There are those who say we may never understand consciousness, the so-called Mysterians, led by British philosopher Colin McGinn. And David Chalmers identified what he called the hard and easy problems. But I don't think Chalmers says we can never understand it.

↪Daemon
I would like to know who thinks computation can cause consciousness. Is that a pan-psych argument? That a thermometer has a small level of consciousness. That’s definitely not my argument. — GLEN willows

Well I thought you were saying quantum computation might cause consciousness, and ↪180 Proof seemed to think that neural nets might do it, and as far as I know neural nets are still computational (and observer-dependent). Chalmers may have said that about the thermostat.

Can you answer my questions?

Well I'll try, but not any more tonight, I'm going to sleep.

What is your argument?

Oh....and are you folks familiar with The Churchands, Paul and Patricia? — GLEN willows

I made use of some of their work on neural networks in a masters thesis concerning knowledge and ethics in organisations. I rejected their eliminative materialism as a basis for decision making on the grounds of impracticality. In the absence of a usable Neuro-physiological theory, we must rely on our “folk Psychology”.

"In the absence of Neuro-physiological theory..." So far. Isn't it possible that that could change?

We know enough about consciousness to know what can't cause it, and the observer-dependent nature of computation means that computation can't be the cause. — Daemon

I do t think consciousness is an ‘it’, some special facility that some living things happen to have produced. Instead , the basis of consciousness is present in even single-celled organisms, and I strongly believe that this is a continuum that can be even be traced from
the non-living to the living. The point is, in consciousness we’re dealing with a feature of the world that is not all or nothing but becomes more complex in tandem with the evolution of living systems. We will never produce something that is conscious in the same way as living creatures , just as we won’t produce flying machines that exactly duplicate what flying animals do.Our inventions build upon what has already been produced in nature rather than recapitulating it. But that means that , just as consciousness is a developing product of evolution , our thinking machines will evolve in their own way. We will produce
ever more complex devices that will achieve a kind of ‘consciousness’ that does not duplicate but mimics the consciousness of living forms. One could say that it will be parasitic on our own consciousness.

There are good reasons to think not, after Davidson; but perhaps.

Suppose that in my office of Minister of Scientific Language I want the new man to stop using words that refer, say, to emotions, feelings, thoughts and intentions, and to talk instead of the physiological states and happenings that are assumed to be more or less identical with the mental riff and raff. How do I tell whether my advice has been heeded if the new man speaks a new language? For all I know, the shiny new phrases, though stolen from the old language in which they refer to physiological stirrings, may in his mouth play the role of the messy old mental concepts. — Davidson, On the very idea of a conceptual scheme

No argument. Discussion. Maybe you stepped into this late - in my original post I said this -

The statement "eventually consciousness and qualia will be explained with neuroscience" is speculative, but no more so than "consciousness and qualia will never be explained by neuroscience."

It's all speculation and I'm getting the VERY REAL sense that most of the members here are firm in their belief that it's literally impossible that science might provide a solution to the "Hard Problem" of consciousness.

And if you read other posts, I also say this seems pretty close-minded, considering that history has a plethora of examples of science doing/discovering/proving things that were previously considered impossible to understand.

So no more questions, thanks for engaging.

Tip-of-the-hat sir!

↪Daemon I would like to know who thinks computation can cause consciousness. Is that a pan-psych argument? That a thermometer has a small level of consciousness. That’s definitely not my argument. — GLEN willows

Doesn’t Dennett believe that a thermometer has a bit of consciousness? That is , that consciousness only makes sense when we take the intentional stance , which is just a convenient fiction, and from within this stance , a thermometer does indeed have intentionality.
Personally , I suspect that eventually we will
abandon this fetishizing notion of ‘consciousness’ as some special capacity that a thing has or doesn’t have. I think all living systems , including plants, have consciousness in that what we are looking for when we play around with this seemingly mysterious notion is the general autopoietic self-organizing capacities of living systems. When we ask if a thing is conscious what we are really asking about is the level of organizational complexity of a living thing’s consciousness. If we could come anywhere near to understanding how a single-called organism works , we would be well on our way to understanding consciousness. The difference between an amoeba and a human mind is just icing on the cake. Contrary to the views of Dennett and Nick Bostrom , a computational , representational device will never come close to what even the r simplest living system can do. We need a very different kind of architectural
model. And when we begin utilizing such a model , we will likely dump the silicon chips in favor of genetically engineered wetware, and interact with these wetware systems in ways more like how we interact with animals than with machines. Once we forget about our superstitious ‘consciousness’ fetish, the question won’t be whether they are conscious but how conscious we can make them. That is , how complex can we make these wetware self-organizing systems.

I guess I'm going to argue "straw man" again, because I never said that we'll be able to produce consciousness "that is conscious in the same way as living creatures." Nothing man made is ever exactly the same as a naturally evolved process. Going even further, no two things of any kind are EXACTLY the same.

