As I said in my previous post, a leading expert in neurology and the study of consciousness, and a leading expert in the properties of particles, forces, and the laws of physics, say we do not know how consciousness is produced by neurons, properties of particles, forces, and the laws of physics. — Patterner

I want to emphasize aspects of what Brian Greene wrote:

We have yet to articulate a robust scientific explanation of conscious experience. We lack a conclusive account of how consciousness manifests a private world of sights and sounds and sensations. We cannot yet respond, or at least not with full force, to assertions that consciousness stands outside conventional science.

We don't know nearly as much as we would like. However, I've been watching progress in neuroscience for the past 36 years, and that progress has been huge. Don't mistake, "There is a huge amount left to learn.", for, "We don't know anything about it."

Just as obviously though, this has some effect on our freedom "to do things," because our ability to bring states of affairs about that we prefer is totally grounded in what we think the causal impact of our actions will be. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It's not clear to me that greater capability for doing things successfully is an indicator of greater freedom. Contrary to your suggestion that 'we must master nature, “subdue it and have dominion over it,” in order to enact our will', my experience shows that nature never bends to my will. Getting things done as an engineer is substantially a matter of understanding that nature is going to be nature and working with it to the extent that I am able to understand how to.

However, this is a good thread and I don't want to derail it into a free will vs determinism discussion.

What evidence is there that consciousness arises from matter? — FrancisRay

The effect of general anesthesia in suppressing consciousness.

The effect of mind altering drugs.

The fact that human intuition 'looks like' the result of the way information processing occurs in neural networks.

All sorts of ways minds can be impacted by brain damage.

Must we? Really? — Amity

It does seem that people are quite 'free' not to do so. :wink:

I myself would say that of such things, exact measurement is impossible in principle and thus we do the best we can, which is usually pretty well, and this not a failure or a deficiency, but instead a success. — tim wood

:100: +/-0.000000001

Why would anyone think matter gives rise to consciousness? — FrancisRay

Because the person took a serious look at the evidence, perhaps?

How does superveniance substance metaphysics require any less speculative ifs? Superveniance became dominant at a time when physics looked completely different than it does now and has stuck around in philosophy, I'd argue, largely through inertia and the fact that no one replacement has become a rallying point for opposition. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Pragmatically, recognizing that there are abstract levels of stuff supervening on other stuff is how humanity has been able to achieve the scientific advancements we have. The instrumentation physicists use to test theories is designed with such understanding in mind. People having an understanding of supervenience seems to play a rather critical role in us having the basis we have, for thinking about nature with the degree of accuracy that we do.

If this forum is any indication some philosophers seem to get obsessed with defining supervenience in a rigorous way. (Or tearing down attempts to do so.) It seems to me, that a person who recognizes supervenience has no need, or even use, for a rigorous definition. I see understanding things in terms of supervenience as an epistemic tool that it is important to know how to use. It's a matter of being able to zoom one's limited cognitive faculties in and out to look at things at different levels of abstraction. It's a matter of cognitive skill or talent.

,

But if we unify our understanding of gravity, space-time as a metric field, and all the other fields into one thing, one substance, then substance does absolutely no explanatory lifting at all. It turns out there isn't multiple substances responsible for the way the world is, there is one type of "stuff" and the changes, process, in it account for all entities. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not sure what your point is. My view is not based on that being false. My view is based on observed regularities. Including of course, sciences other than physics.

Is this related to my question, "What basis do you have to think that it is possible for a mind to exist, sans an information processing substrate for the mind to supervene upon?"

It seems it'd be possible to deny this is the right question though, or even a meaningful one. If information is primarily process (good arguments for this exist) and if the pancomputationalist physicists are correct and information is our core ontological primitive, then superveniance itself is a mistaken concept. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's a lot of highly speculative ifs.

