Now, you can attack my argument by claiming either belief in brain consciousness doesn't commit one to belief in machine consciousness, or that machine consciousness is not an absurdity. Which option do you like? — RogueAI

Another option is to ask for the proof that machine consciousness is an absurdity. Matter is conscious. We don't know how it is accomplished, so can't know in which mediums it can and cannot be accomplished.

The simple reason why I cannot know what it’s like to be a bat is because I am not a bat. — NOS4A2

The point isn't that you cannot know what it is like to be a bat. The point is that there is something it is like to be a bat. And, while we are not aware of any consciousness that is independent of a brain's activity, knowing everything about a bat's brain's activity doesn't give us any insight on the bat's inner experience. It doesn't suggest the bat has any inner experience. It's all just physical processes.

we should also stop short of concluding that matter cannot think. — Manuel

We certainly should stop short of that, since we are matter, and we think.

I'm just confused by the statement that "there is something it is like to be such-and-such". It refers to the same thing too many times for me. There is something (the football) it (the football) is like to be the football (the football). It can be applied to literally anything, is all I'm saying. — NOS4A2

You can, in theory, learn everything there is to know about a football. You can learn about its aerodynamics; the way it absorbs heat from the sun; the elasticity; the frequencies of the visible spectrum that it reflects, etc., etc. And you can learn all there is too know about the particles that the football is made of, and how their properties gave rise to all those other things you learned about. In the end, you will know everything there is to know about the football.

You can do the same for, the famous example being, a bat. You can learn many of the same things that you learned about a football. But, of course, there are other things. And other kinds of things. It has life processes. Respiration, metabolism, circulation. You can learn about its wings, body shape, and everything else that gives it the ability to fly. You can learn about its echolocation. What frequency it uses, how its ears work, etc., etc. And you can learn all there is too know about the particles that the bat is made of, and how their properties gave rise to all those other things.

However, in the end, you will not know everything there is to know about the bat. You will not know what it is like to be a bat. A bat has consciousness. It has an inner life. None of your learning will have told you what those things are like. And he chose the bat because we really can't imagine what it's like to be a bat. As he put it:

It will not help to try to imagine that one has webbing on one’s arms, which enables one to fly around at dusk and dawn catching insects in one’s mouth; that one has very poor vision, and perceives the surrounding world by a system of reflected high-frequency sound signals; and that one spends the day hanging upside down by one’s feet in an attic. Insofar as I can imagine this (which is not very far), it tells me only what it would be like for me to behave as a bat behaves. But that is not the question. I want to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat. — Nagel

All of that is what is meant by "There is nothing it is like to be a football to a football" and "There is something it is like to be a bat to a bat."

You can shake a bag of hydrogen and oxygen, but you won't make water.
— Patterner
Actually, that's pretty much how most of the water gets made, so I very much beg to differ. — noAxioms

That is not how any water was made. Simple physical contact does not combine the atoms. A Google search will bring up any number of sites about it. Energy is required. A spark.

Dr. Manhattan can say, "Thermodynamic miracles... events with odds against so astronomical they're effectively impossible,
— Patterner
Astronomical odds are still finite, so when multiplied by infinite time, they become not just probable, but certain. I don't think you realize the size of the numbers they talk about when discussing these sorts of probabilities. — noAxioms

What are the odds, and how are they determined? How is it known that it is effectively impossible, rather than impossible?

The point is that there is nothing it is like to be a football to a football. There is not something it is like to be a football, because a football does not have a point of view. All we can do is think about what we would feel like if we, with our consciousness, were made out of the materials of, and shaped like, a football.

That's not at all the same thing as what it is like to be a bat.

Can you back that assertion? It sure looks an awful lot like a collection of matter to me. — noAxioms

It is. But it didn't come into that arrangement when a quintillion (whatever) particles all happened to bump into each other in the exact right arrangement. You can shake a bag of hydrogen and oxygen, but you won't make water. Something more than their physical contact is needed. You can't shake a bag of protein and fatty substances, and pull out meylin sheath. You can't add iron, proteins, and lipids to a bowl, stir, and have a bowl of blood. Physics and Chemistry can tell us how X and Y can be joined together in any given case.

Dr. Manhattan can say, "Thermodynamic miracles... events with odds against so astronomical they're effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold." If there was a way to prove it, I'd bet the ends of two pieces of wood have never fused together simply by being touched together. Some help is needed. The assertion that needs backing is that an incomprehensibly large number of the exact right mixture of particles can happen to come together in exactly the right arrangement, and fuse together in ways such particles are not known to fuse together, and become a living brain. "A lot can happen in a really long time" is not supporting evidence.

