Materialism and Consciousness.

[El_Machinae]

If the answer to these questions is "I don't know": Is there any hope that these things can be known in the near future? Simply put, is there any hope for an explanation of why this very mysterious thing arises from very simple processes?

This is a very good question. I don't know the answer. I suspect that when we start playing with AIs, we'll have more insight into the actual mechanisms of consciousness.

 

[cgannon64]

Because the brain is the interface. You have no means of detecting the consciousness if it's without a method of interacting. To borrow from BE, when your computer dies or your internet connection goes down, you have no means by which to see if the internet is still there. Doesn't mean that it is not.

These questions concern the materialist viewpoint. Your and BE's theories are, er, a bit different.

If we think of consciousness as a machine, we certainly think it can exist other than in a brain ... we just might not recognize it. I can certainly imagine planet-sized consciousnesses.

Would these machines operate in a way fundamentally different from brains? I have a hunch they wouldn't.

I suspect that when we start playing with AIs, we'll have more insight into the actual mechanisms of consciousness.

As far as I can imagine (which could easily be wrong), any conscious AIs we build will imitate us. To actually succeed in doing this would certainly require a near-comprehensive understanding of how our consciousness works - but would it give us any insight into whether consciousness can be divorced from the mechanisms by which we acheive it? Or, would it give us any insight into why consciousness is acheived by these mechanisms?

 

[punkbass2000]

These questions concern the materialist viewpoint. Your and BE's theories are, er, a bit different.

Ah, too true. We got a bit off topic. I suppose then I would simply say that I think the materialist viewpoint is not a very accurate view.

 

[El_Machinae]

Would these machines operate in a way fundamentally different from brains?

Well, to respond to "fundamentally" - I think that signals will be transferred within the network. There will have to be structure, fluidity, and change ...

However the substrate and 'style' of the network could certainly be different.

 

[Ayatollah So]

@ Sidhe,
Thanks for the link to Chalmers in your earlier post. Now find a Chalmers paper where he tries to argue against "Type B materialism" (his term), if you want to see where the real action is.

To give you an example, if you do a brain scan and various neurochemicle tests on a severely depressed or clinically depressed person then give them anti depressants such as SSRI's: prozac like drugs, then do the same tests 24 hour or so later, the brain chemistry and activity is indistinguishable from a normal subject who is of normal emotional level I.e not exhibitng those symptoms associated with depression or clinical depression. However SSRI's take 4-6 weeks to have any effect on mood: Why?

An obvious hypothesis would be that gross averages of chemical activity are not directly responsible for mood, but rather fine-grained electrical and/or chemical activities are. This hypothesis also fits well with the idea that all those tiny neurons and their connections have more functionality than just acting as a sponge

 

[cgannon64]

Ah, too true. We got a bit off topic. I suppose then I would simply say that I think the materialist viewpoint is not a very accurate view.

I'm not sure whether I beleive it either, which is partially why I made this thread.

I'm currently wrestling with the idea that, if matieralism is true, life sucks - but unfortunately materialism is the most scientifically compatible theory out there (for obvious reasons).

It's rather unfortunate that science is so rigorously proving true something I am viscerally opposed to - and which, in my opinion, would have catastrophic effects on society if it was wholly accepted - which it never really would be, thankfully.

However the substrate and 'style' of the network could certainly be different.

Is the substrate different superficially, or fundamentally? By fundamental I do not mean "made of different parts," I mean "operating by entirely different means." My hunch is that it would not differ fundamentally - it would just be a mechanical imitation of neurons - is this correct?

 

[Ayatollah So]

My first question is: Why exactly does consciousness arise at this point, wherever it may be?

My second question is along the same lines, and it comes from a bit of rephrasing. [...]

My question is, then: Why would consciousness be present in one grouping of atoms obeying the laws of physics, and not another group?

I'm going to assume that you're talking about the "hard problems" of consciousness (see Sidhe's link - it's good). In that case, I don't think your two questions have "satisfying" answers. But, there is at least one kind of materialism that predicts/explains why your 2 questions don't have satisfying answers. More later, time to get back to work.