And I'm inclined towards this view because:
-Consciousness and other natural phenomena appear to require strong emergence.
- Jaegeon Kim's argument that strong emergence cannot exist given a substance metaphysics is convincing. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Kim doesn't seem to think that consciousness requires strong emergence. He ends his book Physicalism, or Something Near Enough with:

So here is the position that has emerged. It begins by embracing ontological physicalism. Taking mental causation seriously, it also embraces conditional reductionism, the thesis that only physically reducible mental properties can be causally efficacious. Are mental properties physically reducible? Yes and no: intentional/cognitive properties are reducible, but qualitative properties of consciousness, or “qualia,” are not. In saving the causal efficacy of the former, we are saving cognition and agency. Moreover, we are not losing sensory experiences altogether: qualia similarities and differences can be saved. What we cannot save are their intrinsic qualities—the fact that yellow looks like this, that ammonia smells like that, and so on. But, I say, this isn’t losing much, and when we think about it, we should have expected it all along.

The position is, as we might say, a slightly defective physicalism—physicalism manqué but not by much. I believe that this is as much physicalism as we can have, and that there is no credible alternative to physicalism as a general worldview. Physicalism is not the whole truth, but it is the truth near enough, and near enough should be good enough.

Thus, if it seems like we need strong emergence. Since substance superveniance rules this out, then it seems like superveniance isn't the right concept. Plus it has other unresolved problems. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As I think the Kim quote shows, Kim doesn't seem to think that we need strong emergence.

If you come up with something other than fallacious reasoning, get back to me. Just as a reminder, the question is, "What basis do you have to think that it is possible for a mind to exist, sans an information processing substrate for the mind to supervene upon?"

Thanks!

Ah, so you have incredulity AND bluster.

Not enough of a reasoned basis to mention?

How about answering my question? Do you have something more than incredulity for an argument?

Yeah, a latching relay could be used to implement a one bit memory, and may be more helpful in visualizing things discussed in the book.

I would be more sympathetic to atheism if science could explain consciousness. As it is, I think it's more likely we're aspects of a universal one-mind. — RogueAI

What basis do you have to think that it is possible for a mind to exist, sans an information processing substrate for the mind to supervene upon?

Consider that even on this planet, where the conditions are so ideal for life, as far as we know, life has only occurred once. There are not multiple trees of life. Everything alive here is related and has a common ancestor. You would think that if life had a strong tendency to occur where conditions favor it, we'd see another line. — petrichor

I don't think this reasoning provides strong evidence for how probable abiogenesis is. Any protolife that developed today is apt to be seen as food by existing life forms which have had billions of years to improve their effectiveness as an eating machines. Perhaps abiogenesis occurs on earth every million years on average, but the resulting life form is no competition for existing life forms with an evolutionary head start.

Edit: Did you recognize this and edit?

I think what I'm wanting to settle, for myself, is whether or not the circuits are in turn being interpreted by us, or if they are performing logical operations. — Moliere

I'm not clear on what you want clarification of, but let my respond to the rest of your post and then let me know what might still be unaddressed.

What makes Q and ~Q different other than one is on the left side, and the other on the right side? Do we just arbitrarily choose one side to be zero and the other side to be 1? Or do the logical circuits which have a threshhold for counting do it differently?

To my mind the circuit still doesn't really have a logical structure anymore than a stop light has the logical structure of Stop/Go without an interpretation to say "red means stop, green means go". So are we saying "Q means 1, and ~Q means 0"? — Moliere

The SR f!ip-flop circuit is symmetrical, so it is somewhat arbitrary which output is chosen to be Q and ~Q. However, the Set pin is defined as the input that can cause Q to produce a 1 (5V) output. So one could swap Q and ~Q, but to be consistent with the conventions for SR flip-flops one would also need to swap which input is labeled S and which R. So like the stoplight it is a matter of convention.

Also, flip-flops themselves don't perform logical operations. They just serve as memories that can be used to provide inputs to logic gates (or combinations thereof), and store outputs from logic gates.

Delete

Based on the website I linked it looks like Q and ~Q are out of phase with one another. So the memory comes from being able to output an electrical current at inverse phases of one another? How do we get from these circuits to a logic? And the phase shift is perhaps caused by subtle manipulations of the transistor? — Moliere

Phase isn't a particularly useful concept for thinking about the relationships between Q and ~Q. In the case where both Set and Reset are grounded, both Q and ~Q will be at 5 Volts rather than one being at 5V and the other being at 0.2 Volts. Also, when considering the transitions from one state to another things get messy for a time and thinking of Q and ~Q as having a phase relationship breaks down.