And anyway, AI itself stands for ARTIFICIAL intelligence, and whatever consciousness we (or it itself) will produce will be an artificial version, different from human consciousness.

But can you not imagine an AI with enough consciousness to plan, make decisions, use logic, discuss politics, play chess (oops already happened)? Even those things, which I think are a pretty low bar to set, would be amazing. Other things like emotions and other qualia definitely SEEM impossible, but I think they're possible. Though the ethical issues would be huge.

I remember when the concept of a computer recognizing the english language and then printing it out on paper in front of my eyes seemed crazy. Yet here we are.

Ok it seems like we're in agreement - and thanks for the info that I lacked!

I just realized I read the typo in your post
"I do t think consciousness is an ‘it’" as I DO think etc. ha!

No offence to anyone but the Mysterians is a terrible name, and I think a Psychedelic rock band in the 60's already took it.

Sorry - Friday night, just being silly.

the Mysterians is a terrible name, and I think a Psychedelic rock band in the 60's already took it. — GLEN willows

I would put a question mark in front of that.

As for AI most of the arguments are based on what computers can do now, not what they can do in the future, ex. quantum computers. — GLEN willows

Even when projected into the future, it will be to no avail. Computers will never be conscious, regardless what kind of computer. Consciousness can't be computed. It can't be forced. It's inherent to freely evolving processes. AI only looks intelligent, to a very small extent. Computers are good in the hyperfast execution, on the rythm of the hyperclock, of a sequence operations on massive data streams. In the brain there is a totally different process happening. The running of spike potentials on the neural network is wrongly compared with potentials and currents used by computers. The spike potential patterns that travel parallel en masse on the network are no information as used in a computer. The patterns running in the brain form mental objects themselves, without being information like in computers, which refer to other object, inform about objects. A pattern of freely running spike potentials is a different pattern intrinsically than a pattern of ones and zeroes being pushed around programmed. In a computer, a pattern of ones and zeroes can hold information about, say, a football, is different from a brain pattern that simulates a ball. The simulation in the brain is the ball in mental form. The information on the computer just refers to a real ball without itself having ball features. The mental ball floats around in the brain. Information about a real ball, in a computer, is pushed around by a program, without itself showing ball-like behavior.

Interesting discussion. Just by way of summary - are you able to outline in a few dot points what your current tentative account of consciousness is (if this is not too crass a question)?

the simplest explanation for consciousness is that it's in the brain — GLEN willows

Whereas, I personally find that to be a very poor example of an explanation. I would also argue against the idea that consciousness is the sort of thing that has such a precisely ascertainable spatiotemporal location.

When you chop out a piece of the brain, or damage the brain, it affects consciousness. When you chop out any other part of the body, it does not. — GLEN willows

That's based upon a notion of consciousness that I find is a bit emaciated.

Cut off the foot, it affects the nervous system, the belief system, etc. All of these are integral parts of human consciousness. Cut out the tongue and it will certainly effect/affect the individual's worldview.

No, it learns and is not just repetative. — Jackson

It "learns" because we programmed it to do so. Algorithms...

As for AI most of the arguments are based on what computers can do now, not what they can do in the future, ex. quantum computers. — GLEN willows

We know what they can do now; we don't know what they can do in the future. We can only assess what seems plausible now.

but how does the process come into existence? This is what has yet to be explained. — GLEN willows

Why does it have to come into existence?

Do you think there's anyone on the forum here who doesn't have awareness of their feelings? — Daemon

Yes.

Do you think it was always there, from before the earth existed?

said "We know what they can do now; we don't know what they can do in the future. We can only assess what seems plausible now."

To me this is the best and most logical response.

So you feel consciousness exists in all parts of the body? Taken ad absurdum this means there's consciousness in your toenail.

Anyway I think it's more logical to say that taking out a chunk of your body other than your brain will affect your consciousness the same way seeing something sad does. It has an effect on it, but doesn't actually remove part of it.

When my brother died, it definitely affected me, but not in the same way - or as much for that matter - as a frontal lobotomy would. My consciousness remained fully intact - and in the long haul might have even improved my conscious decision-making and life choices.

So are you saying it's "nowhere" or "everywhere?" And do you mean YOUR consciousness, or a general pan-psych kind of universal consciousness?

I would imagine it's the same definition as anyone's - intentionality, qualia, awareness. Unless "anyone" is a panpsychist, religious person or woo woo merchant. And I'm a materialist, obviously.

Beyond that, the definition of "what is consciousness" is kinda the topic of discussion here.

To me this is the best and most logical response. — GLEN willows

:cool:

I don't know what that means. No (but then my post wasn't a reply to yours).

To me this is the best and most logical response. — GLEN willows

And hey, it ain't brain surgery :wink:

I don't know what that means

:up: