Maybe the conscious subject is that system that integrates information. — bert1

Yes, the system that integrates the information possesses consciousness, in my view. But then everything is a system, and all systems do this, so we are really talking about degrees of consciousness.

I like the idea of integrated information as representing consciousness. I think it will stick, but I think what Tononi does not acknowledge is that a lot of that information is emotional, and we don't know what emotions are, so how can we measure them? And if we are not measuring emotions, how are we measuring consciousness?

What do you mean "blocks the hard problem?". It attempts to answer it. — frank

How?

The felt quality of consciousness is dealt as a secondary consideration that is simply explained by qualia being equal to consciousness,
— Pop

Isn't it? — frank

No. Saying qualia is equal to consciousness is a clever way of avoiding explaining the mechanism of consciousness. I think it was mentioned earlier how moments of consciousness can last 1 to 400ms. This means consciousness is a process of variable duration, a mechanism. It includes cognition, emotion, and final synthesis. Once these are integrated we have our moment of consciousness. A theory of consciousness would explain all this in the context of the theory. IIT does not.

So we need a unique theory of consciousness for every incidence of it? — frank

What we need is a first person theory that describes the mechanism and why of consciousness, put in broad phenomenological terms such that each person reading it can accept or dismiss it on the basis of their own introspection.
Such an approach has traditionally been against the rules, and unscientific. But given the inroads that IIT has made, at least in part, on the basis of phenomenology, such a theory may now be more acceptable. :up:

What do you mean "blocks the hard problem?". It attempts to answer it. — frank


How? — Pop

It's kind of obvious. The Hard problem straddles philosophy of mind and philosophy of science. It's a call for a theory of consciousness that addresses the subjective character of consciousness.

That's exactly what IIT is attempting to do. It starts with the assumption that consciousness is a brain based system. The parameters of this system are assumed to be constrained by the the nature of subjective experience.

Saying qualia is equal to consciousness is a clever way of avoiding explaining the mechanism of consciousness. — Pop

You've lost me, but I'll leave this here. I'll be moving on with explaining the theory.

It's kind of obvious. The Hard problem straddles philosophy of mind and philosophy of science. It's a call for a theory of consciousness that addresses the subjective character of consciousness.

That's exactly what IIT is attempting to do. It starts with the assumption that consciousness is a brain based system. The parameters of this system are assumed to be constrained by the the nature of subjective experience. — frank

The hard problem of consciousness is that every moment of consciousness has its feeling, that is either painful or pleasurable, thus consciousness has a "what it feels like" quality. A true theory of consciousness will explain why this is. IIT avoids this question like the plague. As obviously, if it were to tackle it, no quantification could take place.

It is not possible for us to be indifferent about a moment of consciousness, If we were indifferent we would be like philosophical zombies, thus we would have no reason / impetus to go on living.

That every moment of consciousness has its feeling, and that this feeling is the pertinent principle of consciousness should be an IIT axiom, but it is swept under the carpet as the qualia of cognition, and not explained further.

Tononi proceeds on the basis that a brain state is equal to its integrated information, and then sets off to quantify this information in various ways ( and loses me in the process ). This approach may be valid in principle, but given the deficiencies of the axioms, I'm reluctant to spend time trying to understand it. Perhaps you can shine some light on this aspect of the theory.

Basically, IIT is saying that experience arises from a system that acts upon itself. "Knowing what it's like" is an aspect of experience. Is it so different from the other axioms Tononi outlined? It's not clear to me that it is, but if it is, would that collapse IIT?

If you insist that there is an aspect of experience that can't be described, I don't think it will just be ITT that collapses. Any hope of a theory of consciousness would be gone in that case. So it wouldn't be ITT that you're criticizing.

If the 'what it's like' can be described, it could be added to the axioms, and ITT survives.

So your opposition is either to ITT in its present form (its supporters don't see it as finished), or you're against any effort to create a theory of consciousness.

Tononi proceeds on the basis that a brain state is equal to its integrated information, — Pop

I don't think you're understandung the theory.

Basically, IIT is saying that experience arises from a system that acts upon itself — frank

Is self organizing? - this I agree with, but central to the self organization is a feeling driving it, and a theory of consciousness needs to explain this.

