Oh, and he'll quote himself. — bert1

But not before throwing a few invectives into it, just in case things don't go quite the way he wants them to, and then taking cover behind his supposedly intimidating selfie.

But not before throwing a few invectives into it, just in case things don't go quite the way he wants them to, and then taking cover behind his supposedly intimidating selfie. — Apollodorus

If I'm going to be a bully and a twat, I'd rather do it alone.

Folks who are directed to "my previous question" and refuse to scroll up / back to the post with said "previous question" and yet keep asking "what was the question?" have, for all intents and purposes, conceded the point – he / they again don't know wtf he is / they are babytalking about – as far as I'm concerned.

Well there's no way I'm going to scroll up. And what's more I'm going to talk about not scrolling up.

Lets see how shit we can be

Why doesn't the creation of new mental states violate entropy?
4 hours ago — RogueAI

Youuuu... got it right, my friend. That IS correct.

Just what I said. Something must have upset him. I wonder what it was:

they again don't know wtf he is — 180 Proof

If you're willing to believe in a conscious system of pipes and water, why not rocks being moved around in a certain way? — RogueAI

Huge difference. In the pipes and water, much like in the human brain, there is a program, and the flow of water from the outside (data for the computer; outside stimuli for the brain) affect the program to react differently. The program is not changing; its response is changing to the changing data. Human reaction is different, too, whether the tongue senses sweetness, or a pin prick.

In the case of stones, there is no program. The only change that occurs is due to the thought processes of the man who puts down the stones. The stones have no communicative power beyond what the man puts down. In a program, and in the brain, there is communicative power imbedded into the program and into the brain.

This experiment in the desert being stuck there for eternity, or for a long time, would only produce a computer with stones if there were 1. A moving mechanism to move the stones 2. switches that responded to conditions 3. data 4. a way of making sure that the data affected the behaviour of some of the switches.

IN the comic there is no such thing. It is just stones lain down in a two-dimensional grid. That will produce no consciousness. But a machine that processes rocks, as described in the italics, does have a capacity to develop consciousness.

Those are good points. Instead of consciousness from moving rocks around, what about simulated consciousness? If one believes that consciousness can be simulated, then one believes that a collection of electric switches can produce consciousness. The questions I have about that are:
1. Why should we assume that consciousness can arise from switches? Why is that not a category error?
2. How can conscious arise from switches? What is the explanation for how the switches become conscious? How many switches are needed? In what order? Why is the act of switching important? Why does one set of switching operations produce experience x, while a different set of switching operations produces experience y, while a different set produces no experience at all? Is electricity required?
3. How could you verify whether such a system is in fact conscious?
4. What other collections of switches are conscious? Phones? My desktop computer?
5. What other physical processes besides switching operations can produce consciousness?

I think there's tension between the claim that matter can produce consciousness, but not vice-versa. For example, it is claimed by many that if you arrange brain-stuff a certain way and run a current through it, you can produce the feeling of stubbing your toe. But if you arrange the feeling of stubbing your toe with the beauty of a sunset while listening to a Bach symphony, you don't a working brain from that. You never get anything material from mental states. Isn't this a problem for physicalists who believe in matter/energy conversion? Why not mental/physical conversion? Why is it a one-way street? — RogueAI

It’s an interesting question, and I haven’t read the rest of the thread yet, but I think there’s a misunderstanding here. Both your descriptions here assume both consciousness and a working brain exists. Producing a feeling is not the same as producing consciousness, and I’m not sure how you would ‘arrange’ feelings or experiences as you’ve described without a working brain.

The ‘feeling of stubbing your toe’ is a complex interrelation of ideas, including notions of ‘self’, ‘body’, ‘toe’, ‘movement’ and ‘impact’ as well as ‘unpleasant’, ‘sharp’ and ‘pain’. Potentially, it can all be rendered as a pattern of electric current through matter without understanding any of these ideas - provided that matter has sufficient experience to recognise and describe the pattern as ‘the feeling of stubbing your toe’. Otherwise how would you confirm this?

Conversely, one can theoretically arrange all of the above ideas in a particular way to construct a mental state that matches this pattern of electric current - without anyone ever actually stubbing their toe.

