Comments

  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    But 'information' is a polysemic word, that is, it has multiple meanings, so the phrase 'generic information' means precisely nothing.

    I hope it's clear by now why words like communication, knowledge, news, or intelligence are not synonyms for the word information, which is far more basic.

    So, what else is there, go ahead and name some more of those supposed multiple meanings, and if it does not encapsulate "spatial arrangement of matter", or if it assumes anything more, I will explain why it is in fact not appropriate substitute for the word ‘information’.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    Information : Knowledge and the ability to know. Technically, it's the ratio of order to disorder, of positive to negative, of knowledge to ignorance. It's measured in degrees of uncertainty.

    10 print "hello world!"
    20 goto 10
    
    In degrees of uncertainty, how much information is in this program?


    I am forced, like many philosophers and scientists, to coin new words to express novel ideas.

    No, you were childishly redefining existing word "information" and confused it with existing word "knowledge". See above, and note the question while you're at it.

    In order to learn the meaning of my words, you'll have to look into my dictionary.

    Exactly. And to think you did something usefulf there or that anyone should care is insane.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    You're spamming the thread by self-advertising your personal English dictionary, lunacy of which is not funny anymore.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    Mathematical objects only really exist if we objectify them, so I don’t see how they can be independent of our language, thoughts or practices.

    Yes. Ortodox science does seem stuck in a way some "unexpected" discovery of wide consequences is needed for further progress. Still, those kinds of propositions are useless unless they can answer some of those questions we are stuck at, and I don't see that particular one even tries.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    Knowledge is just one form of Generic Information. In my thesis, Consciousness is a highly evolved form of Generic Information. Generic Information is essentially abstract mathematics, and is physically manifested as Energy. Mathematically, Energy is a proportion --- a ratio between Cold & Hot, for example. And metaphysical mathematical Energy, according to Einstein, is equivalent to Mass (ratio of inertia to acceleration) , which is the measurable property of physical Matter. But, Meaningful Information is in the relationship, not the things.

    To LearN the MeaninG of the WordS look into DictionarY. YoU may use yoUr own PersonaL LanguaE to talk with yoUr ImaginarY FriendS, but in the ReaL WorlD it only makes you InsanE and IncompetenT to have ConversatioN.

    Perhaps if any of what you say had any practical relevance you would have a chance to realize purposelessness of your hallucinations. For example, think about why you didn't answer my question. You had a chance to finally apply some of your theory to something concrete, but you could not because it's nonsense. God HelP yoU, kiDDo!
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    Information : Knowledge and the ability to know. Technically, it's the ratio of order to disorder, of positive to negative, of knowledge to ignorance. It's measured in degrees of uncertainty.

    Knowledge is not information, knowledge is 'understood information'. Ability to know is not information, ability to know is ability to understand information.

    10 print "hello world!"
    20 goto 10

    In degrees of uncertainty, how much information is in this program above, or any other deterministic program?
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    Crystals are geometrical but they don’t contain information. Of course we can find information about a crystal but that is not the same as saying that it ‘contains information’.

    Find information? Correct phrase is "find meaning", robot. The way you are confusing word "meaning" with "information" is not even funny.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    I understand perfectly well.

    You are contradicting definitions and yourself.

    It also seems to me the only naturally-occuring process it makes sense to speak in terms of 'information' is living organisms, as DNA encodes biological information.

    1. Computer programs contain information. Yes/No
    2. Dead DNA still contains information. Yes/No
    3. Words contain information even if you don't understand it. Yes/No

    But I am saying that not all matter contains or encodes information. Crystals are geometrical but they don’t contain information. Of course we can find information about a crystal but that is not the same as saying that it ‘contains information’.

    You are saying, but not explaining, not answering my questions, not responding to my points, and when you do respond it is to your own misinterpretation and not to what I said.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...
    What ‘arranges’ it? A pile of stones conveys no information. Algorithms and programs denote intelligible patterns of data which convey meaning.