And especially why should we accept it when it hasn't even been established that a disembodied brain -- simply appearing in space and time with false memories and lacking any sense organs -- is possible. — GRWelsh

Now you're the one making a claim. Has it been established to be impossible? If not, what's left? — noAxioms

I don't see that Gar is making a claim. GR is asking how's it had been established that such a thing can be possible. And that cannot be established. As for "What's left"! A universe in which life came came about on Earth, and we evolved.

I am. You can't put the hundred trillion atoms that would be needed to make a single living cell right next to each other, and get a living cell. Just as you can't place two pieces of wood end to end, and have one long piece of wood. That's not how long pieces of wood come about. And it's not how brain cells come about, much less entire brains.

The issue isn't life-support for the brain. It's the assembly. It's not a simple matter of assembling the pieces. The particles that make up a brain can't be assembled like a jigsaw puzzle. Put all of the (good lord, how's many?) atoms exactly where they would be in a functioning brain, and you would not have a functioning brain. They don't simply bond to all of those they need to bond to because they are touching.

A brain isn’t a bunch of pieces that can be put together like a puzzle. Even if all the necessary particles happened to bump into each other at the exact same instant, they would not be a working brain for even that instant.

The physical processes would work fine without being aware of themselves. They do so in many other life forms.
↪Patterner

It is a hasty generalization to go from, "The behavior of many lifeforms occurs without consciousness." to, "All of the behavior of humans could occur without consciousness." — wonderer1

I quite agree. But, if my understanding is correct, this is the position many have that Chalmers is arguing against. As is William James.

I wonder, do we shift realities, never realizing? — jgill

I'm certain I switch realities almost daily. I get red lights like you can't imagine. Even as a passenger I can affect the lights to the point that a driver said, "What the heck is going on?!? I can't believe how many red lights in getting!" Of course, I apologized, and explained it was because of me.

Another person folds me of a light he knew of on his 15-mile commute to college that was always green, asked even I couldn't get red. When I drove to the town his college is in some days later, as we were sitting at the red light, he said, "Wow. You're good."

I don't generally explain that God gets a laugh out of screwing with me by switching me to alternate realities where the lights I'm approaching will be red when I get to them.

To rub salt in the wound, the traffic facing me at the red light gets a green arrow to turn in front of me before I get my green light. But when I make the return drive, and am at that same red light, but facing the other direction, the people in the same position I was in earlier now get the green arrow to turn in front of me before I get my green light.

So yes, I, at least, shift realities. And when I'm dead, God and I are gonna sit down and have a little chat.

Well, yes. It would, off course, depend on people/beings outside of time. Superobservers.

The Grandfather paradox is the biggy. Here's my take on the subject: You go back in time and kill your grandfather before he procreates. Instantly the world you came from vanishes and is replaced by an alternate reality in which you don't exist. So you disappear and there is no way to tell time travel has occurred. It's a suicide mission. — jgill

The paradox is that, if you do that, and are therefore never born, you cannot go back and kill your grandfather before he procreates. So he does procreate, and you are born. So you do go back and kill him. So he doesn't procreate...

On the other hand, suppose you go back in time and don't do any real damage. Then the minor alterations you might cause in the time stream are absorbed and normalized. I don't subscribe to a butterfly chaos, rather what Stanislaw Lem saw as a series of effects that peter out and vanish over a time. — jgill

I never considered this. It seems to me it depends on how long after your visit you look for alterations. The shorter the time, the less likely you'll see alterations. If the fate of a butterfly that lived today was reversed, that one lost butterfly wouldn't be noticable tomorrow. Even it one animal that survived by eating it ends up dying today instead, that wouldn't be noticed.

But that butterfly is going to be responsible for offspring. And it's offspring will have offspring. Go a few thousand years in the future, and quite a few butterflies that existed in the original timeline no longer do. And quite a few animals the should have lived didn't. And others that shouldn't have lived did, because the predators that killed them never came into being, because their parents didn't get to eat the things that ate the butterflies that should have lived but didn't.

At point does the altered food chain become noticable? When and where are the lives and deaths of people changed? Sure, overall, things will have the same balance. But there will be differences that are noticable to people who know what it should have looked like.

In his article Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness (1995), David Chalmers posed the (hard) question: "Why doesn't all this information-processing go on "in the dark", free of any inner feel?"
↪Luke

I think Dennett suggested that it was an evolutionary "neat trick". In other (anthropomorphising of evolution) words, it is a means evolution stumbled upon which achieved an adaptive end. Perhaps a more adaptive end could have been reached by neurological processes evolving differently with no consciousness evolved, and perhaps not.