As for, "How do we get from these circuits to a logic?"...

So with a flip-flop we can use as a one bit memory, we have what we can think of as a logical variable. Additional circuitry can take the Q output of multiple flip-flops and perform logical operations. The result of the logical operation can then be stored in another flip-flop, for use at a later time.

At this point it is pragmatic to jump up a level in abstraction and think in terms of logic gates instead of transistor circuits. So we can have an AND gate and brush consideration of transistors, resistors, and power supplies under the rug. We can simply think of an AND gate as a device with two inputs which treat voltages above 2.5 Volts as a logical 1 (true), voltages below 2.5 Volts as a logical 0 (false), and output the logically appropriate voltage level on the output.

The following image shows schematic symbols for logic gates of various kinds and their truth tables:



Such logic gates can be strung together to yield whatever logical function is needed. For example a one bit adder:



A and B could be the outputs of two flip flops representing the two bits to be summed. Cin represents "carry in" and can be connected to the "carry out" of another adder. S will have an output logic level representing the sum of A and B given the state of Cin. Cout will have an output level which can be connected to the Cin of a different adder.

By connecting such logical blocks together we can create something useful. For example we could have three 32 bit registers. (With each register just being a collection of 32 flip-flops.) Two of those registers could have 32 bit binary numbers that we want to add together. The third register could have its flip-flop inputs connected to the S outputs of a 32 bit adder chain and thus we would have the ability to take two stored 32 bit numbers and add them and store the sum in the output register.

Now so far I've glossed over the dynamics of changing states. That is much too complicated to try to cover in any detail. With digital logic, typically a 'clock' is used in order to be able to ignore the short term dynamic transitions of flip flops and logic gates from one stable state to the next.

The SR flip-flop schematic I showed is about as bare bones as a flip-flop can get. The flip-flops in a microprocessor are typically more complex D flip-flops which have a D(ata) input terminal and a CLOCK input. D flip-flops work by changing their output state (Q) to match the D input state when the clock signal transitions from a logic 0 to a logic 1. So with all of the flip-flops tied to the same clock signal, all of the transitioning can be synchronized. As long as the clock frequency is slow enough, all of the dynamic transitioning that occurs after the last clock edge has time to settle to a stable state before the next clock edge.

That helps me understand the feedback part very well -- so thank you again for taking the time. When Set is grounded the voltage from R3 no longer gives the voltage necessary for the transistor to be in the "on" state, but the parallel circuit through R2 does so the circuit flips over to Tr2. Since Tr1 is now off that means 5V goes to Q as the path of least resistance. The same holds for reset and the blue state. — Moliere

Very good! :up:

I'll respond to the rest of your previous post later today.

Sure. "constant speed" was a bad use of terms, But "approximate", and "average" do not imply that the speed was anything other than constant. You have provided no representation of the movement of the object during that time period. — Metaphysician Undercover

Everyone else who has been involved in this discussions understands that the ball is accelerating continuously in the scenario under consideration. Your lack of comprehension is not caused by the other people in the discussion.

Maybe Wonoto is 'stuck'. — BC

And there, but for the fortuity of my circumstances, go I.

The story of a hole in a state of flow with an innumerable number of other holes towards ~Q: We start at 5 V and move through R1 to TR1 because the voltage at Q is lower than the voltage at ~Q (assuming we're already in a steady state), then we go through the unmarked resistor on the other side of the transistor, up through R3 and out ~Q. If you touch "Set" to the zero volts line than you ground the flow causing the voltage to switch over to R4-T2-R2-Q. — Moliere

To keep the explanation relatively simple it is easier to mostly ignore current flows and look at voltage levels in various places. However, I think it will help if I go into more detail about the type of transistor depicted in the flip-flop schematic, and the way current flows through the transistor. So to that end, let's looks at the left half of this image:



This image also helps introduce the names for the terminals of the transistor which are symbolized with B(ase) E(mitter) and C(ollector). The purple arrows indicate the way current can flow through the transistor with the width of the arrow illustrating that the current flowing into the collector is larger than the current flowing into the base. All of the current must exit out of the emitter. Typically the base current is around one hundredth of the emitter current. However, current can only flow into the collector when there is current flowing into the base. Therefore a small base current acts as an input controlling the larger collector current.