    Pile of stones conveys no information, it CONTAINS it. Size, weight, shape... how many more times can you misinterpret this? It's like you don't understand the meaning of words. Oh dear god, you are a robot!!
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    INFORMATION:
    1: the communication or reception of knowledge or intelligence
    -- no, information is static concept, communication is transfer of information

    2a(1): knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction
    -- only if knowledge = spatial arrangement of stuff in the brain

    (2): INTELLIGENCE, NEWS
    -- no, they contain information, but they are more than just information

    (3): FACTS, DATA
    b: the attribute inherent in and communicated by one of two or more alternative sequences or arrangements of something (such as nucleotides in DNA or binary digits in a computer program) that produce specific effects
    -- yes

    c(1): a signal or character (as in a communication system or computer) representing data
    -- yes

    (2): something (such as a message, experimental data, or a picture) which justifies change in a construct (such as a plan or theory) that represents physical or mental experience or another construct
    -- first part yes, but then unnecessarily it also describes computation and the result

    d: a quantitative measure of the content of information
    -- only if that 'quantitative measure' ends up written somewhere or otherwise embedded in the geometrical arrangement of matter.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...
    This seem nonsense to me. Interactions between inorganic matter doesn't constitute information.

    You are again misinterpreting what I said and keep confusing information, computation, and the result. What are algorithms and computer programs made of?

    Sorry, but your 'definition' isn't in there

    I gave you an explanation, not definition. Once you understand you will see many of those definitions are wrong. I also notice you failed to show reference for your definitions. This is good enough, though:

    (3): FACTS, DATA
    b: the attribute inherent in and communicated by one of two or more alternative sequences or arrangements of something
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    No, that just won't do it. Crystals don't convey or contain any information unless it is encoded in them intentionally. And information is not 'every atom'. Nor is water, nor anything else. intrinsically information-bearing, unless it is intepreted.

    Your reply is not addressing what I said, you're misinterpreting.

    Crystals don't convey or contain any information unless it is encoded in them intentionally.

    You are confusing static information with its computation and the result. Information itself does not "convey a meaning", but first it needs the context, i.e. interaction. The meaning is a function of the result and its impact on the future interactions, thus mostly unpredictable in principle.

    H and O atoms contain very specific information so they will always compute the same result that is H2O, and not H3O4 or H4O2. Furthermore, this H2O result contains specific information itself, which determines snowflake designs that are always beautiful patterns and never a random mess. Furthermore, snowflakes contain information themselves, by not being random, and that information when observed by some brains may result in emotion or appreciation of beauty. Furthermore, this emotion contains information itself, and so on...

    This also means information contained in emotions are spatial arrangement of matter too, but that's not the problem for immaterial appearance of the mind, it's the other part of that interaction, something emotions interact with to be put into context and result in qualia.

    And information is not 'every atom'

    Information is simply geometrical relation between chunks of matter. Meaning is not the same thing as information.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    The issue I have is that there is no information 'per se'. The word itself has many meanings, depending on the context; it's not as is there is an identifiable fundamental type called information. It also seems to me the only naturally-occuring process with reference it makes sense to speak in terms of 'information' is living organisms, as DNA encodes biological information. But there is no such information encoded in the vast majority of matter and energy found throughout the cosmos.

    All information we know of is embedded in spatial arrangement of matter, so information is just 'geometrical relations of matter' in essence. Context is given when one arrangement interacts with another, say a program running on a computer prints stuff on the screen. It's hard or impossible to tell how meaningful any interaction is without knowing or understanding the "purpose", i.e. future consequences the product of that interaction may have on other arrangements of matter.

    Therefore, there is information in every atom. Context for H and O is given by their specific interaction which produces water. How water is meaningful is hard to tell until you land on planet Earth, for example.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    If I was to speculate about consciousness, I would say that consciousness unites everything. It's at the bottom of all reality. It creates all that we experience. There is nothing more fundamental than consciousness.

    Why the brain then, what's it for? And what do we do with this theory, does it explain any experiment, does it propose any experiment, or something, anything?
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...
    For example, its a headfuck to try and figure out how spatial stuff could emerge from non-spatial stuff. If you have a bunch of things that don't take up any space at all, what are they supposed to do to each other such that they end up with something that takes up space?

    Why do you say mental properties are non-spatial? Do you mean non-material? In any case emergence does imply that new emergent entities and their properties are functions ultimately based on spatial interaction of material elements, at least as much as you can say for a software algorithm at the time of execution to be a function of moving electrons in the hardware components of a computer.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...
    What I meant was the swarming effect reminds us of observing quantum mechanics/randomness, and EM moving particles associated with the conscious energy analogy.