 

[Gothmog]

Hey, cg was asking about materialism and that viewpoint. I think he already agrees that there is a soul, and accepts the ramifications of that belief (cg correct me if I'm wrong).

We feel that consciousness is special because it defines our self image. But it doesn't have to be special.

The experience of a thing is not the thing. Most people don't assign objective existence to Love, love is an experience. It seems that the conscious state love can be explained through biochemistry, most people agree with that. If you don't like love as an example here, try pain.

This explanation doesn't change the experience one bit, love still feels like love, and pain feels like pain.

So why must we assign material existence to consciousness, but not love or pain?

I would say that consciousness is experiential. It is as real as you choose to make it but no more than that.

It is not clear to me that we would behave differently in the absence of consciousness.

cg's questions are pretty typical of humanity.

1) What makes me what I am?
2) What makes me special?
Obviously 1 and 2 are closely related.
3) How do I relate to whatever it is that makes me special (e.g. god)

I don't buy into mind body dualism myself, there is no ghost in the machine. That can be understood as a kind of materialism.

Like birdjaguar I wouldn't say there is a point where there is consciousness, none before, equivalent after.

I don't know what it is like to be a bug:
it has a nervous system that grant it something like pain,
it responds to hormones in something like love,
it is a collection of cells acting together in something like consciousness.

Are humans really so uniquely special? Are we the point where consciousness, love, and/or pain begin and end? I doubt it.

All kinds of mysterious things arise from very simple processes. Think the universe and the fundamental forces here. Is it unsatisfying to understand the solar life cycle, or why the ratio of hydrogen to deuterium is what it is based on just four forces? I don't think so, but it is what it is.

Maybe there's a group consciousness, Jungians call it the collective unconscious. But I don't know of any evidence to support or deny that claim.
Maybe there's only God.

Edit: just saw your last post cg

I'm currently wrestling with the idea that, if matieralism is true, life sucks

I don't see how B follows from A here.

 

[Souron]

Yes, but any border to the system is completely arbitrary. Why is my foot part of a "conscious being"? Because my consciousness can control it. Sure, but in reality that's not saying much. I can control the spoon in my hand also, but to a different degree than my foot, according to a slightly different set of rules. And there are parts of my body which I have even less control over than I would any outside object - I can't move my kidneys, for example, and I can't turn them on or off or make it work harder. So why are my kidneys part of my "conscious system"?

The only reason your foot would be considered part of your "conscious system is becouse it aides in sencory perseption. You can feel other things with your foot. Feeling and perciving other things is an important part of consciousness.
Your kidneys are part of your concious being becouse they help you live. They allow your conciousness to exist for an extended piriod of time. Furthermore they are inside your body and amung other organs that aid or extend your consciousness. In this sence it's like a superfluous neuron in your brain or an unused bit of code in a computer program.

(Also, a digression: How much truth is there to the talk of Buddhist monks being able to have extreme control over their bodily functions?)

It is known that a human can slow or speed up there heart rate mentally. Beyond that I don't know. If they can, I believe it is there self disipline not their enlightened nature that enables them to do so.

I disagree. Think of the prospect of conscious computer programs: some of these could very well exist in a vacuum, with no outside contact.

Exist yes, (well I don't know about a vacuum but it could exist as the only thing in a computer that recieves no outside stimulus) but I doubt it would be able to percieve it's consiousness without another object to interact with. How can you be consious without interacting with something else? I guess I really can't explain why, but to me it seems that a closed system cannot be in its entirity a consious being.

 

[El_Machinae]

First off, life does not really suck, because it can be improved. As long as we see how our efforts can improve our lives, then we have hope. And that's not too bad.

As far as I can imagine (which could easily be wrong), any conscious AIs we build will imitate us. To actually succeed in doing this would certainly require a near-comprehensive understanding of how our consciousness works

I don't think so, I just think you need to have sufficient information regarding the parts to mimick it. For example, we know that neurons (operating under known law) are placed in a certain way in a conscious person. So, the question is - do we know enough to make a machine that mimicks the actions of neurons (in their environment) to make a conscious machine. Yeah, we nearly do.

