Consciousness: Is It Possible?

[timtofly]

The below exchange sounds interesting, so I thought it deserves it's own thread, instead of being intertwined into the other thread.

What allows consciousness? Is it the amount of brain capacity? Is it the result of evolution? Is it random or pre-programmed? Do thoughts arise out of nothing, or are they put there by some invisible force?

I would stay away from the math and explaining how exactly the computer becomes conscious. Otherwise those with a math or computer science background will likely find it "silly". I'd make the reason for consciousness vague, and stay away from the binary/floating point accuracy stuff.

Well, at some point there's enough data and processing to simulate consciousness to effectively it makes moot whether or not it's real.

Or it doesn't.

But you need a lot more than just data and processing power. You need to design something that will be conscious.

People like Kurzweil seem to think that all you need is processing power. That to me seems to be a highly flawed way of thinking.. but mind you I don't think that's what you believe, it just made me think of him.

I'm not sure if there is or isn't a magic switch outside of size and complexity that creates a thinking brain.

But stuff doesn't just arise out of nothing just because of complexity, that's never happened anywhere. You need some sort of a design first. In the case of our brain it's been evolving and getting finetuned over millions (billions?) of years.

I agree that if you had a computer as complex as our brain and run it through a simulated evolutionary path similar to what our brain went through, you might just get sentience.. Probably not the first time and probably not in the first decade of trying - you'd really need to finetune everything just the right way.

But there's no way you can just sit it down and expect anything to happen. You either need to duplicate the way our brain was "designed" or try a design of your own.

It is my theory that there is more to it than just raw brain power, thus eliminating the material aspect altogether. It seems though that some hold that it is just a product of evolution. I apologize if there is already a thread on the topic, and this is not about God or a God existence. It is more to hash out what we know/have opinions about consciousness itself.

 

[Tahuti]

Consciousness is not necessarily raw processing power, as Warpus rightly points out. It requires the right "software", if the term even does the issue justice - I'm a CS major myself. True consciousness requires some randomness, or at least, what in a technical way appears as such. Human action is distinguished from instincts and clockwork mechanics in its unpredictability.

Therefore, to achieve a semblance of consciousness, calculational power is not enough, though more may be needed to get there. Computers have to be nondeterministic. That is perhaps even more important than self-awareness (which not even all conscious beings have) and self-learning.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

But stuff doesn't just arise out of nothing just because of complexity, that's never happened anywhere. You need some sort of a design first. In the case of our brain it's been evolving and getting finetuned over millions (billions?) of years.

I agree that if you had a computer as complex as our brain and run it through a simulated evolutionary path similar to what our brain went through, you might just get sentience.. Probably not the first time and probably not in the first decade of trying - you'd really need to finetune everything just the right way.

But there's no way you can just sit it down and expect anything to happen. You either need to duplicate the way our brain was "designed" or try a design of your own.

I think warpus makes an important point here. Consciousness is something that doesn't just pop out of nothing. But rather needs specific designing to exists.
This assumption makes sense, because we have one instance where (to our knowledge) consciousness exist and the next logical step is to isolate this phenomena by realizing what is unique about the one place we witness it.
Which is not complexity. Or "computing power".
Or any under objective and general criteria like that.
Our brain is special and unique, it seems only logical to look at our consciousness under the same terms. It is not logical to assume that we can just have whatever general trait our brain has and there you go consciousness. That would be like dressing a clown like a formula 1 driver and expecting him to speed with 200 miles per hour through the streets. In short - it would be stupid. Let's not be that.
A good way to not be stupid is to remember what we even actually know. Which is that our brain corresponds to consciousness. Which is awfully specific. And hence only serves to make grounds for quality speculation if we assume to know a lot more.

 

[Kyriakos]

I agree with Warpus' point on this, as well. A computer may have 1000 times the processing ability the current best computers do, it still will not by itself make it form any sort of what we sense as consciousness. Processing ability is not leading to self-reflection or even basic awareness that something exists, in a similar way that a sword used thousands of times in battle to slay enemies will not form some sense of brutality on its own part.

The current attempts to make "conscious robots", i am afraid (or perhaps happy with) are just entirely misquided and won't ammount to any consciousness at all. Even the very basic "insect-like robots" which were created a few years ago, and have the program to identify hindrances on their environment as something not to be overcomed but instead forcing a pathway searching approach, are nothing at all like the actual insects and how they move and react. In reality those robots have absolutely no consciousness, they merely can give the illusion that they have, if someone who knew nothing about them (for example a very young child) had happened to glance at one of their anxious-looking twists and turns.

 

[Borachio]

What's the question? Is artificial consciousness possible?