Another factor having to do with the physics of the semiconductor device that the transistor supervenes on, is the fact that the base voltage needs to get up to ~0.7 volts before current will flow into the base, and therefore before current will be able to flow through the emitter.

So to get back to simplistically modelling things in terms of the voltage levels on different wires. We can think of the transistor as a device where, when the voltage at the base of the transistor is 0.7 volts or higher, a switch is closed between the collector and the emitter, allowing current to flow through the transistor from collector to emitter.

[tl;dr]More accurately than looking at it as a switch, we might look at the path from collector to emitter as a resistor with a resistance of about 42 Ohms when the transistor is in the 'on state', and as an open circuit when the transistor is in the 'off state'. In that case, if we suppose the resistance of R1 and R4 to be 1000 Ohms, then we have an explanation for why the flip-flop schematic shows a voltage at Q of 0.2 volts for the blue state. In the blue state the 5 volts of the flip-flop power supply gets divided between the 1000 Ohm resistance of R1 and the 42 Ohm resistance of the 'on stated' TR1. In the red state the voltage at Q simply is the +5 Volts of the power supply. (Ignoring for the sake of simplicity, the the relatively low base currents flowing through R3 and R4. The ambitious reader who is into that sort of thing can assume that R3 and R4 have a resistance of 100000 Ohms, and look up linear circuit analysis, and calculate voltages out to more decimal places. However, for pragmatic purposes we can ignore current through R3 and R4, and just consider whether the voltage at the transistor bases are above or below 0.7 Volts to know whether a transistor is off or on.)

And for this discussion we can ignore the resistance of the unlabeled resistors altogether and treat them as open circuits. They are for practical details engineers need to worry about but, not of any help in looking at things in the simple voltage focused model of the flip-flop schematic.[/tl;dr]

Getting back to the flip-flop schematic...


The schematic is marked up in accordance with modelling things in terms of static voltage states where we don't need to be concerned with current flows and what happens on a dynamic basis. For now at least, we just want to look at how the circuit acts as a one bit memory. That can be understood by recognizing the fact that when the Set input is grounded to 0 Volts the red markups indicate the voltages on the wires they are near. When the Reset input is grounded the blue markups apply.

There are two other states that are of interest, which are not detailed on that schematic. These two states are the different memory states that the circuit can be in when both Set and Reset are disconnected from ground. What the voltage state of the flip-flop is, when both Set and Reset are disconnected, depends on whether Set or Reset was last tied to ground. In other words, the voltage at Q reflects the flip-flop's memory of whether Set or Reset was last connected to ground.

I'm going to have to leave off there for now. I'll respond to more of what you wrote later

Also, there is another scenario to consider, which is what happens when both Set and Reset are connected to ground yielding Q=~Q, and how Set and Reset being disconnected from ground simultaneously is like flipping a coin. But as Q=~Q might suggest, that's a state that is best avoided for sound logic.

I didn't mean feedback necessarily, just the view that process might be seen as fundemental, not substance. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yeah. Your point was recently hammered home for me on another forum by someone who wants to dichotomize everything into either physical things or abstractions, and can't understand physical processes as a category different from either.

I guess for me, feedback is important in making a system interesting, so I'm biased towards focussing on systems with feedback.

I'm sure I don't understand how a circuit has a memory, still. — Moliere

I'll take a stab at trying to convey it without going into too much detail.

Frequently memories are implemented in subcircuits which have a designed in bistability. An example of a bistable system would be a coin on a table. Assuming the coin can't be stood on edge, the coin on a table will have a stable state of either showing (outputting) heads or tails, true or false, 1 or 0.

Some sort of work (flipping the coin) will need to be done in order to get the coin/table system to represent the state opposite of what it is currently representing.

The flip-flop circuit shown below is loosely analogous:



Unfortunately, the image creators were a bit sloppy in the way they used text colors (and I'm too lazy to look for a better image) so imagine the text which says "+5 Volts" and "Zero Volts" to be black. (Those parts of the circuit are 'part of the table' and stay constant. The remaining red and blue text details the two different stable conditions the subcircuit can be in - red state or blue state.