It’s an interesting question, and I haven’t read the rest of the thread yet, but I think there’s a misunderstanding here. Both your descriptions here assume both consciousness and a working brain exists.

Those are safe assumptions. Do you doubt brains and/or consciousness exists?

Producing a feeling is not the same as producing consciousness, and I’m not sure how you would ‘arrange’ feelings or experiences as you’ve described without a working brain.

Assuming a working brain is required for consciousness is just that: an assumption. Idealists always concede that point. They shouldn't. I will concede that it appears the brain is a necessary condition for consciousness. Are we justified in assuming appearances are as they seem? Sometimes. Sometimes not. The materialist cannot just assume brains exist and are required for consciousness. They have to argue that what seems to exist external to our minds actually does exist external to our minds. Since we can't leave our minds and verify whether anything external to our minds exists, there's no way to prove materialism. It is simply taken on faith that external stuff exists. It's no different than refuting Berkeley by kicking a rock.

Anyway, even if brains are required for consciouness, there is still the issue of brain states producing new additional experiences, but experiences incapable of producing additional brain states. What do I mean by experiences? Simple: listen to music while you stub your toe looking at a sunset. Nothing additional is created by that arrangement of experiences. Nothing additional is ever added to the universe by mental states. What do I mean by additional? At time t, there are x number of experiences that have ever happened. At t+10 min, there will be many more additional experiences. That doesn't happen the other way around. Mental states never result in the addition of anything. Nothing physical is added to the universe from mental states. I think a materialist has to argue why that dichotomy exists. I think bringing up entropy is going to lead to substance dualism.

The ‘feeling of stubbing your toe’ is a complex interrelation of ideas, including notions of ‘self’, ‘body’, ‘toe’, ‘movement’ and ‘impact’ as well as ‘unpleasant’, ‘sharp’ and ‘pain’. Potentially, it can all be rendered as a pattern of electric current through matter without understanding any of these ideas - provided that matter has sufficient experience to recognise and describe the pattern as ‘the feeling of stubbing your toe’. Otherwise how would you confirm this?

It sounds like you're talking about consciousness from neurons/switches. See my post right above yours for my concerns on that.

Conversely, one can theoretically arrange all of the above ideas in a particular way to construct a mental state that matches this pattern of electric current - without anyone ever actually stubbing their toe.

Do you think mental states can exist on their own, without any substrate? That's how I read what you're saying.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12301-man-with-tiny-brain-shocks-doctors/

Well clearly not because you can’t make a computer out of rocks. I honestly don’t get the comic. Is the guy acting as the CPU or something?

But fundamentally yea I think you can simulate a universe with conscious beings interacting.

Do you believe it's possible to simulate a universe of conscious beings by moving a bunch of rocks around in a certain way? If not, where do you and that comic diverge? — RogueAI

I never said you could build a functioning brain out of anything. Your question was regarding whether something with the same function as a brain would be conscious; my answer is yes. It doesn't follow that you can build a functioning brain out of rocks, liquorice or thin air: that is a purely technological problem. But _if_ you built something with the same functioning as a conscious brain out of rocks, then yes, that system would by definition be conscious.

t has to do with the fact that energy in and by itself can't exist. It is CARRIED by matter. — god must be atheist

I disagree. Photons are massless. Nothing at the speed of light can possess mass. And they are most definitely energy. Wavelengths don’t carry the energy they are a measure of the intensity of the energy and it’s ability to penetrate matter. For example the light you can see from the sun can’t generally harm you but the shorter wavelength UV (higher frequency) light can give you a sunburn as it is of higher energy.

However I do agree with you if what you meant is the measurement of energy cannot exist without matter. This is definitely true. You can only measure/ observe/ be aware of light, heat, motion etc by interacting with it. If a light particle never hits a solid surface (our eye) we cannot see it.

1. Why should we assume that consciousness can arise from switches? Why is that not a category error? — RogueAI

Because for wall we know, the brain is the house of consciousness; and it is nothing but a processor with processes and switches. Therefore another processor with switches and processes that emulate it, may or would necessarily become conscious. That's the theory. No empirical evidence yet, but the theory is solid.

3. How could you verify whether such a system is in fact conscious? — RogueAI

By the turing test.

However, that's only verification; not proof. You can't prove that anyone else aside from yourself has a consciousness, either.