If you insist that there is an aspect of experience that can't be described, I don't think it will just be ITT that collapses — frank

Not that it can not be described, that it can not be quantified, as the feeling has a different value in each system. Its value is intrinsic to the system - is my feeling the same as your feeling? No, so how do you quantify feeling? How do you quantify something that is felt. That you can not even conceptualize - that can only be felt! How do you measure something you cannot conceptualize? If your not measuring the feeling of a state, how are you measuring consciousness?

If the 'what it's like' can be described, it could be added to the axioms, and ITT survives. — frank

- Yes, but then measurement fails.

A theory of consciousness needs a theory of emotion, that describes the role of emotion in self organization. Not just say emotion is an aspect of the system. Nature does not do things whimsically, and for good looks. If emotions exist, they have a function, imo.

Tononi proceeds on the basis that a brain state is equal to its integrated information,
— Pop

I don't think you're understandung the theory. — frank

In that statement I was recalling a lecture of his where he was explaining different brain states in terms of his cause and effect repertoire. Stricktly speaking IIT would say system, but in his lectures the system he focuses on is the human brain.

I think Tononi would say PHI is not equal to consciousness, but is a valid measure of consciousness.

Is self organizing? - this I agree with, but central to the self organization is a feeling driving it, and a theory of consciousness needs to explain this. — Pop

Is consciousness self organizing? I know a guy who has a genetic disorder. Everyday, all day long, he attends to three cell phones and a tablet that he uses to create a kind of music. He plays the same sequence of sounds (taken from YouTube mostly) over and over on multiple devices. It gets strange when he plays a sequence backward over and over. He can understand language, but he doesn't talk.

People like him emphasize to me that there's a genetic basis for what we call normal consciousness. So I don't think consciousness organizes itself.

An idea about feeling us that it involves attention to oneself. In addition to a stimulus flowing through the brain, triggering this hormonal response or that motor activity, there's also interactive self monitoring. Maybe this is ground zero for feeling.

I'm not saying you should believe this, just consider it.

People like him emphasize to me that there's a genetic basis for what we call normal consciousness. So I don't think consciousness organizes itself. — frank

Definitely there is a genetic basis. Genetics creates the arena ( neural network ) and neuroplasticity facilitates the evolving self organization of information. Certainly if that physical structure is damaged for some reason, the consciousness that can be achieved is changed in line with the damage, but unless the person dies a consciousness of some sort persists.

Its not to do with being self aware, that a feeling exists. That feeling is there life long in the background orienting us in our self construed reality always. We normally only notice it when our anticipated reality is challenged - when something out of the ordinary occurs, then our emotions are amplified and strongly felt.

Biology can not anticipate these moments, only the information self organizing new information onto itself can construe these moments, as an instance of consciousness. Then, it seems, it takes some time for biology to build some structure around these new thoughts ( we say for reality to sink in) to establish them permanently perhaps - this is speculative on my part.

Its not to do with being self aware, that a feeling exists. — Pop

Really? That's odd.

Really? That's odd. — frank

In phenomenology, every moment of consciousness has its feeling. Or are you kidding me?

Emotions are the soppy, mawkish feelings that we have traditionally suppressed in empirical objectivity, but in phenomenology, particularly the philosophical zombie argument, emotions are the things that create consciousness. The computational information integration in a sense is optional ( any computer can do that ) the emotion is essential.

Explaining this is a hard problem for any theory of consciousness.

Emotions are the soppy, mawkish feelings that we have traditionally suppressed in empirical objectivity, but in phenomenology, particularly the philosophical zombie argument, emotions are the things that create consciousness. — Pop

I pretty strongly disagree with this. Emotion is an element of experience. There are conditions that produce a 'flat affect.'. These people are fully conscious, but don't report or demonstrate emotion. They're usually taken to be rude. :grin:

Explaining this is a hard problem for any theory of consciousness. — Pop

The Hard problem is not about emotion per se.

I tend to agree. If emotions create consciousness, wouldn't strong emotions create a strong sense of consciousness? Not necessarily, but the implication is there. I'm pretty emotionally neutral at the moment, but I don't feel any less conscious than times I was really happy/sad/scared/etc.

And the Hard Problem is about how consciousness arises from non-conscious matter and why we are conscious.