The circuit shown has two inputs S(et) and R(eset) and two outputs Q and ~Q. (Typically only one of the two outputs might be used, since as long as the system has had time to reach stability the ~Q output state is the logical inverse of the Q output state.)

The two three-terminal devices (TR1 and TR2) are transistors. The terminals that exit the transistors horizontally (to the left or right) are the control inputs to the transistors. When a control input is at 0.7 volts or greater that transistor will be on and allow current to flow in the top terminal and out the bottom terminal resulting in the output to which the transistor is connected (Q or ~Q) being pulled towards 0V (captioned as 0.2V).

Two other particularly important elements for having a flip-flop are R2 and R3. R2 and R3 represent resistors. Note that R2 connects the Q output to the input of TR2 while R3 connects the ~Q output to the input of TR1. So each output has some control of the other transistor's input. As long as S and R are not connected to anything the transistor that is turned on will keep the other transistor turned off. Simultaneously a transistor being turned off (in combination with the resistor network) causes the other transistor to be turned on. So like a coin on a table the circuit will just sit in one of the two stable states, red or blue.

The S and R inputs can be be momentarily connected to 0 Volts in order to force a change from red state to blue state and after the input which was connected to 0 Volts is disconnected the flip-flop will stay in the state it was forced into.

I'm going to leave it there for now. Let me know if that helps, or what needs more explanation.

We are not entirely out of touch with the world when we sleep. Our brains are busy doing something (???) 24/7. Your brain "puts you to sleep" and it "wakes you up". They can keep track of time well enough to wake you before your alarm goes off (unless it has decided to sleep through the alarm). — BC

Yes. It was striking the first time I underwent anesthesia - the difference in time sense between waking up from sleep and coming out of anesthesia.

I believe it has already happened in some enclaves. — Janus

:rofl:

Apparently, knowing "the truth" doesn't involve having very good reading comprehension. I didn't say anything about the Buddha or Lao Tzu
— wonderer1

Pardon me but yes you did. You claimed that the mystics are naive, grandiose and by implication untrustworthy. I can't imagine how you arrived at this idea. — FrancisRay

I did not claim to know the truth, What I would claim is that the nondual doctrine, for which it is possible to know the truth, is the only theory that makes sense in metaphysics. I can know this because it's just a matter of doing the sums — FrancisRay

It is quite easy to quote what I actually said. I'll repeat it below with emphasis.

Not a liar, just naive, and in too many cases grandiose. — wonderer1

Can you see that that I wasn't referring to "the mystics", but instead to a subset of mystics? I try to refrain from looking at things in black and white ways. So I would appreciate it if you would be so charitable as to try to avoid jumping to conclusions that I've said something is black and white when I haven't done so.

I did not claim to know the truth, What I would claim is that the nondual doctrine, for which it is possible to know the truth, is the only theory that makes sense in metaphysics. I can know this because it's just a matter of doing the sums. . . . — FrancisRay

Bzzzt! The way that can be summed is not the true way. That's Mystic 101.

Both metaphysics and mysticism study the nature of all extended objects, so it makes no difference whether it is this or that object. As the Upanishads state:

“The understanding of one single thing means the understanding of all;
the voidness of one thing is the voidness of all.”

Aryaveda
Catuhsataka
v. 191 — FrancisRay

That's some grade A bullshit, in addition to being grandiose. Seriously? "The understanding of one single thing means the understanding of all"? Look around. Have you have seen many of your fellow social primates who seem like they understand all? If so, I don't think you are paying very close attention.

And of course the Buddha and Lao Tzu were naive. They didn't have the benefit of the tremendous growth in human knowledge that has occurred since their day. Why would they be anymore likely to understand all, than the people you see around you?

Not to say that people don't pick up some beneficial perspectives and skills from the Buddha, Lao Tzu, et. al.

Can you enlighten me? — Gnomon

No. The paper is too far over my head to grasp, without reading a lot more than the paper itself, and life is short.

Or you're just immune to science. — flannel jesus

MU has as much as said that his mind is closed to the extent that he can keep it so:

I, am an impenetrable fortress. Nothing, I repeat nothing, from that "external world" can infiltrate my defenses, and move me. All which exists within my mind comes from the inside. Thus is my reality.