The advantage of a machine is that we can turn it on and off. One huge advantage of MRIs is that we can take pictures faster than thoughts can propagate, meaning we can watch them form. With the machine, we'll be able to turn it off 'mid-thought' to see what's changed.

By analogy, you don't need to understand thermodynamics and electrical theory to make a car ... you just need good blue prints. But you can learn the 'reason' behind how a car works by studying one.

My hunch is that it would not differ fundamentally - it would just be a mechanical imitation of neurons - is this correct?

"Maybe". I know that sufficient mimicking of neurons will be sufficient, but I also suspect that the main factors are interconnection and signal transfer. Heck, you can find that in a cloud of steam ... but the required 'types' of formation are certainly limited. As long as you have discrete elements passing on discrete signals to other discrete elements, all that's need is a certain type of structure.

 

[punkbass2000]

I'm not sure whether I beleive it either, which is partially why I made this thread.

I'm currently wrestling with the idea that, if matieralism is true, life sucks - but unfortunately materialism is the most scientifically compatible theory out there (for obvious reasons).

It's rather unfortunate that science is so rigorously proving true something I am viscerally opposed to - and which, in my opinion, would have catastrophic effects on society if it was wholly accepted - which it never really would be, thankfully.

Hmm. Are you trying to reconcile Reality with Science? IMO, these questions cannot be answered Scientifically. I do believe you can find the answers, but you will never be able to prove them to others; they must discover on their own. The devout Scientists will probably tell you you're delusional.

 

[El_Machinae]

Um ... isn't one foundation of your beliefs (PBass) is that you're delusional?

 

[Sidhe]

Hmm. Are you trying to reconcile Reality with Science? IMO, these questions cannot be answered Scientifically. I do believe you can find the answers, but you will never be able to prove them to others; they must discover on their own. The devout Scientists will probably tell you you're delusional.

The truth is of course without a scientific and psychological expanation together both explaining the different aspects of conciousness the theory is incomplete, we can say psychologicaly it may work this way but without relating that to actual scientific observation we're only expressing a hypothesis.

And of course the science needs to know what it is looking for to really grasp what it should be looking for.

 

[punkbass2000]

Um ... isn't one foundation of your beliefs (PBass) is that you're delusional?

Yes, but probably in a different sense. The Scientists, I think, would mean it as a negative criticism of your awareness. I mean it simply as an observation; also, I can be not delusional, though it is difficult to maintain and requires dsicipline and training. All in all, my point is that there is nothing wrong with the delusions once it's understood that they are delusions. Also, as of late I've tried to avoid referring to them as "delusions" since that does carry negative connotations and seems to give people the wrong idea.

 

[punkbass2000]

I don't buy into mind body dualism myself, there is no ghost in the machine. That can be understood as a kind of materialism.

I agree. There is Reality, which can inaccurately refer as "one". Consciousness and what can be referred to as the "objective world" (or the "me" and the "not me") come from, which we can inaccurately refer to as "two" and are both "one". The mental realm is created on the division of the objective world by the consciousness, and thus we have the three realms (which are not really "three"). This is one interpretation and about as well as I think we can do conceptually.

"From the one comes the two
From the two comes the three
From the three comes the ten thousand things"

In this quote, "the ten thousand things" is a reference to everything. All the people, the objects, the quarks and bosons and what have you. The infinite things, if you will.

"The ten thousand things return to the one. What does the one return to?"

 

[Souron]

Hmm. Are you trying to reconcile Reality with Science? IMO, these questions cannot be answered Scientifically. I do believe you can find the answers, but you will never be able to prove them to others; they must discover on their own. The devout Scientists will probably tell you you're delusional.

That's almost an insult to modern science. Science is not about what you believe, but which theory has the most evidence. A good scientist will always be open to his ideas being wrong when presented to the right evidence. Simmilarly a good scientist would not dismiss anothers ideas simmply becouse they have a hunch that those ideas are wrong.