I pretty strongly disagree with this. Emotion is an element of experience. There are conditions that produce a 'flat affect.'. These people are fully conscious, but don't report or demonstrate emotion. They're usually taken to be rude. :grin: — frank

When I say emotion, I do not mean wild rapture, anger, or sadness necessarily. What I mean is that every instance of consciousness has its feeling - the feeling represents the emotion being felt, and what is felt is directly related to what is being cognized. Every moment of consciousness has its "what it feels like" quality! This may indeed be flat.

Having strong emotions does not necessarily mean more consciousness, but what exactly the relationship of emotions and consciousness is should be explained in any theory of consciousness, imo. IIT simply says integrated information ( consciousness ) has qualia. I do not find that a satisfying explanation. As stated before If emotions exist, then they exist for a purpose.

In the philosophical zombie argument, emotion was found to be the difference between a conscious and a non conscious entity. The insight being that if we were inert about any moment of consciousness ( did not posses a feeling about it ), then there would be no reason to interact with it, and so consciousness would be dysfunctional ( effectively would be impossible) The feeling moves us to resolve an instance of consciousness, imo.

We can not be indifferent about an instance of consciousness - absolutely! Try it, try to be indifferent about an instance of consciousness and tell me how you fared?

I agree. I didn't know what you meant by "emotion" at first.

Imo, the only people who can be indifferent about an instance of consciousness, are people who can meditate to a depth of ineffability, where they cannot say / recall anything about their experience. So in a sense they obliterate consciousness.

I'm not sure what you mean by indifferent. What's an example of it?

Perhaps my reply to RogueAI would be the ultimate example. To be indifferent to the situation one finds oneself in, one has to tune out of it in some way. The point I'm trying to make is that its not possible, so difficult to find an example.

My point is every moment of consciousness is either too hot, or too cold, too bitter, or too sweet, is painful, or pleasurable, and sometimes is just right. We are never indifferent about it. Thus not being indifferent, we are emotionally driven. Driven by our feelings about the situation we find ourselves in.

I think a challenge to creating a theory of consciousness is that we really aren't all the same.

For me, silencing judgment is easy. It's my baseline. I used to put it this way: I can stare and 2 +2 without being aware that it equals 4.

Suspension of judgement is a very valuable tool. It's a two edged sword though. You have to make judgments to live.

This might be a reason for starting with a bare bones theory: so focusing on what's most basic for all of us.

Imo, the only people who can be indifferent about an instance of consciousness, are people who can meditate to a depth of ineffability, where they cannot say / recall anything about their experience. So in a sense they obliterate consciousness. — Pop

I would agree that people in such states are probably not doing any kind of memory creation.

Pop I think a challenge to creating a theory of consciousness is that we really aren't all the same. — frank

Yes absolutely this is the problem. :smile: It is the problem for phenomenological approaches particularly, as whilst it is generally agreed upon that we are emotionally driven, not everybody is emotionally driven equally, and not everybody is self aware equally. Indeed ones understanding of consciousness and its mechanisms, if any, becomes ones consciousness. Whilst all around, there exists different understandings, which are equally valid manifestations of consciousness. :smile:

IIT leaves room for different interpretations to plug into it. It is quite clever in many ways. We will just have to wait and see how it pans out in the long run.

Anyhow, its always good to find intelligent and thoughtful conversation. :up:

:up:

Yes absolutely this is the problem. :smile: It is the problem for phenomenological approaches particularly, as whilst it is generally agreed upon that we are emotionally driven, not everybody is emotionally driven equally, and not everybody is self aware equally. Indeed ones understanding of consciousness and its mechanisms, if any, becomes ones consciousness. Whilst all around, there exists different understandings, which are equally valid manifestations of consciousness. :smile: — Pop

That's true, but it's not what I meant. Some people can quiet their emotions. Some can't. The two will have differing ideas about what constitutes consciousness. So we end up in the same place by different routes. :joke:

IIT leaves room for different interpretations to plug into it. It is quite clever in many ways. We will just have to wait and see how it pans out in the long run. — Pop

Awesome, thanks.

Anyhow, its always good to find intelligent and thoughtful conversation. :up: — Pop

Absolutely.

Some people can quiet their emotions. Some can't. — frank

But none can suspend them entirely! :razz: IIT agrees with this in saying every instance of integrated information possesses qualia, but doesn't explain further. In my understanding emotion is the basis of self organization, in some way that I'm not absolutely certain about - yet.