I see consciousness as a function of our brain's innate tendency to develop a model of physical reality based on our sensory and motor interactions with reality. Qualia might be seen as the symbols various parts of our brain present to 'modeling central' to represent the state of things in reality - the marks on the map, so to speak. Consciousness may simply be, what happens when some parts of the brain are outputting symbols in the form we associate with qualia. while simultaneously other parts of our massively parallel processing brains are monitoring the cloud of symbols being presented.

I don't see why it would be unreasonable to answer Chalmers with, "That's just the way evolution went." Unfortunately succinct perhaps, and I could suggest reasons to think that's the case, but I think this post is long enough. — wonderer1

Chalmers isn't wondering about the purpose, or the benefit, of consciousness when he asks that. He's wondering about the mechanism.

The physical processes would work fine without being aware of themselves. They do so in many other life forms. Damage is being done, the sensory system detects the damage, and it pulls away. How many other species even learn from the experience, and avoid the thing that caused the damage whenever they sense it?

There are machines that can perceive different frequencies of the visible spectrum with much greater accuracy than we can. They can perform actions based on which frequency they perceive. They can choose between actions if there are multiple perceptions.

If all off our mental activity is entirely physical, how is it we are not like those other life forms and machines? We aren't like them. How is what makes us different accomplished?

BTW, there is another angle on this: if some AI passes the Turing test, meaning that it can convince anyone that it is conscious, would it necessarily follow that it is, in fact, conscious? In other words, if to be conscious is to experience, would an AIs ability to convince us that it is conscious prove that it experiences anything?
— Janus

I don't think it could convince us that it's conscious. We would always wonder if it really is conscious. Passing the Turing Test is just a milestone, it doesn't confer consciousness. — RogueAI

It's true that we will never really know. We can't prove we are conscious to each other. Many will never believe a machine is conscious. If a machine became conscious today, many would still not believe it a hundred years from now.

I wonder what will happen. Will the law be that nothing not human can be conscious, so there will be no rights? Knowing humanity, I don't expect we will give them the benefit of the doubt, and treat them like fellow sentients; like equals.

I believe I entirely understand the concept. I get flashes of it now and then. A sudden feeling of oblivion, futility, hopelessness. But I don't suffer from it. They are just flashes. I wish I had a trick to share that would help.

So, if brain function is necessary for consciousness, what reason do we have for thinking consciousness could be something non-physical? — Janus

Any macro property is reducible to the properties of particles and the four forces. Individual particles aren't liquid, solid, or gas. But we know how the properties of particles make a group of particles liquid, solid, or gas. Particles don't fly. But we know how the properties of particles give rise to things like aerodynamics and lift, allowing flight. We can't see enough detail to calculate the results of the cue ball hitting the balls on the break, much less calculate every particles movement in a hurricane. While have much success calculating what masses of air are going to do, it's all because of the particles.

Which properties of particles give rise to a group of particles being aware of things, aware of itself, and aware of its awareness? How do we trace this macro property down the levels to the properties of the particles?

Also, there's meaning, as I mentioned here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/807412

This must also explain teleology. DNA doesn't have a vision of the future that it is trying to bring about. It does not have a plan of bringing about anything. It doesn't intend an acorn to become an oak tree. It doesn't envision a human, and work towards creating one. And it does not know it has brought about anything once it has. Everything it does is the result of the properties of particles and physics.

Yet one conglomerate of particles has a clear vision of the future, and acts to bring it about. Its actions are caused by a future state. A state that might never even be realized. Which micro property gives us this ability? Which scientific principle allows it? I know someone who talked about his plan to go to a concert. He said his clothes would be at the concert because of the laws of physics. As his body moves, the laws of physics do not allow his clothes to do anything but move with him. If things like consciousness, awareness, and teleology are nothing more than the laws of physics, then he will attended the concert for the same reason his clothes will. A more complex web of interacting particles than the reason his clothes will be there, but still just particles of properties, and the laws of physics.

Ah. I'm sure it will happen. I don’t know if it has already. But there’s no explanation for our consciousness that would rule out machine consciousness. If it’s just physical processes, machines can do that. If it's panprotopsychism, then a machine's particles would also have that property.

I guess if we have souls, then a machine probably wouldn't. Although, if souls are attracted to, and enter arrangements of matter that have certain characteristics/abilities, then that would work. But not in the religious sense of souls.