If cgannon64 finds reconsiles the materialalist view point and his perseption of himself being special (which is the problem with the materialist view), he can do it in one of two ways: He can follow the scientific meathod or he can not follow the scientific meathod. If he follows the scientific meathod and gets an exeptable result, then he will conclusively prove his answers, and he will have the assurance of the scientific community that his conclutions are as true as evolution and as accurate as those mormon DNA tests. If he does not follow the scientific meathod, then any conclutions he comes up with will be considered speculation. If he starts believing in those conclutions it will be way of faith. He would not be considered delutional.

I should say that there is nothing wrong with such faith, as long as he does not let it get in the way of science. Feeling special is healthy, and if faith helps you do that, kudos to faith.


Furthermore, You may be right that ultimately it might prove that we cannot create a consiousness that is not human or part human, but currently the possibility apears to be open. Perhalps we are deluding ourselves, but we seem to be able to explain most patterns of human thought in terms of cause and effect. If we can ultimately explain the entire function of the human mind in those terms, there will be nothing exept for a few engineering hurtles stopping us from building a compleate, concious, AI. Now At first this AI will likely be mentally unstable, becouse it is hard to describe the right balance of human emotion and thought that is required for sanity, but they will have all the describeable part of a human conciousness.

 

[punkbass2000]

A good scientist will always be open to his ideas being wrong when presented to the right evidence. Simmilarly a good scientist would not dismiss anothers ideas simmply becouse they have a hunch that those ideas are wrong.

Then perhaps a good scientist and a devout Scientist are not one and the same?

 

[Souron]

Then perhaps a good scientist and a devout Scientist are not one and the same?

But then why would you care what a "devout scientist" thinks?

 

[cgannon64]

. I think he already agrees that there is a soul, and accepts the ramifications of that belief (cg correct me if I'm wrong).

Pretty much. I'm trying to avoid the apparent dichotomy between what seems true, and what seems tolerable.

just saw your last post cg I don't see how B follows from A here.

I cannot reconcile free will with materialism. I cannot reconcile a lack of free will with my current existence. Simply put, the only way I can conceive existing for the rest of my life is pretending that I have free will. If I could truly and fully understand that I do not have a will, my will would vanish. It would be a mental breakdown...

The only reason your foot would be considered part of your "conscious system is becouse it aides in sencory perseption. You can feel other things with your foot. Feeling and perciving other things is an important part of consciousness.
Your kidneys are part of your concious being becouse they help you live. They allow your conciousness to exist for an extended piriod of time. Furthermore they are inside your body and amung other organs that aid or extend your consciousness. In this sence it's like a superfluous neuron in your brain or an unused bit of code in a computer program.

First we need to actually establish a definition of what makes up a conscious system - if we don't, this argument will be silly. In your post you use two different definitions: providing sensory input, and helping you live. I think the latter is a bad definition - because many things in the world fit that category. The first one seems better, but I don't like it either. Do we count the these "organs" of consciousness as part of the conscious system? I don't necessarily see why. Regardless of your opinion on whether or not a conscious being can develop in a vacuum (which is really what the other part of our discussion is about, I think), a conscious being can be placed into a vacuum - and can still exist without sensory input.

EDIT: But, of course, that a conscious being can exist without something doesn't mean it isn't part of the "conscious system"; but that just leaves us back where we were, in need of a definition...

Exist yes, (well I don't know about a vacuum but it could exist as the only thing in a computer that recieves no outside stimulus) but I doubt it would be able to percieve it's consiousness without another object to interact with. How can you be consious without interacting with something else? I guess I really can't explain why, but to me it seems that a closed system cannot be in its entirity a consious being.

As I said above, I think the real problem is developing in a vacuum. I am skeptical of this as well - but existing, I am not. Imagine if Helen Keller's life had gotten worse just as it got better: after learning how to speak and think, she lost all senses. Would she still be conscious? Of course.

By analogy, you don't need to understand thermodynamics and electrical theory to make a car ... you just need good blue prints. But you can learn the 'reason' behind how a car works by studying one.

Does this analogy carry over? You can certainly understand exactly how consciousness works, but I doubt you can understand why it exists in the first place.

 

[punkbass2000]

But then why would you care what a "devout scientist" thinks?

Why not?

XCL