4. What other collections of switches are conscious? Phones? My desktop computer? — RogueAI

No; not phones. Not computers. They lack certain elements. But other switching mechanisms exist that supposedly developed consciousness. The fox. The elephant. The bee. The mollusk.

5. What other physical processes besides switching operations can produce consciousness? — RogueAI

Whatever processes our brains employ.

I disagree. Photons are massless. Nothing at the speed of light can possess mass. And they are most definitely energy. Wavelengths don’t carry the energy they are a measure of the intensity of the energy and it’s ability to penetrate matter. For example the light you can see from the sun can’t generally harm you but the shorter wavelength UV (higher frequency) light can give you a sunburn as it is of higher energy. — Benj96

On the surface I agree with you. The newest thought, however, and I described it in my same post, I don't know how you were able to miss that part, deals with this. It has to do with the ether. It is not the same ether as they thought the universe was filled with up to and including the middle of the nineteenth century. They figure there is a material element to space, which enables light to travel as a wave form, and enables the bending of space.

If and only if that theory is true, light can't transmit energy without the employment of matter.

I don't know if that theory is true or not. There is a raging battle going on in physics circles regarding that. Ether has a bad connotation for its past use up to two hundred years ago; but it is very possible for it to exist.

ahhh I get you now apologies for having missed it. It is an interesting theory. There is a lot of confusion around the concept of “fields” and what they are exactly. Or around the ideas of “substance” or “stuff” and whether they are energies or materials of some sort.

I think it’s important here to remember that really energy and mass are equivalent. They are the same thing and actually what differs them is velocity and relativity (time) in accordance with the equation provided by the wise and noble Einstein.

What would be a true masterpiece to understand exactly how time, space, mass and energy all interdepend on one another, how they each come about, which came first or perhaps if they are all faces of the same fundamental substance

I never said you could build a functioning brain out of anything. Your question was regarding whether something with the same function as a brain would be conscious; my answer is yes. It doesn't follow that you can build a functioning brain out of rocks, liquorice or thin air: that is a purely technological problem. But _if_ you built something with the same functioning as a conscious brain out of rocks, then yes, that system would by definition be conscious.

I figured we would reach this point. I think this is where the materialist position collapses into complete absurdity. I know that's a person opinion, but I have some questions that you won't be able to answer that kind of illustrate the absurdity of it all.

1. Why should we assume that consciousness can arise from rocks? Rocks are nothing like neurons, nothing like mental states, so why is that not an immediate category error?
2. How can conscious arise from rocks? What is the explanation for how the rocks become conscious? How many rocks are needed? What do you do with the rocks to make the rocks conscious (see what I mean about the absurdity of this)? Why is the act of whatever you do with the rocks important? Why does one set of rock interactions produce experience x, while a different set of rock interactions produces experience y, while a different set produces no experience at all?
3. How could you verify whether such a system is in fact conscious?
4. What other physical processes besides rock interactions can produce consciousness?

(2) lays bare the absurdity of it all, but I think (3) is catastrophic. It's impossible to verify that anything other than you is conscious. That's just a brute fact about our epistemic position in the world. The existence of other consciousnesses is assumed but can never be proven. You can't leave your mind and check for the existence of other minds. That leads to the following problem for materialism: suppose you've got this awesome theory of consciousness and it predicts that that object over there is conscious. How do you prove it? You can't. No physicalist theory of consciousness will ever be verified. It's impossible in principle. No matter how clever the theory is, you can never get inside the object it says is conscious or isn't to examine its internal mental states or lack thereof. The physicalist project to understand consciousness is doomed to failure.

Note that this is not a god-of-the-gaps argument. There are a lot of things that cause physicalism to fail with regard to consciousness and none of them have anything to do with god:
1. The absurdity of consciousness coming from rocks
2. The total lack of explanation for how consciousness can possibly arise from doing stuff with rocks.
3. A category error in thinking that non-mental stuff can produce mental events
4. The impossibility of verification of any physicalist theory of consciousness

Your question was regarding whether something with the same function as a brain would be conscious; my answer is yes. It doesn't follow that you can build a functioning brain out of rocks, liquorice or thin air: that is a purely technological problem. — Kenosha Kid

:100: :up:

RogueAI has to misread this, KK, or surgically remove his cranium from his sphincter which, I suspect, is much too difficult for him / her to do.