(Because, I'm guessing, most readers of this would count themselves as having consciousness.)

Anyway, it's an interesting question how it arises in the brain. And it's not at all obvious that's it's confined to the human brain. Or why it couldn't in principle be an emergent property of some sufficiently sophisticated software.

I'd agree it's not really a hardware issue.

As for where original thought comes from, I haven't a clue. Nor indeed whether there is any such thing as a truly original thought. All thought might just be rehashing of previous thinking and previous input.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Doubt it, given that this would mean that any thought at any point in time (eg current thought too) is a rehashing of any thought at any past point in time (eg 2 million years ago). Which seems either evidently false, or true in so far as one would present all thoughts as breaking into parts not conscious to their thinkers, parts that by themselves carried with them the prospect of forming those future thoughts given enough time and other special conditions being met. Which, in this example involving millions of years, pretty much renders this point as moot in regards to how original or not a thought can be.

From time to time, individuals appear who present notably 'different' ways of thinking. Try reading any of the early victorian era stuff, and then Franz Kafka. They both are literature and prose, but there are some glaring differences between them. I do like a number of victorian era literature, such as short stories by Dickens or RLS's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but the difference between the ways those narratives are formed, along with their scope in relation to the external world and society, is simply vastly different than those elements in the work of Kafka, who was already born by the time most of those stories were being written.

 

[peter grimes]

The below exchange sounds interesting, so I thought it deserves it's own thread, instead of being intertwined into the other thread.

What allows consciousness? Is it the amount of brain capacity? Is it the result of evolution? Is it random or pre-programmed? Do thoughts arise out of nothing, or are they put there by some invisible force?











It is my theory that there is more to it [consciousness] than just raw brain power, thus eliminating the material aspect altogether. It seems though that some hold that it is just a product of evolution.

What happens when the brain ceases to function properly? Loss of consciousness. I think it's very well established that consciousness is in fact an emergent property of the brain.

You could be right that it's not the whole explanation, but you're not going to get human consciousness in a human body without a brain - cylons excepted, of course.

It's my view that we will see functional artificial consciousness by mid century. By functional, I mean something along the lines of a Turing test. Outside observers will have just as much reason to attribute consciousness to my hypothetical gadget as they do to other people with physical or mental impairments.

Does anyone here doubt that Stephen Hawking has consciousness? What evidence do you rely on for that assessment?

 

[timtofly]

Consciousness is not necessarily raw processing power, as Warpus rightly points out. It requires the right "software", if the term even does the issue justice - I'm a CS major myself. True consciousness requires some randomness, or at least, what in a technical way appears as such. Human action is distinguished from instincts and clockwork mechanics in its unpredictability.

Therefore, to achieve a semblance of consciousness, calculational power is not enough, though more may be needed to get there. Computers have to be nondeterministic. That is perhaps even more important than self-awareness (which not even all conscious beings have) and self-learning.

Without the deterministic factor, software is pointless. I agree that it is not the hardware, but are we ruling out the software also? I suppose one could develop "learning" software that is not deterministic, but is knowledge then the determinate of consciousness?

I think warpus makes an important point here. Consciousness is something that doesn't just pop out of nothing. But rather needs specific designing to exists.
This assumption makes sense, because we have one instance where (to our knowledge) consciousness exist and the next logical step is to isolate this phenomena by realizing what is unique about the one place we witness it.
Which is not complexity. Or "computing power".
Or any under objective and general criteria like that.
Our brain is special and unique, it seems only logical to look at our consciousness under the same terms. It is not logical to assume that we can just have whatever general trait our brain has and there you go consciousness. That would be like dressing a clown like a formula 1 driver and expecting him to speed with 200 miles per hour through the streets. In short - it would be stupid. Let's not be that.
A good way to not be stupid is to remember what we even actually know. Which is that our brain corresponds to consciousness. Which is awfully specific. And hence only serves to make grounds for quality speculation if we assume to know a lot more.

I agree that the human conscious is unique and that may be due to the capability of the human brain. We seem to be stuck with knowledge as the determining factor of what classifies consciousness.

I agree with Warpus' point on this, as well. A computer may have 1000 times the processing ability the current best computers do, it still will not by itself make it form any sort of what we sense as consciousness. Processing ability is not leading to self-reflection or even basic awareness that something exists, in a similar way that a sword used thousands of times in battle to slay enemies will not form some sense of brutality on its own part.

The current attempts to make "conscious robots", i am afraid (or perhaps happy with) are just entirely misquided and won't ammount to any consciousness at all. Even the very basic "insect-like robots" which were created a few years ago, and have the program to identify hindrances on their environment as something not to be overcomed but instead forcing a pathway searching approach, are nothing at all like the actual insects and how they move and react. In reality those robots have absolutely no consciousness, they merely can give the illusion that they have, if someone who knew nothing about them (for example a very young child) had happened to glance at one of their anxious-looking twists and turns.

