I'm wondering what theories there are that specifically address the question of measuring this gap. — Malcolm Lett
In summary, we (well, some) think that human experience includes an extra phenomenal experience that is beyond the computational mechanics. — Malcolm Lett
There's a gap - something that we aren't measuring in our computational analysis. — Malcolm Lett
I'm wondering what theories there are that specifically address the question of measuring this gap. — Malcolm Lett
Basically a specific kind of p-zombie. — Malcolm Lett
I say this because consciousness, to me, is simply data processing and anything capable of handling data is, in principle therefore, also capable of consciousness. — TheMadFool
My iPad handles data. So that doesn’t feel particularly convincing.
Why not reserve your admiration for a system that shows itself capable of handling the world? — apokrisis
Well, what is consciousness if not data processing? — TheMadFool
Think of the times when we all agree that a person is not conscious e.g. when sleeping or when s/he has fainted or when s/he's dead. These three states of unconsciousness have one thing in common - the absence of thoughts and what are thoughts but data being processed? — TheMadFool
Computers, quite literally, process information – numbers, letters, words, formulas, images. The information first has to be encoded into a format computers can use, which means patterns of ones and zeroes (‘bits’) organised into small chunks (‘bytes’). On my computer, each byte contains 8 bits, and a certain pattern of those bits stands for the letter d, another for the letter o, and another for the letter g. Side by side, those three bytes form the word dog. One single image – say, the photograph of my cat Henry on my desktop – is represented by a very specific pattern of a million of these bytes (‘one megabyte’), surrounded by some special characters that tell the computer to expect an image, not a word.
Computers, quite literally, move these patterns from place to place in different physical storage areas etched into electronic components. Sometimes they also copy the patterns, and sometimes they transform them in various ways – say, when we are correcting errors in a manuscript or when we are touching up a photograph. The rules computers follow for moving, copying and operating on these arrays of data are also stored inside the computer. Together, a set of rules is called a ‘program’ or an ‘algorithm’. A group of algorithms that work together to help us do something (like buy stocks or find a date online) is called an ‘application’ – what most people now call an ‘app’.
....I need to be clear: computers really do operate on symbolic representations of the world. They really store and retrieve. They really process. They really have physical memories. They really are guided in everything they do, without exception, by algorithms.
Humans, on the other hand, do not – never did, never will. — Robert Epstein
There is thinking - of a desultory and ruminative kind - even in deep sleep as it happens. It is just unremembered and disconnected. — apokrisis
But the real issue here is in what sense do you think that the brain does “data processing”? — apokrisis
That is fine as a vague metaphor. But the brain isn’t designed to be a Universal Turing Machine - the standard formal definition of data processing. — apokrisis
This is self-contradictory. How do you know you were thinking "even in deep sleep" if you don/t/can't remember it? — TheMadFool
Well, the way I see it, all that needs to be done is, like the brain, we need to have in place hardware capable of logic and memory. After that, consciousness is simply a matter of feeding such a system with data. — TheMadFool
You can catch it just as it fades if you are awake quickly enough and are primed to make the effort.
This was discovered in experiments where subjects were woken in slow wave sleep and asked the question. You can notice it yourself but it takes a little practice.
A memory has to be moved from working memory to get fixed as a long term memory. So that is the step that gets shut down during sleep. — apokrisis
But, Mad Fool, you’re simply wrong, mistaken, incorrect. When you think, no bits are processed, no switches are flipped. It’s an entirely different thing. It’s really, to put it crudely, like believing that images in mirrors are capable of independent thought and action. (Now wouldn’t that be mind blowing? You’re straightening your tie and the image turns around and walks off....)
Ever head the saying ‘forgetfulness of being’? It’s associated with some German philosopher. Anyway - you’re evincing it (and not often I get to use that word!) — Wayfarer
Well, prima facie this means thinking equated to data processing alone is not sufficient for consciousness — TheMadFool
It’s because humans are beings - that is our designation ‘human beings’ - and computers are devices. They’re mechanisms, instruments, great banks of switches operated electronically at fantastic speed. But they’re not beings — Wayfarer
In other words, if you ask the question, there’s something fundamental about the nature of being that you don’t see. That is what I mean by ‘forgetfulness of being’. — Wayfarer
The problem is that data processing is a completely mechanical way of looking at it. The Chinese Room argument blows that out of the water.
The best general theory of mind and life is that it is a semiotic process. A modelling relation.
So there is good news. There is a decent answer now. We don’t have to keep searching or trying to make bad metaphysics fit the known neurobiology. — apokrisis
What exactly is this "something fundamental about the nature of being" that I don't see? — TheMadFool
If we can't tell apart a person who can speak Chinese and a Chinese Room in the thought experiment then they must be identical, no? — TheMadFool
summary, we (well, some) think that human experience includes an extra phenomenal experience that is beyond the computational mechanics. — Malcolm Lett
Sounds legit. — apokrisis
Reporter (to Louis Armstrong): ‘What exactly is jazz?’
Armstrong: ‘Lady, if you don’t know, I can’t tell you.’ — Wayfarer
It must be then that the Chinese Room understands Chinese. — TheMadFool
Well, the way I see it, all that needs to be done is, like the brain, we need to have in place hardware capable of logic and memory. After that, consciousness is simply a matter of feeding such a system with data. — TheMadFool
We're certain that X understands Chinese. It must be then that the Chinese Room understands Chinese — TheMadFool
That in the long run we'll figure out the mechanisms and we'll see all of consciousness as a mechanical process. But I also see the explanatory gap as needing explanation. — Malcolm Lett
I think we will eventually explain it as a physical mechanistic process because the majority of evidence is that everything physical in the universe is a physical mechanistic process, and the majority of evidence is that we are physical. — Malcolm Lett
any theory on the mechanics behind a subjective conscious experience is incomplete until it explains how the objective mechanics produces the subjective. — Malcolm Lett
I don't think there can be evidence for that. — Wayfarer
It's a metaphysical attitude, or rather, a methodological postulate that is then interpreted as a metaphysical principle. — Wayfarer
Modern science has tended to want to see 'everything in the universe' as physical, because physical objects are amenable to the precise objectification and quantification that is central to its method. — Wayfarer
Matter is what we find existing, this is not an "attitude," or "postulate." — JerseyFlight
I wasn’t talking about ‘matter’ but about the postulate that ‘everything is physical’ which is physicalism or scientific materialism, depending on who you talk to. — Wayfarer
I mean, saying ‘everything in the universe is a physical mechanistic process’ is problematical in light of the hypothesis that what is understood by physics only comprises 4% of the totality of the cosmos, the balance existing in the form of dark matter and energy, about which nothing is known. — Wayfarer
The best general theory of mind and life is that it is a semiotic process. A modelling relation. — apokrisis
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