Do I know you from some other forum? Did we cross paths once and it ended badly?

Anyway, suppose you built a machine that was functionally equivalent to a working brain. How would you test whether it's conscious or not?

Anyway, suppose you built a machine that was functionally equivalent to a working brain. How would you test whether it's conscious or not? — RogueAI

I think the functionalist has to define 'consciousness' in such a way that a function can constitute it. For example, X is conscious if and only if X maps the world and can predict events. Brains can do that, therefore brains are conscious. The trouble is that's not the definition of consciousness that many philosophers are talking about (including me, and I think you). The problem is we can't agree on definitions before we start. This impasse has arisen dozens and dozens of times on this forum and the last. I don't think functionalism is really a theory of consciousness, it's a definition. Most of the time anyway. Sometimes it's a theory, I think, depending on how its forumulated. With the walking and legs analogy, it's definition. Walking just is how that action is defined. And that's not interesting.

EDIT: That wasn't very clear. I'll try and write a better one in a bit.

I think the functionalist has to define 'consciousness' in such a way that a function can constitute it. For example, X is conscious if and only if X maps the world and can predict events. Brains can do that, therefore brains are conscious. The trouble is that's not the definition of consciousness that many philosophers are talking about (including me, and I think you). The problem is we can't agree on definitions before we start. This impasse has arisen dozens and dozens of times on this forum and the last. I don't think functionalism is really a theory of consciousness, it's a definition. Most of the time anyway. Sometimes it's a theory, I think, depending on how its forumulated. With the walking and legs analogy, it's definition. Walking just is how that action is defined. And that's not interesting.

I think I get what you're trying to say here. Functionalism was what I figured Kenosha Kid would use to answer the questions I posed about "rock consciousness". If I put on my materialist hat, let me see if I can answer some of them:

1. Why should we assume that consciousness can arise from rocks?
Because if you make a functionally equivalent working brain, it will be conscious and we can infer this from our knowledge of conscious and brains.

Rocks are nothing like neurons, nothing like mental states, so why is that not an immediate category error?

I don't think there's a good answer the materialist can give for this. I think the best the materialist can say is, "yeah, but the system is functionally equivalent to a working brain. Who cares what it's made of?" Except, consciousness could very well be substrate-dependent. It might only come about through the interactions of biological matter, for some reason. Since it's impossible to verify whether something other than working brains(s) are conscious, the issue of substrates and conscious will continue to bedevil physicalists, particularly as Ai starts doing stuff like passing Turing Tests.

2. How can conscious arise from rocks?

Because they're in an arrangement and interacting in a way that is functionally equivalent to a working brain.

What is the explanation for how the rocks become conscious? How many rocks are needed? What do you do with the rocks to make the rocks conscious (see what I mean about the absurdity of this)? Why is the act of whatever you do with the rocks important? Why does one set of rock interactions produce experience x, while a different set of rock interactions produces experience y, while a different set produces no experience at all?

This is the Hard Problem, and the materialist can't just give a functionalism argument. An explanation has to be given for why matter arrangement X,Y,Z gives rise to conscious experience. The explanation so far is that if you take a bunch of matter and arrange it in some fiendishly complex way, and have it share electrons (or interact in some way), voila! Consciousness! Needless to say, this explanation is lacking, hence the Hard Problem and Explanatory Gap.

3. How could you verify whether such a system is in fact conscious?

I think this is catastrophic to the physicalist project of explaining materialism. Functionalism won't help here. Functionalism is the problem! Suppose we make a metal brain that is functionally equivalent to a working organic brain. If functionalism is right, it should be conscious. Time to test it! So, how do we test whether it's conscious or not? Suppose we eventually build something that can pass a billion Turing Tests simultaneously while composing an opera for the ages. Is it conscious? Just as we'll never know if anything outside of our minds is conscious, we'll never know if anything we build is conscious. This isn't a problem when we all look like each other. We just assume we're all conscious. But a machine? Are we just going to assume advanced Ai is conscious without any way to verify it? I see problems with that.

