do understand what you are saying. What the settings create is a shape of black and white squares that, because of the rules, looks like a gun and with each generation glides across the screen.

OK, the rules don't create the gun, the squares' status in each generation is determined by the previous generation, and we get something complicated and perhaps surprising to us out of it.

Still, it is explainable. The squares do not experience the phenomenon of gliding.

[SusanB-M1]

Frank Merton

thank you for reply. Although we cannot experience being a bat, or a rock, scientists can develop ways to observe, test and learn a great deal about them and will continue to do so. There may be a limit to our ability to experience, but not, I think, to research and knowledge about things.

[tsig]

Originally Posted by Frank Merton

I've thought about saying something along those lines several times; the assumptions made by several of those posting here seem so out of it. However, it would be an appeal to authority, and would probably lead to no end of demands for proof (how does one prove what the prevailing opinion is?), so I refrained.

I think the reaction is that the talk about qualia and its seeming inexplicability has been jumped on by many mind wankers, as you call them. There is all too widespread a "no prisoners taken" attitude in the battle with pseudos -- one must absolutely reject everything they jump on or they will take unfair advantage. This is true, perhaps, but the unfortunate reality is that there are rare occasions where they are, if only by accident, on the right road.

I've also been accused of having an agenda -- to prove some supernatural or mystical factor in the universe. If I had such an agenda, I would preach it. All I do is confront the problem and say I have no answer, but that I see the problem, and it disturbs me, probably because I realize that this does imply a limit to the reach of science.

The answer has been given but you refuse to accept it preferring to handwave it away and to cling to your myth that humans are special.

[dlorde]

Originally Posted by shuttlt

Why would it evolve?

for the same reason any trait evolves - it give a selective advantage. Creatures that have it survive to have viable offspring better than those that don't.

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If it exists. It surprises me that it does.

Why 'if' it exists? If experience doesn't exist, there's no problem of experience to discuss.
Your surprise is noted.

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I don't see anything about that that isn't objective. It might be specific to me, but if it is just neurons then there isn't anything about it that isn't, at least in principle, externally knowable.

The bit people have trouble with is what makes a pattern of neuron activity feel like blue.

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Microprocessors are just very complicated switches. You give them an input and by a complicated process and output is returned.

Neurons are also very complicated switches. Mammalian neural circuits have been emulated using microprocessors in neural networks and they behave in exactly the same way.

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If the experience of consciousness arrises in the same way then I find it surprising.

So you keep saying. The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that consciousness is a computational process.

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I guess I agree with the addition that I don't see that physics or neurobiology tell me that there is a thing that it is like to be at all.

I did say, "... objective description can, in principle, tell you everything except what it's like to be you".

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If they are conscious, I find that just as surprising as my own consciousness.

The evidence suggests many of them are. Your eyebrows must be out of sight!

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I think we are talking at cross purposes here. This is behaviour. I do not find any of it any more surprising than you do.

Consciousness and sentience are behaviours. I thought that was what we were talking about?

[dlorde]

Originally Posted by Frank Merton

Still, it is explainable. The squares do not experience the phenomenon of gliding.

The neurons do not experience the phenomenon of sentience.

[Frank Merton]

Originally Posted by tsig

The answer has been given but you refuse to accept it preferring to handwave it away and to cling to your myth that humans are special.

Where did I say that? I assure you humans are special, but all species are special.

[Frank Merton]

Originally Posted by dlorde

The neurons do not experience the phenomenon of sentience.

Yes, neurons are not sentient; brains are not sentient. What is sentient we call mind, but that seems to be not a "thing" but a process of neurons doing what they do.

The analogy to the computer game doesn't work very well, does it?

[dlorde]

Originally Posted by Frank Merton

The neurons do not "see." They do not "experience." The mass of neurons that is the brain does not do those things either. Only the mind.

The mind is what the living brain does; it's a process.