Is self-experimentation, the scientific way, possible? Just picture me conducting tests on my own brain - systematically of course, avoiding any insults to my judgment or postponing it to the last minute, something like that. I would be able to objectively analyze the subjective aspects of my own consciousness. Too, solipsism seems to suggest that that's the only method available to us (re the problem of other minds).

I would be able to objectively analyze the subjective aspects of my own consciousness. — Agent Smith

Well, you couldn't do it yourself, but as the brain has no nerve endings, it is impervious to the pain caused by surgical incision, so patients can experience having their brain operated on while fully conscious. There was a pioneering Canadian neurosurgeon by the name of Wilder Penfield who conducted thousands of these procedures over decades. And, whilst only peripheral to his main body of work, his discoveries caused him to form a rather dualist view of the brain. He noted that he could, by stimulating areas of a subject's brain while conscious, cause them to have vivid recollections of past experiences, experience sensations, and even to move parts of their body. But, intriguingly, all of those subjects reported that they knew when what they were experiencing was being triggered by the stimulus - they would invariably be able to report that 'you (the surgeon) are doing that', could distinguish those effects from voluntary actions and recollections of their own volition. He published a book on it, called Mystery of the Mind (which regrettably, but probably predictably, has become canon-fodder in the psi wars.)

You mean to say we can self-experiment on our brains but only if you have some assistants (a neurosurgeon would be a must have). I could then instruct the neurosurgeon to display my brain on a screen and instruct/guide him/her to do things to my brain and experience and record the effects. Doesn't that mean we can gain insight into the subjective/first-person aspects of conscious using science? :confused:

Philosophers tend to conflate intelligence and consciousness.

As though a chess grandmaster is more conscious than a waiter. The usual class bias!

"Is the patient breathing and conscious?"
This is the first question they ask on the emergency medical line.

To be alive is to be interacting with the environment - sucking it in and squeezing it out, and to be conscious is to actively respond to pain, to noise, to voice, to touch, to light in the eyes, etc.

Computation is not necessary.

Doesn't that mean we can gain insight into the subjective/first-person aspects of conscious using science? — Agent Smith

You mean, you didn't read what I reported Penfield to have said?

Philosophers tend to conflate intelligence and consciousness.

As though a chess grandmaster is more conscious than a waiter. The usual class bias! — unenlightened

:smirk:

You mean, you didn't read what I reported Penfield to have said? — Wayfarer

:blush: I'll get to it. Au revoir.

↪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). — Daemon

Is that the bit where you don't know what it means?

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. — GLEN willows

I think you need to stop making sweeping statements about what members here believe. We're individuals, we have different beliefs and approaches. You should also stop making similar statements about what philosophy thinks and does. Again, different philosophers have very different and often opposing views.

Instead, deal with what individuals have said, here and elsewhere. And also tell us what you think yourself, and why.

It's not all speculation. It's not speculation to state that a weather simulation on a computer will not cause rain, for example.

You're right - sorry, I'm a rookie, and I tend to generalize. I'll just lurk until I get the lay of the land.

No, don't lurk, engage with what other people are saying. I'd like for example to continue the discussion about the Computational Theory of Mind and the observer-dependency argument against it. You seemed to be saying you didn't yet understand that argument, well try to understand it.

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

Yes.

Can digital computation produce consciousness? No, because digital computation is an observer-dependent phenomenon, while consciousness is observer-independent. — Daemon

A proper semantics, such as the Chinese Room lacks, is a game of pretend: the pretending of appropriate connections, between words and things, and between tokens of the "same" word. And it depends on observers, because it's in the nature of an act of pretending that there can't be any inherent and un-observed connections between the act itself (the brain shiver) and any of its many plausible interpretations.

And if semantics is observer-dependent, perhaps consciousness is what we call the fleeting (or more persistent) occasions of forgetting that it was all pretend. It's an aspect of our pretending, and hence observer-dependent as well.

The Chinese Room lacks the skills to play the game, and other players may or may not discover that it isn't really joining in. It doesn't understand. It depends, like an abacus, on the involvement of the skilled players, to perform its computations, or conversations. They have to do the pretending of appropriate connections, between words and things, and between tokens of the "same" word. So, lacking the skills, the Room lacks the confusion we call consciousness.

But it isn't obvious that the Room's limitations result from its digital machinery: that it couldn't be enhanced so as to be able to learn to pretend. Some way down the line.

I don'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. — Joshs

I do think consciousness is a phenomenon some living things have produced. I think that a certain prerequisite for consciousness is present in single-celled organisms, but I don't think it is present in the non-living world.

Living things are individuated in a way non-living things aren't. There's an inside and an outside. The single-celled organism is an entity in a way non-living things aren't.

I think you need that before you can have consciousness. There has to be an experiencing entity.

What do you think of that?

