Do you think computers will eventually become conscious (or already are)?

it's just that there is a pattern, and we call that pattern mind. — khaled

Why do some patterns of brain activity result in conscious awareness while others (the vast majority of what the brain does) don't?

I'm having a hard time accepting the possibility of a conscious being not being aware (or having a fake awareness) of their own consciousness. The justification for their true belief "I am conscious" would be the immediacy and undeniability of their own consciousness.

Knowledge is justified true belief, but it also requires a knower and what is known. I agree with you that accidental/bot-built collections of matter aren't the sorts of things that can be "knowers", but conscious beings are the sorts of things that are knowers. If a bot-built collection of matter somehow gives rise to a conscious mind, then I think you're going to have something that is capable of awareness and belief, at least of its own consciousness.

Isn't a precondition to any of these kinds of theories an explanation for how neuron arrangements and activity sometimes give rise to conscious awareness and sometimes don't?

No.

I mean Yes. I misread the question.

Brains can't produce consciousness, and I am conscious, so I know that I am not a physical brain-in-a-vat.

We ourselves could in principle be in that situation, though I don't think we can coherently take ourselves to be. — Bartricks

You're saying the following is false? "For any x, if x is conscious, x has a justified true belief that x is conscious." Is your claim that if x is the product of chance (or bot-built), x can't have a justified true belief about anything, even its own consciousness?

I agree with that and the easiest way for me to see it is in the case of simulations. The computer running a simulation is nothing but a collection of electric switches, and no matter how you arrange those switches, no matter how many there are, how complex the configuration, how much current you use, the claim that a collection of switches could know anything is absurd. A collection of electric switches isn't the sort of thing that can have beliefs. There's a category error going on there. And, of course, if that applies to collections of switches, it's going to apply to collections of neurons as well.

The universe pre-existent substratum would be left. — Nelson E Garcia

What are the properties of this substratum?

If all minds in the universe disappeared, what would be left?

no mind will be aware of anything if its mental states are the product of mindless processes - any mindless process, be it total chance or a process of blind natural selection. — Bartricks

Isn't a mind always aware of at least one thing, though? The Cartesian truth that it is a conscious mind? So if evolutionary forces can produce a brain that has mental states, that's going to result in some awareness, if only of the Cartesian sort, which is why I asked if Boltzmann brains are mindless or not.

They're begging the question. I have not argued here that minds are incapable of being or emerging from matter. I have argued that if the faculties such a mind possesses are the product of blind forces then they will not be able to give the mind any awareness of anything. — Bartricks

Are you claiming that a Boltzmann brain would have a mind (but not be aware of anything) or would it be mindless? A P-zombie, in other words.

So mental states could still exist, but none of them would qualify as states of awareness. — Bartricks

Do you mean a subconscious mental event could be going on?

:100:

A change in a law would raise the question, what changed it? — Kenosha Kid

A law that doesn't change also raises questions: why doesn't the law change?

I guess so?
Presently, "don't know" seems to be the honest response, the only honest response, at least as far as any comprehensive understanding goes. — jorndoe

I think that would have been OK 80 years ago, or even 50 years ago, but it would seem that at this point in time, with all the advances that have been made in various fields, an atheist should have something to say, at least in principle, about how their brains produce their minds. There should at least be a hint of an answer by now. So, I think the "don't know" answer has become a problem.

Typically, the response is a bit like that of idealism: mind is instead just assumed to be irreducibly basic, and so not explainable in terms of anything else in the first place. — jorndoe

Yes, by not positing the existence of matter, the idealist avoids the whole mind/body problem. Like I said earlier, I don't know any atheists that are idealists, though. I guess it's possible to be an atheist idealist, but I think idealism has theistic implications. But yes, an atheist idealist would not have to explain how brains produce consciousness because the atheist idealist doesn't believe that brains exist as anything other than ideas.

With theism, there's that vague "supernatural" or "magical" type undertone as well, which could be raised to explain anything, and thus explains nothing.

Well, theistic idealism does not have to explain the mind-body problem because it asserts there are no bodies. Traditional theism (bodies and souls existing) just kicks the explanation for consciousness up a level: matter produces consciousness because God does it somehow. That's not a good explanation, but if time goes on, and 100 years from now physicalist atheists still can't solve the mind/body problem, the "God did it" hypothesis is going to be taken more seriously.