There is however, a sense in which ideas come to my mind from somewhere other than my mind. Since they cannot penetrate through my fortress, and enter from the external, and "ghostly phenomena" is silly talk, I conclude that they enter my mind through "inner space". And since the ideas which enter my mind through inner space seem to be very similar to the ideas which enter your mind through inner space, I can conclude that we are very well connected through inner space. — Metaphysician Undercover

And, a misleading map gets people lost. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ah, the irony.

There are none so blind...

You posted your opinion implying that the common Yin Yang symbol was used as input... — Gnomon

Have you looked at the original paper? (Which T Clark linked early in the thread.)

I just took a look and the caption under the only picture of the Yin-Yang symbol says:

a, Coincidence image of interference between a reference SPDC state and a state obtained by a pump beam with the shape of a Ying and Yang symbol (shown in the inset). The inset scale is the same as in the main plot. b, Reconstructed amplitude and phase structure of the image imprinted on the unknown pump.

Ok, can you explain it to me ? My amazement is that this all rather predates solid state transistors. — unenlightened

It doesn't predate computers built from relays as the 'bug link' I posted shows. I would think Spencer-Brown would have been well aware of this, and wouldn't have believed himself to be presenting anything particularly novel in pointing out the possibility of memory implemented in switches.

As far as explaining... I'm not sure what you are asking me to explain. I haven't been reading along.(although I am curious about Spencer-Brown's thoughts on implementing complex math in Boolean logic) So I'm not in a position to explain much about what Spencer-Brown has to say. I could explain the workings of the flip-flop in the image I posted, but I don't have a good sense of how much background knowledge I'd need to provide, in order for you to find my explanation comprehensible.

Yeah, tempting but stupid. Computer memory is not made of switches. But kudos for bothering to read the thread at all. — unenlightened

Well computer memory is implemented in a variety of ways these days, but any modern computer is going to have some memory elements implemented as flip-flops. A simple schematic of a flip-flop is illustrated below.



Note that the symbols labeled TR1 and TR2 represent transistors, which for practical purposes are switches.

Older (pre-solid-state) computers used electromagnetically controlled switches with contacts that opened and closed. (relays) This allowed a literal bug to crash a computer. Solid-state switches (transistors) are a big improvement.

Did you interpret the symbolic image as an error of judgment, or a deliberate hoax? — Gnomon

Isn't that a false dichotomy?
Maybe a stunt to get a lot of attention to their paper? Maybe one of the researchers is into Taoism? Maybe a target that was handy and interesting enough?

This is extraordinary! A circuit made entirely of switches that has a memory! — unenlightened

Wow, if someone implemented something like that we could have computers and an internet!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Humans can move the plants that they want to move. This solves the problem for plants that can't move themselves. All of our food crops etc will be easy to shift. — Agree-to-Disagree

Things are not that simple.

The Canadian Shield (French: Bouclier canadien [buklje kanadjɛ̃]), also called the Laurentian Plateau, is a geologic shield, a large area of exposed Precambrian igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks. It forms the North American Craton (or Laurentia), the ancient geologic core of the North American continent. Glaciation has left the area with only a thin layer of soil, through which exposures of igneous bedrock resulting from its long volcanic history are frequently visible.

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

And life goes on, and on, and on. For million, billion of years, etc etc etc. — niki wonoto

Hoping for that gives purpose to some of us.

Anyone who benefits better have a nuclear arsenal ready to defend themselves from invasion. :grin: — frank

O Canada! Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide, O Canada,
We stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land, glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee;
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee

:up:

What math? It's a philosophical problem, one which mathematics has not resolved. Look, there's a point in time, when a body at rest becomes a body accelerating. The body changes from being at rest, to being in motion at some point in time. Since the rate of increase of velocity (acceleration) is expressed as over a period of time, at this point in time, when the body changes from being at rest to being in motion, the rate of increase must be infinite because it's a number expressed over zero, x/0. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's what I'm asking you, "What math?"

You keep bringing up mathematical issues, such as infinity and division by zero, as if they are magic words meant to distract from your inability to explain why they are of relevance.

It's starting to appear as if you don't know how to apply math to the situation. (Not that there is anything wrong with that.)