"The marble index
Of the mind forever"

Thanks - very helpful to my understanding, and I agree.

I don't know what you mean (apparently because you don't know what you mean either).

Do you want to understand? Or do you want to be like this:

I don't know what that means


:up: — Agent Smith

Celebrating ignorance.

We're encouraged to apply the Principle of Charity here. In brief, we are to take an interlocutor's arguments in their strongest form, and assume that the interlocutor is competent and rational. In greater detail:


1. While temporarily suspending our own beliefs, we actively seek a thoughtful understanding of presented ideas, exposition, theory, or argument prior to assessing their justifiable merits or weaknesses.

2. We assume for the moment the proposed ideas are true even though our initial reaction might be, or is, to disagree; we provisionally seek to tolerate ambiguity for the larger aim of understanding the presented statements which might prove useful and helpful.

3. Preliminary emphasis is placed on seeking to understand rather than on searching for inconsistencies or other confusions.

4. We seek to understand the ideas in their most cogent form and actively attempt to extract an accurate interpretation in an effort to resolve contradictions. If more than one view is presented, we choose the most cogent emerging perspective — and, if possible, secure the key ideas interactively with the presenter.

5. Since the meanings of translations or interpretations depend upon an interdependence with background beliefs and behavior, some indeterminacy or uncertainness is unavoidable.

6. Once the ideas, exposition, or argument have been reliably identified and articulated with any irrelevancies dismissed, the resulting account can be properly critiqued.

Metals. molecules and mountains are examples of observer-independent phenomena. They are whatever they are and they do whatever they do regardless of what an external observer may say or think.

Money and marriage are examples of observer-dependent phenomena: something is only money or a marriage because we say so.

Both brains and minds are observer-independent phenomena. They are what they are and they do what they do regardless of what an external observer says or thinks.

The metal conductors, silicon chips and the bumps and hollows on an optical disk in a PC are observer-independent items.

But whether or not the PC is carrying out computation, that is, the meaning of the states of the metal conductors and the chips and the optical disk are observer-dependent items. We ascribe meaning to the states of the computer, the meaning is not intrinsic to the machine.

This is equally true of an abacus, of the device you are using to read this, and of the most advanced post-Von Neumann quantum computer. The physical components of all these devices are observer-independent. But whether they are carrying out computation and what computations they are carrying out, that is, the meanings of the observer-independent physical states of the device, are observer-dependent matters.

Computation therefore cannot cause consciousness. To think so is to make a category error.

Computation therefore cannot cause consciousness. To think so is to make a category error. — Daemon

Computation as we know it or as we presently define it -- the mechanical stacking of 0's and 1's -- cannot cause consciousness. To think so is to make a category error.

I think it follows that a machine that would be conscious would need to be more than a sophisticated abacus. It would need quite a few things more perhaps. E.g.

1. A first person experience of the world. It needs to be an entity that can wander around and see by itself what elephants and rainbows look like.

2. The understanding that words relate to this world, that sentences can describe it. That text has a meaning in the world, and also a force. Words have consequences in the world. It's called communication.

3. A capacity for infinite self-reflecting loops. It need to be conscious of itself but also be conscious of the world and of being at the world, and conscious also of what it means (roughly) to be conscious, i.e. be consciously conscious. And be conscious of being consciously conscious. And conscious that others around it (them humans) are conscious, etc. etc.

More?

I think it follows that a machine that would be conscious — Olivier5

Why does a machine have to be conscious?

Computation as we know it or as we presently define it -- the mechanical stacking of 0's and 1's — Olivier5

Every computation has the property of not being able to wear conscious life. Conscious life can appear only in a freely evolving process,, without a program forcing the process. Be it quantum computed, or however computed.

A capacity for infinite self-reflecting loops. It need to be conscious of itself but also be conscious of the world and of being at the world, and conscious also of what it means (roughly) to be conscious, i.e. be consciously conscious. And be conscious of being consciously conscious. And conscious that others around it (them humans) are conscious, etc. etc. — Olivier5

Does this apply to the conscious life of animals,?

Conscious life can appear only in a freely evolving process, — Hillary

If AI is part of the evolution of the universe then it can understood as part of nature.

If AI is part of the evolution of the universe then it can understood as part of nature — Jackson

Of course. But its nit a freely evolving process.

But its nit a freely evolving process. — Hillary

Why not?

Does this apply to the conscious life of animals,? — Hillary

I believe so, yes.

Because there is a split between the process and the program directing it. Of course the program evolves freely when set in motion, but the process it directs is programmed and thus not free. It depends on the program inserted by us.

Because there is a split between the process and the program directing it. Of course the program evolves freely when set in motion, but the process it directs is programmed and thus not free. It depends on the program inserted by us. — Hillary

Just as humans cannot fly, teleport, or calculate the distance to the moon by looking at it. Programmed.