4. What other physical processes besides rock interactions can produce consciousness?

I don't think functionalism helps here. I think the problem for the materialist here is that when they claim that consciousness is substrate-independent, they're going to end up at panpsychism (which, along with computation, is all the rage in consciousness these days). Because in a physical universe, there's nothing unique about what the brain does. If a conscious moment is neurons X,Y,Z doing A,B,C, you can replace the neurons with anything. And so long as you don't know what it is that the neurons are doing that actually produces consciousness, the materialist is going to be stuck saying that matter arrangement A,B,C (e.g., a bunch of rocks) doing X,Y,Z is conscious if it's functionally equivalent to a conscious-producing brain-state. OK, so any arrangement of matter that is doing X,Y,Z is conscious? If a bunch of rocks can be conscious, what about a rock slide? Is there a chance the rocks in a rockslide can do X,Y,Z accidentally and produce a moment of consciousness? What about a rain storm? There's a lot of matter-interactions going on there. Are there conscious moments in storms? Meteor swarms? Are microbes conscious (Christof Koch thinks they are)?

As for definitions, I think that's a rabbit-hole we don't need to go down. I think we can just use a folk definition of consciousness to lay bare the problems and absurdities of materialism as it pertains to consciousness.

Why should we assume that consciousness can arise from rocks? — RogueAI

I get the impression from later chat that this clicked: We should NOT assume that consciousness can arise from rocks.

This is the Hard Problem — RogueAI

I don't think so. The hard problem allows for a bunch of rocks to be conscious, it just doesn't allow a complete third person description of that consciousness since it will not contain "what it is like to be a conscious bunch of rocks". And when I say "doesn't allow", I mean that Chalmers won't hear of it on grounds of taste.

How could you verify whether such a system is in fact conscious?

I think this is catastrophic to the physicalist project of explaining materialism. Functionalism won't help here. Functionalism is the problem! Suppose we make a metal brain that is functionally equivalent to a working organic brain. If functionalism is right, it should be conscious. Time to test it! So, how do we test whether it's conscious or not? — RogueAI

This has nothing to do with non-organic consciousness as far as I can see. This problem already exists for discerning if an animal or even a person is conscious.

I don't predict this will be the difficult part given a more comprehensive model of consciousness. The issues here (in my experience) relate primarily to language. The concept of "consciousness" is vague and therefore arguable. For instance, some people don't like the idea of observing anything non-human as conscious, and that vagueness gives sufficient wiggle room to be able to say, "but that's not quite consciousness" about anything. I think this is also partly why people like Chalmers retreat to the first person in these arguments. It's possible to claim that something is lost when you transform to the third person view, as long as that something is suitably wishy-washy.

But if you really want to test for consciousness, you have to define in precise terms what consciousness is, not what it isn't.

I'm always interested in other people's ideas of what consciousness is.

What other physical processes besides rock interactions can produce consciousness? — RogueAI

N/A

— Kenosha Kid

Why should we assume that consciousness can arise from rocks?
— RogueAI

I get the impression from later chat that this clicked: We should NOT assume that consciousness can arise from rocks.

I agree. Are you still assuming that consciousness arises from neurons?

This is the Hard Problem
— RogueAI

I don't think so. The hard problem allows for a bunch of rocks to be conscious, it just doesn't allow a complete third person description of that consciousness since it will not contain "what it is like to be a conscious bunch of rocks". And when I say "doesn't allow", I mean that Chalmers won't hear of it on grounds of taste.

"The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why any physical state is conscious rather than nonconscious."
https://iep.utm.edu/hard-con/

I think that definition is fine, and I think that if you're going to argue that there's a possible world where consciousness arises from rocks, you're going to have to explain why that physical state is conscious rather than non-conscious. That's going to involve answering the questions I already posed, that you did not answer: How can conscious arise from rocks? What is the explanation for how the rocks become conscious? How many rocks are needed? What do you do with the rocks to make the rocks conscious (see what I mean about the absurdity of this)? Why is the act of whatever you do with the rocks important? Why does one set of rock interactions produce experience x, while a different set of rock interactions produces experience y, while a different set produces no experience at all?

Do you have answers to any of these?

How could you verify whether such a system is in fact conscious?

I think this is catastrophic to the physicalist project of explaining materialism. Functionalism won't help here. Functionalism is the problem! Suppose we make a metal brain that is functionally equivalent to a working organic brain. If functionalism is right, it should be conscious. Time to test it! So, how do we test whether it's conscious or not?
— RogueAI

This has nothing to do with non-organic conscious as far as I can see. This problem already exists for discerning if an animal or even a person is conscious.