    Far more interesting parallel is between ants or bee colony and the brain as a colony of brain cells. Perhaps it's due to our lack of understanding, but right now ontologically there is no difference to claim that a single unified consciousness arises from the bee colony as a whole due to bee-signals, and that it arises in the neuron colony as a whole due to neuron-signals.

    There is a lot to be said about many interesting aspects of the mind that this parallel brings into focus, but I'll just mention one more for now. It can not be denied that at least part of the consciousness is an emergent system or entity simply due to the fact there is this unification of elements, seemingly independent and autonomous agents, working together as a whole to achieve a common goal, which they individually might not even be aware of.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    There isn’t a “subject of experience”, per se, but only the representation of an inherent, dedicated, human capacity, which each your propositions have contained in it.

    I am not talking about the subject in the contents of the experience, but the subject outside of the experience which is subjected to experience that experience. This subject is the subject per se, and it is the only mystery here, so I have no idea why after 5 pages we are still not talking about the same thing.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    Such perception is the second to last major class of function in the larger function that I picture access consciousness to be, the last one being reflexive judgement of those perceptions and the formation of belief through one’s self-awareness and self-control. I suspect you are instead picturing the whole of access consciousness as just that last reflexive step, and so everything before it as “phenomenal consciousness”, but I don’t think that’s consistent with the original definitions of the terms.

    I'm not talking about consciousness, perception, or judgment. I’m talking about the simple fact that experience implies experiencer.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...
    The most crazy, yet strangely plausible theory of consciousness

    Consciousness is a parasitic animal trom the 5th dimension of the Aether. They feed on experience in our dimension and make you think all the shit they leave behind are your memories. Our experience is just a bunch of mental feces. There, that explains everything.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...
    Zelebg:
    Are you saying "self" is some kind of organism that eats qualia and shits memories?

    You're talking to yourself. But, yes, I guess I did say that.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...
    Zelebg:
    When I say qualia gets "consumed" by the self, that "consumption" is the act of phenomenally experiencing the qualia. Access consciousness has to do with preparing the meal, or digesting it (from memory) after it has been consumed (experienced). One other thing we can say with no unsignificant confidence is that consumption of qualia leads to all the shit get stored in the memory.

    Are you saying "self" is some kind of organism that eats qualia and shits memories?
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    So in that respect, my thinking is that the swarming as it were, has a strange parallel to a description of how conscious thoughts appear randomly (stream of consciousness). Meaning conscious and subconscience (EM fields of consciousness) seem to know how to interact as a whole system in our brain to produce thoughts. And, it may even have parallels to QM as we pick from these random fields/ thoughts that we apprehend through volitional existence, as we make choices everyday.

    You mean if we take all the bees that compose an emergent whole, so that their "collective consciousness" is parallel to brain consciousness? I find that parallel meaningful, but do not see what meaning of it could lead to something pragmatic we can do with it.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...


    How does ghost in the machine solve the problem? How do you explain subjective experience of the ghost? And whose ghost is it? Mine? Or is it some shape shifting lizard alien playing some game through my avatar?
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...


    When I say qualia gets "consumed" by the self, that "consumption" is the act of phenomenally experiencing the qualia. Access consciousness has to do with preparing the meal, or digesting it (from memory) after it has been consumed (experienced). One other thing we can say with no unsignificant confidence is that consumption of qualia leads to all the shit get stored in the memory.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    The point is not to solve the problem but to dissolve it. Saying phenomenal consciousness, not just access consciousness, arises from computation still leaves the question of how and why.

    Consider all this preparation to encode qualia in a certain format for consumption by the "self". If we now suppose all the information actually must take this specific qualia format to be experienced, then that tells us something about this "self". We could then look into what is special about this format and maybe find out what does it take to be decoded or 'consumed', which then might tell us a little bit more, and so on. It's not much, but it's something "practical", in a way at least, something worth pursuing to see where it leads. Isn't it?
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    Chalmers, and others, have put it (awkwardly, in my opinion) as the 'what-it-is-like' to be something.

    Totally awkward, almost not helpful at all. I'd say the question is: what or who is the subject of experience?
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    The contemporary panpsychist answer is that there isn't anything special that gives us subjective first-person experience, there just is a subjective first-person experience to everything.

    But what is the difference between that and saying subjective first-person experience emerges from computation? And in either case someone can come along and say: "panpsychism? higher thought? that's the spirit of god I've been telling you about for the last 2000 years".