Levine's explanatory gap / Chalmers' consciousness conundrum seems to stuff a wedge in between either explaining the other (which isn't a contradiction, but rather a gap), yet that's not related to theism in particular. — jorndoe

Well, as I said, if enough time goes by and the atheist materialist/physicalist project of explaining everything in terms of matter/energy is still struggling with an explanation for how brains produce minds, people will start turning to other explanations, and "God does it" will be one of them.

Just asserting that we can't acquire more understanding (say, in some sort of "physicalistic" terms), even in principle, won't do. — jorndoe

But if it's true that physicalism can't, in principle, explain something as fundamental as minds/consciousness, it's going to take a hit epistemically, and the competitor theories of reality (dualism/idealism), which have theistic implications, are going to get a bump from physicalism's failure.

Atheism might not entail physicalism, but that's certainly what every atheist I've ever encountered believes, so for the materialistic/physicalistic atheist, they have to have some explanation for how brains produce consciousness. The ongoing failure in this area has been (and is going to be) a problem for the kind of atheist I referred to.

What if a dualist claimed that when you get the right kind of complexity/sufficient complexity (e.g., a working organic brain, an intricate enough computer) it produces an immaterial mind that has awareness?

What do you consider the three best arguments against cosmic mind/one mind type idealism?

Wouldn't your argument preclude a Boltzmann Brain from being aware?

Hence, if Bart holds that we do indeed live in a world in which contradictions are possible, reason becomes impossiblein this world. — Banno

If you amend that to "we do indeed live in a world in which [Godly] contradictions are possible", then if God is the only one that can do contradictions, reason is still possible for us, since we need not fear being wrong by a Godly contradiction(s).

If it is inaccessible, then it's of no consequence. — Banno

Yes, but the claim was about possibility, not consequence. Is it possible God could draw a square circle in some way that is inconceivable to us? I'm not ready to rule out that possibility. I admit that it would be of no consequence to me.

In other words, even given that the evolutionist can't do it, who exactly can say that we know the world "as it is"? How would they ever know when they only have access to the way the world seems, just like the rest of us? They would just have to arbitrarily claim that their representations are not faulty. The evolutionist at least has a weak argument for why they may not be faulty (that in general, an accurate representation of reality is better for survival, even if sometimes it isn't) — khaled

That's a good point.

I have to think about that. Maybe there is a mode of reality inaccessible to me where square circles are possible in some way I can't conceive of. I don't agree strongly with Bart on that. I think he might be right, though.

I don't either. Where I was going with it was: could the evolutionist say that we are justified in claiming we are aware of the world (we have justified true beliefs about the world), because those whose beliefs about the world didn't map on to reality (those who had false beliefs about the world) were weeded out by natural selection. So the fact that we're here after that long weeding out process is evidence that we have an innate ability for our beliefs to correspond to reality, and this innate ability, arrived at through evolution alone, would justify the claim: we are aware of the world.

Since you were talking about knowledge:

Suppose there's a world where, by fantastic coincidence, erosion patterns just happen to spell out (in a language the people understand) mathematical/scientific truths, and this has been going on since time immemorial. Also, by fantastic coincidence, erosion patterns that take the form of language never give false information- they're always accurate. Eventually the people of this world accumulate a huge store of accurate information about their world. But could it ever be said they know about their world?

What is your view, briefly?

Keep in mind that Bart thinks God can create a square circle. — Banno

I actually agree with him. I'm not prepared, with my evolved little monkey brain, to say definitively what a god can/can't do.

An omnipotent being can do anything and thus they can commit any immoral act. Why do you think she would not be able to commit any immoral act? — Bartricks

Sorry, forgot about this. What kinds of immoral acts are possible in realities consisting of just one mind? Who could be the victim, other than the victimizer? A cosmic mind could harm itself (be a victim of itself), I suppose, but self-harm is not immoral. If I, the one mind, choose to self harm and torment myself with unpleasant thoughts, it is my right to do so as an autonomous agent. Nothing immoral has taken place.

Well, it seems just as clear in this case that you did not acquire knowledge that there was a pie in your oven from those cloud shapes, just a true belief. — Bartricks

Yes, the justification is missing. However, what if this kept happening, even by fantastic coincidence: clouds keep spelling out true statements about the world to this one guy. Wouldn't he eventually be justified in assuming there's an agent at work with all these true cloud messages, even if he's not sure there's an agent at work?