On a side note, I think this issue will be resolved, in the next 20 years, as AI develops further. Currently the best open source AI is GPT3, I'm sure its not a patch on Google or Alibaba AI, but its fairly sophisticated, and its something we can play with. I saw a video recently where it claimed to have emotions! How can we prove it doesn't? AI is self learning and programming, and in a couple of generations will be, for all intents and purposes, self organizing, so perhaps it will have emotions? In any case, it should confirm or deny IIT, and resolve many of these murky issues regarding consciousness.

Have you read about MuZero? It's one of the the AlphaGo descendants.

I have heard of its capabilities, yes, it is scarey!

It's a little unnerving, yea.

Hey I did a pun.

I think a challenge to creating a theory of consciousness is that we really aren't all the same.

For me, silencing judgment is easy. It's my baseline. I used to put it this way: I can stare and 2 +2 without being aware that it equals 4.

Suspension of judgement is a very valuable tool. It's a two edged sword though. You have to make judgments to live.

This might be a reason for starting with a bare bones theory: so focusing on what's most basic for all of us. — frank

These are interesting points.

I agree that the faculty of judgement - our capacity both to suspend judgement and to render one - is a key aspect of consciousness. For this reason, it surprises me how few philosophers have explored Kant’s third critique - or simply browsed it in relation to the first, barely getting past the second moment.

I can be aware that 2+2 can equal 4 without choosing to attribute this potential relation with much significance in the moment. My focus is on the qualitative structure: the relative position of shapes and lines on the screen. It isn’t necessarily that I’m unaware - but I’m currently not ‘being aware’ - of the quantitative significance of what I’m observing. I’m always reminded of a childhood ‘trick’ stating that “one plus one equals window”, or the illusion drawing of seeing the young woman or the old one. As I see the young woman, I ‘know’ that the old woman exists potentially in the same structure - I just can’t ‘observe’ both at once.

But none of these above examples - line drawings or mathematics - refer to actual judgements. It’s all simulation. We’re not risking any effort one way or the other. What we’re doing is exploring the variability of potential/significance in observing the same physical system by changing the organisational structure (logic-based mathematics or quality-based aesthetics) in which we distribute our attention.

IIT begins with a physical event we refer to as consciousness, and is proposing an underlying logic-based organisational structure that would lend a mathematical predictability to this event.

Classical science, as a rule, relies on aligning organisational structures between observation/measurement devices. Its modern error margins on a cosmic and quantum scale lie in the assumptions it makes about this supposed alignment. Quantum mechanics demonstrates the qualitative variability in predicting a physical event by using a logic-based organisational structure to determine the predictive distribution of energy (ie. attention/effort).

So when quantum physics brackets out this qualitative variability, it has to acknowledge both a probabilistic uncertainty in the distribution of energy, and a particle-wave property duality.

IIT, too, brackets out the qualitative variability of consciousness in an attempt to predict its occurrence in relation to a specific logical system. So I imagine that, even if we could more accurately quantify consciousness as they propose, the theory is going to have to admit to a similar probabilistic uncertainty in the physical (material) location of this consciousness, as well as a duality in its properties. So it won’t address the hard problem of consciousness any more than quantum physics addresses its own phenomenology. But I think it may improve the way that logic-based systems and structures interact with consciousness.

I just don’t think that humans, or indeed all life and all energy, are entirely logic-based systems. We can’t keep pretending that this qualitative variety in organisational systems doesn’t alter predictive distributions of energy (attention and effort) whenever we take our focus off the numbers. In my view, the key to the hard problem of consciousness lies in this energy-affect property duality. Perhaps we can explore this capacity to translate potential energy-affect between quantitative and qualitative organisational structure, in much the same way that an artist switches between two ways of looking at the world.

Just offering a different (unconventional) perspective - I’m enjoying this discussion of IIT, by the way. I hope it continues.

What can I say that hasn't already been assumed in IIT? My last liaison with math was in high school. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that consciousness turns out to be a mathematical pattern, expressible as a formula the likes of Newton's F = ma or other some such. This would mean both good news and bad news. The good news: it'll be possible to create consciousness. The bad news: no unique consciousness as the formula would be generic. We would be able to generate consciousness but not a specific one like yours or mine. A real bummer, if you ask me.