Verifying consciousness has nothing to do with whether computers (which are non-organic) are conscious??? Of course it does. If scientists come up with a theory of consciousness and claim that that non-organic thing over there (computer) is conscious, they need a way to verify it. The problem of verifying consciousness is a problem for BOTH non-organic AND organic systems.

I don't predict this will be the difficult part given a more comprehensive model of consciousness. The issues here (in my experience) relate primarily to language. The concept of "consciousness" is vague and therefore arguable. For instance, some people don't like the idea of observing anything non-human as conscious, and that vagueness gives sufficient wiggle room to be able to say, "but that's not quite consciousness" about anything. I think this is also partly why people like Chalmers retreat to the first person in these arguments. It's possible to claim that something is lost when you transform to the third person view, as long as that something is suitably wishy-washy.

You don't need a precise definition of consciousness to verify whether something is conscious. You can verify you are conscious, correct? You're not in doubt about that, I assume. So, verification of consciousness using just folk terminology is possible on a personal level, but somehow the language fouls everything up when we try and verify whether other things are conscious? That's ad hoc. It's not a language problem, it's a verification problem- you can't get outside your own consciousness to verify whether anything external to you is conscious or not. As I said before, this isn't a problem at the moment because we all look like each other. It's going to become a hell of a problem when machines become as smart as us.

But if you really want to test for consciousness, you have to define in precise terms what consciousness is, not what it isn't.

Do you need a precise definition of water to tell whether a glass has any water in it? Of course not. If a scientist says, "I have a theory of consciousness, and I say that that computer (or pile of rocks) is conscious!" we all know what he means. The next question for the scientist is: "How do you know it's conscious?" If he replies, "well, what do you mean by consciousness, exactly?", that's a copout. So how is a physicalist going to verify whether anything is conscious??? They can't. Positing unverifiable theories isn't science.

What other physical processes besides rock interactions can produce consciousness?

N/A
— RogueAI

Physical processes besides rocks moving around are not applicable when it comes to producing consciousness? I can't be reading that right. What do you mean here? Do you think computers can be conscious? Because that would involve consciousness coming from "physical processes besides rock interactions", which would make those physical processes very applicable.

Also: you believe that consciousness is substrate-independent. What evidence do you have for that?

Another way to bring out the issue is to ask "Why can't all that functional stuff happen without consciousness? What is it about that function that necessitates consciousness?"

Are you still assuming that consciousness arises from neurons? — RogueAI

Yes. Now I suspect nothing clicked at all :cry:

I think that if you're going to argue that there's a possible world where consciousness arises from rocks, you're going to have to explain why that physical state is conscious rather than non-conscious. — RogueAI

Suspicion confirmed. I'm not claiming there's a possible world where consciousness can arise from rocks. I really need you to pay attention to the distinction between the two following sentences:
1. If a bunch of rocks could reproduce the function of my brain, that bunch of rocks could be conscious.
2. Consciousness can arise from rocks.
They are not the same and I have not claimed the second one.

Verifying consciousness has nothing to do with whether computers (which are non-organic) are conscious??? — RogueAI

That's correct. Are octopuses conscious? Does that question involve whether computers are conscious or not? No. So the question is not about computers (although a perfectly good example).

You don't need a precise definition of consciousness to verify whether something is conscious. You can verify you are conscious, correct?
...
Do you need a precise definition of water to tell whether a glass has any water in it? — RogueAI

My answer regarded scientific descriptions of consciousness, which does require precise definitions. In order for a scientist to discover scientifically what water is, yes, she needs a definition of water. If she doesn't know what water is, she can't tell you what's in the glass. Even if she knows what water looks like, she needs to be able to differentiate it from alcohol, or any other transparent liquid. As it happens, you don't need to know _much_ about water to be able to distinguish it perfectly well from not-water (it's appearance, fluidity, taste, lack of smell). This is the extent to which the definition of consciousness also needs to be precise: to distinguish it from unconscious things.

What do you mean here? — RogueAI

I mean your question was not applicable since it was based on a misunderstanding of my claimm