    None of it is testable and none of it makes any practical difference, not just to solve the problem, but not even to show us direction or a hint as to how should real mystery be resolved. Or do they?
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    I think that everything is "phenomenally conscious"

    Our perception is abstracted, simplified, focused, noise-reduced... it's a function in virtual reality not the result of direct sensation. To simulate this "user interface" called qualia requires quite a bit of processing, some kind of computer. Surely that much at least we can learn from neurology and other empirical studies of the brain.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    and ultimately with the ability to 'experience' oneself.

    Imagine you understand exactly how it works, you can decode the brain impulses and watch someone's dreams, read their thoughts, delete memories or imprint new ones... you can even make Total Recall type dream machine to experience virtual reality in real life resolution.

    You have solved the mystery of consciousness. And then I ask you, but what about subjective experience, where this "self" comes from, what is it, why is it? And you still don't know if it is panpsychism, emergent property of computation, maybe a ghost, or virtual fart from the quantum foam. See what I mean?
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    In it's most basic form, can one postulate that Anything that reacts to outward influence may be considered 'conscious' (of that influence)? Following that logic couldn't one consider all matter to be 'conscious'.

    Depends on how we define 'conscious', which is why I am trying to be more specific and focus on the "self", on that something which is experiencing the experience. Not qualia per se, but subjective aspect of its perception.

    Whatever explanation for that subjectiveness given in terms of purpose, function, process, computation, arrangement, state... or whatever other type of mechanical dynamics, is not the category of description that could explain the "why" question, nor “what is” question really.

    Those types of answers will possibly explain everything else once the essence of the mystery gets discovered, if ever, but until then they are empty of any meaning simply because 'anything goes'. We must narrow it down and draw some bottom lines first.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    Explaining consciousness is like trying to explain vision to a blind person, sound to a deaf person and life to a dead person.

    Yes, plus it's worse. So instead of explanation at this time I'm looking for good analogies, and instead of trying to answer the question I'd rather talk about what kinds of answers are even worth pursuing and which ones ultimately lead to no answer that could ever satisfy our curiosity.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...


    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_model

    Thomas Metzinger is not saying that anything is illusion. He is also not explaining anything.

    Subjective experience is the result of the phenomenal model of intentionality relationship (PMIR).

    That means as much as if I said that subjective experience is the result of the phenomenal model of the wholy spirit (PMWS).
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...
    Topic of this thread is far more specific than 'consciousness '. It's _subjectivity_ of the experience. That is what makes the problem hard.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    You mean the link to one hour long YouTube video? I think you should summarize it here in words if you want people to respond to it.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    I'm saying that "subjective experience of consciousness" points to nothing that exists in it's entirety prior to naming and descriptive practices, and yet consciousness does. So...

    You are making incoherent, vague assertions. My reply to you is : No, you are wrong, just saying.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    There's nothing "absurd" about humans being mistaken about what seems like "first person experience" that's, in fact, merely an illusionary artifact (i.e. a verb mistaken as a noun) of an ecology-situated, strange looping, reflexive information processing system. Further elaboration I've referred to here.

    You wish to claim qualia is an illusion? Please sum it up first rather than elaborate.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    What I was saying there is roughly that "to do is to be" and "to be is to do" (a thing's existence consists entirely in what it does, all of its properties are dispositions to act upon observers in certain ways) and "to be is to be perceive[able]" (a thing's existence consists entirely of its its observable properties) are different ways of phrasing the same statement, because for a thing to be "perceived" (more technically observed or sensed; perception is something more than that in contemporary terminology) is for it to act upon the observer. What's actually going on is an interaction between two things, and that same interaction constitutes both the behavior of the one thing upon the other, and the experience the other thing has of the first thing.

    Things? There are people who lose the ability to see the whole visual categories like colors, motion, depth... Clearly visual qualia is composed from separate functional units or processes. This inner virtual world scene preparation surely requires some machinery or computation, which in turn requires the infrastructure to carry that function. But the very least those "things" should have some kind of sensors. No? Anyway, I don't see how your view helps with anything.
  • Hard problem of consciousness is hard because...

    A subject's phenomenal experience of an object is the same event as that object's behavior upon the subject

    Behaviour? Are you saying robots able to mimic human behaviour are consciouss?