So we may be saying here that consciousness is not just a moving library of knowledge, but how that knowledge is used?

What's the question? Is artificial consciousness possible?

(Because, I'm guessing, most readers of this would count themselves as having consciousness.)

Anyway, it's an interesting question how it arises in the brain. And it's not at all obvious that's it's confined to the human brain. Or why it couldn't in principle be an emergent property of some sufficiently sophisticated software.

I'd agree it's not really a hardware issue.

As for where original thought comes from, I haven't a clue. Nor indeed whether there is any such thing as a truly original thought. All thought might just be rehashing of previous thinking and previous input.

Either we will be able to answer the question or not. Some one in the past came up with the term and defined it. Other's have refined it. I am not saying this is a new question, nor an overthrow of the established knowledge on the topic.

What is a thought? Is it established knowledge?

What happens when the brain ceases to function properly? Loss of consciousness. I think it's very well established that consciousness is in fact an emergent property of the brain.

You could be right that it's not the whole explanation, but you're not going to get human consciousness in a human body without a brain - cylons excepted, of course.

It's my view that we will see functional artificial consciousness by mid century. By functional, I mean something along the lines of a Turing test. Outside observers will have just as much reason to attribute consciousness to my hypothetical gadget as they do to other people with physical or mental impairments.

Does anyone here doubt that Stephen Hawking has consciousness? What evidence do you rely on for that assessment?

Can we get human consciousness into an artificial body? Or would it cease to be? Does experience have something to do with it, and how we react to experience?

 

[Tahuti]

Without the deterministic factor, software is pointless. I agree that it is not the hardware, but are we ruling out the software also? I suppose one could develop "learning" software that is not deterministic, but is knowledge then the determinate of consciousness?

Well, evolution has something random. How creatures mutate is completely random, despite certain mutations are determined to be better suited for given environments than others. We humans tend to discover things by randomly trying things out, and establishing patterns afterwards. Our preferences and tastes, while some nurture and peer-pressure are involved, are for most part random. The very things that make us human - and give us consciousness - is our irrationality, which is our appearance of randomness to others. I find it both appealing and epistemically rational to suggest that some higher being and/or conscience might decide the results behind those random lots by free will.

So for artificial consciousness to be possible, computers must be truly random. I don't know of any algorithms that can truly randomly generate numbers, aside from statistical randomness, which is something different. Humans are capable of primary motivation. Computers currently aren't: If they do something, they do it because they are asked to do it. What if computers can do something out of the blue without anyone asking for it like humans can too?

I'd really like to thank you for opening up this thread, since I not often get to discuss topics related to my field of study here on CFC, nor do I think that often that deep about the subject as I do now.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I think that using computer analogies for human consciousness will lead you astray. To begin I think that you need to define what we mean by consciousness and where it is currently found. IMO I think it exists at the atomic level and as life arose and become more complex, consciousness did also.

 

[timtofly]

So does that mean that when it comes to AI, it is not possible, since artificial life is not the result of evolution?

 

[Orka]

The way I see it, human consciousness needs nothing more than the brain. When you look at fMRI brain scans, there are parts of the brain that are much more active in conscious patients than partially/completely unconscious patients. So the brain definitely plays a role.

As for artificial consciousness, given how little we understand how consciousness emerges in ourselves or other organisms (along with many other forms of intelligence), we are far from achieving it, unsurprisingly. Our AI is so primitive that it is inconceivable how we could do it. But I see no reason for it to be impossible. And randomness is no barrier; it can be achieved by, among other methods, connecting a computer to a sensory apparatus that measures the atmosphere or something (a la random.org).

 

[timtofly]

On one hand you make it look like simple brain function, and then you say that AI though simple does not scratch the surface. Why does there seem such a huge abyss, but not one.

I agree with Birdjaguar that the computer analogy is not the best, but it seems the closest to describing it in material terms.

I can see humans inventing a similar brain cortex to ours that has billions of neurological connections that is able to "learn" and show understanding, but until then we have no clue if that would be a conscious entity or not.

This thread has the potential to go in any direction, and that is great. It was a vague question and not deterministic in the least. I realize that consciousness has more than one dimension so feel free to discuss any aspect that comes to mind.

 

[Tahuti]

And randomness is no barrier; it can be achieved by, among other methods, connecting a computer to a sensory apparatus that measures the atmosphere or something (a la random.org).