I meant human consciousness. That's the kind we're talking about at the moment. Obviously, the human brain's functions wouldn't be necessary for non-human consciousnesses.

Well, sure. There's no doubt that the brain's functions are needed for consciousness.

I don't know about shaking the hell *out* of it. But shaking the hell *into* it makes water.

I just applied a chunk of burning sulfur to my big bag of hydrogen and oxygen... ...and hell!!! — wonderer1

Yes. The elements don't join together simply by bumping into each other. You need a little burst of energy. How many of these little bursts will we need to make all the water in a brain?

There are almost a couple hundred billion cells in the brain, and they can't be free floating cells and still be viable when they all bump into each other. So we need the constituent parts of all the cells to be in exactly the right places at the right time. But they won't form cells simply but bumping into each other, any more than hydrogen and oxygen will form water. What energy/reactions are needed for every joining at every level?

And will all of these joinings succeed when they are all as tightly packed as they'd need to be, with all these energy bursts and reactions going off all around them? We can eliminate the bursts needed for the formation of all the needed water by having free-floating water molecules. They couldn't be free-floating in groups, or they'd be useless ice. But I guess individual molecules would be fine. So that's some billions fewer of energy bursts to screw with the other formations. But it's not enough to make this scenario at all possible.

I would not say mathematics is physical. Even if it began as counting physical things, it has certainly become something else. Yet we do not understand mathematics because of our senses, or any of the devices we've invented to enhance our senses.

Any ideas? We understand the physical in physical ways. If an aspect of the physical is not accessible to our physical ways, what do we do?

Are you suggesting properties of the physical that we have not yet discovered?

Science suggests this bubble was started by a big bang about 14 billion years ago. Boltzmann Brains could have existed before our big bang, either in previous bubbles or from a quantum fluctuation. Or if there is a multiverse, there could be infinite Boltzmann Brains existing right now. We wouldn't see them from our bubble. — Down The Rabbit Hole

I guess you can't argue with that. But I am skeptical. :D We also wouldn't see them if there weren't any. While not seeing any is not proof that there aren’t any, neither is it proof that there are. And our ability to list any number of reasons why we might not expect to find evidence of them is not evidence of them.

I doubt they are possible. If you take an airtight bag - or, rather, a hydrogentight bag - fill it with hydrogen and oxygen, and shake the hell out of it, will you maker water? I don't think a functioning brain will come into being if the right particles happen to bump into each other. I suspect they only work when they grow in the manner, and the order, that our brains grew.

I don't know what those who think it is an illusion think it is. Still working on it.
— Patterner

I believe they think it is a physical process, just like anything else. Of course, that begs the question as to what exactly "physical" denotes. — Janus

Perhaps the answer to that will give the answer to, as Chalmers put it, Why is the physical "processing accompanied by conscious experience? Why does it feel like something from the inside? Why do we have this amazing inner movie going on in our minds all the time?"

I don't know what those who think it is an illusion think it is. Still working on it.

The argument that consciousness and the self are illusory does not entail that we don't exist. As I understand it, it is more saying that we imagine consciousness and the self to be in some kind of way persistent entities, and that this is an illusion of reification. — Janus

I can't say I understand the argument in any way. Heh.

Your 'mirage' example, the illusory appearance of water on a road or plain will "fool" a camera just as it may fool a human. — Janus

The camera will only record what happens in a certain part of the spectrum. It will also record what the magician does with the cards. But it does not see the illusions. It is not amazed because it expected one thing and got another, despite not seeing how it could possibly have happened. Only we sees illusions.

In any case I'm not arguing for the position I have (rightly or wrongly) imputed to Dennett; it doesn't make convincing sense to me. either, but I acknowledge that making sense is a subjective matter; meaning that what makes sense to me may not make sense to you. — Janus

True enough.

Some claim that we are in fact in such a situation, that we don't really experience anything at all but just have the illusion that we do. — Janus

An illusion needs a viewer. The waves of heat coming off the road on a hot day with strong sunshine give the illusion of water on the road. IF someone is there to see it. If nobody is there to see it, then there is no illusion. Same with a magician who makes a card disappear. There's no illusion if the seats are empty.

The idea that that which views illusions is, itself, an illusion makes no sense. The idea that an illusion is viewing itself makes no sense.

If Boltzmann Objects could exist, if the universe was infinitely old, we'd see billions of odd things floating around. So either they can't exist, or the universe is not infinitely old.