There is a type of idealism that posits one mind/cosmic mind/universal mind exists. I thought it was called monistic idealism. In any case, suppose this cosmic mind is God. What would omnibenevolence be like in a reality of just one godly mind existing? How does morality even exist if only one mind exists, except as factual statements about morality?

What would omnibenevolence look like in monistic idealism? How can there be morality if only one cosmic mind exists? What possible immoral act could a cosmic mind commit? I guess an omniscient cosmic mind could know of moral truths even if immoral acts are metaphysically impossible, but that would fall under omniscience.

But aren't the events of the last five years a little too strange? If you went back to 2015 and tried to sell the story of what America's actually gone through, you would be laughed out of the room. Nobody would take you seriously. I think reality has been trying to hit us over the head with a certain lesson:this (Trump) is what happens when you devote your life to chasing idols like fame and money and power. This is what naked ego looks like. Take a good hard look. I think there's design to it all.

Well, is there a limit to how many computations God can do in a second?

I don't agree with a lot of that, but I appreciate the time you put into those responses!

Where did I say that God was infinite? Quote me saying it. — Bartricks

Is God finite or infinite?

That's not an explanation. It explains absolutely nothing about why I'm having that experience and not some other. — Kenosha Kid

OK, so instead of a dream, let's pretend this is a simulation, and you notice a cup in the simulation. Why am I seeing a cup? you ask. Because the simulation is programmed that way. Do you accept that as an explanation?

In fact, "What it was like for me to watch Fight Club the last time" isn't even *a* thing, it's lots and lots of events. — Kenosha Kid

This is unclear. Let's look at the following conversation:
"I went skydiving."
"What was it like?"
"It was scary and fun."

What part of that conversation is unclear or "not a thing"?

Solipsism has no explanation for why I experience no cup on the table rather than any of the infinite other experiences I might have. — Kenosha Kid

You experience no cup on the table because you're dreaming there's no cup on the table, and you're experiencing what you're dreaming. That's an explanation.

Also, you earlier stated that there is no "what it is like to be red". So if you go and do x and someone asks you "what was it like to do x?" do you understand what they're asking? Do you think it's just a language game going on?

A property isn't for a particular event. The single-objective-universe hypothesis has it that the cup has the capacity to emit light without the evolution of conscious observers, and, if provided with energy, will emit light whether it's seen or not. — Kenosha Kid

It sounds like you think the cup still exists if no one's observing it. I was going to ask if it's conscious, but you seem to answer that:

But... putting aside minds for the moment, my view is that no photon is created that is not destroyed, that is: a photon's final destination is a boundary condition of its existence. From a panpsychist point of view, whatever that destination is, that is a conscious observer. So there's that.

You're claiming that whatever a photon hits is a conscious observer?

Of course, I personally have no direct evidence of any cup that I am not seeing. If I look away, I cannot see it. The opposite of objectivism (in the above sense, not the Randian sense) is solipsism: the belief that only my conscious experiences are real. Solipsism cannot explain why the cup appears the same when I go back to it, or why it disappeared after I heard a meow and a crash. This is why the single objective universe is the best explanation for our conscious experiences. Science is the test of that: the hunt for exotic phenomena that puts that hypothesis through its paces (falsification, null-hypothesis). — Kenosha Kid

Solipsism can explain the behavior of the cup by positing that you're creating the reality you're experiencing (i.e., you're dreaming all this). It can't prove this explanation, but the "it's all a dream" explanation does explain why reality is the way it is.

We see the cup, so it has the property of being seeable, which we now know means that it is a configuration of bound charged particles. — Kenosha Kid

Is the existence of the cup dependent on mind(s) in any way?

But you have to say something about what kind of stuff physical stuff is. It has properties, I assume. Is its existence dependent on mind(s) in any way? Is the stuff conscious? Would the stuff still be around if there was no one to perceive it?

No such issue with "physical": either it regularly interacts with other physical stuff such that it can be indirectly observed, or it doesn't. — Kenosha Kid

What is "physical stuff"? I'm assuming some kind of mindless stuff that exists independently of and external to our minds? Do you believe that if all minds in the universe disappeared, the universe would change in any way (except for the fact that there are no more minds)?