Thanks for the link! I do think that TRNG has to happen faster for it to be practical as a means of consciousness generation. Right now, it is too slow.

 

[Kyriakos]

I don't see what 'randomness' has to do with 'creating' artificial consciousness?

Fwiw i would not say the human consciousness is actually 'random', although part of its logic is that it can seem to be random, in varrying degrees. Otherwise there would be no sense of a free thinking process, regardless of there actually being one or not.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

All quotes by Sri Aurobindo:

Existence, consciousness and the significance of our conscious being,- a triple enigma confronts us when we look at them to discover their origin, foundations, nature, their innermost secret. We begin with a riddle, we end with a mystery.

All these problems arise in our consciousness and in our consciousness alone can be found their solution - or to it or through it perhaps from a greater consciousness the solution must come. On the nature and validity of our consciousness depends the nature and validity of the discovery we shall make or the conclusions to which we can come. On the power of our consciousness depends the possibility or impossibility of putting into the terms of life the solutions our knowledge discovers. But most of all the appearance and development of consciousness in the inconscient world is the decisive factor, the one thing that gives its existence a light of meaning, a possibility of purpose, a hope of fulfilment and the soul's self-finding. To know, then, the nature of consciousness, its process, its birth, growth and destiny is for us a study of supreme importance.

All the problem of existence turns around three things, the nature of being, the nature of consciousness and the secret of the dynamics, the energy of existence by which being and consciousness find each other and manifest what is within them. If we can discover these three things, all is known which we fundamentally need to know; the rest is application and process and consequence. The problem of consciousness is the central problem; for it links the other two together and creates their riddle. It is consciousness that raises the problem it has to solve; without it there would be no riddle and no solution. Being and its energy would then fulfil themselves in form and motion and in cessation of form and motion without any self-awareness and without any enjoyment or fruition of their form and motion.

According to the materialist hypothesis consciousness must be a result of energy in Matter; it is Matter's reaction or reflex to itself in itself, a response of organised inconscient chemical substance to touches upon it, a record of which that inconscient substance through some sensitiveness of cell and nerve becomes inexplicably aware. But such an explanation may account, - if we admit this impossible magic of the conscious response of an inconscient to the inconscient, - for sense and reflex action yet becomes absurd if we try to explain by it thought and will, the imagination of the poet, the attention of the scientist, the reasoning of the philosopher. Call it mechanical cerebration, if you will, but no mere mechanism of grey stuff of brain can explain these things; a gland cannot write Hamlet or pulp of brain work out a system of metaphysics. There is no parity, kinship or visible equation between the alleged cause or agent on the one side and on the other the effect and its observable process. There is a gulf here that cannot be bridged by any stress of forcible affirmation or crossed by any stride of inference or violent leap of argumentative reason. Consciousness and an inconscient substance may be connected, may interpenetrate, may act on each other, but they are and remain things opposite, incommensurate with each other, fundamentally diverse. An observing and active consciousness emerging as a character of an eternal Inconscience is a self-contradictory affirmation, an unintelligible phenomenon, and the contradiction must be healed or explained before this affirmation can be accepted. But it cannot be healed unless either the Inconscient has a latent power for consciousness - and then its inconscience is phenomenal only, not fundamental, - or else is the veil of a Consciousness which emerges out of a state of involution which appears to us as an inconscience.

 

[timtofly]

I don't see what 'randomness' has to do with 'creating' artificial consciousness?

Fwiw i would not say the human consciousness is actually 'random', although part of its logic is that it can seem to be random, in varrying degrees. Otherwise there would be no sense of a free thinking process, regardless of there actually being one or not.

That would be the difference between an outside influence or not. Even evolution has those who say it is deterministic, and those who say that only through random means things have evolved the way they have.

When a thought happens and there is no outside influence feeding that thought, one would need a random generator feeding different thoughts at random times. And even that is an outside influence since in humans there may not be a random generator as may be needed in AI. If an AI functioned without one, then it is just the interaction of neurons and no outside influence at all.

What one is thinking about at any given time is just as much part of consciousness as the biological process that goes on in the brain. That is the function of the term we call the mind.

Which I think Mechanicalsalvation's post is trying to convey.

 

[warpus]

So does that mean that when it comes to AI, it is not possible, since artificial life is not the result of evolution?

If nature can do it, it should be possible for us to eventually duplicate - or give rise to using other means.

We're nowhere near doing that yet though, so it's hard to say when it might be possible.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

IMO I think it exists at the atomic level and as life arose and become more complex, consciousness did also.

I am not sure what this means.
That what makes beings conscious happens at the atomic level?

 

[NetGear]

Well I hope AIs never develop conciousness. Don't wanna deal with them robo emancipation!