Still, if they could exist, isn't the universe old enough that we'd see SOME odd things floating around? Any of an infinite number of possible things might come into being at any given moment. Surely, something would have come along in our neighborhood my now. No? A replica of the Empire State Building crashes into Mars. Something that looks like an alien ship floats around near Jupiter. Action Comics #1 falls in my lap. Or the telescopes see something farther away that doesn't seem explainable in any non-Boltzmann way. Infinite possibilities in 13.8 billion years didn't produce anything that left a trace?

I'm not of that generation, but I can respect the nostalgia.

As your tastes are similar to mine, you must be a Stargate fan. SG1 if my favourite Sci-fi series. — Down The Rabbit Hole

Oddly, I never much watched it. No particular reason. I only saw a few scattered episodes. I'd like to. Guess I'll see if it's available on one channel or other.

And RogueAI is saying from the view that material cannot naturally give rise to consciousness, Boltzmann brains cannot exist in any event. — Down The Rabbit Hole

Are we not material? Or did our consciousness arise unnaturally?

But my point, aside from the fun, is that there will be an infinite number of Boltzmann Enterprises
— Patterner

How do you account for 'paradox' in your 'every possibility that can happen, will happen in time.'
If I state 'The only true existent regarding Boltzmann brains is that they have no true existent.'
Is that statement true given a very large or even infinite duration of time? — universeness

I don't account for it. Although it's fun, I think this whole topic is nonsense.

I enjoyed TNG the most, followed by Voyager I think. I was just getting into Discovery and Netflix took it off :sad: I won't spoil Picard Season 3 for you, but it gets a lot better. There's some nice surprises. — Down The Rabbit Hole

I grew up on TOS. I know a lot of people find it unwatchable because of the effects, but it and TNG are my favorites. Then Voyager.

it may be divergence, but it is also entirely legit. OK, maybe there couldn’t be such a thing as a functioning Enterprise, Boltzmann or otherwise, for reasons of how the technology works. But my point, aside from the fun, is that there will be an infinite number of Boltzmann Enterprises. As well as Defiants, Voyagers, etc. And all of these, but with each other's names. And each, but named USS Boltzmann. And my favorite, the USS Tao, for which I'm willing to give up the Enterpris. As well as an infinite number of Death Stars, Godzillas, Green Destiny swords, Enola Gays (both laden and not), levers big enough to move the world levers big enough to move the world (Archimedes has dibs, I believe), and every other damn thing we can think of, and those we cannot think of. There’s no reason the process that brings about a brain wouldn’t bring about anything and everything else.

Have you people no respect for dibs?!? Barbarians!

Hey, I call dibs on the first Boltzmann USS Enterprise when it pops up!!!

The only part of you that you cannot lose, and still think of yourself as you (and, for that matter, still think), is your brain. If you could no longer walk and type and wave, and see and hear and taste, you’d still be you. (Though you might wish you were not.)
— Patterner

I agree, of course, that If I lose my brain, I cannot think of myself as me. But it would be a very delicate balance to produce exactly the right brain damage to achieve loss of self without immense collateral damage up to and including death.

However, I do think that more than just a brain is needed to maintain a sense of self. It's not quite the same issue, but you did say earlier:-
We certainly need sense-data for our brains to form connections and pathways, and for consciousness to form. (Anybody think an infant born with no ability to sense anything will become a thinking person?)
— Patterner

There's a constant temptation to identify this or that feature of human beings to this or that physiological component. Often, that's possible. But not always, and being a person is a case in point - or so it seems to me. — Ludwig V

I’ve never been in a sensory-deprivation tank. I suppose an extended stay in one might give hints on how much of our self would remain if our brain was removed and put in a life-support mechanism that gave no sensory input. Certainly, we need sensory input to develop a self. I wonder how much we need it to remain a self.

The only part of you that you cannot lose, and still think of yourself as you (and, for that matter, still think), is your brain.
— Patterner

Man with Tiny Brain Shocks Doctors — Wayfarer

That is incredible! Thanks.

The only part of you that you cannot lose, and still think of yourself as you (and, for that matter, still think), is your brain. If you could no longer walk and type and wave, and see and hear and taste, you’d still be you. (Though you might wish you were not.)
— Patterner

I agree. I think the brain, neuroscience, and structure and function generally, is totally relevant to the issue of what constitutes the self. But the self isn't consciousness. All reductionist theories of consciousness would be better reframed as theories of the self. — bert1

Yes, it seems awkward to say the self is consciousness, even if there is no self without it.

Ah. I didn’t realize the idea is that the universe is infinitely old.

Then why would everything have happened already?

In an infinite duration, and as all possible existents are of finite duration, then everything would have happened already. — Wayfarer

I don’t understand. Has there already been an infinite duration?